The latest Daily Presidential Tracking Poll – Rasmussen Reports™ is out and it’s more of the same for President Obama:

Gateway Pundit has a pretty good list of reasons why. Time for the leading practitioner of Hopenchange to alter his approach to governing and hope for an improvement. The White House has to be in a bind – continue with its key policy initiatives and risk increasing widespread public disapproval and a lessening of the Democratic grip on Congress, or lighten up and alienate the most vocal portion of Obama’s political base. Of course, one has to ask the question – who else would they vote for anyway?

My fellow conservatives will gloat, but as I’ve warned before, low presidential polling numbers create security and political risks. Besides, Republicans haven’t been able to take widespread advantage of this situation, although if the upcoming Virginia gubernatorial election is any indication this may be changing.

The White House, most Congressional Democrats, and their useful idiots in the media just don’t get it. Matt Welch’s article in the NY Post titled The Real Reason Americans Are Angry makes the case quite easily:

An ABC/Washington Post poll from June showed people preferred “smaller government with fewer services” over “larger government with more services” by 54% to 41%, up from 50%-45% a year earlier (independents were even more pronounced, at 61%-35%). A Rasmussen poll from April showed that 77% of Americans preferred a “free market” economy over a “government managed” economy, up seven percentage points from just last December. A July CBS poll found that 52% of Americans think that Obama is trying to do “too much.”

After 11 months of federal bailouts and freakouts, Americans have become bone tired of panicky power grabs from Washington. It’s the big government, stupid.

You can run but you can’t hide:

It’s not just the boardroom that faces intrusion. Kitchens everywhere should beware Obama’s head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, former New York City health commissioner Thomas Frieden, who may ban trans fats and require calorie counts nationally. Obama’s chief consumer protection advocate at the Federal Trade Commission is a former Ralph Nader employee who wants to sue companies that don’t receive consumer complaints, and his antitrust chief thinks that Google is a prime target for government prosecution.

Inside most Americans beats the heart of a Libertarian. Yet we elect both Republicans and Democrats who expand the role of Government, and then we complain.

Ed Morrissey is right to point out Ted Kennedy’s hypocrisy about once again changing the law regarding his succession.

Even though I’m no longer a resident of the state, having grown up in Massachusetts I benefited from the Senator’s efforts. Like many I have disagreed with him on numerous matters, and like some I have seen him stick his foot in his mouth when he was ill-prepared. For better or worse, on this matter I suspect most Mass residents will lower and shake their heads indifferently and mutter something like “whatever.”

A new survey by The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press shows that the GOP has been unsuccessful to date in capitalizing on President Obama’s declining popularity. The nationwide poll of 2,010 adults was conducted between August 11-17, 2009

While the headline of the release is “More See White House and GOP Leaders at Odds”, the poll shows that Obama and the Democratic Party’s drop in favorability hasn’t resulted in favorability improvements for Republicans. The growing perception is that Washington is failing to deal with critical issues, and

While more people continue to blame Republican leaders than blame Obama, the percentage saying the president is at fault (17%) is higher now than in June (12%) and much higher than in February (7%)

According to Pew the percentage of Americans who believe that Republican leaders are most to blame has remained between 27% and 29% through the February to August period.

This is the most telling graphic, however:

Despite the precipitous fall in Democratic Party popularity, GOP popularity has flat-lined at 40%. Note the September 2008 post-convention jump: was it due to the fresh voice of Sarah Palin? What can be done to recreate that lost momentum?

(Graph Source: Pew Research Center for the People & the Press)

Gay Patriot asks Is There a Carly Fiorina for Massachusetts’s 4th Congressional District?

I lived for a while in one of the wealthier cities in Rep. Frank’s district. It’s rather oddly shaped and encompasses a diverse range of communities, from the affluent west of Boston conjoined enclaves of Newton and Brookline down to the more economically mixed areas of Buzzards Bay.

Despite its relatively small geographic area, the liberal money, power, and influence axis formed by Newton and Brookline ultimately controls what happens in Rep Frank’s district. This area is solidly Democratic. Only someone with major “star” power and incredibly deep pockets could hope to unseat him, and I doubt there are any Massachusetts Republicans that match those criteria (save for, perhaps, Mitt Romney, but why would he want to run for the House?)

Bottom line is that Rep. Frank’s seat is as safe as the gold in Fort Knox.

As I’ve stated before in previous posts, electability trumps policy, and President Obama’s rule number one, “It’s all about me”, is a corollary. It follows that passing some type of health care reform act will, for the most part, be more important than the components of the plan. It also follows that anyone can be sacrificed. Referring to the far-left wing of the Democratic party, Riehl World View in Dems To Libs: Get Under Obama’s Bus writes:

They certainly don’t want to embarrass their messiah by being petulant and forcing him to take a loss, right? Not that he will for them in any event.

Looks like the libs might gain some experience with Obama’s rule number one: it’s all about me, folks. I must succeed in passing a plan, or I’ll look like a failure. So what if you look like rubes for supporting me all this time. It isn’t as if you, or the principle really matter all that much, right?

To save face some limited health care reform will be enacted this year. Pushing this initiative has damaged the President’s credibility and image across all sectors of the political spectrum, some of it permanent. Riehl speculates that the President will turn to immigration reform to regain lost political momentum:

I’d wager Obama will pivot and shift to immigration reform, as he sees it as more troubling ground for conservatives, ground upon which he’s more likely to see compromise among the GOP.

Possible, but immigration is a lightning rod issue in the US, and Obama can’t keep playing with fire. A foreign policy win may be better ground on which to regain the voting public’s favor.