Mr. President, While You Were Out

Republicans tried to kill health care. (P.S., see governors, Virginia and New Jersey.)

By: Terence Samuel

President Barack Obama and his family are on vacation and, for a while anyway, the angry, disfigured faces of the health care town halls have faded from the news. But we know what’s waiting for him when he gets back—more of the same—and so far he hasn’t been handling it well. Supporters are urging him to fight, and some of us are expecting that pretty soon he will don his explainer-in-chief cape and put the whole health care debate to rest with a definitive explanation of why failure is not an option.

But so far, not so good. The problems are dramatically evident in the president’s retreating poll numbers; his job approval rating was down to 51 percent in August from 57 percent a month earlier in the most recent Quinnipiac Poll. On his handling of health care, 52 percent say they disapprove—up 10 points from a 42 percent disapproval rating last month. That growing antipathy toward the president may also be showing in the poll numbers in the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, and the White House would be wise not to underestimate the damage losing one or both of those races would do to Obama’s legislative agenda.

Mr. President, While You Were Out....