Latest Poll Results: Under Obama’s Leadership, US Politics More Polarized than in the Past Four Decades

Remember back in the Democratic primary – of course, you do – when the upstanding John Edwards, he of the superior moral fiber; and Barack Obama, he of the spanking new politics that transcended the old Boomer divides; made smug remarks during debates and campaign rallies that echoed Karl Rove in questioning Hillary Clinton’s integrity and labeling her a polarizing figure?

The haloed Edwards and Obama also hammered Clinton for her pragmatic approach to lobbyists. She contended there were ethical lobbyists as well as unethical, and it was a mistake to put them all in the same category.

Since then the real John Edwards has stood up and revealed himself. He’s the guy who was having an affair with another woman while his cancer-stricken wife faithfully supported him in his run for the Democratic nomination.

And as for lobbyists, early in his presidency, Obama picked William Lynn III, the Raytheon Company’s top lobbyist, for the number two position at the Pentagon. Obama argued that Lynn was the best qualified person for the job even though he’d landed huge defense contracts for Raytheon. Obama said you just can’t go around being all that choosy or else you’d never get important posts filled.

But back to that polarization charge against Clinton during the primary. Infatuated Obama supporters truly believed their guy could unite first the country and then the world solely by virtue of his personal charm. But here’s a little news flash for you: the Guardian reported today:

Barack Obama's promise to overcome partisan political divisions and reunite the United States has so far failed to materialise, according to independent analysts in Washington.

The Pew Research Centre carried out a survey of polls six weeks into the Obama era and found that, contrary to the bipartisan note he has sounded, US politics is more polarised at this early stage in his presidency than at any equivalent point in the past four decades.

The researchers looked at the approval ratings for Obama reflected across several polls in early March, comparing his support among Democratic voters which stood at a huge 88% with that among Republican voters - only 27%. That gives a partisan gap of 61 points.

That is wider than even the 51-point gap between Republican (87%) and Democratic (36%) voters recorded at the start of George Bush's first term in 2001, despite Bush's reputation for divisiveness.

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Polls Show Economy Cutting Obama’s High-Flying Honeymoon Short

For days since his election, Barack Obama could do no wrong with the faithful giving him consistently sky-high approval ratings. Coming into office with perhaps the thinnest resume of any of his predecessors, Obama soon found his desk in the Oval office piled high with one crisis after another. True to the warnings of his campaign opponents, there has been no time for on the job training.

Our new president bluffed as long as he could by parading his usually more seasoned appointees on stage with him whenever he held a press conference.

But the man who walked on water in the primary, buoyed up by his inflated rhetoric, soon began to get his pant legs wet and next thing we knew he was up to his knees wading toward a fast receding shore.

The polls tell the story today. From Bloomberg:

March 16 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama’s approval ratings are slipping as Americans fret about the economy, two polls found.

A March 12-15 survey conducted for CNN by Opinion Research Corp. found Obama’s approval rating dropped 3 points from late last month and 12 points from early February. A Pew Research Center poll taken March 9-12 found that Obama’s approval rating slipped to 59 percent from 64 percent last month.

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