…for Republicans:
Following the passage of the health care bill, 53% now say they trust Republicans on the issue of health care. Thirty-seven percent (37%) place their trust in Democrats. A month earlier, the two parties were essentially even on the health care issue.
These results are consistent with the finding that 54% of voters want the health care bill repealed. Rasmussen Reports is tracking support for repeal on a weekly basis. Still, health care ranks just number five among voters on the list of 10 important issues. The economy remains the top issue of voter concern as it has been for over years.
On the economy, Republicans are trusted more by 49% while Democrats are preferred by 37%. That’s a big improvement for the GOP following a five-point advantage last month. More voters who make under $20,000 annually trust Democrats on this issue, but voters who earn more than that favor Republicans.
Remember the old definition of insanity? The president has been talking (and lying) about his health care nonstop for over a year now, and it doesn’t make it any more popular. Now that we’ve actually seen the bill, why does he imagine that continued bloviation and lies about it are going to work any better? “Go for it,” indeed.
[Sunday morning update]
The great elaborator:
His wandering approach might not matter if Obama weren’t being billed as the chief salesman of the health-care overhaul. Public opinion on the bill remains divided, and Democratic officials are planning to send Obama into the country to convince wary citizens that it will work for them in the long run.
It was not evident that he changed any minds at Friday’s event. The audience sat politely, but people in the back of the room began to wander off.
Yes, this will turn opinion around. Maybe he should have let TOTUS answer.
[Update a few minutes later]
Roger Simon is concerned about the president’s mental health:
Now I admit I am not a professional psychiatrist or psychologist, nor do I see myself even remotely as a paragon of mental health, but I have made a decent living for over thirty years as a fiction writer whose stock in trade is perforce studying people and this is one strange dude. He makes Richard Nixon seem almost normal.
I first began worrying about this during the Reverend Wright affair. Obama insisted, as we all recall, that he did not know the reverend’s views even though the then candidate had spent twenty years in his church, been married by him, had his children baptized by him and taken the inspiration for his book from Wright. Now most educated people would have a pretty good idea about Wright after five minutes, let alone twenty years. The reverend is not a subtle man. Yet Obama told us he didn’t know.
Was the candidate lying or was he just so dissociated from reality that he didn’t see what was in front of his eyes? Or perhaps a little of both? Whatever the conclusion, it is not a happy one. The same man is before us now — only we’re not in the midst of a campaign. We have no way out. He is leading our nation during a time of economic crisis with a world changing so rapidly that our heads spin.
That’s the danger of voting based on charisma and “hope,” rather than a hardheaded view of the reality.
Rand,
There are two possibilities here. First, he really is that isolated, and no one will tell him (because they know he is psychologically incapable of accepting it) the truth that his magic is gone. Or second, he really does want to lose congress so he can run against a Republican congress in 2012. Not sure which (or both) I believe at this point.
he really does want to lose congress so he can run against a Republican congress in 2012
He runs against them now when they have no control. I think you’re giving him too much credit.
Ken,
Perhaps you are right, but I’d rather think he was just playing some too clever by half political game, than believe he is that delusional. The world is too dangerous a place for that.
I think his worldview is delusional, but not he himself. His own words make it clear he knows he’s a liar. He knows we know he’s a liar. He believes he can reach his goals never-the-less. I was shocked to read that sociopaths are about ten percent of the population, but not shocked that they are much more represented in politics. I would not be shocked to find him to be in that group. I have a sister that made multiple attempts to kill my mother. My sister is extremely charismatic. I’ve seen a sociopath up close for decades. B.O. seems very familiar to me.
Ken,
If he knows we know, then why is he still pretending?
Because sociopaths are natural actors; they believe they can bend reality just by force of will. They are aware of the truth, but choose to ignore it because it doesn’t fit their agenda.
To more directly answer your question… They play on your self doubts. Believe me, they can turn on a dime and drop the pretense in a moment if they think it’s not going to work. But their past experience shows it does work. They will lie directly to you, knowing you know, until you directly call them out AND they see you will not waver… then they’ll change tactics OR continue lying because they know it works. People just will not believe they will continue lying knowing you know they are lying… so they continue working on your self doubt.
It’s what infuriates me about Bill O’Reilly… he willing to give the benefit of the doubt long after it’s justified.
As an aside, I mentioned a few days ago that the Rasmussen daily presidential poll indicated that the primary effect of the health care change bill seems to have been to move some people from weakly supporting Obama to strongly supporting Obama. That number seems somewhat stable over the past two weeks and indicates to me that anyone who still liked Obama wasn’t inclined to change their mind over the recent health care law. And as a class the people who didn’t approve of Obama, weakly or strongly, tended to stay stable.
My view is that it’s going to take more than a little bad news to unsettle the pro-Obama side. The poll seems to indicate to me that approval hinges on the Democrats acting and that a large group, a third of the total voting population or more of people are for whatever reason not interested in what most people here see as serious problems with the Obama administration and Democrat policy.
If he knows we know, then why is he still pretending?
Probably the same reason that the East German government dished out propaganda they knew their subjects would not believe. Not sure what that reason is, unless it’s a perverse form of saving face, or cranked-to-eleven denial, or both. Maybe Angela Merkel knows.
“If he knows we know, then why is he still pretending?”
John Wayne Gacy went to his grave still professing that he was “the last victim”- of a frame-up.
I’ve seen it personally, that a habitual liar will continue to lie long after no-one believes them; lying is what they know, and they have gotten away with it so frequently that it has become their ‘go-to’ tool.
“a third of the total voting population or more of people are for whatever reason not interested in what most people here see as serious problems with the Obama administration and Democrat policy.”
that leaves two thirds who don’t. That is the making of a political disaster.
The answers I am getting for my “why does he then” question are a bit disturbing, though no doubt true. Sad really.
I’m closing down comments on this post, because the title has caused a lot of spammers to attack it. You can continue commenting here.