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MONDAY,  APRIL 5,  2010

CRAZY KARZAI – AT 6:40 P.M. ET:  Afghanistanian President Hamid Karzai has launched several stunning verbal attacks on the United States, even as American forces are trying to save his country and his government.  His lack of gratitude is classic.  Try helping anyone in the Muslim world and you're usually repaid with abuse.  From Fox:

The Obama administration once again is troubled and "frustrated" by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who reportedly is threatening to align with the Taliban while accusing the United States of meddling in his country's affairs.

"The remarks are troubling and the substance of the remarks are simply not true," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday.

President Obama's top spokesman suggested the trouble with Karzai could endanger U.S. military operations in the country. He was reacting to comments Karzai made Saturday during a private meeting with Afghan lawmakers. They came after Karzai and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to patch things up Friday following a similar outburst earlier in the week in which he accused Western governments of sabotaging his election.

"I said it was troubling on Friday. Obviously, it didn't get any better," Gibbs said.

COMMENT:  Look, we're stuck with Karzai.  He's a corruptionist, a liar, and a crook.  Otherwise, he's a terrific guy with a flair for nice colors.  Gives good commencement speeches in America, too.

I won't defend the conniving Karzai, but the fact is that there's no great penalty for attacking the United States.  And why shouldn't he attack us?  We have a president who's already announced that our forces will start leaving Afghanistan next year.  Try being an Afghan leader getting that message while fighting an insurgency.  The insurgents may be running the show in a couple of years.  s 

Strange, but Karzai didn't make sport of the United States when George Bush was president.  I wonder why.

April 5, 2010    Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 6:27 P.M. ET:  From conservative law professor and blogger Hugh Hewitt, in the Washington Examiner:

The president's popularity is plummeting -- down to a 44 percent approval rating in the most recent, post-Obamacare CBS poll -- and his rhetoric is getting angrier as he tours the country demanding that critics of Obamacare shut up.

His predecessor, George W. Bush, was blasted by the media when he used "Bring it on" against our nation's enemies.

President Obama's jeering "Let them try" challenge was followed by a sneering attempt at stand-up in Portland, Maine, on Friday when he compared critics of the new health care regime to fools wondering why seeds don't sprout immediately upon planting.

Americans love a good winner, but when the winner is a whiner, the public's reaction is not going to be admiration.

The president ran in 2008 as a post-partisan "uniter" who would usher in an era of bipartisan reform, but he has chosen to become a polarizing figure and a Chicago jam-down artist for whom trash talk is as much a part of his daily game. Rarely has the promise been so far removed from the result.

COMMENT:  So true, so true.  This is what happens when you send an amateur to do the job.  At base, Obama is a small-timer with a golden voice.   He reminds me of many of the Hollywood executives I've known who think their Ivy League degrees bought them talent.  And, strangely, a lot of them also say they like basketball, and have those little miniature hoops in their office.

April 5, 2010    Permalink

REID IS HARRIED – AT 6:15 P.M. ET:  Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, may not be back after the November election.  Moving vans may be alerted.  From The Hill:

Majority Leader Harry Reid barely cracks the 40% mark in his bid for re-election and trails two of his possible opponents by double digits, according to a new Rasmussen poll.

When paired against former state GOP chairwoman Sue Lowden, Reid trails 54%-39%. Former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle leads by a similar margin of 51%-39%.

Reid does slightly better against businessman Danny Tarkanian, to whom he would lose 49%-42% if the election were held today.

A devastating 53% of Nevadans have a "very unfavorable view" of Reid.

COMMENT:  They are obviously tough in Nevada. 

It's fairly common, by the way, for members of Congress who rise to high position to begin to suffer in popularity in their own states or districts.  Voters sometimes get the sense that the congressperson or senator has lost touch with the folks back home.  This is especially a problem with senators who become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  An inordinate number of them have come to political grief when running for reelection.

But the election isn't being held today.  Let's see if Republicans will fight hard enough to carry today's advantage through to November.

April 5,  2010   Permalink

THE MAN WHO WOULD TAKE OBAMA'S SEAT – AT 9:46 A.M. ET:   There is a very spirited race going on in Illinois, political garden spot of the nation, for the Senate seat rarely used by Barack Obama before he was elevated to royal status.  NRO reports on the defective-on-delivery Democratic candidate:

Republicans are well positioned to do something extraordinary in November: Win the Senate seats vacated by a Democratic president and vice president in the next election cycle. In Delaware, Republican Mike Castle leads his opponent by approximately 20 points — game over, in all likelihood. In Illinois, things are getting interesting. Polls show a tight, volatile race between Republican Congressman Mark Kirk and former State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, a Democrat.

