With his sights on a 2012 reelection, President Barack Obama may finally have a truly worthy adversary. It’s not Donald Trump, Michele Bachmann, or Sarah Palin. It’s the economy.
A new New York Times/CBS poll finds that Americans are more discouraged by the country’s economic outlook than they have been since Obama's first two months in office. With the country’s view of the economy inextricably linked to job approval ratings, it’s the economy that could prove to be Obama’s biggest hurdle to staying in the White House.
The number of Americans who believe the economy is getting worse shot up by 13 percentage points in one month and now stands at 39 percent (more than the 38 percent who said it is staying the same and 23 percent who think it’s getting better).
This does not bode particularly well for the President’s approval ratings. According to the poll, disapproval of Obama’s handling of the economy “has never been broader” and is a view shared by 57 percent of Americans.
Obama can take some solace, however, in the fact that he’s not the only one that the American people are upset with. After the first 100 days of Republican leadership in the House of Representatives, 75 percent of respondents said they disapproved of how Congress was doing its job.
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