Today's meaningless Rasmussen tracker finds the President underwater in job approval (46/53). As we learned from Scott Rasmussen on 2/27, obviously this means that President is losing to the Republican candidates in a match-up. Being underwater in job approval also means that Ron Paul leads Obama in a national match-up. It just makes sense, because Obama is so unpopular that Democrats won't vote for him and everyone wants anybody but Obama to be the next president. I mean, it's obvious, isn't it? It's all there in Rasmussen's numbers and his commentary.
And yet, Rasmussen today finds the President leading the Republican candidates. How can this be? He is underwater in job approval! No one would ever vote for Obama, because he's so unpopular. Scotty said so!
Does it seem that Rasmussen is just making it up as he goes along?
Remember, Rasmussen wants you to pay him to look at the history of this wondrous daily match-up tracker.
In a hypothetical 2012 matchup, the president leads Mitt Romney 47% to 43%. If Rick Santorum is the Republican nominee, the president leads by the same margin, 47% to 43%.
And the job approval numbers:
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 27% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -15 (see trends).
Overall, 46% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's job performance. Fifty-three percent (53%) at least somewhat disapprove.
So 42% (of "likely voters, mind you) "strongly disapprove" of Obama's job performance.
And 43% (of "likely voters") would vote for either Republican candidate - but not Ron Paul, apparently.
Those numbers are virtually identical. Statistically speaking, they are identical.
It seems obvious that the Republican candidates are only attracting the strongest detractors of Obama.
Subtract the number that disapprove from the number voting for the Republican candidate, and you get 7% of the nation's "likely voters" who would not currently vote for the Republican candidate even though they are unhappy with the President.
We are told that 46% at least "somewhat approve" of Obama's job performance.
We are also told that 47% of the nation's "likely voters" would currently vote for Obama in a match-up.
Again, those numbers are statistically identical.
It seems obvious that Obama is attracting everyone who is at least "somewhat' happy with him.
Now, you can say that the gap between "strongly approves" and "somewhat approves" means that 20% of Obama's supporters won't show up to vote. Of course, you would be neglecting that these are likely voters.
Rasmussen seems to be implying the creation of some kind of new voter: the ultra-likely voter.
Unfortunately for Rasmussen, the vote of an enraged, highly motivated person counts exactly the same as the vote as a marginally enthusiastic person. You can't vote with an exclamation point. And, either someone is likely to vote or they aren't. Scotty's basically making up the definitions for these terms in the first place. And, considering he sets the rules, his narrative doesn't hold up under casual scrutiny.
In the partisan Republican world, the President is a reviled figure that only 27% of the electorate likes. We are told continuously that Obama is a complete failure, a dangerous schemer, an out-of-touch elitist, and a "socialist". Everyone "knows" this. And the economy is horrible, which means that it's all Obama's fault.
What can they possibly make, then, of polls that regularly show Obama winning match-ups with their conservative champions?
Easy, in the Republicans' minds. A lot of those people who say that they are voting for Obama won't vote, or can't vote. As for the rest, their minds will change once they get exposed to campaign advertising that tells people that the President is bad.
Okay, that's crazy.
All of these criticisms of Obama have been screamed before. Hell, they've never really stopped.
And the Republican 'ideas' have all been heard before. The House has been too busy de-funding NPR and trying to humiliate Obama to put those ideas into effect. Tax cuts. Yeah. Heard that one. Those Bush tax cuts have got the economy rolling, haven't they?
This is a large part of what happened for the Republicans in 2008. They mistakenly believed that "base appeals" are effective on the general electorate. They really aren't.
If the talking points of these anticipated game-changing advertisements are similar to those currently being pushed by Fox News, the right-wing blogosphere, or talk radio, then they won't work. The people who are receptive to that type of appeal have already sided with the Republicans. Hearing Obama being blamed for a bad economy the 2354th time isn't suddenly going to do what the 2353rd instance failed to accomplish.
Republicans, consider this:
You have spent over four years already (including the campaign) telling the nation how scary, evil, clueless, and weird Obama is. You've used every angle, from the crazy conspiracies to the legislative logjam to attack the guy. This has got you 40% of the electorate, and you've pretty much had that same 40% since the middle of 2009. If this line worked on more than that 40%, it would have worked by now.
Even with all of that, there's still 7% of the electorate that's unhappy with Obama, but unwilling to vote for your guy.
We've been locked in to majority disapproval of Obama for over two years now, and the President is still winning in match-ups against your two most likely candidates. And this is all data from your favourite conservative pollster, not the "liberal media".
You guys are supposed to be business minds, and all that. You must be familiar with the concept of "diminishing returns". Think about how likely tripling the amount of harsh criticism is going to pay off for you. It'll get the people already on your side frothing mad, but that's not really such a good idea when you want to appeal to the general electorate, is it? People are pretty tired of the screeching, spittle-flecked rage coming from you guys already. How do you come back from all that when you lose? More importantly, how does that allow your nominee room to take more moderate positions after the primaries?
You are going to try and moderate after the primaries, aren't you?
You guys are so screwed.-------------------------
Pollster ratings from fivethirtyeight.com, based on 2010 elections:
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