In Illinois, Republicans have nominated attractive Congressman Mark Kirk.  And the Dem candidate?  A chip off the old cell block:

Alexi Giannoulias is a young, exceedingly ambitious politician with extensive ties to the very worst elements of the sordid Illinois Democratic machine. (With impeached/indicted former Governor Rod Blagojevich and convicted felon Tony Rezko in the mix, the TV commercials practically write themselves):

Friday's Chicago Tribune featured an in-depth look into the financial troubles of Giannoulias's family bank, including the role the candidate himself played in loaning $20 million to known members of organized crime:

"The family bank of Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias loaned a pair of Chicago crime figures about $20 million during a 14-month period when Giannoulias was a senior loan officer, according to a Tribune examination that provides new details about the bank's relationship with the convicted felons."

Look, these people have to eat, and they need proper guns.

Oh, and Obama has a walk-on in the drama:

Incidentally, how did a certain good-government, transparency-advocating, hopey-changey presidential candidate react to this news about his hoops buddy?

"After the press revealed that Giannoulias had basically lied about Giorango, Obama said he was "concerned," but he didn't actually do anything about it. Nor did he have any problems taking about $14,000 from Giannoulias, his family members, and at least one other manager at Broadway during his 2008 presidential campaign two years later."

Yes. Very, very "concerned."

Finally...

It's no secret that Illinois has been plagued by political corruption for generations. Despite Illinois being a solidly blue state, there's a reasonable chance that its citizens simply won't abide a dishonest mob banker representing them in the U.S. Senate. Stay tuned: Between the Democrats' Chicago Way tactics and Giannoulias's disreputable background, this race could get ugly.

COMMENT:  Get?  It already is ugly.  But we wait for the White House press corps to ask the president a single question about the strange doings in the land of Lincoln.

April 5, 2010    Permalink

THE TRUTH DRIBBLES OUT – AT 9:15 A.M. ET:  Despite the White House's perpetual campaign, with the president making one ridiculous claim after another, the truth about the economy, and other things, drips out like an intravenous feeding.  It's just as pleasant as well.  From Fox:

Despite a modest rise last month in employment, the White House on Sunday braced out-of-work Americans for a slow economic recovery.

Obama's chief economic adviser Lawrence Summers said on a pair of talk shows that a year after the passage of the stimulus bill, the U.S. economy still has "a long way to go."

Summers said pushing the unemployment rate down from its current 9.7 percent level won't be easy.

But wasn't that the purpose of the stimulus bill?

He said Obama was preoccupied with creating jobs. "The trend has turned, but to get back to the surface, we've got a long way to go," Summers said.

The economy added about 162,000 jobs in March, the most in nearly three years. A large percentage of the gains were temporary census workers hired by the federal government, and the unemployment rate held firm at 9.7 percent. The additional 123,000 private-sector jobs were the most since May 2007.

The economy is growing again, but at a pace unlikely to quickly replace the 8.4 million jobs erased in the recession that began in late 2007. More than 11 million people are drawing unemployment insurance benefits.

COMMENT:  Job growth depends on the ability of industry to hire people.  But industry is being hit with new taxes and Obamacare costs.  Not wise, not wise.  This administration has yet to contemplate the meaning of the term, "timing."

At the same time, a few people at the top, especially on Wall Street, are hauling in outrageous "bonuses," for work whose value is often hard to discern.  This is causing palpable anger throughout the country, and justifiably so.   The free-enterprise system, like all social mechanisms, has the capacity to destroy itself, and a small number of high-profile but irresponsible "players" (that's what they often call themselves) seem determined to do so.

April 5, 2010    Permalink

WHAT?  YOU MEAN THEY'RE NORMAL PEOPLE?  MY PILLS!  QUICKLY, MY PILLS! – AT 8:50 A.M. ET:  There is shocking news to report.  Please sit down.  American pollsters – not connected with any foreign government, oil company, or failing cable network – have concluded that tea party people are normal.  Andrew Malcolm of the L.A. Times's Top of the Ticket blog, has the story:

Now, comes a pair of polls, including Gallup, that paint a revealing detailed portrait of Tea Party supporters in most ways as pretty average Americans. A Sunday poll -- actually three national phone surveys of 1,000 registered voters -- found that 17% of all polled, or more than 500, called themselves "part of the Tea Party movement."

