Official Obama Derangement Syndrome Blog

Obama Exposure

April 9, 2009 at 2:42 pm

Karl Rove: President Obama is Divisive

Karl Rove Wrote in an OpEd for The Wall St. Journal:

The Pew Research Center reported last week that President Barack Obama "has the most polarized early job approval of any president" since surveys began tracking this 40 years ago. The gap between Mr. Obama’s approval rating among Democrats (88%) and Republicans (27%) is 61 points. This "approval gap" is 10 points bigger than George W. Bush’s at this point in his presidency, despite Mr. Bush winning a bitterly contested election.

Part of Mr. Obama’s polarized standing can be attributed to a long-term trend. University of Missouri political scientist John Petrocik points out that since 1980, each successive first term president has had more polarized support than his predecessor with the exception of 1989, when George H.W. Bush enjoyed a modest improvement over Ronald Reagan’s 1981 standing.

But rather than end or ameliorate that trend, Mr. Obama’s actions and rhetoric have accelerated it. His campaign promised post-partisanship, but since taking office Mr. Obama has frozen Republicans out of the deliberative process, and his response to their suggestions has been a brusque dismissal that "I won."

ODS Expositor: Amen Karl. President Obama is still in full campaign mode everywhere he goes. Yes he won this time but he keeps rubbing our noses in it and governing from the extreme left rather than from the middle he promised. The gap numbers are going to get even worse as time goes on. I have already heard a bunch of my moderate friends complain: "I didn’t vote for this!".

The congressional elections in 2010 should be far more interesting than many expect, hopefully shades of 1994 are on the horizon.