President Obama Working Miracles

If Democrats keep forcing legislation that isn't bipartisan and that the people clearly don't want, it will happen. I think they care too much about keeping their cushy jobs than doing anything stupid like passing that kind of legislation.

 

Sounds like 538 is having buyer's remorse and is weaseling his way out of all the pro-Obama/pro-Democrat twisting of data he did and is doing the CYA thing. Making excuses before the fact for his guy and his party.

He neglects to consider the chinese water torture aspect of the polls. They feed on themselves. If a politician's popularity is falling, it'll continue to fall because people see the last poll wasn't so good.

On the other hand, Obama really has been the worst president (so far) in my lifetime (going back to Ike). I think people would be more supportive of national health care or $800B worth of spending on democrats' pork if they weren't seeing the economy shedding jobs, strong companies having difficulties, their neighbors losing their homes, etc. In spite of all that, my preference would be for him to be the best president of my lifetime, which would mean people are not having trouble finding jobs or losing their life savings.

I don't want republicans or democrats in office. If we can't elect more ordinary citizens who'll go serve and then go back to their jobs, I'd be far more satisfied with any combination of democrats and republicans that results in complete and utter gridlock.

 

I'll repeat myself:

I don't want republicans or democrats in office. If we can't elect more ordinary citizens who'll go serve and then go back to their jobs, I'd be far more satisfied with any combination of democrats and republicans that results in complete and utter gridlock.

Here's a polling firm that got the 2008 election within 1% or 1.5%. He polls likely voters.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/generic_congressional_ballot

Republican candidates have now matched their biggest lead over Democrats of the past several years on the Generic Congressional Ballot.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 43% would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate while 38% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent.

The level of support for Democratic candidates is unchanged this week, but backing for GOP candidates rose one point from a week ago. This is now the eighth straight week Republicans have led on the Generic Ballot.

These findings come at the same time that voters, for the first time in over two years of polling, say they trust Republicans slightly more than Democrats on the handling of the issue of health care.

 

Likely voters are determined by asking them a few questions that suggests they'll vote next election. Is a poll that includes kindergärtners relevant? No, because they can't vote. least likely, anyhow.

I've posted a recent gallup poll, not likely voters:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/122333/Political-Ideology-Conservative-Label-Prevails-South.aspx#2

Everything I've seen for the past 40 years tells me that republicans stayed home the past couple of elections.

 

Today's PEW poll:

http://people-press.org/report/536/white-house-gop-leaders-at-odds







Across the board declines:

 

Bush led them like lemmings off a cliff. Obama's doing the same to the Democrats. That Republican Revolution was in the immediate aftermath of the last time the Democrats controlled the house and senate and white house and tried to foist a giant health care program on the public.

 

Two articles today.

http://freep.com/article/20090820/BUSINESS06/908200420/1319/

[FONT=arial, helvetica][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Canadians visit U.S. to get health care[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Serif]Deal lets many go to Michigan hospitals
[/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]
BY PATRICIA ANSTETT
FREE PRESS MEDICAL WRITER [/FONT] [/FONT]

[FONT=arial, helvetica]Hospitals in border cities, including Detroit, are forging lucrative arrangements with Canadian health agencies to provide care not widely available across the border.[/FONT]
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Agreements between Detroit hospitals and the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care for heart, imaging tests, bariatric and other services provide access to some services not immediately available in the province, said ministry spokesman David Jensen.
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[FONT=arial, helvetica]The agreements show how a country with a national care system -- a proposal not part of the health care changes under discussion in Congress -- copes with demand for care with U.S. partnerships, rather than building new facilities.
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[FONT=arial, helvetica]Michael Vujovich, 61, of Windsor was taken to Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital for an angioplasty procedure after he went to a Windsor hospital in April. Vujovich said the U.S. backup doesn't show a gap in Canada's system, but shows how it works.
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[FONT=arial, helvetica]"I go to the hospital in Windsor and two hours later, I'm done having angioplasty in Detroit," he said. His $38,000 bill was covered by the Ontario health ministry.[/FONT]
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Canada eyed in the health care debate[/SIZE][/FONT]
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Dany Mercado, a leukemia patient from Kitchener, Ontario, is cancer-free after getting a bone marrow transplant at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit.[/FONT]
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Told by Canadian doctors in 2007 he couldn't have the procedure there, Mercado's family and doctor appealed to Ontario health officials, who agreed to let him have the transplant in Detroit in January 2008.[/FONT]
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The Karmanos Institute is one of several Detroit health facilities that care for Canadians needing services not widely available in Canada.[/FONT]
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Canada, for example, has waiting times for bariatric procedures to combat obesity that can stretch to more than five years, according to a June report in the Canadian Journal of Surgery.[/FONT]
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As a result, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care in April designated 13 U.S. hospitals, including five in Michigan and one more with a tentative designation, to perform bariatric surgery for Canadians.[/FONT]
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The agreements provide "more immediate services for patients whose health is at risk," Jensen said.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]Three Windsor-area hospitals have arrangements with Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, to provide backup, after-hours angioplasty. Authorities will clear Detroit-Windsor Tunnel traffic for ambulances, if necessary.

