Health-Law Rollout Weighs on Obama's Ratings, Agenda - Approval, Personal Favorability Polling Sags, Creating New Complications for Second Term

From The Wall Street Journal:

President Barack Obama, bogged down by problems with his signature health-care program, is seeing both his approval and personal-favorability ratings with Americans sag, creating new complications for his second-term agenda.

During past turbulence in Washington, Americans' approval of the job Mr. Obama is doing dipped. But in those stretches, Mr. Obama was buoyed by voters' general admiration for him as a person and by their trust in his credibility.

 

That has changed recently, particularly as thousands of Americans lose their insurance coverage under the health law's rollout, despite the president's pledge that anyone who liked their current plan could keep it.

 

The president has apologized to Americans about the insurance-cancellation notices, and he is taking other steps to shore up his political standing. But if his reservoir of personal goodwill continues to diminish, it could hamper him at a time when his administration is trying to repair the insurance website on which much of the Affordable Care Act rests.

 

An Obama administration official said the recent standoff over the government shutdown and raising the nation's borrowing limit was bound to take a toll on the president's popularity. "I think the president took on the least amount of water after that fight than any of the other actors involved," the official said.

 

Going forward, Mr. Obama wants to enlist the public as allies in the push to pass an immigration overhaul, expand access to early-childhood education and raise the minimum wage. All these goals already are drawing resistance from congressional Republicans, and if the public sours on him, the job is that much more difficult.

"His credibility is hurt, because he said things that aren't quite true," said Lou D'Allesandro, deputy Democratic leader in the New Hampshire Senate, referring to the vow that Americans could keep their health plans. "Unless a couple of dramatic things happen, he could be a lame duck by January."

 

A survey released last week by the Pew Research Center found the president's approval rating at 41%, down 10 points since May. Pew's pollsters compared Mr. Obama's fortunes to the slide that former President George W. Bush saw. At a comparable point in Mr. Bush's second term—after Hurricane Katrina had hit—Mr. Bush's job approval stood at 36%.

 

By contrast, second-term support for Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan held steady in Pew polling, with 58% and 62% of the public, respectively, approving of their job performance at a similar point in their presidencies.

 

Chris Lehane, a former Clinton White House official, said that Mr. Obama's "political success depends on maintaining trust" and that the White House must work to keep intact this "most precious leadership asset."

 

"Second-term presidents have hit those moments when they lost the trust of a critical mass of the public…which effectively made them lame ducks," Mr. Lehane said. He said he doesn't believe Mr. Obama has reached that point.

 

Mr. Obama also is facing an increasingly uneasy Democratic contingent in Congress, with some lawmakers worried the rollout of the health law might damage their election prospects. Last week, Mr. Obama met with Democratic senators facing re-election in 2014, some of whom aired their complaints about the implementation of the health law. Later, Mr. Obama flew to Louisiana on Air Force One with one such senator, Louisiana's Mary Landrieu. After the plane landed, the president and Ms. Landrieu went separate ways: Mr. Obama to a port in New Orleans, Ms. Landrieu to an event in the western part of the state. Her office said she had a previous commitment. 

 

Mr. Obama has little influence with the Republicans he needs to make policy gains, and his sliding poll numbers figure to only weaken his hold.

 

But it is difficult for Mr. Obama to work in bipartisan fashion because of GOP animosity toward him, some policy activists said.