Obama v Reagan

January 17th, 2011 at 10:20 am by David Farrar

The Republican Presidential Primaries will be held in early 2012, and there is huge jockeying for position already. Obama has relatively low approval ratings but nearly two years out from the presidential election these count for little.

In 1982 Ronald Reagan, now considered one of the most popular politician of all time, faced a tough economy and a democrat controlled congress. As the chart below from USA Today shows, Obama is clearly ahead of where Reagan was at the same time in his presidency.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/presidential-approval-tracker.htm

This is a fascinating tracker poll. You can track any president against any other using the compare chart.

Tracker polls like this are interesting because they point to historical precedent. So when the media start talking about low approval ratings for Obama it pays to be skeptical as to how much influence this has on his reelection campaign.

Also worth noting that Obama’s approval is on the rise.

Tags: Barack Obama

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34 Responses to “Obama v Reagan”

andrei (2,058) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 10:32 am
Why don’t you do the comparison of Obama with Jimmy Carter?

It looks much the same.

So basically the exercise is meaningless as a predictive tool.

Obama is no Ronald Reagan but he may well be a Jimmy Carter
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scrubone (2,303) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 10:38 am
But Reagan was able to deliver a major Dem state, which put Dems at a significant disadvantage right out of the gate.

Obama didn’t do that, he simply pushed a very divided country his way somewhat. It could easily swing back.
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Diziet Sma (109) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 10:51 am
I think Reagan gained more significant results though didn’t get a Nobel Prize.
There’s some controversy brewing over his son’s book:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_reagan_alzheimers
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Bob R (1,018) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 10:53 am
***Obama is no Ronald Reagan but he may well be a Jimmy Carter***

Carter didn’t have 45 million Hispanics, with 65-70% of them planning on supporting Democrats.
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GJKiwi (140) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 10:53 am
Interesting that you think that there is any correlation between someone’s approval rating at this point in their Presidency and their chances of re-election. Americans tend to re-elect their presidents, unless they die in office or are ineligible for re-election. Even G W Bush was re-elected, despite being the worst president of the modern era. The most interesting thing is the Democratic party has almost twice as many signed up members as the Republican party, and yet that doesn’t follow in elections. It will really be interesting to see whether the recent Congressional elections were strategic voting on the part of the the electorate or whether there has been a shift to the right. I would also like to remind you of William Jefferson Clinton, who got a minority of the vote in 1982 and yet won the next election most handsomely, a trend followed by G. W. Bush. Much will be dependent on the economy in the year of the election, which seems to be the most important factor in American politics. The Bush reaction to most major incidents in his time in office was like a possum caught in a spotlight, and yet somehow he was re-elected.
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Ryan Sproull (5,536) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 10:55 am
Man, JFK was popular.
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Pauleastbay (3,726) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 11:05 am
My God, you look at that list and you see a lot of ineptness. Johnson and Reagan were the only two to really achieve anything. Johnson domestically and Reagan internationally.
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andrei (2,058) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 11:11 am
“The Bush reaction to most major incidents in his time in office was like a possum caught in a spotlight“
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tom hunter (3,852) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 11:25 am
I would also like to remind you of William Jefferson Clinton, who got a minority of the vote in 1982 and yet won the next election most handsomely, a trend followed by G. W. Bush.

First, it was 1992. Second, he could win with not much more than 40% of the vote because egomaniac Ross Perot sucked enough votes away from Bush I to make the difference. Quite different to the minority vote of Bush in 2000.

The Bush reaction to most major incidents in his time in office was like a possum caught in a spotlight, and yet somehow he was re-elected.

Oh please – most Presidents have a mix of such. In Bush’s case that’s the Katrina accusation, whereas the far-left accusation on Afghanistan and Iraq was that Bush had “rushed into war”. Similarly, if you wanted to see a possum in the headlights you could not go past Obama’s reaction to the Gulf Oil Spill.

