Hating Obama, Scorning Rudd
Why have they become so unpopular so quickly ?
by James Robinson
New Zealand has long been out of ideological sync with the USA. Labour Prime Minister David Lange crumpled ANZUS and threw out nuclear ships during the Reagan years. Helen Clark decried the war on Iraq, and said it wouldn’t have happened “if Al Gore had won” during the Bush II era. Across the pond, Australia has benefited from the opposite. Hawke and Reagan, Keating and Clinton. John Howard was an easy partner in neo-con antics for Bush II. Now we have Rudd and Obama – who seem to have extended this pattern of mimicry, into a resounding echo.
Both Rudd and Obama came in on the heels of two abhorred and ineffectual leaders. Probably the defining irony of the Bush/Howard reigns is that they were ideologically pointless – despite the neo-conservative clarion call, Government was no smaller by the end. Bush II extended Government spending beyond its comfort zone, and Howard passed just as much legislation as his predecessor, leaving government exactly the same size. In addition – there are also the raft of political, ethical and moral failings of each government (historically these will weigh a lot heavier on the future perceptions of Bush II).
Rudd in 2007, and Obama in 2008, were two exalted changes in course. The Ruddslide that bought about a five and a half percent swing away from Howard in 2007 was so strong that it chased John Howard out of his own electorate seat. Obama’s now clichéd ‘Yes we can’ rhetoric was refreshing when considered in direct countenance to eight years of fear-mongering and immorality. Under a well-organised front of opposition to eight years of ineffectual direction, Republicans crumpled, Independents flocked en masse, and Obama won the election by six points, and cemented majorities in the House, and the Senate.
But, like the grimy ‘Where are they now” pages from any tabloid, the political outcomes have been less pleasant for both Rudd, and Obama. Obama is now the most divisive first year president ever, more divisive even than Bush II, a man who finished his eight years in office with a 23 percent approval rating. From an approval rating north of 70 percent, Obama’s job approval sat at 46 percent before his recent health-care success. Rudd’s approval rating sits at a near identical 47 percent, down 50 percent from a solid run of 70 percent plus approval in 2008.
Both are dealing with the consequences of electoral defeats. Rudd faces the hammer this year, a lot sooner than Obama, holding a one and half percent lead when all polls are averaged out. Recent elections in South Australia resulted in a notable Labour plummet, and Liberal upswing – even if this hostility (some of it, to be fair, was directed at the state premier) largely came through in safe seats, and didn’t do much to change the balance of power. Even so, the press have started to desert Rudd, and are the breeding ground of all populist movements. Forbes labeled Rudd the “Poor man’s Obama”, while The Australian ran a notably black article titled “The curious case of the friendless and unpopular Prime Minister”.
Obama’s troubles are equally clear, and summarized no better by a Republican uprising in Massachusetts, with Scott Brown winning the revered Democrat Teddy Kennedy’s long held seat amidst a frenzy of health-care resentment. Independents have started to desert him (he now polls at less than 50 percent consistently amongst independents), and Republicans appear in a frothy mouthed daze when decrying new legislation. This eroding of support is further exemplified by recent elections in New Jersey and Virginia going against him. Democratic party support has fallen beneath 50 percent across the country.
These troubles receive a lot of media attention. But what is not given a lot of attention is why is there such resentment of these two very new leaders? One might assume they were both doing a horrible job. But political reality, and actual truth don’t always overlap. What is to one person “saving 45,000 lives” is to another “a government takeover of healthcare.”
Considering the policies Rudd and Obama were voted in on, they’ve stayed relatively close to their word. Closer than our own Prime Minister, and much closer than Bush II stayed to his 2000 election claim of “compassionate conservatism”. Rudd has lost his way on delivering on his climate change promises (however, who hasn’t?) but has reversed negative industrial relations legislation, maintained a moderate line on Iraq, kept a stable hand on the economy, and even given a long awaited apology to the stolen generations
Obama has been even busier. As promised he has delivered a healthcare bill, shifted military emphasis to Afghanistan, and begun the process of closing down Guantanamo Bay. He has delivered a stimulus package that has stopped the rot in the economy, and will soon be looking to bring in new regulations on Wall Street and the financial sector. He has placed incentives on environmentally friendly retro fitting of government buildings and taken a clear line on climate change.
