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TPMDC Morning Roundup

Sotomayor Set To Be Confirmed Today
The Senate is expected to vote today to confirm Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Her confirmation is essentially guaranteed, as no Democrats have come out against her, and eight Republicans are now set to vote in favor of the nomination as well.

Obama's Day Ahead
President Obama will meet with members of the Senate Finance Committee at 11:30 a.m. ET. He will meet with Sec. of the Treasury Tim Geithner at 3:15 p.m. ET. He will meet at 4 p.m. ET with John Brennan, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. He will speak at a 6:40 p.m. ET fundraiser in Virginia for state Sen. Creigh Deeds, the Democratic nominee for governor this year, and then speak at a 7:10 p.m. ET rally for Deeds.

Biden On Vacation In South Carolina
Vice President Biden and his wife Jill are spending the week in Kiawah Island in South Carolina, at the private home of Maria Allwin. They arrived last night, and will be staying through August 12. No public events are scheduled.

CNN Poll: Obama's Approval Falls 10 Points Over Last 100 Days
A new CNN poll finds that President Obama's approval rating has fallen by ten points during his second 100 days in office. According to the poll, 56% of Americans approve of his performance, with 40% disapproving, compared to a 63%-33% rating when he'd first reached the 100-day mark back in April.

Quinnipiac: Obama Approval At 50%
The new Quinnipiac poll finds President Obama's approval rating at 50%, to disapproval of 42%. This is down from a 57%-33% rating a month ago, 59%-31% two months ago, and 58%-31% from three months ago -- meaning that there has been a significant decline after a period of stability.

WaPo: Obama Using More Than Bullets And Bombs To Fight Terrorism
The Washington Post reports that the Obama Administration is pursuing a far different strategy on terrorism than the Bush White House, combining military pressure against al Qaeada with comprehensive economic and diplomatic measures throughout the Muslim world. "It needs to be much more than a kinetic effort, an intelligence, law enforcement effort. It has to be much more comprehensive," said John Brennan, the senior counterterrorism adviser to President Obama. "This is not a 'war on terror.' . . . We cannot let the terror prism guide how we're going to interact and be involved in different parts of the world."

White House To Overhaul Policy On Immigrant Detention
The New York Times reports that the Obama Administration will announce today an overhaul of the country's policies on detaining immigration violators. The changes could take months or years to complete, but will involve centralizing authority over the system, and providing direct oversight of detention centers that have come under criticism for poor conditions.

Gregg To Vote For Sotomayor
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) announced yesterday evening that he will vote to confirm Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, making him the eighth Republican to indicate support. Gregg said in his statement that he does not agree with Sotomayor on everything, but that is not what the confirmation process is about: "Ultimately, my decision comes down to qualifications. I will vote to confirm Judge Sotomayor, because in my judgment, she is qualified to serve on the Supreme Court."


20 Comments

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The clock is ticking. If we don't pass HC. Change with be will strangled in it's infancy. If we get it done, the wind will be on our backs and we can get to immigration, energy, and other things.

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Health care reform WILL be passed.

I actually think that Democrats are MORE scared of what happened in 1994 when they didn't pass health care reform and Democrats were wiped out in mid-terms than passing something that doesn't poll well.

I think that the reason why health care reform isn't poll well because there is a lot of misinformation about it so people are frightened. Once health care reform is passed and Americans don't see their world falling apart and there are BENEFITS than Democrats will be just fine.

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Yglesias pointed out that blue Dogs actually have the most ot fear from failure.

The public views things through the lens of success or failure, not necessarily on the merits. A "failure" for Obama would hit them worse in 2010, esp. since they are in the red districts.

Surely they know that the GOP sweep in 1994 was a result of that congress' failure on HCR.

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Holy shit 56% approval is just awful. Yeah right. It’s unbelievable when you consider the condition of country when Obama took office. Why doesn’t msm ever site how republicans fared in these poles?

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I think it's fair to say that the President's shrinking approval numbers can also be attributed to people like me who spent hundreds of hours phone banking, going door-to-door, attending rallies and fundraisers, donating money and working my polling place from before it opened until after it closed and every vote was accounted.

What I'm seeing from my President (and the Dem majority) is not what I was promised and not what I voted for.

President Obama has stopped referencing the public option when he speaks of healthcare reform, has done nothing to direct Congress to overhaul Medicare Advantage and Part D. What he, and his administration, has done is allow BigPharma, BigHealth and BigLobby a seat at the debate table while We the People are left out in the cold.

I only wish we had donated half of that $600+ million to the campaign, and saved the other half to buy our own lobbyists to advance what appears to be, as of now, an agenda of campaign promises that only we continue to support.