Frankly I have some sympathy with any President faced with such things, particularly in light of the fact that the US government is supposed to consist of many moving parts, ranging from municipal to state to federal government: it’s not supposed to be a bloody kingdom where the head honcho is constantly pulling the strings. Even were that the desire – and the way people are moving it looks more and more like that everyday – it would not work in a country of 300 million people. Failures of centralised command and control systems and all that.

Much will be dependent on the economy in the year of the election, which seems to be the most important factor in American politics.

Yep – and just like Clinton, that will depend on whether the House GOP has the courage and smarts to tackle the problems with government spending and bureaucracy. I’m not hopeful.
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GJKiwi (140) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 11:28 am
Very interesting to see that both George H W Bush and George W Bush both achieved the highest approval ratings of all time, and yet both were eventually seen for the incompetents that they were. The highest averages seem to have been Eisenhower, Reagan and Clinton. Eisenhower and Clinton both presided over booming economies due to real growth and Reagan presided over growth stimulated by the largest borrowing in U.S. history, leaving the U.S. 8 trillion in debt by the end of his presidency. He was followed by George H W Bush who left a further 4 trillion in debt, gross debt being 12 trillion. Clinton presided over the IT boom of the 90s, so it was no wonder he was so popular. He was possibly also popular due to his alleged sexual exploits, oddly enough both with women and men.
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GJKiwi (140) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 11:32 am
Actually, Obama reacted immediately, whereas Bush in 2001 reacted like he’d been hit by a hammer. It took the Bush administration more than 4 days to come up with any reaction to Hurricane Katrina at all. It was the most incompetent display by a President I’ve ever seen.
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GJKiwi (140) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 11:36 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR_rFXXz_44&feature=related Possum caught in a spotlight.
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AlphaKiwi (613) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 11:44 am
We tend to forget Reagan presided over the genocide in South America.
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KiwiGreg (2,796) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 11:53 am
“We tend to forget Reagan presided over the genocide in South America.”

I had completely forgotten he was president of South America as well. Didn’t even know it was a country.
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tom hunter (3,852) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 11:54 am
Ah

Once again I made the mistake of thinking I was dealing with a reasonable person, only to find it’s a Michael Moore fanatic.

I always wondered exactly what people like you thought he should have done in that instant – jump to his feet yelling duck and cover? In fact he reacted exactly as I would expect a CEO to: he knew that there was nothing he could do in that instant, or in the minutes after that would make one damned bit of difference to the events in motion. That’s actually what you have all those government agencies for.

But again, if you believe that a President should operate as if he holds all the strings and that an instant tug on one or the other will have an effect, then I guess there’s no point arguing further with you, as evidenced by this other assertion:

Reagan presided over growth stimulated by the largest borrowing in U.S. history, leaving the U.S. 8 trillion in debt by the end of his presidency

Here’s a graph of the US debt ceiling. You’ll note that the ceiling rose from about $US1 trillion when Reagan took office to about $US 3 trillion when he left, the level at which it stayed during the Bush 41 administration. During Clinton’s time it rose from that level to $US6 trillion, so if you want to make that argument….
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GJKiwi (140) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 12:01 pm
AlphaKiwi: Not I sir, not I! Reagan presided over providing weapons and training to the insurgents, not in South, but Central America, and of course, using money from the Middle East to fund the weapons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_policy_of_the_Ronald_Reagan_administration I would point out the two sections, “Nicaragua and Latin America” and “Iran-Contra affair”. So, the Reagan administration was covertly supporting the Iranians? The sworn enemy of America? Wow! Whose idea was that? Of course, Reagan’s son now claims he was suffering Parkinson’s disease during his administration, so that of course exonerates him from blame.
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s.russell (1,288) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 12:04 pm
The US political system makes it difficult for any president to achieve anything. And even more difficult to gain popularity by doing so. Almost anything worth achieving is going to piss off a lot of people, and mobilise a vastruthless fear-mongering attack against said president that will damage their popularity. This is part of what is meant by “political capital”. In the US you spend poularity to gain achievements. If you don’t spend it, it melts away anyway and people think you are a waste of time because you have not tried to achieve anything.