"It's a good sample size," David Winston, polling director of the Winston Group that did the poll for an education advocacy group, told the Ballot Box blog of The Hill newspaper.

The Tea Party adherents broke down 28% independent, 17% Democrat and only 57% Republican.

They aren't fascists?  It's a crooked poll.

A new Gallup Poll out this morning of 1,033 finds nothing fringe about self-proclaimed Tea Party adherents; they are slightly more likely to be employed, male and definitely more conservative. But otherwise Gallup's Lydia Saad writes, "their age, educational background, employment status, and race -- Tea Partiers are quite representative of the public at large."

COMMENT:  Do these results mean that Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews have to banish themselves to Venezuela and join the Caracas Foreign Legion?  Let us hope so. 

I wonder how much these polls will be quoted today by the mainstream media.  Don't hold your breath.

April 5, 2010   Permalink

OUR UNSERIOUSNESS ABOUT IRAN – AT 8:11 A.M. ET:  After the Nazi invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, and the British and French declarations of war against Germany, there followed a long lull that came to be known as the "phony war."  Some assumed the sides just wouldn't fight.  They were wrong.

Now we have the "phony policy."  It's our policy toward Iran.  The president and his trusty sidekick, Hillary, say that an Iranian nuclear bomb is "unacceptable."  They make much noise about "crippling" sanctions.  Or sanctions that "bite."  Or something.

But nothing much happens, and virtually every report we've read from knowledgeable Washington sources tells us that the international law firm of Obama & Clinton is resigned to an Iranian nuke, and will try to "deter" the Iranians once they have the monster weapon. 

The Wall Street Journal, in a scathing editorial this morning, tears the Obama policy apart and condemns it to the environmentally approved dustbin of history: 

'Our aim is not incremental sanctions, but sanctions that will bite." Thus did Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seek to reassure the crowd at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee two weeks ago about the Obama Administration's resolve on Iran. Three days later, this newspaper reported on its front page that "the U.S. has backed away from pursuing a number of tough measures against Iran" in order to win Russian and Chinese support for one more U.N. sanctions resolution.

Hillary would have made a great Hollywood agent.  She doesn't know where the lies stop and the truth begins. 

This fits the pattern we have seen across the 14 months of the Obama Presidency. Mrs. Clinton called a nuclear-armed Iran "unacceptable" no fewer than four times in a single paragraph in her AIPAC speech. But why should the Iranians believe her? President Obama set a number of deadlines last year for a negotiated settlement of Iran's nuclear file, all of which Tehran ignored, and then Mr. Obama ignored them too.

And...

The Iranians have good reason to think they have little to lose from continued defiance. Tehran's nuclear negotiator emerged from two days of talks in Beijing on Friday saying, "We agreed, sanctions as a tool have already lost their effectiveness." He has a point.

And now the truth.  Drum roll please.  Faster:

All of these actions suggest to us that Mr. Obama has concluded that a nuclear Iran is inevitable, even if he can't or won't admit it publicly. Last year Mrs. Clinton floated the idea of expanding the U.S. nuclear umbrella to the entire Middle East if Iran does get the bomb. She quickly backtracked, but many viewed that as an Obama-ian slip.

The only question is, which ally will Obama blame when Iran gets the bomb?  Israel?  The new Iraq?  Maybe he could find something about Italy.  He will not blame himself.  Never has.  Heavenly creatures do not blame themselves.

And what will be the consequences of this major foreign-policy failure?  The Jo

The Journal points out that, even foreign-affairs hands who accept the inevitability of a nuclear Iran, concede the meaning:

...even they acknowledge that a nuclear Iran "would be seen as a major diplomatic defeat for the United States," in which "friends would respond by distancing themselves from Washington [and] foes would challenge U.S. policies more aggressively." And that's the optimistic scenario. 

Finally...

President George W. Bush will share responsibility for a nuclear Iran given his own failure to act more firmly against the Islamic Republic or to allow Israel to do so, thereby failing to make good on his pledge not to allow the world's most dangerous regimes to get the world's most dangerous weapons. But it is now Mr. Obama's watch, and for a year he has behaved like a President who would rather live with a nuclear Iran than do what it takes to stop it.

