President Barack Obama has traveled far and wide to drum up grassroots support for his beleaguered jobs plan, but it’s not doing much for his popularity,
Politico reports.
To be sure, Obama’s approval rating has rebounded from its lows beneath 40 percent. A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday shows that among registered voters, 47 percent now approve of Obama, up from 41 percent a month ago.
But pollster Peter Brown says Obama’s rise in the polls stems from the recent killing of Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi and the stock market’s surge last month. “Events speak louder than words, and those events are more likely to be responsible for [Obama’s] growth than speeches,” he told Politico.
As for Americans’ view of Congress, different polls show different results as to whether there is more support for Republicans and Democrats. In any case, it’s fair to say that all the protestations of congressional Democrats in favor of Obama’s jobs plan has done little to move public sentiment.
Each jobs bill presented to the Senate so far has failed. And Majority Leader Harry Reid is simply seeking to score political points now by making Republicans go on record against the jobs proposals. But some Democrats have voted against them too, so Reid’s strategy is unlikely to succeed.
Indeed, Democrats aren’t convincing voters, says Alabama GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions. “It’s not wise strategy, because it’s not a realistic plan to create growth and jobs in America,” he told Politico.
“The president didn’t consult with Republicans, didn’t seek bipartisan support. He immediately started attacking Republicans on the stump. He files the bill and goes out and makes his speeches all over the country, and even his own members didn’t vote for it.”
The focus should be on reaching a bipartisan balanced budget agreement, says Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn. “It may be that that’s the best thing that we can do politically, too, because it would be a big bipartisan accomplishment,” he told Politico.
To a large extent the president and his fellow Democrats aren’t even closely allied, as Obama has taken to attacking a “do-nothing” Congress, often not singling out Republicans.
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