The Disappearing Presidential Honeymoon

Presidential honeymoons aren't what they used to be, and President Obama's second term honeymoon isn't likely to last very long.

White Hosue Daytime

Nate Silver notes that Presidential “Honeymoon’s” aren’t what they used to be, especially if your a President serving his second term:

All recent second-term presidents began their new terms with approval ratings above 50 percent (although barely so in the case of Mr. Obama and Mr. Bush). This ought not to be surprising: after all, each of these presidents had just been elected or re-elected, and it is hard to accomplish that unless at least half of the country approves of how you’ve done your job.

However, it used to be that presidents enjoyed a “honeymoon period” at the beginning of their second term, with a large number of Americans who had failed to vote for them nevertheless expressing their best wishes.

Compare Truman in 1949, for example, to Mr. Obama today. Both won the popular vote by a similar margin, about four percentage points. They also got a similar share of the popular vote (51.0 percent for Mr. Obama, 49.6 percent for Truman). Both had experienced somewhat embattled first terms — Truman, whose approval ratings were as low as about 35 percent during parts of 1946 and 1948, probably even more so than Mr. Obama.

But Truman’s approval rating shot up to 69 percent at the start of his second term, while Mr. Obama’s is just 52 percent, just barely more than the share of the popular vote he received. Similarly, in 2005, Mr. Bush’s approval rating at the start of his second term (51 percent) matched the share of the vote he had received against John Kerry in November 2004.

With partisanship being what it is today, and political attitudes being so hard-wired, presidents don’t seem to get the benefit of the doubt from voters in the same way they once might have. Mr. Obama’s first term had been an exception: his approval ratings averaged about 65 percent just after he was inaugurated in 2009, perhaps because of the historical importance of his having become the first African-American president. But his approval ratings and political capital faded quickly.

Indeed, it did fade quickly. By the end of his first year in office, President Obama’s job approval numbers, as measured by RealClearPolitics, had fallen significantly, with only a 5 point gap between approval and disapproval and the approval number under 50%. His numbers on the Second Anniversary of his Inauguration were roughly the same as they had been in 2010, but he had spent much of the previous year in negative territory, with the exception of a brief period after the death of Osama bin Laden. On year ago, as the 2012 campaign was just gearing up, he was upside down again and yet went on to win a convincing election victory. Now, we stand at the beginning of the President’s Second Term, and his approval numbers are averaging at 52.2% approval and 43.1% disapproval, the best position he’s been in since the bin Laden raid. If recent history is any guide, though, it’s unlikely to last. President Obama’s re-election didn’t end political polarization in this country and it seems unlikely that the heady days of early 2009 are ever going to return again.

This suggests that President Obama’s second term isn’t going to be any easier than the first. The Republicans continue to hold on to the House, and are likely to do so after the 2014 Midterms unless there’s some kind of radical change in public sentiment and political fortunes. Additionally, the Republican minority in the Senate continues to wield significant power, and the prospects for real filibuster reform seem to be dwindling by the day. In the coming months, the President will have to deal with issues ranging from the debt and the budget to Immigration reform, to the new push for gun control, which faces it’s own uphill battle in both the House and the Senate. Quite obviously, those approval numbers are going to decline and, as time goes on, the President’s ability to get things done will diminish significantly. By the time the 2014 midterms roll around, we’ll start hearing about lame ducks as people on both sides of the political aisle start positioning themselves for 2016.

So, President Obama, enjoy today’s pageantry because it’s all down hill from here.

FILED UNDER: Public Opinion Polls, 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. Mike Sanfilippo says:

    The more difficult his second term is, the better off the country will be.

  2. Rob in CT says:

    GOP source code:

    If POTUS = Democrat, then POTUS = illegitimate.

    When Clinton was Pres, much was made of the fact that he was originally elected with 40-something % (due to Perot being in the race). What was the famous whine? “He wrecked the place, and it wasn’t even his place!” He won again, and so they shut down the government (for a bit).

    When Obama won, he was a Kenyan usurper manuchrian candidate of an America-hater who only won because ACORN. Opposition was 100%, from the git-go.

    If the GOP hadn’t screwed up so badly in their 2012 Senate races, I would fully expect impeachment. The Dems held the Senate, though, so perhaps not.

    [Bush the Younger’s win via Supreme Court in 2000 did indeed result in many Dems not accepting his election. I disagreed with this at the time, and still do. In Congress, though, that’s not how Bush was treated. In 2004, he was re-elected, and only a small fringe cried “Diebold! Ohio was stolen!” The difference is not one of kind, but rather of degree. Specifically the degree to which this stuff is tolerated by the leaders of the parties. Dems in congress hardly responded to Dubya with lockstep opposition. You can see this with regard to the tax cuts, the wars… pretty much everything but SS privatization, if I recall correctly]

  3. ernieyeball says:

    @Mike Sanfilippo: The more difficult his second term is, the better off the country will be.

