This, My Friends, Is What a Credibility Gap Looks Like...

This New York Times/CBS poll was released earlier this month, but it surfaced again today at the Washington Examiner and I felt it merited a blog post.

The poll, unsurprisingly, shows an American public that has completely lost faith in the current Congress and is growing impatient with the Obama administration. The approval rating for Congress stands at...15%. Ouch. Not a good sign if you're an incumbent, especially if you're a member of the party in power. Come to think of it, Evan Bayh's "I'm quitting" announcement that I wrote about last night occurred shortly after this poll was released. Hmmmmmm...

The news, believe it or not, gets worse for legislators. Seriously. 80% of those polled say that Congress is more interested in pleasing special interest lobbies, while just 13% believe legislators are more focused on serving the people who elected them. And if incumbents weren't frightened enough already, let them feast their eyes on this one: just 8% believe most members of Congress merit reelection in November. We'd probably be one lucky nation if 9 out of every 10 members of Congress lost their reelection bids in November. Of course that's not going to happen- it's common in our politics for people to view their own congressman more favorably than other folks' congressmen. But the numbers are still staggering.

President Obama's approval rating, meanwhile, stands at 46%, with 45% disapproving. Better than Congress, of course, but hardly impressive, especially considering the heights that he reached during and shortly after his inauguration. Yes, the presidential honeymoon wears off for every president, but the precipitous decline of Obama's poll numbers has been pretty extraordinary.

Consider the following. In April 2009, he was at 68%/23% approval/disapproval. By October, a few months after the angry town hall meetings had begun, with the health care debate dragging on, he was still at a solid 56/34 split. By December he was down to 50/39. Now, it's 46/45. The robust 68% approval rating can be chalked up to the honeymoon period, and the decline to 56% approval in the fall can be attributed to the honeymoon wearing off. But the continued dive to the lowest approval rating and the highest disapproval rating yet after more than a full year in office suggests that this president is losing the confidence of Americans.

Remember the enthusiasm back in 2008 after Barack Obama's election and inauguration? Barely? Well, just 3% (!) now say they are enthusiastic about the way things are unraveling in DC, while a whopping 70% are "dissatisfied" or "angry." To quote Sarah Palin: "How's that hopey-changey stuff working out for ya?"

The news is even worse for President Obama when you dig a little deeper into the approval ratings on his handling of specific issues. While he's doing fairly well on terrorism (55/34) and foreign policy (47/34), surprisingly well, in my opinion, considering that civilian trials for terrorists and closing Gitmo don't seem to play well with a majority of Americans, Obama's numbers on the issues that matter most to Americans right now should alarm his advisers. On the economy, voters disapprove 42/52. On health care, the issue on which he has spent so much time and political capital, he's at 35/55. And on the deficit, he's at 31/58.

On the far more vague issue of "change" (gag), the centerpiece of candidate Obama's presidential campaign, Americans give the president underwhelming marks. Just 9% see lots of change, 30% see "some" (and that could mean anything- remember, even John McCain, despite Barack Obama's campaign strategy of painting him as "4 more years of Bush," would have ushered in "some" "change"), while 30% see "not much" (is there any meaningful way to differentiate "not much" from "some"?). 20% see none at all.

In a nation with double-digit unemployment, you'd figure the president would go to great lengths to convince the people that he was serious about job growth. But only 39% think Obama has a plan to create jobs, while 56% doubt it.

Wait, what's that you say? He already had his plan passed? Oh yeahhhh...the stimulus plan. Remember that $787 billion bill that was supposed to create jobs and prevent unemployment from exceeding 8%? Well, just 6% of those polled believe it has created jobs. Stop rubbing your eyes. You read that correctly. 6% believe the stimulus package created jobs. This, despite all of those statements on Sunday talk shows by Obama advisers and Obama himself that the "Recovery Act" saved 2 million jobs.

That, my friends, is a credibility gap.