Much as it drove me nuts, Bill Clinton was able to remain in office and be effective, able to survive impeachment in fact, because he knew the wisdom of keeping high approval numbers. He largely managed this through relentless polling to determine what people wanted. Then either he or his wife would go out and promise it. I’d love to see a list of all the programs he promised while staving off removal from office. The key to his success was that as long as he was popular his own party stood by him.
Obama doesn’t get it. And I believe he will pay the price for that failure just as Bush didn’t get it and paid the price. Well, actually, the Republicans and American people paid the price for his low approval numbers at the end. We’d all be better off if he'd bothered to care and made an effort.
With his low numbers Obama is going to find himself very limited in what he can do for one simple reason: he will have few friends among Democrats in Congress. It will be a rude awakening when it occurs. If you don’t want to ask Bush just remember Nixon. |