As a Rudd, or an Obama voter I can’t see how either leader has bankrupted their promises. Sure, in the depths of the political system, wishy-washy promises of bipartisanship are less practicable when the other side sees little gain of playing ball. But the accomplishments of each administration reads close to what you would have guessed.
These two leaders who were elected at a stroll amidst hope of a “new era”, but that glorious momentum of yesterday seems a trifle wounded. Each has lost control of the narrative to opposition parties who are coming across as selling nothing but vitriol. But maybe, that is the better story?
Australia and the United States have closely mimicked each other ideologically. Yet with Obama and Rudd facing a similar pattern of resistance to attempts at positive change, it seems this pattern is about to take a somewhat tragic turn. The experience of each leader points towards a fickle and impatient voting population, more interested in being pushed around from viewpoint to viewpoint in habitual dissatisfaction than in getting behind the change that they themselves voted for.
ENDS
Tags: Barack Obama, Christian Right, Kevin Rudd
While Obama has been successful in bringing in new policy, I think upon examination of these policies we might find reason for his falling support.
His health care bill effectively gifts a trillion dollars to the health insurance industry, this is the industry that is largely to blame for the poor state of the health system in the US. And as for saving 45,000 lives, well i wouldn’t hold my breath. Then we have Afghanistan, I’m not sure how sending in more troops and killing more innocent people would garner support for Obama. On top of this we also have Drone bombings in Pakistan and Yemen with talk of further bombings in Somalia. And what about Guantanamo? Well, he’s failed to close Guantanamo by the date he assigned himself, and I would be doubtful if we see it close anytime soon. As for the wall street bail out – yet another financial gift care of the US tax payer to the very institutions that caused the collapse in the first place. I think with this in mind we might see why Americans’ faith in their president is starting to wane.
There is no mystery about Obama’s failure. The Republicans & Fox were always going to hate him, but he has let down his own folk too.
You wrote:
As promised he has delivered a healthcare bill, shifted military emphasis to Afghanistan, and begun the process of closing down Guantanamo Bay. He has delivered a stimulus package that has stopped the rot in the economy, and will soon be looking to bring in new regulations on Wall Street
The healthcare bill is too watered down and will not satisfy ordinary Democrat voters. They are outraged.
Afghanistan was supposed to be wound up – the fool is escalating it.
He did not indite the torturers.
Even Paul Krugman, a loyal Obama supporter decries the inadequacy of the stimulus package.
We’ll believe in Wall Street regulation if and when it happens.
People wanted to believe in “Yes we can”. It is not a lie they will lightly forgive.
Good greif what a pile of nonsense,the man has never stopped lying and has delivered nothing but the same evil,to change things you should suggest boycotting all american goods if they dont make any money they cant spend it on murdering woman and children all across the world.
John L. 4 April, 2010
The previous comments are factually accurate. As Michael Collins has written
in America it’s all about the money. The Speaker of the U.S. house, Nancy Pelosi, occupies the position not because of her ability to create and sustain a progressive narrative, but instead, because she is the best money-raiser in the U.S. Congress, The second best money raiser is the Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer. For members of Congress, keeping their jobs and getting rich is more important than serving those that elected them.
Both are dedicated to preserving the status quo in the United States. The call
for health care reform gave Pelosi and Hoyer the opportunity to sell-out the American people with a $1 Trillion giveaway to the very health insurers responsible for denying care and cancelling policies…in exchange for campaign
cash.
Obama is just a corrupt. He received $ 20 million in campaign cash from the health care industry before he was elected President. No way was he going to
take the initiative by proposing low cost, easier to maintain medicare-for-all.
Obama’s job approval ratings continue to slide…and would accelerate downward
if his handlers stopped sending him out campaigning for support for his agenda with 24-7 television coverage.
“Both Rudd and Obama came in on the heels of two abhorred and ineffectual leaders.”
That sentence alone invalidates any further commentary from the author.
