Dan Balz: "The polarizing president"

[alp227]

One of the puzzling questions about Barack Obama's presidency is how the post-partisan candidate of 2008 became the polarizing chief executive of 2010. The answer may be surprising. He was far more polarizing from the start than many recognized. His choices in office and his opponents' responses have only hardened that divide.

During the campaign, Candidate Obama talked about the need to put the partisan divisions of the past behind. His victory fostered discussion about whether the country had turned a corner after years of bitter partisanship. In the glow of his inauguration, some people heralded a new era in American politics.

Such notions appear badly off the mark at this point in his presidency. A closer look at the time would have rendered such conclusions questionable at best. Equally questionable was the expectation that he could break the grip of partisan polarization in the country.

That, at least, is the conclusion of a number of scholars who have undertaken an early examination of the Obama presidency and whose work was presented at this weekend's meeting of the American Political Science Association.

As Gary Jacobson of the University of California at San Diego, put it: "Americans were polarized from the start in their opinions of Obama and his agenda. The outline of the current configuration of political attitudes was plainly visible during the 2008 campaign."

Obama won almost 53 percent of the vote, the most by any Democratic nominee since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. He won red states Democrats had not won in decades. But there was less unifying shape to the results than some broad-brush measures suggested.

George C. Edwards III of Texas A&M University notes that the number of states that deviated significantly from the national vote was more than in any election in 60 years, including 14 that went for John McCain (R). "Never before had many of these states voted so heavily against a victorious Democrat," Edwards writes, citing the work of others.

Jacobson notes that Obama's coalition included one of the smallest shares of voters who identified with the opposing party on record. He won because of "unusually high turnout among Democrats" and the fact that the Republican Party had shrunk during President George W. Bush's second term.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/04/AR2010090402579_pf.html

[napi21]

1. This guy is NUTS! The reason Obama won by the margin he did was

because HEVERYONE HATED SHRUB! Shrub had taken this Country, and to a degree THE WORLD economy into disaster, he defoed the Constitution, and had the brains of a gnat...no offense meant to gnats!

[SusanaMontana41]

3. Yeah, but Shrub wasn't on the ballot in 2008.

I voted for Obama because I believed him when he promised change.

RE: Gnats
LOL! Good thing you apologized. If I were a gnat, I'd be deeply offended.

:)

[Lasher]

4. Yes he was.

His name was just different. Other than that it was the McSame.

[Drunken Irishman]

5. And Nixon's name wasn't on the ballot in 1976.

Right?

[ruggerson]

15. He won by the margin he did

because the economy was heading off a cliff and it looked like our major banks were going to fail.

He would have won anyway, without a grave economic crisis, but by a much smaller margin.

[bluestateguy]

2. When was the last time we DIDN'T have a polarizing president?

If you are going to do the things you set out to do, you will be dipping into a lot of people's buckets and ruffling many feathers. If you are not polarizing, then you are probably not doing your job.

[Drunken Irishman]

6. Probably Kennedy.

He had unusually high approval numbers throughout most his presidency.

[JCMach1]

7. ???Are you serious???

Many people hated Kennedy.

I think you would have to go back to Eisenhower.

War hero on all sides and a very very moderate Republican. Hell, the teabaggers would through him out of the party for being a socialist today.

[jaxx]

9. Most Democrats didn't hate Kennedy.

There is the difference, a lot of them are against Obama.

[JCMach1]

10. Southern Democrats?

Well, obviously not all... But Kennedy was a polarizing figure at least around the key issue of the day, desegregation.

[jaxx]

11. Southern Democrats were just heating up back then.

They liked the status quo.

[Drunken Irishman]

22. Right. Southern Democrats didn't hate him quite as badly as they hated LBJ.

Which is funny, because Kennedy was a Yankee and LBJ was Southern Born and Southern Bred.

[JHB]

17. The did back then, too...

...if you consider the Birchers to be the teabaggers of that time. Held many of the same views.

[Drunken Irishman]

21. Many people hate every president. Regardless of party.

So I guess under your definition, you're not going to find a president who isn't polarizing - technically, none had 100% approval ratings.

However, while people did hate Kennedy, it wasn't a majority of the country. His approval ratings were consistently the best of any modern president - including Eisenhower.