The Democrats’control of Congress helped to create an expectation of achievement for Obama, which inevitably cost him popularity (I do not believe there was any course of action he could have taken which would have sustained it).

The Republican control of Congress now gives him the perfect excuse for not achieving anything useful. He will be judged on empty gestures, speeches, posturing and style: all of which he is good at.

Even if the Republicans manage to nominate someone electable for 2012 I expect Obama to win. But the Republicans will probably put up someone insane, and Obama will win in a canter.
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Fletch (4,305) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Reagan had a backbone at least, which Obama is sorely lacking. Listen to Reagan’s speech here. He speaks of the Liberals, then, but this could easily be directed to Barrack Obama now. Just replace “Iron Curtain” and “Khrushchev” with “Iran” and “Ahmadinejad” and he could be speaking about the United States current policy of appeasement. We need more men with backbone like this today.

Full text –

Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us that they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy “accommodation.” And they say if we only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he will forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer–not an easy answer–but simple.

If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based upon what we know in our hearts is morally right. We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion now in slavery behind the Iron Curtain, “Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skin, we are willing to make a deal with your slave masters.” Alexander Hamilton said, “A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.” Let’s set the record straight. There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace–and you can have it in the next second–surrender.

Admittedly there is a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face–that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight and surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand–the ultimatum. And what then? When Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we are retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will have weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he has heard voices pleading for “peace at any price” or “better Red than dead,” or as one commentator put it, he would rather “live on his knees than die on his feet.” And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don’t speak for the rest of us. You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin–just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard ’round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn’t die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it’s a simple answer after all.
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Murray (8,832) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 12:08 pm
Of course his approval is on the rise, thats what happens you catapult into the deck at a thousand miles an hour, you freaken bounce.
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Gulag1917 (152) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 12:26 pm
A problem Obama is having now is getting money for campaigning because he has upset supporters in the New York banking/financial sector.
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AlphaKiwi (613) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 12:31 pm
@ Gulag
How’s that? He’s making them rich, isn’t he?
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Gulag1917 (152) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 12:41 pm
Obama’s team is running into resistance in at least one key fundraising hub — New York City, where some of Obama’s biggest 2008 backers have bitterly protested last year’s passage of financial reform legislation and what they perceived as an unfair bad-mouthing of bankers during the debate.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47596.html
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GJKiwi (140) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 1:09 pm
Tom, I would have expected G W to have stood up, made a brief announcement that a matter of major importance had just occurred and that he needed to leave immediately. As we now know, the Bush administration actually did nothing much that day. And no, I’m not into conspiracy theories, and certainly not a Michael Moore fanatic. Reagan’s presidency had little to do with Michael Moore. No, I don’t think that the president holds all of the strings, but he should be giving direction, and he should let people know that he is on the ball. Regarding 911 (actually in most of the world, 11/9/2001) I don’t think that Bush actually made any speeches at all that day. (I suppose that 911 makes it more interesting in the US because that is their emergency number, good for the conspiracy theorists) Republicans seem to thrive on conflict and negative world views.

Here is an interesting graph, showing that Clinton managed to cap the deficit spending in his second term in office and then bang, in comes Bush and away it goes again. So that immediately gives the lie to the Republican accusation that Democrats are tax and spend.

http://traxel.com/deficit/deficit-percentage-50-years.png

The current
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tom hunter (3,852) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 1:10 pm
The list of incorrect facts grows longer with every posting…

Reagan’s son now claims he was suffering Parkinson’s disease during his administration,

Actually he’s claiming that he was already suffering from Alzhiemers, not Parkinsons, before he left office. As numerous blog articles have pointed out, even the former was not diagnosed until 1994, five years after he left office. David Gergen, who has advised both Democratic and GOP presidents, went on TV to denounce the claim and, as quietly as he could, tell Ron Reagan Jnr, to give it up.

It does not matter of course, this is another theme like the recent Tucson blood libel of the right, it’s too good for the left to let go of. The claim about Reagan has been refuted many times by doctors and others who dealt with him, but it will never stop the claims, since they feed into the “Reagan is a moron” assertion that started the moment he ran for President in 1980.

