Polarization and perspective
Is a polarizing president destined to fail?
Polarization and perspective
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
This week, the political community is buzzing about the new Pew Research Center poll which names Barack Obama as the most divisive president of modern times. After pondering poll numbers dating back 40 years, and measuring the various partisan gaps, Pew has concluded: "For all of his hopes about bipartisanship, (Obama) has the most polarized early job approval ratings of any president."
Republicans, desperate these days for anything that might rescue them from the swirling waters (a log, a branch, a twig), have naturally latched onto this Pew report, somehow thinking that it serves to validate their brief against Obama. They're citing it as proof that Obama is already a failure, and that they were right about the guy all along. This morning, Karl Rove even cited the poll in his Wall Street Journal column, arguing that the polarized numbers are no surprise, given Obama's "petty attacks on his critics" - which is a bit rich, coming from Karl Rove.
Pew has assigned Obama a partisan gap of 61 percentage points. It's easy math. In the Pew poll, 88 percent of Democratic voters currently support Obama, while only 27 percent of Republican voters signal their support. That partisan gap is 10 points higher than George W. Bush's early gap; 15 points higher than Ronald Reagan's early gap; 16 points higher than Bill Clinton's; 23 points higher than the senior George Bush's; 32 points higher than Richard Nixon's; and 36 points higher than the contemporary president who was least polarizing in his early days, Jimmy Carter.
But before we join the GOP in suggesting that these findings are tantamount to a thumbs-down verdict on Obama's presidency, let's try for a bit of perspective:
1. A polarizing president is not necessarily a failed president. Some of the best chief executives were notorious polarizers. We'll never know how Franklin D. Roosevelt would have fared in a Pew poll, but we do know that he was thoroughly loathed by the Republicans and their business allies; in return, he virtually gave them the finger. In a speech on Oct. 31, 1936, Roosevelt declared, "They are unanimous in their hate for me, and I welcome their hatred." Even as war clouds gathered and Roosevelt made moves to aid western allies, his political enemies denounced him as a warmonger. But today, FDR's face is on the dime.
It's also a fair bet that Pew would have tagged Democrat Andrew Jackson with a huge partisan gap, given the Whigs' hatred of him. His biographer, Jon Meacham, writes that, even before Jackson took the oath of office, the Whigs were already convinced that he "seemed dangerous - so dangerous, in fact, that he was worth killing." Jackson's political foes were incensed by the president's ongoing popularity; late in his first term, an enemy congressman wrote, "His administration is absolutely odious, and yet there is adherence to the man...His continuance (in office) must be destructive of everything that is worthy to be cherished." Jackson, upon leaving office, said that his greatest regret was that he hadn't shot and hung his two most prominent political enemies. Did Jackson's polarizing tendencies doom his presidency? Today, his face is on a greenback.
2. A non-polarizing president, especially one who is perceived that way at the outset, does not necessarily turn out to be a successful president. According to the aforementioned Pew stats, the winner in the bipartisan sweepstakes is Jimmy Carter. During his first months in office, he was supported by 81 percent of Democratic voters and 56 percent of Republican voters - a paltry partisan gap of 25 points. But ultimately, of course, this initial good will got him nowhere. Today, he'd be lucky to get his face on Monopoly money.
3. Obama, far more than any of his immediate six predecessors, was virtually pressed into service long before he even took the oath, forced to signal in advance a number of drastic steps designed to quell the worst economic crisis in seven decades. Those moves alone were bound to exacerbate the partisan schisms that are permanent features of our contemporary politics.
4. One fundamental reason for Obama's partisan gap is the unprecedented support he gets from Democratic voters (88 percent). That's seven points higher than what Carter received in his early tenure - and a whopping 17 points higher than what Clinton got at the outset. Hence, the irony: Obama's partisan gap wouldn't be so huge if he wasn't the beneficiary of unprecedented party unity...at a time, moreover, when voters are increasingly identifying themselves as Democrats. Which brings us to the last, and arguably the most crucial, caveat.
5. Republican support for Obama (27 percent in the Pew poll) is so low precisely because those who still consider themselves Republicans tend to be hard-core conservatives. In recent years, moderate and liberal Republicans have fled the party in droves; in the Pennsylvania registration figures, this exodus has been well documented. Nationally, most of those GOP emigrees have moved to the independent camp; and it's noteworthy, in the Pew poll, that 57 percent of independents support Obama (which suggests that he currently holds the center - a fact that undercuts the verdict of Obama as the great polarizer).
Indeed, one Pew statistic is crucial: Only 24 percent of all voters now call themselves Republicans...whereas, five years ago, Pew reported that 33 percent of all voters identified with the GOP. So it shouldn't be a surprise that Obama scores so poorly among diehard members of a shrinking party that is disproportionately southern and tilting further rightward - thereby swelling the size Obama's partisan gap.
