Obama Getting High Marks For Lame Duck Session

Given how the lame duck session started, with a devastating defeat at the midterms and Republicans united in opposition to any action without a deal on extension of the Bush Tax Cuts, it’s somewhat surprising that President Obama is getting high marks from the public for how his legislative agenda has gone over the past month:

President Barack Obama is getting good marks for his role in Congress’ lame duck session.

In a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Wednesday, 56 percent of Americans said they support how Obama has handled the lame duck session that’s expected to end this week. Forty-one percent said they disapprove.

Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle didn’t do as well. Republicans have a 42 percent approval rating for their work during the lame duck, while 44 percent approved of the work by Democrats.

Partly, this is a reflection of the old saying that nothing succeeds like success, and that pretty much everything that has passed this session  — the tax cut extension, DADT repeal, and, later today, the START Treaty — has done so with widespread bipartisan public support. Also, despite Republican resistance at the start we’ve seen more bipartisanship over the past five weeks than at any other time during the 111th Congress. Perhaps the folks in Washington should take note of those facts in planning for the future. Of course, they won’t.

FILED UNDER: Congress, US Politics, , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. john personna says:

    The pendulum is oscillating rapidly in the middle.

  2. anjin-san says:

    > The pendulum is oscillating rapidly in the middle.

    Looks that way. And Obama is running the table right before the new, improved wingnut Congress is seated, where they will have to make good on all their talk about cutting spending. Something tells me that is not going to happen.

  3. narciso says:

    The Congress hasn’t been seated yet, the old guard are a bunch of pampered fools who wouldn’t know a principle if it bit it on the behind, and stop with the polls of adults who don’t
    mean anything and think Jon Stewart is a news source

  4. Smooth Jazz says:

    “Looks that way. And Obama is running the table right before the new, improved wingnut Congress is seated, where they will have to make good on all their talk about cutting spending”

    A left wing KoolAid drinker posting platitudes on a left wing blog; whoppee! Obambi is kicking but now . The community organizer is in WAY over his head, and getting homosexuals to serve in the military isn’t going to change that. Keep drinking that KoolAid.

  5. anjin-san says:

    > The community organizer is in WAY over his head

    Yes, that explains why he has so much of his agenda in place two years in. Of course.

    Have a nice holiday Kenny.

  6. the Q says:

    smooth Jszz, don’t you see the brilliance in repealing DADT?

    That means more fags will be kiiled!!! Just think, the straight guys can tell the queers that its an honor to take the point and lead the convoy through dirt roadsides ahead of the real soldiers.

    Those dumb queens will be the one’s getting blown up first by all the IEDs in Iraq. Surely, that must make you jump with glee right?

    Come on, just think Uncle Sam can now get rid of the sausage squeezers legally. Put them on suicide missions deep in the Bekaa Valley and they’ll never come back.

    For a minute there you were scaring me smoothjazz,, I didn’t catch your dripping sarcasm.

  7. anjin-san says:

    > The community organizer is in WAY over his head

    I guess if you put all caps into your wingnut secret decoder ring, magic ponies appear and make your fantasies into reality…