The Detroit Medical Center also provides Canadians complex trauma, cancer, neonatal and other care.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]"In the last few years, we've seen more and more Canadian patients," said Dr. J. Edson Pontes, senior vice president of international medicine at the DMC. They include Canadians such as Mercado, whose care is reimbursed by Canada's health system, as well as people who pay out of pocket to avoid waiting in Canada.[/FONT]
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Pontes declined to give revenue figures for the DMC's international business, but said the program "always has been a profitable entity." About 300 of the DMC's 400 international patients last year came from Canada, he said.[/FONT]
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Tony Armada, chief executive officer of Henry Ford Hospital, said the hospital received $1 million for cardiac care alone.[/FONT]
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Critics of a health care system like Canada's -- a publicly funded system that pays for medically necessary care determined by provinces -- often cite gaps in Canada's care to argue that the United States should not allow its current debate over health care to move it to a socialized system.[/FONT]
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No plan currently under discussion in Congress calls for a universal plan like Canada's, but opponents fear socialized medicine, anyway.[/FONT]
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Canada's U.S. backup care "speaks volumes to why we don't need government to take over health care," Scott Hagerstrom, the state director in Michigan for Americans for Prosperity, said of the Canadian arrangements with Michigan hospitals. "Their system doesn't work if they have to send us their patients."[/FONT]
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But Dr. Uwe Reinhardt, a Princeton University health economist who has studied the U.S. and Canadian health systems, said arrangements with cities like Detroit "are a terrific way to manage capacity" given Canada's smaller health care budget.[/FONT]
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"This is efficient," he said. "At least in Canada, you don't worry about going broke to pay for health care. You do here."[/FONT]
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Pat Somers, vice president of operations at Windsor's Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital, one of the hospitals that sends patients to Henry Ford, said the issue of finding ways to pay for and prioritize care requests is not in only Windsor.[/FONT]
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"The ministries are quite aware of" waits for care in Sarnia and Hamilton, she said. "That's why we are investing in a wait list strategy" to best determine how to prioritize cases for people who need hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery and treatment for cancer, for example.[/FONT]
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Mercado, 26, faced a longer wait because he could not find a matching blood donor, even though his family conducted a broad search.[/FONT]
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He said doctors told him money was limited for transplants, particularly ones using unmatched donors, which are riskier.[/FONT]
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After his family's doctor wrote the Ontario ministry, the agency agreed to pay $200,000 for the operation.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]The family, their church and Mercado's school, Conestoga College in Kitchener, raised another $51,000 to cover expenses going back and forth to Detroit.[/FONT]
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"I think of this every day as a gift from God," Mercado said.[/FONT]
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Contact PATRICIA ANSTETT: 313-222-5021 or panstett@freepress.com[/FONT]
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Additional Facts[/FONT][/FONT] [FONT=arial, helvetica]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Why they come here[/FONT]

[/FONT][FONT=arial, helvetica]Canadians seek health care in the United States for:[/FONT]

• [FONT=arial, helvetica]Heart care.[/FONT]
• [FONT=arial, helvetica] Imaging tests.[/FONT]
• [FONT=arial, helvetica] Bariatric surgery.[/FONT]
• [FONT=arial, helvetica] Multiple injuries from an accident.[/FONT]
• [FONT=arial, helvetica] Cancer.[/FONT]

 

Charlie Cook kicks ass (knows his stuff)

http://www.politico.com/blogs/score...on_has_slipped_completely_out_of_control.html

Charlie Cook: Dem situation has 'slipped completely out of control'

Charlie Cook, one of the best political handicappers in the business, sent out a special update to Cook Political Report subscribers Thursday that should send shivers down Democratic spines.

Reviewing recent polling and the 2010 election landscape, Cook can envision a scenario in which Democratic House losses could exceed 20 seats.

"These data confirm anecdotal evidence, and our own view, that the situation this summer has slipped completely out of control for President Obama and Congressional Democrats.

Today, The Cook Political Report’s Congressional election model, based on individual races, is pointing toward a net Democratic loss of between six and 12 seats, but our sense, factoring in macro-political dynamics is that this is far too low," he wrote.

"Many veteran Congressional election watchers, including Democratic ones, report an eerie sense of déjà vu, with a consensus forming that the chances of Democratic losses going higher than 20 seats is just as good as the chances of Democratic losses going lower than 20 seats."

Cook scrupulously avoided any mention that Democratic control of the House is in jeopardy but, noting a new Gallup poll showing Congress’ job disapproval at 70 percent among independents, concluded that the post-recess environment could feel considerably different than when Congress left in August.

"We believe it would be a mistake to underestimate the impact that this mood will have on Members of Congress of both parties when they return to Washington in September, if it persists through the end of the Congressional recess."

 

Another clear cut case of working miracles.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125055572526338767.html

Post-Partisan Promise Fizzles

By JONATHAN WEISMAN

WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama campaigned last year on a pledge to end the angry partisanship in Washington. He wasn't the first to promise a post-partisan presidency: Both George W. Bush and Bill Clinton offered a similar change, only to see the mutual hostility between Republicans and Democrats increase while they were in the White House.

