Obama's Actions Mystifying?

I don't often expect to find myself supportive of President Barack Obama. But I didn't think I'd be as mystified by his actions over the past few months as I have been.

Mr. Obama and his team won a well-deserved reputation during the 2008 campaign for message discipline and a keen appreciation for how Americans would receive his words and actions.

That's why it's so surprising that, in just 20 months, Mr. Obama has lost control of his presidency's narrative. He has done things that are inexplicable, creating the impression of a White House that is clueless, rudderless and arrogant.

For example, what was to be gained by the president attacking the largely unknown House minority leader, John Boehner, last week? Set aside the unfairness of the charges and focus only on the efficacy of the president lowering himself that way.

There is far too little time before the midterm election to demonize Mr. Boehner as President Bill Clinton so effectively did to Speaker Newt Gingrich in the 1990s. That took a concerted White House effort over nearly two years that cost tens of millions of dollars for ads.

And does Mr. Obama think this will make it easier to work with Mr. Boehner after Nov. 2 if Republicans take the House and he becomes the speaker? After all, one of the public's biggest disappointments with this president is that he has failed miserably in his promise to change the political tone.

Mr. Obama's personal attacks on the GOP leader may be therapeutic for him and send a thrill up the leg of left-wingers, but it has cost him (and his party) dearly with independents and college-educated voters. In a little more than a year and a half, the president has lost a third of his support among independents, many of whom are ready to punish Democrats at the polls.

Then there's this oddity: Why did the president raise the issue of tax cuts so close to the election? Americans now trust the GOP over Democrats on taxes by 52% to 36%, according to the Aug. 23-24 Rasmussen survey. - Rove.com

Dueling Polls on Bush Tax Cuts

A majority (51%) of U.S. voters now support extending the so-called Bush tax cuts for all Americans including the wealthy, even as the House Republican leader indicates he is willing to compromise with President Obama and not include wealthy taxpayers in the tax cut extension. - Politico

While leaders in Washington remain divided over whether to let the Bush tax cuts expire for the wealthiest Americans, as President Obama has proposed, just over half of Americans think it is a good idea, a new CBS News/ New York Times poll shows. - CBS News

Democrat Signs on to Health Care Repeal Petition

Mississippi Rep. Gene Taylor became the first Democrat to sign a petition to repeal his party’s health care overhaul legislation.

The Blue Dog Democrat, who frequently bucks his party’s leadership, signed the petition Wednesday, his office said.

A spokesman said they had no comment on why he signed it.

Taylor is the 172nd person to sign on the act to repeal the bill – following conservative Republican Rep. Steve King (Iowa), who offered the act on June 16. The entire House Republican leadership has also signed onto the petition. Taylor is the second person to join the effort to repeal the bill since the August recess, following Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Jim Gerlach. - Politico Story

Democrats Spending more on Anti-Healthcare than on Pro Healthcare

Democratic candidates are spending three times more advertising against the health reform law than they are in support of it.

Since the beginning of Congress’s August recess, Democratic candidates have poured $930,000 into ads deriding the health overhaul but just $300,000 in pro-reform spots, according to Evan Tracey at Kantar Media. - Politico Story

Health Care Overhaul Will Raise Health Care Costs

WASHINGTON -- The nation's health care tab will go up -- not down -- as a result of President Barack Obama's sweeping overhaul. That's the conclusion of a government forecast released Thursday, which also finds the increase will be modest.

The average annual growth in health care spending will be just two-tenths of 1 percentage point higher through 2019 with Obama's remake, said the analysis. And that's with more than 32 million uninsured gaining coverage because of the new law.

"The impact is moderate," said economist Andrea Sisko of Medicare's Office of the Actuary, the nonpartisan unit that prepared the report.

Factoring in the law, Americans will spend an average of $13,652 per person a year on health care in 2019, according to the actuary's office. Without the law, the corresponding number would be $13,387.

That works out to $265 more with the overhaul. Currently, Americans spend $8,389 a year per person on health care. - FOX News Story

California Democrat has lost Lead in Re-Election Bid

Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer and her Republican challenger Carly Fiorina remain in a dead heat in California’s race for the U.S. Senate.

The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Voters, including leaners, shows Fiorina picking up 48% of the vote, while Boxer draws support from 47%. Two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate, and three percent (3%) remain undecided.

