Obama '08?

realjohnboy wrote:

1) Is Gov Sanford a "moral hypocrite?"
2) Should he resign?
3) Will he resign?

1) I guess he has the morals of Bill Clinton.
2) That's up to the people of South Carolina.
3) Again, it's up to South Carolinian's and the Gov.

“I think it would be much better for the country and for him personally (to resign). I come from the business side. If you had a chairman or president in the business world facing these allegations, he’d be gone.” [Sanford on Clinton, The Post and Courier, 9/12/98]

“The issue of lying is probably the biggest harm, if you will, to the system of Democratic government, representatives government, because it undermines trust. And if you undermine trust in our system, you undermine everything.” [Sanford on Clinton, CNN, 2/16/99]

Good afternoon. Every couple of weeks since the 1st of March, I have been posting polling results on President Obama's approval ratings as gathered by the polltaker Rasmussen. Here is the latest update:
The 1st set of numbers is the % of respondents who STRONGLY APPROVE of Mr Obama's performance vs the % who STRONGLY DISAPPROVE. The 2nd number is the index obtained by subtracting the DISAPPROVE from the APPROVE. The 3rd set is the % of folks who APPROVE vs DISAPPROVE, dropping the word "STRONGLY."

3/1/09: (38%-30%) = +8 (58%-40%)
3/15/09: (37%-31%) = +6 (56%-43%)
4/1/09: (37%-29%) = +5 (56%-44%)
4/14/09: (35%-32%) = +3 (55%-44%)
5/2/09: (33%-32%) = +1 (54%-45%)
5/16/09: (34%-30%) = +4 (56%-43%)
5/31/09: (36%-26%) = +10 (58%-41%)
6/16/09: (36%-32%) = +4 (56%-43% )
7/1/09: (32%-33%) = -1 (50%-45%)

President Obama's Approval Index briefly went negative on 6/21 and 6/22 and then bounced back to as much as +3 before going minus again earlier this week.
You can see that those who disapprove or strongly disapprove is holding relatively steady. It is slippage in the approve and strongly approve that is hurting him. Something like 80% of Americans feel that the economy is the big issue for them and 39% now blame Mr Obama rather than former President Bush.
By a margin of 50% to 45%, people favor some form (undefined in the poll) of health care reform. I might be reading too much into Rasmussen's calling it the Obama/Democratic Congress health care reform effort.
Finally, I note that yesterday the gay rights activists started calling Mr Obama to task for not moving on any of the issues that concern them as a group. I wonder if some of them have moved out of the Strongly Approve camp.

I believe it's healthy to disagree with our political leaders, and to tell them where we differ. I've written to Obama when I learned about his "95% of workers and their families will get a tax cut." An outright lie!

Bush/Obama method

Democrats on a key Senate Committee outlined a revised and far less costly health care plan Wednesday night that includes a government-run insurance option and an annual fee on employers who do not offer coverage to their workers.

The plan carries a 10-year price tag of slightly over $600 billion, and would lead toward an estimated 97 percent of all Americans having coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office, Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and Chris Dodd said in a letter to other members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The AP obtained a copy.

By contrast, an earlier, incomplete proposal carried a price tag of roughly $1 trillion and would have left millions uninsured, CBO analysts said in mid-June.

The letter indicated the cost and coverage improvements resulted from two changes. The first calls for a government-run health insurance option to compete with private coverage plans, an option that has drawn intense opposition from Republicans.

"We must not settle for legislation that merely gestures at reform," the two Democrats wrote. "We must deliver on the promise of true change."

Additionally, the revised proposal calls for a $750 annual fee on employers for each full-time worker not offered coverage through their job. The fee would be set at $375 for part-time workers. Companies with fewer than 25 employees would be exempt. The fee was forecast to generate $52 billion over 10 years, money the government would use to help provide subsidies to those who cannot afford insurance.

The same provision is also estimated to greatly reduce the number of workers whose employers would drop coverage, thus addressing a major concern noted by CBO when it reviewed the earlier proposals.

Kennedy, D-Mass., and Dodd, D-Conn., circulated their letter a few days before lawmakers return from their July 4 vacation, with the Health Committee one of several panels expected to take action on health care legislation that President Barack Obama has placed atop his domestic agenda.

(CNN) " The new president of the American Medical Association, which represents the interests of the nation’s doctors, said Wednesday the group is open to a government-funded health insurance option for people without coverage.

Dr. J. James Rohack told CNN that the AMA supports an “American model” that includes both “a private system and a public system, working together.”

In May, the AMA told a Senate committee it did not support a government-sponsored public health insurance option.

“The AMA does not believe that creating a public health insurance option … is the best way to expand health insurance coverage and lower costs across the health care system,” the organization wrote, explaining that a public insurance plan could lead to “an explosion of costs that would need to be absorbed by taxpayers.”

Rohack, who recently became AMA president, suggested Wednesday that the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program available to Congress members and other federal employees could be expanded as a public option. That would avoid having to create a new program from scratch, he said.

“If it’s good enough for Congress, why shouldn’t it be good enough for individuals who don’t have health insurance provided by their employers?” Rohack said.

He said AMA opposed expanding Medicare coverage for senior citizens into a broader general public plan, noting that the plan is “going broke” and fails to cover the costs of participating doctors.

His comments come as President Barack Obama increases pressure on Congress to push through a comprehensive bill to reform the nation’s ailing health care system this year.

Obama told a town hall meeting on health care Wednesday that the rising costs of health care threatened the economy and were unsustainable. He also noted that health-related industries including drug companies were now acknowledging the need for reform.

Rohack called 2009 “the year we need to have affordable health insurance coverage for all Americans.”