John Howard was not ineffectual, he became abhorred by the left but then that’s always going to happen.
As for GWB, he was very effectual. He only failed on immigration of all the major policies he put to congress.
I’m not surprised that everyone is starting to hate Obama. Here’s an extract from Rasmussen Reports: “Sixty-two percent (62%) of all voters now say the nation is heading down the wrong track”. America heading down the wrong track? It certainly is. If you go to treasurydirect.gov then you can find out that America is almost 13 trillion dollars in debt.
The problem with Obama, is that he is just another puppet of the international banksters – he’s basically a black version of George Bush. Obama voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act (with the horrible section 802), and he also supports the policestate, the wars, and destroying America’s economy. The banksters deliberately put America into astronomical sums of debt, and the whole system is rigged in favour of the Wall Street elite. What Obama has done, is he has put the perpetrators in charge of fixing the economic crisis which they themselves caused in the first place.
It would be nice if Obama threw out people like Greenspan, Geithner and Volcker – but instead he has chosen to enable these looters. Then there are the more obvious issues, as mentioned above – things to do with the War On Terror. Occupying Afghanistan for no genuine reason costs 3 billion a week, and torture is unacceptable (it doesn’t provide any useful intelligence anyway).
What is really disgusting, is how Obama peddles this sad rhetoric about “nuclear terrorists” – this is a neocon talking point! If a nuke or a dirty bomb goes off in the U.S., it will be a false flag operation. Obama’s handlers are desperate to engineer a world war starting off with Iran, and they will do ANYTHING to kick this off – including a nuclear 9/11.
Let’s expose these criminals before they get us all killed via insane global conflicts in the Persian Gulf.
Internet, internet, internet, marketing of lies, push-polling. Ignorance of the masses who are easily swayed by these weasel words. Matthew Hooten is a master of it in New Zealand.
Key had about 46 spin merchants before he was even ‘spinned’ into government. Now he owns half the media and has an even larger spin department. NAct will be very keen to hold on to government in 2011. Watch for a lot more lies and spin.
Crosby and Textor type blitzes until everyday people start to believe the crap – just as it happened with Helen Clark’s Government.
Read Hager’s The Hollow Men and it becomes obvious the amount of worldwide money and powerful ‘forces’ spinning webs of deceit and hatred for any compassionate attempts to enable all members of a society to live, not just survive. In New Zealand we have Ashcroft and any moneyed, powerful friends both internationally and domestically that are backing Key.
The rich need their slaves. They have a lot to lose if they allow equality to creep in. They want women to be second class citizens so that men will have someone they can control and will then accept their low paid lot. The ‘family versus women’s rights’ anti-abortionists also seek to control women through stopping support as happened with Obama’s healthcare bill and are being pushed in the Waikato by family first now. Hitler recognised that in order to manipulate the masses, a scapegoat was always needed, hence Jews in the 30s/40s and always, always throughout history in every culture, women.
Because the media hype turned Obama into G.O.D. rather than ‘just’ a human being, how could he deliver what they expected. Political spinners are paid billions to be a corrupting influence on the voter’s integrity and intelligent analysis. The right have always been expert at corruption; the left have far more integrity. Also, corruption never hurts the rich only the poor.
The powerful will never allow good people to govern. Clark only
succeeded to 3 terms because of the Exclusive Brethren debacle.
Interesting gap between James Robinson and the consensus of the commenters. The former states claims that Obama is a sincere guy who has done great on foreign policy and Guantanamo. Here in the real world we can see no evidence of anything but another smooth operator who has continued Bush’s policies of worldwide intervention, torture and holding people without charge, and who has gone beyond Bush in being wholly captured by Wall St. Wake up, judicious and accommodating pundits. Fewer people are buying the BS, which is reflected in the polls and the rise of things like the Tea Party. One senses something being born which will change the political landscape, in a way which cannot quite be discerned as yet.
Wow, what dedication to the left James. You get full marks for loyalty, zero for reality. Rudd & Obama are a pair of twits with good marketing teams. Nothing more. Pity someone who’s meant to be switched on like that of Werewolf writers fell for their rhetoric.