Regrettably I was one of those who bought into it in the 1980′s.
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GJKiwi (140) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Tom, I was being facetious. Reagan just wasn’t very bright. Whether he had Alzheimer’s or Parkison’s post-presidency is a moot point. His belief that you could reduce taxes and increase spending just wasn’t very good economics, similar to the G. W. Bush administration allowing the growth of companies like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae lending to people who couldn’t really afford to repay their loans.
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tom hunter (3,852) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 1:30 pm
Tom, I would have expected G W to have stood up, made a brief announcement that a matter of major importance had just occurred and that he needed to leave immediately.

Fair enough. But as I already stated I see no point in the few minutes difference or even 1/2 an hour, given that wheels of government are designed and supposed to turn in those situations, whether the President is there or not. The people on the frontlines are supposed to know what they’re doing and not need direction in fixing the immediate problem or disaster. We can disagree about that – but it’s just partisan BDS to use the clip from F 9/11 as part of the argument.

By the way, Bush spoke three times on TV that day: once at the school after he’d finished the class session, another from some bunker in the Midwest, and finally that night in an address to the nation.

Actually, Obama reacted immediately, ….

Actually he did not. Here’s a hardline, right-wing extremist who was very unhappy about both the speed and the incompetence of the Obama response to the oil spill – James Carville.
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tom hunter (3,852) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 1:39 pm
Here is an interesting graph, showing that Clinton managed to cap the deficit spending in his second term in office…

In the constitution it’s actually the Congress, not the Presidential administration, that holds the purse strings. So if you were being fair-minded (* cough *) you’d actually give credit both the GOP House and Senate that chopped a lot of crap out of the budget, as well as Clinton for going along with that.

….and then bang, in comes Bush and away it goes again.

Won’t argue with that. The GOP pissed away whatever credibility they had when they went along with the whole “compassionate conservative” rubbish from Bush. I don’t think he vetoed a single spending bill in six years – and the excuse that he had to keep people onside for the higher priority war effort is not good enough.

So that immediately gives the lie to the Republican accusation that Democrats are tax and spend.

True up to the end of 2006, when voters punished them for that and people like Nancy and Harry actually talked about terrible deficits and runaway spending. Thankfully the Democrats immediately blew the centrist bonafides that Clinton had so painfully earned and went on a spending spree, starting from January 2007 when they took power over the House and Senate, that so vastly exceeded even the GOP that voters destroyed them for it a few months ago.

Lousy as the GOP has been on tax and spend the Dems have helpfully handed the meme right back to them.
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Murray (8,832) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 1:57 pm
You’ve got Reagans IQ test tresults in front of you have you GJ?

If not you’re expressing opinion so state them as such, not claim it to be a fact. Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one.
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tom hunter (3,852) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 2:01 pm
Reagan just wasn’t very bright….. His belief that you could reduce taxes and increase spending just wasn’t very good economics,

That was the belief of a number of Phd-equipped economists as well, so “bright” is perhaps not the droid you’re looking for. There are bounds of tax levels within which different effects apply. It’s called the Laffer Curve and you can learn about the effects here in these three video clips from the Cato Institute.

You may be surprised to learn that while this right-wing group counters the dimbulb idea that raising taxes always means increasing tax revenue, they also take shots at people who argue that cutting taxes always increases tax revenue. There’s a “sweet spot”, it’s not actually to do with tax revenue per se but with the effect of tax rates on economic growth and suffice to say, Reagan appeared to hit that sweet spot.

…similar to the G. W. Bush administration allowing the growth of companies like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae lending to people who couldn’t really afford to repay their loans.

Sigh. That might make a good argument were it not for the fact that the policies of giving mortgages to people who could not afford them, so that they could buy a house, started under Carter and really accelerated under Clinton. Notably one of Obama’s claims to fame was pushing this policy on reluctant Chicago banks as hard as he could in his role as a community organiser.