PEACE

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Exactly: Not one of these polls out there tries to break down why people are dissatisfied. The media just assumes people are drifting from Obama toward the conservative opposition (even though those same polls show Dems favored vis-a-vis Republicans). I suspect a good 15-20% of those upset with Dems-Obama on health care are from the left favoring stronger reform or single-payer.

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Um, try again. For the most point it's the economy that have been taking it's toll on his approval ratings. That has already been documented on TPM awhile back from various websites like pollster.com. The people that drag his approval numbers down are the Republicans and a bit fron the indies. He gets strong numbers from his own party. As for health care. Any poll taken when broken down shows that Democrats approve his positions on healthcare by strong numbers. If 15-20 percent are upset at Obama at healthcare reform, it's the crazies that don't want single payer or a public option or "socialized medicine" as they want to call it.

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The why do polls now show more people oppose than support Obama specifically on healthcare and yet the same polls show Obama far outpolling the GOP when those same polls ask whether respondents favor Obama or the GOP approach on healthcare?

That's exactly how I and many in my circle would respond to a pollster if asked. I'm disappointed that Obama and the Dems are bowing too much to corporate and insurance interests in their approach yet vastly prefer their approach over that of the GOP, which is essentially whatever the insurance industry wants.

Polls are now showing about half the public disapproves of Obama's health care plan (though who really knows what it is?). I still submit a good 15 to 20% of that disapproval is based on him giving in too much to insurance interests. I just wish those polls would try to draw out those disapproving respondents as to why they disapprove.

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The hit that Obama is taking on health care is so unnecessary with such a majority in Congress. What's the use of being in power if you can't agree on the party's agenda. We got Obama elected and the Blue Dogs/Baucus are going to tear him down.

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Poll numbers only reflect the current media narrative:

Obama is in trouble, health care is under attack.

Oh yes, and "Obama's poll numbers slipping" -- new poll daily.

(It's funny how corporate media starts breathlessly conducting daily polls when a move is made to encroach on their profit margins.Anyone else think the MSM is getting nervous?)

If it passes, or the media finds a new narrative -- comback, resurgence -- then polls will go up.

What a way to run a country, eh?

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Agreed. We need to get this bill passed and change the story. Keeping the focus on Baucus, Blue Dogs, and tea bags is just overwhelming everything else. All process, compromise, and rage without the hope.

Pass the bill, declare victory, and rebuild momentum.

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Um, isn't that drop from 63% to 56% a seven point decline in the CNN poll? Not ten.

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The 10 point decline is from the first 100 days when Obama wasn't taken on anything controversial.

Now Obama is taking on health care reform which people are fearful.

Democrats need to always remember that if they don't pass health care reform than they WILL be wiped out in 2010.

I am sure that Rahm tells them that every day.

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But that still isn't a ten point decline.

"56% of Americans approve of his performance, with 40% disapproving, compared to a 63%-33% rating when he'd first reached the 100-day mark back in April."

63% approved at the 100-day mark, and 56% approve today: that's a seven point drop. Not ten.

I still don't understand where the headline is coming from.

And that's not coming from using a net approve-disapprove ratio, since his disapproval rating has climbed another 7 points.

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It is a mistake, saying 10 points instead of 7. Eric seems to make a lot of those.

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Just looking at the CNN story, and they say it there too. It's a cut and paste error for TPM, but CNN is the one spreading it.

Sigh. Stressful Thursday for polling.

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Consider the source. As the guys on the Bugle say [paraphrasing]:the MSM get all excited over nothing, so imagine how excited they get when something actually happens. They're the proverbial boys who cry "Wolf." And Blitzer is the Wolf who cries "news" every afternoon.

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I just can't figure out why people who voted for Obama are surprised he is reforming health care. It's not like he didn't run on it in his campaign. So why are his numbers going down over health care? It doesn't make any sense. And I'm not sure what he can do different. He's out there almost every day trying to get his message out to the public, but it's hard to be heard over all the townhall coverage. Effing August break! The only thing we can hope for is these townhall meetings get so out of hand it turns people off.

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I suspect that Obama has enough sense to not govern with a passion for prevailing winds (thank you, Gore Vidal). If W could go through 8 years maintaining that he didn't let polls influence his "decisions," then I'm sure that someone of Obama's intellect can withstand the (temporary)loss of popularity to develop and execute a very complicated piece of policy.

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Presidential approval ratings ALWAYS go down. And frankly, if you want something to pass as large as this, you need to let Congress go and support them. They are an insecure body and hate being pushed from top down, or when the president goes public to try and pressure them. We have a very frustrating government to try and push policy through. It takes a while. Health care reform will pass, and I'm confident a public option will be in it.

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