Obama's Streak Ends

Last month, President Obama's longest winning streak in job approval polling ended. For the first six months of 2016, Obama improved his monthly average job approval number each and every month. That's a longer streak than he's ever managed, to put it into perspective. His job approval rose a whopping 6.5 points during this period, while his average monthly job disapproval number fell 5.4 points. In July, however, both numbers experienced a mild correction, ending this notable streak.

[Click on graph to see larger-scale version.]

July, 2016

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This is definitely going to be my final report from Philadelphia. I realize I'm almost a week late with it, but it was a busy and sleep-deprived week all around. In case you missed it, I reviewed the primetime speeches Monday and then yesterday posted my photos from the trip. Today I'm going to cover Day Three and Day Four (outside of the primetime hour), as well as give a few closing thoughts and general impressions.

Day Three

After the first two days of the Democratic National Convention, Day Three seemed to be a turning point of sorts. The pro-Bernie crowd staged their last effective protest inside the arena (and also staged a smaller protest in the media tent), but by the end of the night Democrats had come closer to unity than they had yet managed during the convention to date.

The third night was the most star-studded of the entire convention, with the sitting vice-president, the sitting president, and the new vice-presidential nominee all slated for the closing speeches. Seating inside the arena was at a premium. The ushers at the doors stopped letting people in when their section was full, which left a whole lot of people watching on monitors in the hallways (and lining up at the doors, in the hopes that someone would exit). The place was packed to the roof hours before the main speeches began. Whereas the arena was mostly full on the first two nights, the last two nights it was beyond "standing room only."

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Due to technical reasons (and not having a full-time staff to do this stuff the way big media organizations do), I wasn't able to post photos with all the stories from the Democratic National Convention. Instead, I'm just going to present them all together in this "album." A lot of these were mentioned in my previous coverage, but some of them are just random convention shots.

Without further ado, here's my look at the Democratic National Convention, starting (of course) with a stop to get a cheesesteak.

Sorry Pat's, but Geno's had a parking space right in front of it, which made up our minds for us (the two most famous cheesesteak joints in Philly are right across the street from each other).

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As I write this, the birds are chirping outside my window, the sun is breaking through the morning coastal fog, and the temperature is unremarkable. In other words, your traveling correspondent is back home, leaving behind record-breaking 90-plus-degree temperatures and humidity being so important the television weathermen actually report on it each night (cue Steve Martin from L.A. Story: "Our next weather report will be in four days"). Yes, it's good to be back in California, at least as far as the weather's concerned.

I have to say I shirked a lot of work during last week's Democratic National Convention, but this was due to (1) there not being enough hours in the day, and (2) trying to operate (as it was) on five-or-less hours of sleep each night. Also minor hassles like WiFi not being available when it would have helped the most. But enough self-recrimination. The good news is I took full notes of everything, so I've got at least a few more goodly-sized columns to write. Oh, and also some pictures -- that might just have to be a separate column on its own (perhaps tomorrow, we'll see).

Today I'd like to take a look at the four nights by focusing in only on the primetime hour that appeared on broadcast television. For all the other things that happened on the stage of the convention, you always had to wonder: "Is anyone else out there actually even seeing this stuff?" I mean, cable channels did cover the convention live and you could even just tap into the feed (without all the commentary, in other words), but I wonder how many voters devote that kind of time and attention to this stuff.

Instead, even committed voters, for the most part, will only tune in for one hour a night -- and that's a maximum, since a whole lot of others only bother with the final night's final hour. But, looking back over the articles I've filed, I've been giving the big hour each night short shrift. This is (again) due to being exhausted, since I'd sit down to type about a certain night and then by the time I got to the big hour in the chronology, my eyes were barely open -- so I just posted what I had. So today, to rectify this lack in my coverage, I'm just going to concentrate on the four big hours.

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What follows is a submission my lovely wife made to the Irish Times, for a blog they run which deals with ex-patriot (or "expat") themes for Irish people who have moved outside of the Republic of Ireland. Four years ago, they ran a report she wrote from the 2012 Democratic National Convention, but due to logistics we are able to run it here before they actually get it. Call it nepotism if you will, we're just glad to get it before it even goes to the presses.

