Against my better judgment (I've got to stop starting posts this way) I decided to read
Michael Gerson's column in the Washington Post today. The piece discusses the Virginia gubernatorial election and compares the poor poll numbers for Democratic candidate
Creigh Deeds to poll numbers for Barack Obama.
Like a good Conservative, Gerson trots out all the half-baked talking points about how Obama is not the President we thought we were getting, how he's ineffective because he's negative on his critics, and how he has "suffered the largest decline in approval, at this point in his term, of any elected president since 1953".
Let's start with this last line. The President has suffered the largest decline in approval since [insert random date and time period here]. Nevermind that this is largely due to his astronomically high poll numbers when his presidency began, or that his approval still remains above 50%. And of course, this statistic is often paired with this another Gerson pulls out of the "important-sounding but meaningless" file: "fewer Americans approve of the job done by Congress than believe in UFOs."
Okay, first off,
a lot of people believe in UFOs (and of course, there's always the fact that any object seen flying that cannot be identified is, in fact, a UFO. I've seen one myself, and my whole family can corroborate the story, as well as a TV special I saw once on UFOs that showed the exact same thing we saw). But even more relevant than the subscriber rate to UFO existence theory is the fact that nobody ever approves of the job Congress does. My theory is that this has a lot to do with the fact that most people have no idea what it is the Congress is supposed to do. Since they don't know what the Congress does, clearly Congress must not be doing it very well. I would like to see the Congressional approval poll question taken alongside a quiz on the legislative branch, with such questions as:
1) How many chambers does our federal legislature have, and what are they called?
2) Who is your district's Representative?
3) How many Senators does your state have?
4) What does a legislature do?
5) What is the relationship between Congress and UFOs?
If they can answer all of those questions correctly, then their opinion on the job Congress does will mean something. Until then, everyone, please ignore those stupid, meaningless polls.
Beyond statistics, however, Mr. Gerson says Obama is "too small to be an effective president." Of course, this neglects the fact that under Obama's leadership, healthcare reform (one of the most difficult issues our country faces) is closer than ever to being enacted. No bill has ever made it out of committee before, yet here we stand, with 3 House Committees and 2 Senate Committees all having approved their versions of the bill, and the House standing prepared to vote on their version. Additionally, the process on a bill to mitigate climate change has moved farther than ever before, and Obama has stated his intention to make this his next big priority. Those two issues alone have more than once been deemed politically impossible, yet here we are, moving forward. All this in less than a year, and under the weight of having inherited one of the nation's greatest economic crises, which looms over his head like something out of a Poe short story.
Of course, in the economic vein, there's also the fact that just yesterday, as Gerson was likely writing his column, we learned that that in the 3rd quarter U.S. GDP grew 3.5%, after having contracted in the previous quarters. It's hard to imagine that federal policy had nothing to do with that. For the uninitiated, a growth in GDP means, in literal economic terms, that the recession is over.
Now I'm no Obama apologist, and I think there's a lot more he can do. The point of my piece here is to note that, while it may be fun for conservatives to imagine Obama is completely ineffective, this is simply not supported by fact, and the use of random polling statistics (please note that he does not use actual poll numbers, nor does he use comparative Republican/Democrat numbers, only arbitrary bits about 1953 and UFOs) is just a red herring.
Oh, and on the Virginia gubernatorial election, I'm not too well-informed, except that
Bob McDonnell, the Republican candidate, seems to be trying way too hard to convince me he's actually a Democrat, while Deeds is clearly very bad at campaigning. I mean, how can you lose an election when you're name is Creigh Deeds? That's got to be the best, most American cowboy name in history. Just imagine John Wayne riding up on a horse and saying "Howdy, ma'am. The name's Creigh Deeds." Making that into a commercial would have meant an instant win.
(This is a lot like the thing my family and I saw in South Carolina, which we also saw on the TV special in footage from Belgium. It's kind of a family joke, but also kind of creepy.)
Image from http://www.legjoints.com
So, will Tom Swift invent a way to handle electronic medical records that will save millions in costs annually? Will Nancy Drew uncover an alternative to employer-based health benefits? Can the Hardy boys team up with a gruff, but lovable boat captain to discover a way to provide universal coverage?
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