According to Gallup the President’s poll numbers have reached a high point for 2014, reportedly at 47% and most of the major media are making sure to post this positive news. The fact that they are now reporting this while ignoring the poll numbers from the rest of the year is just another example of media bias. This story from Media Resource Center in September states it very succinctly:
Such coverage is in stunning contrast to how those same newscasts relentlessly emphasized polls showing bad news for George W. Bush during the same phase of his presidency. Media Research Center analysts reviewed every reference on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts to public opinion polls from January 1 through August 31, 2014, and from the same time period in 2006. Eight years ago, the networks aired 124 evening news reports which cited public opinion polls about either President Bush’s overall approval rating or his handling of specific policies. In 2014, those same broadcasts produced only nine reports which mentioned public opinion surveys related to President Obama.”
Full report at: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/rich-noyes/2014/09/08/mrc-study-tv-buries-bad-news-obamas-collapsing-polls#sthash.Nrrh0CYi.dpuf
The credit is being given to the positive economic news including the job creation numbers, the lower gas prices, the high numbers of the Stock Market and the rising GDP. I could dispute how valid these numbers are and how President Obama affects them, plus the lack of reporting of what’s going on in the rest of the world, especially in the Middle East but I will leave that for another time.
What I want to address is this headline from the Huffington Post “Obama Has Tied Reagan In Public Opinion Polls,” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-a-tures/obama-has-tied-reagan-in-public-opinion-polls_b_6383892.html) which is similar to other outlets. While that is true on it’s face as President Reagan was at 48% at this point but it ignores “the rest of the story.” As the chart below shows this period was near President Reagan’s lowest point in his presidency. This also coincides with the exposure of the Iran-Contra affair late in November of 1986 where Oliver North was exposed as destroying documents associated with the scandal.
(the top or red line is approval versus the bottom or blue line which shows disapproval numbers
The chart shows a steep drop at that time but as you can see President Reagan’s numbers started ticking upwards shortly afterwards with a big rise near the end of his presidency. I don’t see the same trend developing for President Obama as nothing points towards into any positive news in the foreseeable future.
markE watkins 