[It's interesting to remember Reagan's forgotten first term trough]
April 21, 2009, 11:04 pm
Guest Column: Will Obama Ride Reagan's Ratings Rollercoaster?
By Andrew Kohut
Andrew Kohut is the president of the Pew Research Center.
Despite a long, hard-fought election campaign, the public rallies to a
new chief executive who has come to office riding a tide of national
discontent and strong disapproval of his predecessor. His approval
ratings remain high even as he proposes a dramatic new approach to the
role of government that has many doubters. Surveys find that Americans
think the president's plan to rescue the nation's troubled economy will
work, yet many are fearful of key provisions. Indeed, the polls find
the president more personally popular than his programs. Further, a
wide partisan gap exists in attitudes toward the nation's new leader.
The new president described above is, of course, Barack Obama -- but,
to a startling degree, it is also Ronald Reagan. A close look at
Gallup's polling of reactions to Reagan's first few months in office
provides striking parallels with what Pew Research Center polls now
find about opinions of Mr. Obama. And a consideration of the Reagan
experience may well give some clues as to what lies ahead for the 44th
president.
The public's bottom lines on Presidents Reagan and Obama early in their
presidencies have so far been quite comparable: 60 percent and 59
percent of the public approved of the new presidents in mid-March,
respectively. (Going into April, the lines diverge as a sympathetic
public response to the March 31 attempt on Reagan's life boosted his
numbers, at least for short period.)
The parallels in the two presidents' ratings go beyond overall results.
Both were extremely popular among members of their own party, but each
set off alarm bells among the opposition. Some 87 percent of
Republicans approved of Reagan, while 88 percent of Democrats approve
of Barack Obama. But both presidents evoked less positive opinion from
the opposition than had their predecessor. Only 41 percent of Democrats
approved of Reagan whereas 56 percent of Republicans had approved of
Jimmy Carter in March 1977. President Obama scores only a 27 percent
rating among Republicans, significantly lower than George W. Bush's 36
percent approval score among Democrats in March 2001.
No small part of the polarized reaction to both new presidents is that
each made proposals that went to the core precepts about government
held by the two political parties. Reagan's expressed desire to shrink
government was as much an anathema to Democrats as Mr. Obama's
proposals to increase the size and influence of government are to
Republicans. In May 1981, half of Democrats believed that Reagan's
budget cuts were too large, compared with just 15 percent of
Republicans. These reactions are very similar to those evoked by any
number of Obama administration proposals. For example, in March 81
percent of Democrats favored the stimulus package, while 67 percent of
Republicans opposed it. And while an overwhelming majority of
Republicans -- 70 percent -- said that Mr. Obama had proposed too much
spending to address the economic situation, just 17 percent of
Democrats agreed.
<snip>
So far, concern over Mr. Obama's policies has not translated into a
loss of public support; nor did it for Ronald Reagan through much of
1981. But the public's patience with Reagan was relatively short lived.
By November, when the jobless rate had risen to 8.3 percent, from 7.5
percent in January, a plurality of the public believed that Reaganomics
would hurt, not help, their family finances. So began Ronald Reagan's
approval ratings slide. By December, according to Gallup, 49 percent
approved of his job performance while 41 percent disapproved. With the
economy faltering, his approval rating fell to 42 percent by July 1982,
with 46 percent disapproving. His rating hit a low of 35 percent early
the next year.
The trajectory of Reagan's disapproval ratings in his second year
paralleled the trend in joblessness -- the unemployment rate rose to
10.8 percent by the end of 1982. In April 1981, the public favored
Republicans over Democrats as the party "best for prosperity" by a 41
percent to 28 percent margin. By June 1982, the Democrats led on this
key measure 43 percent to 34 percent, and this was ultimately reflected
in the outcome of the mid-term elections. The G.O.P. lost 26 seats in
the House.
Fortunately for Reagan, by November 1984 unemployment had receded to
7.2 percent, inflation had dropped below 4 percent and his approval
rating was close to 60 percent. Declaring a new "morning in America,"
he won re-election in a landslide. Yet absent the economic turnaround,
both the slogan and election outcome would have been very much in
doubt.
From this vantage point, the most important lesson for Barack Obama is
that the public will be patient with their new leader in his dealing
with an inherited problem -- as long as things do not get substantially
worse on his watch.
<end excerpt>
Michael