Tuesday, January 20, 2009

They All Fall Down


Anybody see a trend?

Only tells me that it's the people who somehow believe they're going to get a free pony with the new guy who are inevitably let down. ie-unrealistic expectations.

Shows a president shouldn't even care about approval ratings and should just do whatever the hell he wants. They'll all hate him in the end.

14 comments:

Hot Sam said...

This is as good an argument as any for limiting a president to one four-year term.

I simply cannot believe the daily, bogus polls showing Obama at approval ratings in the high 70's.

For Christ's sake, the guy got only 52% of the vote two months ago. Twenty-five percent of Americans are Republican. More than half of the country self-identifies as some degree of conservative.

He's done NOTHING yet except choose his cabinet, and that has already been fraught with problems.

The polls, if not outright lies, are functionally meaningless. Take a poll in a year, and maybe I'll believe it.

Anonymous said...

ummm . . . I can't figure out what values the y axis represents. I mean, I know it's percent, but percent of what? Change in GDP? Year-over-year income growth?

I hate asking questions with obvious answers, but I've looked at the graph at least five times now and I can't see what the y axis is supposed to represent.

screwtape_iii said...

People are already complaining because there weren't enough Obama ponies to go around at the inauguration.

Anonymous said...

ALL fall down?? Looks like Reagan broke even and Clinton came out ahead.

Anonymous said...

But they need high approval ratings for the reelection after 4 years. It would help if presidents could not be reelected. Let them serve only one longer term, say 6 years.

Anonymous said...

Eisenhower never dropped below 50%. I guess people really did like Ike.

Nice chart though. It really brings out the stupidity of people, thinking, "This time it'll be different. We have hope and change now!"

CBMTTek said...

Now, that is an interesting graph. It just demonstrates something that most people already knew, but probably never took the time to prove.

I do notice a few interesting things though.
1: Clinton actually ended his terms with a better approval rating then he started with.
2: Nixon was on the way up until Watergate happened.
3: Reagan was also on the way up, a trend that actually continued on well into Bush Sr. (Bet it was that "read my lips" thing)

It would be interesting to see how the approval ratings correlate to the economic situation. Folks were generally getting richer through the Clinton years, and Bush Sr. oversaw about three years before the recession hit in '91. The first couple of years of Reagan was not exactly stellar in terms of economic growth either.

I find it difficult to believe that our new President will be able to sustain anywhere near the popularity he currently enjoys. I could see his chart plummeting just like Truman's first year.

Anonymous said...

Barry O has a 12% built in approval rating if one considers that the African-Americans will never express a negative view of Him to a polster.

I'll bet dollars to donuts that the press never turns on their creation. It wasn't Dr. Frankenstein who turned on the monster.

Ian said...

The actual tend indicated is media control.

Other than being male, and American, the only commonality between Reagan and Clinton was their ability to reach the voters directly rather than allowing the media to filter their message. Reagan did it by direct broadcasts, Clinton, with the support of the media.

With Obama, the junkyard dog caught the Oldsmobile, and with little thought having been put into the point beyond the election, expect the media to turn on Obama within the '100 days'.

Ever wonder why no one points to the fact that using '100 days' as a measure is to indirectly support world government, socialism and oppression by tacitly accepting the metric system as being the correct measuring system?

Always counter with .274 years if you need to reference the 100 day period.

Anonymous said...

POSTED BY IAN: "Ever wonder why no one points to the fact that using '100 days' as a measure is to indirectly support world government, socialism and oppression by tacitly accepting the metric system as being the correct measuring system?

Always counter with .274 years if you need to reference the 100 day period."

Picking 100 days has nothing to do with the metric system. If they'd tried to split the year into 100 equal parts and do away with 365 days, THAT would be metric-mongering.

100 days is simply way more marketable than 0.274 years, or 14.3 weeks, or 3.3 months.

Unknown said...

It's very simple. Whenever a president goes below 40% in approval ratings, we shoot him.

Then we never have an unpopular president.

Of course the country will go down the pot because the President will focus on short-term goals and political alliances. Which would be... . At least it's one less politician every four years.

Anonymous said...

One of the risks with relying on the type of emotional "messianic" and "cult-like" appeal that Obama has built is that it can implode very quickly since it's not based on substantive logical thought.

It ought to be quite a show when the emotional idealism and energy collides with the hard, cold truth of reality.

Anonymous said...

POSTED BY IAN: "Ever wonder why no one points to the fact that using '100 days' as a measure is to indirectly support world government, socialism and oppression by tacitly accepting the metric system as being the correct measuring system?"

As an aeronautical engineer, the only kind of engineer or scientist subjected to an archaic and arbitrary system of measures, I resent your association of an elegant system with a misconceived system of debauchery.

Oh, and sweet graph, very intriguing.

Anonymous said...

"As an aeronautical engineer, the only kind of engineer or scientist subjected to an archaic and arbitrary system of measures, I resent your association of an elegant system with a misconceived system of debauchery."

I'm with you; I support the metric system every inch of the way.

:)