Mini-Bounce Gone; Three New Polls Show Obama Back Under 50

O! Sweet nectar of life for the lazy blogger. Cheap polling posts, where would I be without you?

Why, I'd probably still be right here, but posting something else from Feministing right now.

Gallup: 49/50.

Rasmusen, aka R-Square Hitler: 46-53. Strong disapproval over strong approval (the passion index) back down to -12, not quite up to the -19 or so it had climbed up to.

The Economist, AKA The Magazine People Subscribe To and Leave Out on their Coffee Tables But Don't Actually Read: 46-48.

And Obama's highest point recently is a mere 50%, coming from media (suspect) polls like CBS, NBC, and Ipsos/McClactchey.

What do these polls tell us? Well, um... that Obama is just as unpopular as we thought he was.

Honestly, I think I have to revise a prediction I made some time ago. I thought public opinion would start to break against Obama after six to nine months of his term; that part I got right.

But I really thought it would break harder, and more dramatically; the preference cascade effect I keep talking about but am only now relinking.

Instead of the cascade, we're seeing consistent and slow erosion. I don't know anymore if we're going to have a big 6-8 point drop over the course of a couple of weeks like I once thought. Obama's support is firmer than I expected; I thought at least twenty points of it was faddish stupidity, and those twenty points would suddenly disappear as people finally realized the Boy Emperor Has No Clothes. (We saw that happen with Martha/Marcia Coakley.

Or, maybe it's just going to take a bit longer than I thought.

No one wants to admit that they were wrong. People will do almost anything to avoid this. Generally, the template people prefer is that their opinions have changed because of new information or changing conditions; that way, they were right then, but are also right now. (See Sullivan, Andrew, for the most pathetic documented case of this on the internet.)

But no one wants to admit they made a wrong choice based on always-existing information.

I suppose people aren't changing their opinions because of residual goodwill, residual pride they overcame prejudices they didn't have to vote in favor a black guy they never hated, wanting to give the "funny looking kid with the weird" name a chance, and all of that.

And also because there hasn't been one big crystallizing event that forces them to reconsider their views. So far it's been very drip-drip-drip; no one thing has arrested the public's attention, all at once, and prodded them into considering whether they still support this jugeared jackass with the lovely trouser-creases.

The Panty Bomber seems to have been the closest thing we've seen on that score.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff.

posted by Ace at 02:02 PM

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