Allahpundit’s humorous post on Hotair reflects the viewpoint held by many of us about the President’s declining poll numbers. Time to get hammered and take a vacation, Barry.

However, will excessive gloating among my fellow conservatives about the the latest Gallup and Rasmussen polls lead us to overlook some of their more troubling negative implications? First and foremost, will any further decline in the polls create the perception of a weakened presidency and thus embolden a foreign adversary? Could the US be more vulnerable to an attack against our interests at home and abroad? Just weeks before the American Embassy in Tehran was seized in 1979 the Washington Post published a poll that gave then-President Jimmy Carter the lowest approval rating of any president in the prior three decades.

I’m not suggesting that President Obama has plummeted to a Carteresque failure – I certainly hope that history will not repeat itself. However, the actors on the world stage of 2009 are more dangerous than the Iranians 30 years ago, and I think we all expect some form of challenge at home or abroad. If and when this happens the President’s negative margins will evaporate, at least temporarily.

Assuming the trend remains, then how long will it last? There’s no indication of any reversal in the short-term – the President’s domestic agenda is increasingly unpopular and his image as a post-racial healer was severely tarnished by the Gates affair. While the latter will cease to be an influence shortly given the American public’s minimal attention span, most people are reminded about pocketbook issues every week. If Obama’s negative opinion margins last into the middle of 2010 without either an economic recovery or an external threat, then the mid-term elections could bode poorly for incumbent Democrats. Beyond that intermediate time horizon what will occur is anyone’s guess, but when you’re down, you can only go up.

Comments are closed.