Say Anything Blog

Meaning that next year’s elections are going to be really, really bad for incumbents.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – A new poll suggests that Americans’ faith in President Barack Obama to make the right decisions for the country is dropping.

Forty-nine percent of people questioned in a ABC/Washington Post survey released Friday say they have a great deal or good amount of confidence in the president’s leadership, down 11 points from April. According to the poll, half of all Americans have little or no confidence in Obama’s ability to make the right decisions, up ten points from April.

But the survey indicates that a dip in confidence in the president doesn’t mean a rise in confidence in Republicans in Congress. Just 20 percent of people questioned say they have a great deal or good amount of faith in Congressional Republicans to make the right decisions, unchanged from April.

I’ve long said that the GOP lost power back in 2006 not because America was going liberal but because Americans had lost faith in what Republicans were saying about limiting government.  Meaning that Democrats haven’t so much been winning elections based on their merits but rather winning elections by default.  I think that includes Obama, who ran against a John McCain who epitomizes the problem with so-called “Democrat-lite” Republicans.

Now Obama’s plunge in approval and confidence numbers following the typica post-election honeymoon all Presidents enjoy bears this theory out.  Americans aren’t happy with their Democrat leadership any more than they were with their Republican leadership.  Obama is losing favor.  Democrats are losing favor.  But Republicans aren’t exactly winning people over either.

I think this may result in Republican gains in 2010, because a “kick the bums out” attitude from the electorate is always hardest on the majority party, but the GOP should be wary of winning elections by default.

If they want to be more than merely the lesser of two evils, Republicans need to start actually being the party of limited government instead of just the party that wants to grow the government more slowly and in different ways than Democrats.