Once again, Bush’s bloody “compassionate conservatism” led him to pick up the ball from Clinton and run with it for a few years, advised by Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, who bluntly said that the US needed a “housing bubble” to replace the collapsed tech bubble (yes – really).

However, by 2003 even Bush and co realised it was heading for disaster, bolstered by Greenspan’s warnings. Here’s a link showing what Bush, McCain and other Republicans tried to do in 2003 to stop the insanity of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae: you will note the contributions of Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats in opposing any changes to the status quo. I especially love this quote from that time:

“These two entities-Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac-are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

– Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.),ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee.
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Pauleastbay (3,726) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 2:37 pm
GJKiwi (39) Says: Tom, I was being facetious. Reagan just wasn’t very bright. Whether he had Alzheimer’s or Parkison’s post-presidency is a moot point.

……………………………..
Its not a moot point, who cares what happens after the Presidency, most of them suffer death afterwards as well, thats not a moot point either

Ronnie certainly wasn’t the moron you would have him made out to be. He certainly was yards ahead of the inept egomaniac Carter

Good post Tom Hunter, like it al lot
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Fletch (4,305) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Actually, critics who have looked at Reagan’s papers and writings now say he was very intelligent. The Left like to paint those they disagree with as being stupid – it’s purely a smear tactic.

I think the days of the Left having a monopoly on the media are over; or rather, the Left having a monopoly on the narrative via the mainstream media is over. I think the average Joe finally has had the blinders removed and can see what’s happening; can see the tactics of the progressives. The polls naming FOX news as most trusted, or most watched prove it. More people go on the internet now to check for themselves. I think Andrew Brietbart’s ‘Big’ news network has made a great difference.
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Fletch (4,305) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 2:50 pm
Recently a treasure trove of documents was discovered that demolishes such myths about Reagan. These papers were found stacked in cardboard boxes at the Reagan library and were never reviewed by historians, including his authorized biographer, Edmund Morris.

These documents, written in Reagan’s own hand, span more than three decades and prove that the entire conventional (read “left-wing”) thinking about Reagan was 100 percent false.

Reagan, the documents prove, was highly intelligent, extremely well informed on a staggering number of issues, a gifted writer, and a man of foresight and vision.

Many of these documents have just now been released in the form of a new book: “Reagan in His Own Hand: The Writings of Ronald Reagan That Reveal His Revolutionary Vision for America,” edited by Kiron K. Skinner, Annelise Anderson and Martin Anderson (Free Press, 2001).

Anderson has an answer.

He believes that Reagan learned from an early age to hide his intelligence. He likens the situation to the smartest kid in the class who is usually the most disliked. Reagan wanted be liked, so he kept his mouth shut.

Reagan, Anderson notes, showed signs of extreme intelligence. By age 5 he had taught himself to read. By age 6 he was reading newspapers.

The documents show that Reagan, who was portrayed by the media as someone who didn’t like to read, read voraciously, from all of the major papers to current and historical books, and even scholarly journals. He quoted from his readings all the time.

LINK
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AlphaKiwi (613) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 3:04 pm
The saddest image of Reagan.

Who tells the President to speed it up?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTcL6Xc_eMM (Volume low, needs to be turned up).
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iMP (1,307) Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 4:16 pm
The growing disconnect between Obama and middle-America will be a factor, plus the added let down of not being able to fulfill the unrealistic Messiah expectations he rode to power on the back of the anti-Bush Jnr sentiment. Don’t underestimate the grass roots power of the Tea party to get out against Obama, this is a cross cultural sociio-economic movemnet building in political intensity.

Also, Obama is weak on foreign policy (hopelessly naive and idealistic) with the added is-he-isn’t he-Muslim fog. One serious attack on American security and Americans will swing in numbers to conservativism and McCain-style politics. This is the core of America. Bowing to the Saud king deeply offended Americans and left them confused.These are simply not issues that surround presidents like Carter/Reagan/even Clinton, they are unique to Obama, so factors impacting 2012 will not show up on historic poll charts.
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Obama v Reagan

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