It's not even worth a guess as to whether Obama's polarizing tendencies will matter in the end; at this point, we can't know. But he certainly seems willing to risk further divisiveness, given the news this morning that he actually intends to tackle path-to-citizen immigration reform this year, braving the inevitable conservative howls about aliens competing with Americans for jobs in the midst of recession.
All we can really say for now is that partisanship has always been with us, a staple of human nature. As John Quincy Adams wrote to his son, more than 170 years ago, "Men have railed at each other in good set terms from (the ancient Greeks') day to this. They will still do so as long as there are prizes to contend for, which move their avarice and their ambitions."
My liberal friend called me today and asked me what I thought about all this 'bending over business'. My response... frankly, it's not about whether or not Obama bent forward, or the fact that Obama ran to the UN about North Korea... it's about projecting strength or weakness. To be blunt, Obama sounds, looks and acts out of weakness. Flying around the world talking about how American has faults... is foolish. It sends a simple message to our enemies... Obama may talk you to death, but you have no fear of him actually using our militarily or issuing an ultimatum. That's why the U.S. will continue to have our enemies acting out... sometimes being popular isn't all that it's cracked up to be... as much as Europeans and our enemies may not have liked or hated President Bush, we were all safer because he was aggressive and didn't CARE what people thought of him.— JGD84- One final thought on the Polman article... I'm all for partisanship. I've always thought this bi-partisan stuff was total garbage. If you're going to win or lose, do it YOUR WAY. I don't blame Obama at all... the people who should be ashamed of themselves is the press... who protected this guy all during the campaign by not exposing his relationships w/ several well known liberals and radicals. The idea that Obama was going to be centrist based on his friends and records was laughable. It's the press's job to 'speak truth to power'... now the press seems more interested in destroying plumbers and Sara Palin's family.— JGD84
- jgd84, they also let McCain slide on a lot. From what I could tell McCain was much more vulnerable if the gloves would have come off.— PA_Dutch
Comment removed.- Beetljuice, McCain IS a man with a short fuse who forgot how many homes he owned. I'm more concerned with a media so quick to question Kerry's service, and so reticent to investigate Bush's AWOL status...Liberal media my arsss.— PA_Dutch
- Comment removed.
- James TL real Americans DO NOT bow to royalty. Ever.— jwad56
- beetlejuice, the reason why ted kennedy is not held to the same standard is because he is and has always been an advocate for those who have less. Don't you get that? He advocates positions that would hurt his own bottom line. Your guys govern to help themselves.— PA_Dutch
- Another day with more unfathomable comments from the inhabitants of Wingnuttia. Get over your bad selves, wingnuts. You earned your losses in '06 and '08, and now you're on the sidelines where you belong. President Obama has been handed a steaming pile of horsesh&t by your boy Alfred E. Neumann (I mean GWB - motto "What, me worry?"), and your lame efforts to suggest that the horsesh&t came from President Obama are not working and will never work. You need to get some new pages in your playbook - the old ones just don't cut it any more. The President's approval ratings are proof that most of us aren't as stupid as you'd like to think we are.— johngilb
- Comment removed.
- PA_Dutch, there have been several polls which demonstrate the 'leftward leanings' of the media. To dispute this point, is a waste of both our time. McCain is no favorite of mine... but the way that McCain/Palin were treated compared to Obama/Biden was uneven, at best. Obama frequently received a 'pass' when any other candidate would have been dogged by the press. Honestly, can you imagine if Bush, Clinton, Reagan or Carter having met in the living room of a terrorist and/or serving on the board of directors being treated the same way? Even Democratic friends of mine would laugh and say I had a point!!!— JGD84
- When did democrats become the party of wimps and anti-americanism? Congressional democrats when to vist Castro this week. JFK and Truman must be rolling over in their graves. FYI to the democrats: Castro wanted to put USSR's nuclear missles 90 miles from Florida. Do you remember that?— CD75
- CD75- The left in this country has been enamored of America's enemies. That is why they love Chavez and Castro. Both Dictators run country's in a manner that Democrats would like to run ours. It has nothing to do with being a good steward of the people and everything to do with power.
- JGD==maybe it's a matter of taste or experience, but in my view a swaggering blowhard projects weakness while a courteous and soft-spoken man exudes strength. Both in Hollywood and in real life.— liberal
- The really sad part of Obama is he has flunked Commander in Chief. The pirate issue around the horn of Africa, the North Korean ICBM shot, does anyone feel safer. Nevil Chamberlian would have been better. We are in trouble as Mr. Popularity does nothing. Japan will rearm. Other rouge states will attack more shipping and who knows what else. James Monroe he isn't. He hasn't the chops to send the Marines to the Halls of Montezuma and the shores of Tripoli. What he could learn from Truman, Thatcher, Churchill, TR and George H.W. Bush.— vc bear
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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