From WaPo poll: Obama v. Clinton on accomplishments and campaign promises

[ProSense]

link

[Captain Hilts]

1. Perceptions are not facts. This is not fair to either man. nt

[ProSense]

2. Interesting. n/t

[Captain Hilts]

3. I did these kind of surveys for years. Obama has done very well

considering the idiots in Congress he has to deal with. The same could be said for Clinton with an even more conservative Congress.

Whether it's Reagan's numbers on questions like this, Clinton's or Obama's, when it comes to being re-elected, the answers to surveys such as this one are not at all accurate indicators of re-electibility, etc.

Yesterday's press conference was a stark reminder of how much better off we are now that GWB is out.

[krawhitham]

4. Perception is everything, people are lemmings

[Captain Hilts]

5. Yes, but lousy poll numbers at the end of the 1st year are not an indicator of re-election success.

That's where facts often trump perceptions in this case.

But, generally, you are right.

[otohara]

6. Ahhh,...the Fickle, Impatient , MSM Media

hateful opposition party, Fox, Limbaugh and screaming tea-baggers ten-thousand times worse than in the 90's.

Internet numbers North America 01/93 1,313,000
Internet numbers in 01/10 252,908,000


Then... there's the millions of racists Clinton didn't have to deal with.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

11. Oddly, those racists hated Clinton, Gore and Kerry just as much

It's a paradox. There is a racial component to the RW reaction to Obama, but there doesn't seem to be much of a white population against Obama but for white Democrats. Obama did better with white voters than Kerry and I've still not seen hate like what Clinton faced. (So far. Obama hasn't been around very long yet so more RW hate may develop.)

It's a puzzling topic. It seems that serious racists are so concentrated in the Republican Party that a black Dem can't get as much disproportionate outrage as we would expect because the racists are already on full-tilt outrage regarding any Dem president or presidential aspirant. The haters may hate harder (if possible) but there are not more of them.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

7. They are almost exactly the same

Eerily similar.

Unfortunately many readers of this post will not recognize that because the OP includes a polling set from Clinton from August, 1994. (Equivalent to August 2010, which hasn't happened yet, though I wish it would because I'm tired of cold weather.)

The comparable sets are Clinton 1/23/94 and Obama 1/15/10

[ProSense]

8. Except in one area:

the promises each made. Obama is achieving what he set out to accomplish, a progressive agenda.

[Captain Hilts]

9. Clinton got slammed by a conservative Congress, especially Dems like Nunn. Both did well. nt

[ProSense]

10. The comment had nothing to do with attacks. n/t

[Captain Hilts]

12. He promised to integrate the military and Nunn and Warner blocked the door.

And the US people supported the ban.

Clinton was too far ahead and he let it take some of the fight out of him, which he should not have done.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

13. No... that is not a meaningful difference

I factored that into my statement, and correctly.

The campaign promise issue is too close to talk about a difference. The same number say promises not kept. 4% more say kept versus undecided. It's as similar as the other stuff.



Campaign promises being kept

Clinton: 37 - 46
Obama: 41 - 46

[ProSense]

14. Accomplishing a progressive agenda is not a "meaningful difference"?

Are you joking?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

15. Do you pretend to be crazy just to torment me?

The topic is numbers, not what you personally characterize as accomplishing a progressive agenda... something from your head that may or may not be true but either way is not addressed in the OP I was replying to and does not have any bearing on my comment to which you are ostensibly replying.

37-46-10 versus 41-46-4 is not a meaningful difference numerically when comparing two polls in terms of providing a rational basis for identifying it as a meaningful difference.

[ProSense]

16. Are you so desperate to hype Clinton that you chose to ignore the facts?

"personally characterize as accomplishing a progressive agenda"

Yeah, it's my characterization only.

Ludicrous.

[Political Heretic]

17. Speculative irrelevance. And a 20% percentage drop for Obama tells all

Is Obama keeping most of his major campaign promises, or not?

41, down from 60 pretty much tells the tale.

[ProSense]

18. You're right

It's interesting that after three months in office, people thought he was keeping his promises. Now after a year, that's dropped.

[Political Heretic]

20. by 20 points, after having enough to to see rather than just "hope"

[shadesofgray]

19. I'll tell you one thing Clinton had the guts to do, that Obama never will do.

On Clinton's first or second day in office, he rescinded the rule that Federal employees could not use their own health insurance to pay for abortions.

When Obama does that, get back to me.

And don't use that tired warn out old "but he didn't campaign on that" cliche. Clinton didn't either - but he did it.

[dsc]

21. the most relevent numbers (jan for both) are remakably similar

I am presuming a MOE of 3 for both polls. Every number in both polls is easily within the MOE (ie they are statistically tied) at this point. Obama had better early numbers on getting stuff done and keeping promises but now they are tied in all cases statistically and in many cases literally.