COMMENT:  The Journal is right about Bush.  During his second term he allowed his foreign policy to be taken over by Condi Rice and other members of his father's crowd.  The result was decline, drift and indecisiveness. 

The Obama administration is even worse.  I think Bush was sincere about wanting to stop a nuclear Iran, even though his vision was frustrated by his own appointees.  I don't get the sense that the Obama administration is sincere at all.  I don't think the president cares all that much.  I suspect his reasoning is that we can't morally prevent a "third-world" country from having the bomb, when we have so many.  That passes for strategy in some circles.

April 5, 2010    Permalink

TERROR UPDATE – AT 7:53 A.M. ET:  A new terrorist attack against an American target in Pakistan reminds us that the war goes on every day, even though Americans seem to have put it largely out of their thinking:

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- A terrorist attack near the U.S. consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan killed two consulate security guards and at least four others Monday, authorities said.

The two consulate employees who died were Pakistani, the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad said, and "a number of others were seriously wounded."

At least six people were killed in all, a government official said.

The coordinated attack involved a vehicle suicide bomb and attackers who tried to enter the consulate by using grenades and weapons fire, the U.S. Embassy said in a statement.

The blasts in the capital of the North West Frontier Province came hours after a suicide attack killed at least 30 people and wounded 50 others in another part of the province.

The two attacks reflect "the terrorists' desperation as they are rejected by people throughout Pakistan," the embassy statement said.

Peshawar is about 75 miles (120 kilometers) from Islamabad, the country's capital.

COMMENT:  This new attack comes at a time of increased aggressiveness by terror groups in Iraq.  This is the long war.  It will not end on President Obama's timetable.  The terrorists believe they can wait us out and wear us down.  Now that the president has given time schedules for our withdrawal from Afghanistan, the terrorist thinking may be right. 

In a catastrophic and dishonorable action, the United States Congress cut off aid to South Vietnam in 1975, dooming that country to a Communist takeover.  Once the reds took over, the "anti-war" groups in the United States, and their allies in the press, who had been so weepy about the "Vietnamese people," had nothing more to say about them.

History can repeat...unless that is prevented by a GOP victory at the polls in November.

April 5,  2010    Permalink

SUNDAY,  APRIL 4,  2010

DEMOCRATIC KAMIKAZES – AT 7:58 P.M. ET:  Blanche Lincoln is the moderate Democratic senator from Arkansas.  Being moderate from a moderate state isn't enough to satisfy the leftist enforcers in the Democratic Party.  She's impure, she won't stick to the script.

Now the left is taking on Lincoln in a primary.  They reason that she's grown so unpopular that she'll lose in November anyway, so why not run a genuine Democrat who's been cleared by the Inquisition.  From the Washington Post:

Backed by national labor unions and Democratic activists, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter is attacking Lincoln from the left as an uncertain senator who too often tilts right on issues from Wall Street and health care to the environment.

Halter contends that the seat is as good as lost to resurgent Republicans if the centrist Lincoln wins the May 18 primary. He said after leaping into the race last month, "My sense is that people want somebody to fight for them."

To paraphrase the immortal Bill Clinton, it depends on what "people" means.  You get the feeling that Halter defines "people" as the top five percent of Ivy League graduating classes, and the law firms they're headed to.

Halter's challenge, which came as little surprise to the Arkansas political establishment, quickly became a national story. Liberal Democrats, frustrated with President Obama and Congress, cheered the chance to make Lincoln pay for her opposition to a government-run health insurance option and the Employee Free Choice Act that would make it easier for workers to organize.

I'm no Blanche Lincoln fan, but it would be good for the two-party system if she beats back this onslaught from the left.  The Democratic Party is getting narrow enough.  It doesn't need a revolutionary from Arkansas.

While Arkansans are "very moderate," Lincoln said, Halter's support "comes from the far left of our party, whether it's the labor unions or the MoveOn.orgs or some of the others out there who think he's the end all, be all. I think he's wrong."

You'd think, in reading this piece, that there won't be any Republican candidate in November.  There will be, and there's a good chance for a turnover to our favor, no matter which kind of Democrat gets the nomination.

