[TheRealThing]

Even STILL, with scandals popping up right and left, TRT, I read an article today stating that Obama's approval was at an all-time low - what is that low? 47% - with a 52% disapproval rating. I have seen lower approval ratings for him, but I scratch my head at how he comes close to a 40% approval rating. Bush would have been well below 20% by now had these scandals happened under his watch.

Common sense says different than the polls, though. A lot of people are fed up with the administration - many people realize that the democrats have controlled congress for eight straight years now and our situation has only become worse. If Romney vs. Obama happened today, the results would be totally different.

Just last year I mentored a group of college students in a project revolving around balancing the budget. Now, one thing before I go on - these are students from the northeast, coming from a liberal area full of liberal universities. I mentored a group of about ten students from those schools. Their job was to choose what projects to accept (building roads, for example) or reject. One of the proposed ideas was to repeal Obamacare, but it had a big cost. I expected to have to lecture my group about that, but there was a unanimous vote to repeal Obamacare and nobody even thought about debating it. I developed the instinct that other groups in the project came to the same rationale. They are business majors, but I certainly expected to see more liberalism projected from the northeastern schools.

The Bergdahl swap will hurt the administration as well as the potential of the United States possibly going back into Iraq, but I think what will ultimately be the final dagger will be gas prices. I was disappointed in the Bush Administration at times for what seemed like a lack of attention to the issue, but this administration has paid zero attention to it, and Obama lacks the backbone to stand up to the environmentalists on the Keystone Pipeline (I think even he is for that deep down - he just doesn't want to rile up one of his key bases). A liberal friend I had coffee with a while back tried to use the $2.99 gas prices as an argument that things were improving, even though gas prices had already hit that level before shooting back up to the $4.00 range. I believe that we will soon see them shoot well past the $4.00 range. Everybody is used to the $4.00/gallon prices now, but if prices increase the complaints will also increase. With Obama ducking and dodging action on this issue at every opportunity, THAT is when everybody will wake up to this administration and their approval ratings will decline rapidly even amongst the top supporters.

I think Real Clear's average of polls had his approval rating at 39%. Still incredibly high when you consider that the Keystone Kops look highly professional by comparison. I think you're right, people will stay in a stupor until they get hit in the wallet.

[TheRealThing]

I know that politics has always been a touchy subject with people. However, I have never seen our country (in my lifetime) as divided as it is now. I know it's one thing to have different beliefs, but it's flat out ridiculous when people are getting huge punishments for stating their beliefs.

I'm just in the mood right now where honestly, I just wish we would split up. Conservatives take one side, liberals take the other and they can have their own rules. Be allies, but let's see which side does better. I know it would never happen, but I'm just flat out fed up that we have a President and some of our top leaders that want to alienate one have of the country. They may have won the election, but considering that over half the country doesn't vote, I wouldn't consider that an accomplishment by any means.

Again, it's sad that if you speak out against Obama you're a racist, if you speak out against homosexuality you're labeled a homophobic, intolerant bigot. I feel like there's no hope. Maybe another conservative has a better outlook but I don't see there being any recovery from this deep hole.

^
Ive been saying this ever since Obama took office.

Believe it or not, the Democratic party really did use to be a good party for America in a two horse race to choose from. Ever since LBJ, its been all down hill. IMHO, we are to far gone to turn back. The left has completely went to the FAR left of the liberal agenda and there are very few left in that party who resembles a moderate. With the current economic conditions, common sense tells you to vote republican, but little side agendas have people voting for a party based on One issue, and one issue alone. Take the gay marriage issue for example. There are some on the left who would vote liberal for that one agenda no matter what the person there voting for believes in. They don't care. They are extreme in there agendas, and they will not let anything else stop them.

For someone to say this country is better now than when Obama took office, is flat out uneducated, brainwashed to believe that, or simply doesn't understand that more than anything, the economy should be the number one problem a president deals with. That's not the case anymore.

As I have mentioned, this is one of my favorite threads. Wide and Run hit the nail on the head in these posts ^^. Saying that, recognition of the true source of America's problems, though having been clearly revealed in the many scandals associated with the administration, is in danger of being obscured yet again through the propaganda strategies of the left.

Dems have been adamant of late in insisting they have all the answers. Case in point would have to be Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid's oft quoted declarations of success in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary. ObamaCare for example, despite their continual efforts to put a happy face on it, does not work. And the so-called back end of the website, which constitutes the actual workings and business part of the law, is a comedy of errors from which there is no recovery. At any rate, Democrats look foolish these days as their many liberally inspired "beliefs" and assumption have been exposed for the amateurish, ill conceived and unworkable notions they really are. Suffice it to say, they were wrong and reality has come back to bite them in their posteriors.

One would think therefore, that folks would be lined up to get behind Republicans who, in an effort to spare America the grief, have so accurately shined the light of lucidity on policies they predicted would be destructive to the US. But, once again we see that voters may still be listening to Democrats. Here's what I mean. Every time I hear some media type pinning back the ears of a liberal caught up in distortion, (thanks to the miracle of video tape) a concession is made. That concession or equivocation goes something like this; "yes we misspoke, but both sides are guilty of politicizing issues."
To which point of course, the interviewing pundit immediately acquiesces. So, let me get this straight. Since the Republicans were right all along, and the Dem's policies are convoluted liberal drivel, both sides are wrong? Using that logic, if a criminally charged felon gets convicted, that would mean both sides, offender and victim were wrong? Folks, it's the nuclear food fight option again. Cloud and obscure the truth with smoke, or as Nancy likes to say, "the fog of controversy." Or as I like to say, Romney was right, Russia is our number 1 geopolitical foe, LOL.

To further demonstrate the issue, Ron Fournier of the National Journal has prosecuted said strategy very effectively of late. A favored ploy of the Dem has been to shoot the messenger. ® Darrell Issa, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, has more bullet holes in his hide than Mussolini. He's trying to do his job by providing congressional oversight in important matters of the "peoples" business, such as the Lois Lerner scandal, but to say his battle is all uphill, is an understatement of epic proportion. Conversely, hardly anybody has landed on (D) Elijah Cummings who has done his best to derail the committee's investigative effectiveness through filibuster, foot dragging, hazing and yes, charges of racial bias against those damnable Republicans. But in returning to Mr Fournier's trespass. Every time some proof of scandal forces it's way to the light, he says both sides do it. This has the unfortunate affect of removing the very justly applicable guilt in the minds of voters, away from Dems, who are on record BTW, and onto Republicans ala the food fight mechanism, which turns clarity into chaos, while the guilty sneak out the back door.

There is a good reason that the number one priority for Mr Obama is fundraising right now. He's got two years left to effect his fundamental transformation. And that will be problematic if the Dems loose the Senate. If Harry Reid goes down, so does the liberal agenda. The wheels of the Senate would begin to turn once more, and debate would return to the floor. That is also the reason why Hollywood is funding the Alison Grimes campaign to unseat McConnell.