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When taken as a whole, President Barack Obama's poll numbers last month moved the least amount of any month of his presidency so far. His approval rating continued its trend of moving downwards, but only by two-tenths of a percent. His disapproval rating continued upwards, but only by four-tenths of one percent. Meaning January was a pretty stable month for Obama.
Today's column is a short interlude, or perhaps even intermission, from our usual political wonkery. This is due mostly to the fact that we're busy around ChrisWeigant.com Central preparing charts for tomorrow's "Obama Poll Watch" column.
Ahem. Where was I? Oh, right, last week. Last week, when conservative "journalists" weren't pulling fratboy pranks on federal property (and getting arrested for such -- here's a tip to conservative "gotcha journalism" types: if you're going to do something this risky, might I suggest not doing it in a federal building where the F.B.I. probably has an office on the next floor? I mean, you're making it too easy, guys, really.
Here's a bit of news you may have missed: Democrats still control the Senate. Really! This seems to have escaped a lot of people, leading the Village Voice to run the hilarious tongue-in-cheek blog headline: "Scott Brown Wins Mass. Race, Giving GOP 41-59 Majority in the Senate."
Much of the frenzied activity took place this week behind closed doors (and most decidedly not on C-SPAN), as healthcare reform entered its final negotiating phase. President Obama even decided to get involved, meaning we must be almost at the end of the fight. Ahem.
Let's be blunt -- this coming year may be Obama's last, best chance to have a successful presidency. Or, at the very least, make any progress at all on his agenda. Because, no matter what happens in the House of Representatives, all it is going to take is Democrats losing one or two seats in the Senate for massive legislative gridlock to descend upon the Nation's Capital until 2012.
To be blunt, Obama needs to pick a few fights. Healthcare reform is winding up, but this particular fight has been so long and hard-fought that even proponents of the reform bill are exhausted and would really prefer not to hear or talk about it much longer. This is telling, because Democrats (all the way up to Obama) have simply not done a good job on the communications front during this battle. Who would have thought, a year ago, that Obama's main problems would be a lack of communication skills, and a perceived lack of passion in fighting for what he said he believed in?
President Barack Obama has the potential of having a pretty good second year in office. Conventional inside-the-Beltway wisdom is that "nothing much gets done in a congressional election year," but this ignores the fact that life itself does not halt for electioneering, but rather keeps right on happening. And there are quite a few positive things either explicitly scheduled for 2010, or at least very likely to happen. This doesn't automatically mean the president is guaranteed to have a great year, but it certainly sets the scene for Obama managing to have a fairly good year.
Who, exactly, is the "Tea Party," is the true question. Are they a grassroots bottom-up movement among like-minded individuals, or are they just crazy people waving hate-filled signs? Are they economic populists, or do they just want to see the president fail spectacularly? Are they a Republican fake-grassroots (or "AstroTurf") mob who is ready, willing, and able to scream on demand, or are they a freedom-infused movement of rugged individualists angry at the overreach of the federal government? Will they force the Republican Party in a bold new direction, or will they actually form a separate Tea Party, complete with their own third-party candidates and platform?
Now, I do realize that we're all getting sick of looking back at 2009, and although I really would much prefer to be writing about looking forward to 2010, we simply must provide a final glance rearwards before moving on to prognosticating the future. Because it is time once again for Obama Poll Watch -- our monthly look back at Obama's approval ratings for the previous month!