April 4, 2010    Permalink

EXACTLY THE RIGHT WORDS – AT 7:26 P.M. ET:  We've said many times at Urgent Agenda that one of the noblest things you can do in politics is to keep your movement honest.  It's one of the hardest things as well because it often means taking on friends.

Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, today showed how it's done, as he confronted current problems at the Republican National Committee.  From The Politico:

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the recruitment chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said on Sunday the Republican National Committee needs to clean up its house in the wake of news that it spent nearly $2,000 at a bondage club in Hollywood.

“The RNC does have some challenges they need to correct — not only do the American people request it, but the Republicans request it as well … If we’re going to show the American public we believe in accountability back to Washington, we need to make sure the RNC has accountability just the same,” McCarthy said on "Fox News Sunday."

Precisely.  Speaking gently, without meanness, McCarthy frames the issue as one of responsibility and credibility.  He also understands that, contrary to the sneering observations of some elitists, the American people are indeed watching, and do indeed care. 

When Fox host Chris Wallace noted that McCarthy didn’t give RNC Chairman Michael Steele a vote of confidence, McCarthy suggested that Steele needed to implement reforms at the committee.

“Michael Steele has worked very hard," McCarthy said. "When you find the challenges going forward this past week, he was not at the location. He’s trying to correct it. But you’ve got to bring the trust back, and that may mean shaking up some roles within the RNC as well.”

COMMENT:  Most movements and parties that fade away are not destroyed from the outside.  They destroy themselves.  Although Democrats have won some recent elections, their party is weaker nationally today than it was in its heyday – the period from the 1930s through the early 60s – because it has conceded far too much power to reckless factions.  We saw that at work as Democrats bullied Obamacare through the House, thoroughly indifferent to public opinion.  The Democrats have not disciplined their own party.

McCarthy's warning should be taken seriously.  He has the interests of his party, and his country, at heart.

April 4,  2010    Permalink

THE LOST OPPORTUNITY – AT 11:35 A.M. ET:  The great Michael Barone, one of our best political analysts, examines the lost opportunity that is the Obama administration, and what its failed policies mean for the younger generation.  Is that generation getting the hope and change it wants?

It seems that some young Obama voters have decided it isn't. The Pew Research Center's poll of the millennial generation, which voted 66 to 32 percent for Obama in 2008, found that they identify with Democrats over Republicans by only a 54 to 40 percent margin this year.

Perhaps they are coming to realize that the burdens the Obama policies are placing on the private sector economy are reducing their choices for the future...

...We've had such an economy before, in the second half of the 1930s, and Americans didn't much like it. And not just because they weren't making enough money. Because in such an economy it's much harder to find satisfying work, work that can give you a sense of what American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks in his forthcoming book "The Battle" calls "earned success." We get such satisfaction when we believe the work we are doing -- in workplaces and in community activities and voluntary associations -- is serving interests broader than our own.

And...

Democrats argue that their policies transfer money down the income scale and provide a safety net for individuals. But a nation with an ever larger public sector and an inhibited-growth private sector is a nation with fewer openings for people who want work that will benefit others. Fewer opportunities for young people who want to choose their future, just as they choose their iPod playlists and Facebook friends...Change, maybe, but not much hope.

COMMENT:  The one sector of the economy that hasn't lost jobs in the last few years is the public sector, where the average employee now earns more than his or her counterpart in private industry.  That setup is defended by a powerful union that has, essentially, veto power within the Democratic Party. 

We're not against good, honest unions here.  I'm a union member.  We have many, many readers who are union members.  Ronald Reagan was a union president.  When unions have influence in the private sector, that's one thing.  But when they have influence over the public purse, that is something entirely different.

Barone is right.  The choices available to young people are narrowing.  Of course, that is exactly what the left wants, and has always had at the center of its dreams.  The fundamental position of the left is that its leaders know best what is good for people, and should have the power to enforce their opinions. 

Americans have always recoiled against that notion of government.  Today, though, even many public schools have been infiltrated with leftist thinking.  Will we, as a nation, continue to resist centralization?  On that our future will largely depend.

April 4, 2010   Permalink

DIPLOMATIC AND SOCIAL NEWS – AT 11:05 A.M. ET:  Reader Joseph J. Gallick alerts us to news of a new get-together in the Mideast.  I know you'll want to put it on your calendar:

Iran announced Sunday that it will host an international nuclear disarmament conference later this month.

That's like Bill Clinton hosting a virgins convention.