So I'd say he was the least-polarizing president. Doesn't mean he didn't have his haters, but as a whole, he was far, far more popular than any president we've seen since.

[CTyankee]

26. AND, Kennedy was assasinated...that's pretty polarizing...nt

[DrSteveB]

19. self-delete

sorry.

[jaxx]

8. Interesting analysis.

They did get one thing right, Barack Obama is center-left. He ran as center-left and he governs as center-left. The ones who call him the most liberal president ever are the wingers who want us to be back in the 50s again....where a black man knew 'his place' and stayed in it, where abortion was relegated to the back alley, where the house and senate were a good ol boys convention of passing things that kept us all in our places.

Those who call him right wing are never going to see the light. They will choose to not understand the man or his message, or his deep desire to bring change to the old guard system. They will instead bring out their personal demand, and then cry over and over that he has done nothing, he's a corporatist (how I hate those words of left wing whining), an idiot for attempting bipartisanship, and all the rest we are subjected to in the daily browbeat.

He didn't do this, he didn't do that, he's going to make the old folks eat cat food, he should have done it my way. They say primary him, vote for another party, or they're gonna take their football and stay home....that'll show him. No, it'll show the republicans that you are a fair weather voter with an agenda. Sad, but true. Never mind the importance of staying in power. Never mind the supreme court future justices, never mind health care and putting the country back together.

I hope that the naysayers don't win this battle of the victims, instead I hope that they will wise up and look at the long view which is keeping the house and the senate and a Democrat in the White House.....no matter how flawed you attempt to portray him to be. Nobody's perfect....and that includes you and me.


edit to remove a ps....

[impik]

12. So it's Obama's fault that half of the country is stupid racist?

[Jennicut]

13. Since I have been born there has not been a non polarizing President.

Let me see....Ford pardoned Nixon and then was polarizing. Carter got crap from the Rethugs and they hated him, Reagan was polarizing especially once he was out of office, Poppy Bush was loved mostly by moderate Repubs, Clinton obviously had the Repubs going after him, W. turned off all the liberals and a lot of moderates, and then we have Obama, the so called Muslim Hitler loving socialist corpratist. Obama has had to put up with even more crap then Carter and Clinton had to deal with. Nope...not a single beloved by all President in the bunch.

[Cosmocat]

16. He is "polarizing" the way Hillary was "polarizing" ...

The right wing spends every second of every day making up every bit of flat out deranged nonsense it can about him, the MSM trumpets all of their bullcrap, and then they call him "polarizing."

They did the same thing to Hillary, up until it was clear BO had her beat in the primary, then all of a sudden Faux News was in love with her, Scaife was donating to her campaign ... ect ...

The whole political machine behind Bushco was the most political operation the white house has ever had, and they actively went after democrates in every way shape and form, it was all Rove all the time, and liberals hated the man for the moron he was ...

I can count on one hand the number of times that any MSMer referred to him as "polarizing."

Just another right wing meme the "liberal media" carries water on ...

[DrSteveB]

20. Axelrod criticized Hillary for being too polarizing

"The fact that Senator Clinton is a polarizing figure in American politics is not even a point of debate,'' said David Axelrod, a senior campaign adviser to Barack Obama. "It's an empirical fact."

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2008/jan/02/chris-dodd/polarizing-yes-but-electable-too/

[Beacool]

27. He's a hack who was trying to get his candidate elected.

:shrug:

[RBInMaine]

14. ReFUCklicans were HATE him, and he was SILLY to think he could work with him.

[rocktivity]

18. "By Dan Balz..."

:boring:
rocktivity

[Doctor_J]

23. WaPo = Wash Times

Why do you people read this shit?

[kentuck]

24. The polarizing Republicans and their lap-dog media blowhards?

Is that what he said?

[denimgirly]

25. The problem with Obama was he was WAY to eager too be bi-partisan he forgot his Base

And since republicans will never accept democrats he essentially got despised on both sides: Ignoring your base almost entirely, and appeasing the right on most things only to get a slap in the face for trying. Worst case scenerio. He has to start acting like a democratic leader and DOING good...not evil.

[Dawson Leery]

28. Everyone has a vote.

Including minorities and young people. Their vote counts just as much as McCain's base of bitter anglos.