Now, just as his predecessors did, Mr. Obama is seeing that promise turn to ashes. Angry town-hall meetings, slumping presidential approval poll numbers and rising opposition to his signature health-care proposals suggest an early resumption of politics as usual.




Obama critics say that is an inevitable result of his push for far-reaching liberal polices even as he made undefined offers to win over moderates and conservatives. The White House blames Republicans and conservative media commentators, saying they sought to sow dissent from the start.

One thing both sides agree on: Six months in to Mr. Obama's presidency, a growing core of Americans is turning against the president, including some voters he won over during the campaign.

"I thought he was going to unite us as a country. When I heard, 'There's not a white America, there's not a black America, there are the United States of America,' that resonated with me," said Leah Wolczko, a 42-year-old teacher from Manchester, N.H., who described herself as a political independent who had supported Mr. Obama but failed to vote in November. "But when they start talking specifics, well, now we've got some problems."
She objects to what she calls Mr. Obama's big-government, big-spending policies.

In the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll of 1,011 adults taken from July 24 through July 27, the president's base of support remained relatively high and still firm -- 37% still felt "very positive" about him. His overall approval rating stood at 53%. But the percentage that felt "very negative" has more than tripled since the beginning of the year, hitting 20% nationally, 25% in the South, 23% among those 65 and over, and 24% among men 50 and over.

Mr. Clinton fared worse in his first few months -- going from 7% strongly averse in January 1993 to 25% in June. (Mr. Bush, who entered office in 2001 after a bitter recount fight with 17% of the country feeling very negatively toward him, saw that number improve to 15% by summer.)

Still, the numbers on Mr. Obama "certainly suggest the anti-Obama core is beginning to form," said Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducts national surveys for The Wall Street Journal and NBC News.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Mr. Obama hasn't given up his goal of bridging the partisan divide but is realistic. "I don't think the president ever believed that all of the people were going to agree with him all of the time, or certainly that all the people would even agree with him a majority of the time," he said.

When Mr. Obama was inaugurated in January, only 6% of the country felt "very negative" about him, while 43% felt "very positive."

"The day he was elected and it was certified that he was president, he had my full, 100% support, and my commitment to pray for him and his family," said Gloria Twiggs, a retiree in Kenner, La., who didn't vote for Mr. Obama. Now, upset with him on issues from abortion to the presidential plane's photo-op flight over New York in April, which sparked panic, she has a very negative opinion of him. (Mr. Obama wasn't aboard the plane, and the White House official responsible for the flight resigned.)

In January, just 13% of respondents in the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll strongly disagreed with the notion that Mr. Obama shared their positions on the issues. That has doubled to 25%. The proportion of Americans who strongly disagree that the president is willing to work with people whose viewpoints are different from his own nearly doubled, to 21% from 12% in April.

Anti-Obama paraphernalia has hit stores in competition with the still-hot-selling pro-Obama accoutrement: "Don't Blame Me. I voted for McCain" on bumper stickers and "So...How's That Whole 'Hopey Changey' Thing Working Out For Ya?" on T-shirts. Three of the top five books on this week's New York Times best-seller list are anti-Obama tomes.

Polls show that Americans tend to agree on the nation's problems: soaring health-care costs and the rising ranks of the uninsured; dependence on imported oil; and recession. But getting a consensus on solutions is more difficult, especially given the philosophical gulf over the role government should play.

William D. McInturff, a Republican pollster and Mr. Hart's partner on the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, placed the date of the breach between the president and those who had given him the benefit of the doubt on March 29. That was when General Motors Corp. Chief Executive Rick Wagoner was pushed out at the administration's behest.

"Our country has an enduring split over the legitimate role of government," Mr. McInturff said. "It sits as the dividing line between who becomes a Republican and who becomes a Democrat."

For some, disappointment with Mr. Obama stems from the foundering economy. "I thought he would've turned it around by now," said Louis Thornton, 44, from Lancing, Tenn., who identified himself late last month to Wall Street Journal/NBC News pollsters as a strong Democrat who feels "very negative" about the president.

Separately, the theme that Mr. Obama has played favorites with minorities surfaced in a number of voter interviews. In the flap over the arrest of Harvard University Prof. Henry Louis Gates, the president "took the side of his race. OK? Let's face it," said Nick Januszczak, 54, a concrete truck driver from Hammond, Ind. Mr. Obama said police "acted stupidly" in Mr. Gates's arrest; the president later said he regretted that remark.

Partisan bickering may be taking a toll simply because Mr. Obama said he would end it. Tom Decamp, 43, of Ramsey, Minn., believes Mr. Obama has done "everything that he said he'd do." But he blames the political arguing in Washington, at least partly, on the president.

"While the Republicans and Democrats fight, you don't really hear much from him anymore," Mr. Decamp said. White House officials have said they believe giving Congress its head is the best way to get legislation through.

Write to Jonathan Weisman at jonathan.weisman@wsj.com