These numbers show a slight shift from results with leaners found two weeks ago, when Boxer led Fiorina 49% to 44%. Leaners are those who initially indicate no preference for either of the candidates but answer a follow-up question and say they are leaning towards a particular candidate. From this point forward, Rasmussen Reports considers results with leaners the primary indicator of the race.

This contest continues to be a Toss-Up in the Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 Senate Balance of Power rankings. - Rasmussen Reports Poll

Democrats Launch $2 Million Health Care Sales Pitch

The Democrat-led Health Information Center will go live Wednesday with a $2 million national ad campaign touting the new law’s early-to-implement insurance reforms and throwing a pro-reform voice onto airwaves currently dominated by anti-reform messages.

The ads are the Center's first move to defend the health reform law but far from its last. Founded by top Democratic strategists earlier this summer, the Center is a multi-million-dollar effort to show off the law's benefits while also batting down what the group considers false claims and misinformation. Where Democratic politicians have shied away from discussing the controversial health overhaul on the stump, turning their attention toward jobs and the economy, the Center will tackle the issue head on. - Politico Story

Latest Polls Show Democrats in Real Trouble

The fearsome Category 4 political storm facing Democrats looks like it’s turning into a crushing Category 5.

New polls out Tuesday morning, at the start of the homestretch to midterm elections on Nov. 2, point to an escalating anti-incumbent tide that looks increasingly likely to cost Democrats control of the House, and perhaps even the more secure Senate. - Politico Story

Obama Plays to His Team - The Unions

In his second Labor Day in office, President Obama returned to the site of his Labor Day speech in the heart of campaign 2008 — Milwaukee — and a crowd of union supporters to kick off his defense of Democrats who are struggling to retain control of Congress in campaign 2010.

He used the appearance to do what many Democrats have hoped he'd have done all year: Fight back against Republican opposition and focus on issue number one for voters, the economy.

"I'm going to keep fighting, every single day, every single hour, every single minute, to turn this economy around; to put people back to work; to renew the American Dream for your families and for future generations," he told the crowd of over 10,000.

He not only unveiled a new proposal to rebuild 150,000 miles of roads, 4,000 miles of rail and 150 miles of America's runways; he also began his defense of his and Congressional Democrats' actions on the economy by lashing out at the Republicans'.

"When it comes to just about everything we've done to strengthen the middle class and rebuild our economy, almost every Republican in Congress said 'no.' Even where we usually agree, they say 'no,'" Mr. Obama said.

But he wasn't done: "They think it's better to score political points before an election than to solve problems. So they said 'no' to help for small businesses.... 'No' to middle-class tax cuts.... 'No' to clean energy jobs. 'No' to making college affordable. 'No' to reforming Wall Street. They are saying, right now, 'no' to cutting more taxes for small businesses," said Mr. Obama in referring to a small business bill that is stalled in the Senate.

The President summed up the Republican opposition as the "No, We Can't" party, compared to his campaign slogan of "Yes, We Can."

"I personally think 'Yes We Can' is more inspiring than 'No, We Can't,'" he quipped. - CBS News Story

Obama Has Driven his Party into the Ditch

Swelling economic discontent has pushed dissatisfaction with the federal government to its highest level in 18 years, with the same forces that put Barack Obama on the road to the presidency two years ago now threatening to undo his party's control of Congress.

Two months before the 2010 midterm elections, like voters now favor the Republican over the Democratic candidate in their congressional district by 53-40 percent, the widest GOP margin on record in ABC News/Washington Post polls since 1981.

Beneath that result: Broad rejection of the status quo.

Consider:

• Ninety-two percent of Americans say the economy's in bad shape. A mere 24 percent believe it's improving. And for the first time numerically more say Obama's economic program has made the economy worse, 33 percent, than improved it, 30 percent. Views that he's helped the economy have dropped by 9 points since spring.

• A majority, 52 percent, now disapproves of the way Obama is handling his job overall, another first in ABC/Post polls. Intensity increasingly is against him, with those who disapprove "strongly" outnumbering strong approvers by 14 points. A record 57 percent rate him negatively on handling the economy, "strongly" so by an even wider margin, 2-1.

• Seventy-eight percent now describe themselves as dissatisfied with the way the federal government is working, up 14 points just since July to the most since October 1992. That includes 25 percent who are "angry," tying the record. Among likely voters, 30 percent are angry – and they favor Republican candidates by a vast 47-point margin. - ABC News Story