GOPee Yew: What The Media Isn’t Telling You About Obama’s Poll Numbers

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (pdf) has some decidedly bad news for President Obama. The American people, according to this survey, are losing patience with the President and expressing it with low opinions of his job performance, foreign policy, and leadership. It is a distinct concern for him as his administration heads into its final two years.

That said, the news isn’t all bad. But far be it for the media to put the results in context so that people get a balanced perspective of the nation’s mood. In addition to the floundering numbers, there are some areas that ought to produce some optimism for the President and those aligned with his policies. First among them is the fact that, while Obama’s numbers are nothing to write home about, his political rivals are doing so much worse that may want to run away from home.

NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll

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Both the President and his party are putting the Republicans to shame. He is 30% more popular than the Republican Party, and nearly 50% more popular than the laughably inane Tea Party. If his presidency is over, as some right-wing pundits are gleefully claiming, what does that mean for conservatives?

And that’s not all. When asked which party they prefer to control Congress, respondents chose Democrats over Republicans by 45% to 43%. The poll also reports that progressive positions on prominent issues are far more popular than those of conservatives. For instance, respondents support the Common Core education initiative 59/31. They believe that immigration helps rather than hurts the nation 47/42. They advocate action on climate change 61/37. They approve of Obama’s recent move to set strict carbon dioxide emission limits 67/29.

Clearly the electorate is in a bad mood, and they are taking it out, with justification, on their representatives. But when directly asked about solutions to the problems that affect them most, they consistently respond with agreement for the liberal agenda.

So why doesn’t the press report that? This is the so-called “liberal” media we’re talking about. Apparently they are not as driven by partisanship as right-wingers would have you believe with all of their childish carping. More likely the media is driven by ratings and revenue. In that regard, conflict and drama have always been a bigger draw than harmony. It’s the same reason that local news features murders and car chases, rather than more uplifting stories.

Obama has some work to do to counteract the effect of the relentlessly negative coverage he receives. Even the arrest of a suspect in the Benghazi attack drew absurd criticisms from Fox News and other wingnut media. But in the interim, it is important to look below the surface to see the whole story. And what this survey is telling us is that if Democrats run on progressive policies they are more likely to achieve success at the polls later this year and in 2016.

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5 thoughts on “GOPee Yew: What The Media Isn’t Telling You About Obama’s Poll Numbers

  1. Thank you for issuing this. I haven’t had time to research it myself but I suspected that was how the numbers would play out. I think the mainstream media has gotten so much criticism for not being hostile toward President Obama, his administration and our Liberal politicians that they are bending over backward now to play the “let’s bash Obama” game.

  2. He’s still way above a certain someone’s 26% approval ratings at the time HIS office ended.

    Well the right have long since forgotten his existence, so I guess that won’t be a factor to them.

  3. One day when it’s all over and the Fat Lady has been long forgotten, the effigy of a remote control will reside above the somber words “Last Fox Viewer with Cable Access” at the Tomb of the Unknown GOP Holdout. The rest of the world will have quietly streamed a new consciousness and decided to turn towards a sustainable global economy that embraced the wisdom of sages and equality for all, eschewing the tawdry emoticons and twisted half-truths subsumed by the wistful passing of Rupert, The Great Murdock (until it was learned that Rupert had donated his brain to a transplant program at the University of Beijing in hopes of perpetuating a media empire on one Uranus’ moons, preferably Puck, ; but that’s another story).

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