The audience for such an article is a bit different than the articles we usually run here at ChrisWeigant.com, so please keep that in mind while reading it. Certain things need explanation which are taken for granted here, just to point out one aspect of this difference. In any case, we are proud to present the following article from "Mrs. Chris Weigant," as she is known here.

-- Chris Weigant

I am an Irish and American woman reporting from the 2016 Democratic Convention in Philadelphia. I say I am Irish and American because I am an Irish citizen who is now an American citizen too. I have noticed a theme in recent blogs posted to the Irish Times' Generation Emigration blog. Many fellow expats are wondering if they are still really Irish, given they have lived outside of Ireland for many years and in some cases longer than they lived in Ireland. I too have been thinking that I am losing my connection to my native land. The recent Irish elections that did not have a clear majority, and then the Brexit results, have opened up even more questions than the votes sought to resolve. I am now trying not to get too excited about the possibility of seeing a united Ireland in my lifetime.

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After watching Joe Biden's speech last night, one thing seems patently obvious. He should be launched into the highest rank of Hillary Clinton surrogates out on the campaign trail -- and as soon as possible. Furthermore, scheduling his appearances would be a piece of cake, because all Team Clinton would have to do would be to book Biden into every city and town where Donald Trump appears, a day or two afterwards.

Multiple people at the Democratic National Convention last night (after Biden spoke) told me one version or another of the following: "If Joe Biden were the Democratic nominee, he'd be beating Trump right now by 10 or 15 points." These weren't die-hard Biden fans, mind you, but instead journalists and delegates and other random people I spoke with. Biden's speech was that impressive.

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A quick program note is in order. I just got back from the end of Day Four of the Democratic National Convention. The media tent had no WiFi access at all tonight, so I wasn't able to follow the work schedule I'd set for myself. My personal take is that the routers in the tent must have frozen solid in a giant block of ice. While it's nice to have air conditioning when it is 95-plus degrees outside, they had it set permanently to "meat locker" levels. I mean, when it's 97 degrees out, you don't think to bring along a coat, do you? Anyway, I am now connected again, so I'll be posting a few things, but I'm also now behind on the play-by-play so much that it'll have to wait until tomorrow. I've got a few things to post now, though, so after I format them, there'll be that, at least. My apologies for the delay, but this time (at least) it was due to circumstances beyond my control. More in a moment or two....

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Maybe I should have subtitled this "random notes from the whirlwind" -- this is going to be a collection of disjointed observations, at best, so I thought I'd just warn everyone up front not to expect a coherent narrative or anything. What follows are random notes from the Democratic National Convention that I haven't had the time to set down before now. The early portions of tonight's program in the arena are just an affirmation of Tim Kaine's nomination, so I'm going to skip trying to attend (or to even pay attention), as I did for the first day (Bernie supporters challenging rules) or the second day (roll call for presidential nomination). We are now halfway through the convention, after two days and nights. This year is more of a marathon event than the previous convention was in Charlotte, which only lasted three days. So here is everything I've noticed so far, in no particular order.

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**** Breaking News! ****

I am sitting in the media tent at the Wells Fargo Center, normally a pretty backwater sort of place at the Democratic National Convention. Things are generally pretty unexciting here, which is kind of the whole point. It's a place where media types can find a desk, a power supply, and some peace and quiet to write their stories up without the distractions of the convention itself, which is right next door.

However, a mild form of chaos has erupted. Almost immediately after Hillary Clinton was officially nominated by Bernie Sanders, at the end of the roll call of the Democratic delegates, hundreds of people streamed into the tent in a coordinated protest. From where I sit -- literally about fifteen feet from the action -- it seems like the aftermath of a major walkout of Bernie Sanders delegates from the floor of the convention.

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I conducted the following interview yesterday, before the convention actually started. Denise Merrill is a Connecticut delegate (although not, as she pointed out to me, a superdelegate) and serves Connecticut as their Secretary of State. A recent achievement was the state becoming the first to pass a campaign finance reform law which created a public financing system for elections -- all the other states with such laws created them through ballot initiatives or referenda.

I thought it would be interesting to hear the thoughts of a delegate to the Democratic National Convention who was fairly balanced about her position and could see the other side's point of view, rather than just focusing on those who are more (shall we say) impassioned.

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