Independents hated the president’s debt deal, a new poll shows

[Mr Deltoid]

'Obama’s Team Is Blowing It'

We were told, as I recall, that Barack Obama had to seek a debt deal with the Republicans to please independent voters. Well, the independent voters are speaking, and they don’t appear to be especially appeased. There’s a new Gallup poll just out showing that independent voters hate the deal. Their views on it are far more similar to the GOP’s than to the Democratic Party’s. Combine these data with the president’s approval numbers, which are swiftly heading south, and we have little choice but to conclude that this brilliant stratagem backfired. Isn’t it time for someone to say: this new White House political team is worse than the previous one?

First let me run you through the numbers. Americans disapprove of the deal by 46 to 39 percent. Democrats support it 58-28. Republicans oppose it 26-64. Independents oppose it 33-50. A second question asked of respondents: Was the deal a step forward or backward or neither with respect to “addressing the federal debt situation?” Democrats lined up 30-14-50. Republicans, 15-28-52. Independents, 16-25-50. Finally, independents also align more closely with Republicans on the question of whether the deal will have a good or bad effect on the economy. Whereas 29 percent of Democrats think the effect will be good, just 12 percent of independents and 8 percent of Republicans believe that.

The White House strategy failed, and it failed pretty spectacularly. It reminds me that I’m hard pressed to think of a White House strategy that hasn’t failed in the last several months. The springtime budget negotiation, the one where a government shutdown was narrowly averted and Obama bragged about overseeing the biggest single-year domestic spending cut in history, was a failure too; a success, one supposes, in the sense that the government did not shut down, but another situation in which Obama’s back was pressed to the wall by congressional Republicans.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/25/president-obama-s-political-team-is-blowing-it.html

It's time to come back into the light Mr President, before it's too late.

[TwilightGardener]

1. He didn't "seek a debt deal" to please anyone. The Repubs would not raise the debt ceiling,

forcing a deal.

[Harmony Blue]

4. I don't understand

Democrats backed him on this issue, Independents backed him on this issue, and some Republicans who didn't want to see the stock market tumble backed him on this issue.

[TwilightGardener]

6. I'm not sure what you don't understand. He didn't want to default--that would have been

economically bad. As it was, it was still economically bad anyway, just the negotiations themselves, since we look like a banana republic now and S&P lowered the credit rating. The whole episode damaged him politically, he knows that--that was the whole goal of the GOP.

[TheWraith]

13. And that would mean something if it were being submitted to a public vote. It wasn't.

Instead, it was required to pass through the House of Representatives, which is dominated by a majority of right-wing Republicans.

[EFerrari]

9. That was the story his campaign people put out the week

before the debt deal was foisted on us.

[TwilightGardener]

10. His campaign people have the task of spinning everything in the best possible light.

That is what I expect them to do--that's what all politicians do. That doesn't mean I don't see what I see.

[EFerrari]

11. Yes. And so I expect you see through the default bs

because no one was going to allow the US to default. Wall Street wouldn't stand for it. On the day the rhetorical fakery was the most dire and heated, bonds didn't even blink.

[TwilightGardener]

12. Now that, I don't know. I think these people are that nutz.

[EFerrari]

14. They are nutz but they're not stupid and they don't stay in power

by screwing Wall Street.

[TheWraith]

15. Your opinion depends on the unstated belief that the Republicans are reasonable people.

Who just want what's best for America, and have different ways of going about it.

As a matter of fact, that's the unstated belief behind almost all the claims that Obama should just stare down Congress, despite ample evidence that the Republicans are happy to let the world burn.

[roguevalley]

22. so now all the independents are assholes. anyone who doesn't

praise him is an asshole. Good luck getting re-elected with that.

[girl gone mad]

17. The President held all the cards..

yet he folded.

It was terrible politics, stupid economics.

He missed a major opportunity.

[TwilightGardener]

19. He really didn't. The House had the task of raising the debt ceiling, and

they said they wouldn't do it without cuts. Were they bluffing, would a veto have resulted in a better situation? We'll never know.

[girl gone mad]

29. He really did.

He could have threatened to use the Constitutional option, used coin seigniorage or gone with Ron Paul's solution. There was absolutely no need to pander to the teabag contingency.

[roguevalley]

21. he told them at a press conference the lowest he would go. wtf?

you don't tell the other side the lowest position you will take because they will go there and lower. I can't tell you have that rings like a bell in my brain to this day.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. The poor delicate flower was forced into it by those meanies. Of course, he could've vetoed it.

But, that would've required courage and principles and all that silly stuff that aren't "reality based".

[Fearless]

3. +100

[COLGATE4]

5. + another 100!

[TheWraith]

16. Yes, veto it, because it's been too long since America had bread lines!

And because 50% unemployment is just fucking AWESOME.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. Whereas, caving to the Republicans (again, as usual) saved us from that..or, did it?

We'll never know if the Republicans would've have caved or made a better deal because Obama wouldn't take a risk and folded.

[jeff47]

26. You're acting like their austerity plan isn't already sending us in that direction. (nt)

[Me.]

7. "It's time to come back into the light Mr President"

The questuin is...was he ever in it...really?

[EFerrari]

8. Duh. Unless he's cognitively impaired, he didn't do it for them

because independents are not focused on the debt but on jobs and have been since 2010 midterms. The independent story is bs.

[jeff47]

27. The justification behind caving on the debt deal was it would please independents.

At least, that's what the Obama supporters shouted whenever anyone objected to the caving.

[EFerrari]

30. I heard Thom tell that story the day the idea was leaked by the White House.

It made no sense when he said it and of course, it never did or will make any sense. There is nothing in austerity that pleases independents. They all want to work just like we do and that's what they care about.

[coalition_unwilling]

20. OT slightly, but who in his or her right mind would consider him- or

herself an "Independent" these days? Methinks so-called 'independents' classify themselves as such because they are ashamed of the horrors of the Bush admin. So they say they're 'Independent' but really they're Repuke through and through.

[Vinca]

23. This is more an indicator of Republican messaging than anything else.

The old "if you say something often enough people will believe it's true."

[Rex]

24. Sigh.

[MilesColtrane]

25. The author takes the assumption of another writer, that the debt deal was...

negotiated for the votes it could glean, and runs with it.

That makes me take anything else he says in the article with a dump truck of salt.

[johnaries]

28. Exactly.