The country's top nuclear negotiator said China will participate in the talks aimed at promoting nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

The two-day conference is set to begin April 17, four days after the conclusion of an international nuclear security summit being held in Washington.

Chinese President Hu Jintao is expected to attend the U.S. conference.

Wait.  Now wait a second.  Didn't Hillary Rodham Clinton just inform us that China was cooperating with us on sanctions?  What a way to cooperate – for the president of China to hang with the mullahs in Tehran.

China has resisted efforts to impose new sanctions on Iran over suspicions about its nuclear program.

The U.S. and its allies accuse Iran of working to enrich uranium to develop nuclear weapons, which the Islamic Republic denies.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech Saturday that he rejected U.S. diplomatic efforts regarding his country's nuclear program. Mr. Ahmadinejad said that additional sanctions will only make Tehran more determined.

COMMENT:  Iran also disclosed today that it will have a new nuclear announcement on April 9th, this Friday.  And the administration continues to hand us the line that all is well.  Obama himself said he expects new sanctions on Iran in a matter of weeks.  Isn't that just before the Titanic arrives in New York?

April 4, 2010   Permalink

THE WAR ISN'T OVER – AT 10:47 A.M. ET:  Americans have lost interest in Iraq.  Led by a president who will not admit, to this day, that anything was accomplished by the removal of Saddam Hussein, we forget that there is still an enemy determined to prove Barack Hussein Obama right.  From The New York Times:

BAGHDAD — The Iraqi capital echoed with explosions on Sunday, with three suicide car bombings killing dozens of people around Baghdad. Other bombs and rockets went off at widely scattered locations, paralyzing traffic and disrupting communications throughout the city.

An official in the Interior Ministry said there were three suicide bombers who had targeted the Iranian embassy as well as the residences of the Egyptian chargé d’affaires and the German ambassador, all in the Mansour District and nearby on the western side of the city. Officials said that at least 32 people were killed in all, with dozens more seriously wounded. Separately, a police official in Kerrada, a neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, said that a fourth would-be suicide bomber targeted the offices of the government’s embassy protective services but policemen shot and wounded the driver before he could detonate his bomb.

COMMENT:  There have been a number of major attacks in Baghad recently, and we've barely taken notice.  Our enemies know that we are leaving Iraq.  The president has, out of the common courtesy of appeasers and leftist intellectuals, given a pretty precise timetable.  The blasts are aimed at weakening democratic government in Iraq, and those setting off the charges know there will soon be no American force in the country to smoke them out and beat them.

Of course, we all hope the Iraqis, on their own, can build a sane democracy.  It is difficult enough anywhere, more difficult in a culture where there is no democratic tradition.  And more difficult still when the president of the United States has done all in his power to disparage our mission there.  Success, if it comes, will belong to George W. Bush and David Petraeus, but you can be sure that Barack Obama will take the bows. 

If there is failure, the mainstream media will blame Bush alone.

April 4, 2010   Permalink 

WHAT RASMUSSEN REVEALS – AT 10:14 A.M. ET:  The Rasmussen daily tracker has been absolutely fascinating for the last two weeks.

We see, for example, a dramatic improvement in respondents who "strongly approve" of the job President Obama is doing.  It's up to 32%, from a low in the low 20s not many weeks ago.

And yet, when you look at overall approval ratings, the president's numbers have hardly budged:

Overall, 46% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. Fifty-three percent (53%) disapprove.

That, obviously, is a seven-point spread, which is a significant gap.

What explains this seeming disparity is that a larger number of Democrats, who have always approved of Obama, now strongly approve of him, largely because of the passage of the health bill. 

Will this impact the election in November?  Yes, and it could be an important impact.  The thing that gets people to the polls is enthusiasm, or, its opposite, anger.  We know about the anger on the right, and in the center.  But if enthusiasm for Obama grows among his traditional base, more of that base will go to the polls.  Now, that may not matter much in sections of Chicago, where Democratic voters are counted whether voters show up or not, but it can make a big difference in close congressional elections, and there are bound to be many of them.

Karl Rove taught Republicans that they have to take care of their base and bring it out on election day.  Democrats have apparently absorbed the wisdom.  The proverbs of Karl live.

Now the GOP must drag its base, and the angry independents, to the polls as well.  It's not hard.  Just place your hands around a neck, and pull hard.

April 4,  2010   Permalink