Quick Take - We Disapprove

by Dr. Ellen Brandt


Raise your hands, fellow Republicans. How many of you believe that Mr. Obama's current approval rating is anywhere near 55 percent of American adults? 


What? Not one? Me neither.


And like me, you're probably more than a tad miffed that so many pundits presumably on Our Side are taking this - and various other - polling numbers at face value.


This poll is striking, though, because it makes no rational sense whatsoever. 


Personally, I don't know of a single Republican who likes Barack Obama or thinks he is doing a "good job" on anything at all - the economy, domestic issues, geopolitics, national security . . . GOP'ers across the board tend to give him very poor marks on every issue one can think of.


In fact, a large percentage of Republicans believe Obama is the worst - not the third-worst or the second-worst, but the worst American president in the modern era. 

 

So subtract us - registered GOP voters - from the total of American adults eligible to vote. One would have to get essentially 100 percent of everybody else - Independents, Libertarians, Greens, disgruntled Democrats (of whom there are many) - all believing and stating their approval of the way Obama is handling all or most of the major issues that face our country right now.


That's what you'd need to come up with that 55 percent figure - and it is not only a Through-the-Looking-Glass sort of number, it looks like some pretty extreme finagling of polling results.


Beyond this one obviously very flawed poll, I think the misguided ones among Media pundits - especially those who claim to be pulling for the GOP - need to ask themselves if every poll from this point to the election becomes suspect, because of Who the GOP's expanded base of adherents are in this particular cycle.


We've talked about this so many times before, we'll just give a quick summary here:


***** The expanded Republican base this cycle - i.e. the base beyond our long-time registered GOP Loyalists - is highly Populist.


***** The largest constituency among those Populists are "Gray" Americans age 50 and over, women and men alike; blue-collar, white-collar, and no-collar alike; every ethnic and religious and regional subgroup alike.


***** American "Grays" tend to be ultra-conscious of preserving our personal security, which means that we are not cheerful, habitual poll answerers. In fact, many of us are anti-poll and will not respond to a poll from anybody whatsoever, especially those sponsored by polling or Media entities we don't like - CNN, Gallup, NBC, or - Goddess help us! - the Washington Post.


***** The second-largest group of non-Loyalist-base Populists who will vote either for and with the GOP this cycle - or for and with the Libertarian candidate, taking votes away en masse from Clinton, are, we believe, those pesky "Sanders Democrats" plus a fairly large group of Independents who loved Bernie Sanders, at least when he was still running.


***** This particular group of non-GOP-base Populists are even more personal security-conscious and more suspicious of Media and polling organizations than we "Grays" are.
                    

 

Think Mr. Robot. And don't expect this group to show up in opinion polls. The first time you'll see them, in fact, is at your local polling stations.


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