Obama Poll Numbers Down; Surrogates Play Race Card

Obama’s poll numbers have remained steady over the past few months. But while the percentage of people leaning towards voting for him has remained stable, underlying poll numbers have not.  A New York Times poll showed those who have a favorable opinion of Obama down to only 36%. That’s down from 42% in that poll in April and down from favorable opinions that have trended around 10 points above his approval ratings throughout most of Obama’s term. These numbers aren’t unique to the NY Times poll, most polls have shown that the public no longer has a particularly favorable opinion of Obama personally.

Politics plays a role in this of course. The economy is stagnant and Obama increasingly doesn’t have any plans that aren’t retreads of plans that already failed. The “you didn’t build that” line has likely hurt him. If we were playing political strategist, perhaps having Anna Wintour in ads for fundraisers should be ended and maybe the First Lady ought to make a few more appearances. Getting the President back on the teleprompter might be a good idea plus a series of positive ads should be created to take an edge off all the negative Bain ads. Something has to change though because the President cannot win with favorability ratings dropping.

The problem will come when these things don’t work. Obama is in trouble because the economy stinks, it’s just that simple. One of his truth team surrogates, Virginia State Senator Louise Lucas has taken to blaming the public for Obama’s electoral problems. Lucas had this to say about the Romney campaign:

Mitt Romney, he’s speaking to … a segment of the population who does not like to see people other than a white man in the White House or in any other elective position.Let’s be real clear about it — Mitt Romney is speaking to a group of people out there who don’t like folks like President Barack Obama in any elective or leadership position. We know what’s going on here. And some people may be afraid to say it, but I’m not. … He’s speaking to that fringe out there who do not want to see anybody but a white person in a leadership position.

If Obama cannot win on his own, it appears his team is willing to play the race card. There are just a few problems with playing the race card. We can begin with the fact that Obama is already the President and he didn’t get there on the votes of minorities alone. The majority of his votes came from white people. He sold his 2008 election as an oppertunity to “make history” by electing a black man President. White people went along with that and elected him. From there, the idea that Romney, at best a moderate Republican, is trying to appeal to racists is just absurd.

The assumption Lucas has to make in order to make such a statement is that all Republicans are racists, which is simply absurd. Most of us would have gladly voted for Herman Cain had he won the nomination and nearly all of us love Justice Clarence Thomas. The issue for us isn’t their skin color but their ideas. Republican opposition to Obama has never been about his race, it’s been about his ideas and policies. I have news for Louise Lucas, Obama could be 100% white and he would have the same opposition making the same arguments against him. But that’s never occurred to people like Lucas because she’s just following the typical leftist narrative about race in this country.

It is interesting, if not surprising, that Obama surrogates are already trying to play the race card. They must be very nervous about his chances for re-election, otherwise they would save this nonsense for the last two weeks or not say it at all if he looks like he’ll win. Obama and his supporters should be nervous. The economy is a mess, unemployment is still 8.2%, economic growth is at a snail’s pace, over $5 trillion in new debt has been created during Obama’s term and Obamacare remains incredibly unpopular. That Obama is black isn’t why people oppose him, it’s because his liberal policies have not worked and have made our nation weaker.