    You and Brush Lintoff… http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/01/20/35012/limbaugh-obama-fail/

    “It hasn’t taken long for Limbaugh to reveal his core hypocrisy. In July 2006, with conservatives in power, Limbaugh offered one of his common screeds against the left. “I’m getting so sick and tired of people rooting for the defeat of the good guys,” he complained.”

    You’re not a deep thinker just because you are sitting at the bottom of a well.

  4. edmondo says:

    So, President Obama, enjoy today’s pageantry because it’s all down hill from here.

    Except for the Obama-bots fantasies, it hasn’t been much of a mountain we climbed in the last 4 years.

  5. Hans Bader says:

    Why should Obama expect a honeymoon from political commentators and lawmakers, when his supporters have poisoned the well and political discourse by labeling even the mildest and most constructive criticism of his administration’s proposals as stupid, venal, and racist?

    I am a think-tank employee with libertarian leanings (not a social conservative), and I have lost count of the number of times progressives have responded to fact-based arguments I made regarding Administration proposals with the invariable refrain of (1) You’re stupid, and (2) You’re racist. This is the catch-all response to any fact-based criticism of the administration by some of its supporters.

    I get these responses in response to writings on a wide-range of issues, ranging from government stimulus spending, gun control, welfare reform, and Obamacare. I get these name-calling responses simply for taking positions that I have espoused for years, long before Obama was president, so my positions are obviously not based on his race or racially-motivated.

    For one such example (a commenter’s bizarre suggestion that my critique of the practicality of assault-weapons ban proposals by the administration was somehow racially-motivated) , see here: http://www.examiner.com/article/lobbying-is-sometimes-a-label-for-speech-that-powerful-people-dislike . By the way, I don’t own a gun, as was discussing a particular policy proposal, not gun control in general. I did not say anything racial or related to race at all.

  6. Rob in CT says:

    his supporters have poisoned the well

    While I think going the “you’re stupid and/or racist” route is indeed overdone, there are those who remember the 1990s. The Well was well and truely poisoned before Obama was even a politician.

    I’m sorry people called you names. I don’t condone it. Congresspeople are supposed to be big boys & girls, though. They could, theoretically, take a higher road. But we all know this wasn’t done. The plan was total opposition to produce a 1-term Presidency. The plan was carried out. The plan failed, though.

  7. Rob in CT says:

    Incidently, I checked out the Examiner website. I saw your story (which was basically a long complaint about you being unfairly maligned. Fair enough, you’re an advocate not a lobbyist). Then I went to today’s political coverage. Under the “Republican” section, they’ve got a Birther post up. Today. 1/21/13.

    I’m glad you are fact-based, Mr. Bader. Unfortunately, the Examiner has standards lower than yours. I guess they’re into well-poisoning. It’s apparently going around.

  8. C. Clavin says:

    Seriously…I doubt anyone was ever expecting a cake-walk.
    And the approval flucuations described are essentially noise…Obama has been prettyy constant over his entire Presidency.
    Keep in mind this is the same Republican Party that didn’t vote for it’s own Health-Care Reform bill. It’s really hard to accomplish anything faced with that level of reflexive opposition.
    I saw a factoid soemwhere that of 6 State Dinners the the two Republican Leaders had blown off all but one…and then it was only McConnell, not Boehner, who attended. How f’ing childish is that?
    Given the alternative…Romney…I predict we’ll be better off in four years…if only because the SCOTUS won’t have been shifted to the extreme right with more Koch employees like Scalia and Thomas.
    And then there is Foreign Policy. The Neo-Cons have been sent further into the woods and that’s a good thing.
    If for nothing else but those two items…electing Obama will have been a good thing.

  9. stonetools says:

    I expect nothing but relentless opposition beginning tomorrow, as conservatives rally against the Kenyan Muslim usurper who was unaccountably and wrongfully returned to office.
    Dunno if things are going get worse and worse, though. Since his enemies are a wingnut Republican opposition that is much more unpopular than he is, I like his chances for doing well.

  10. Hans Bader says:

    @C. Clavin:

    It’s funny how progressives cannot tell the difference between a conservative on the one hand and a moderate or libertarian on the other (anyone who does not think like a progressive must think alike, they falsely assume):

    “I predict we’ll be better off in four years…if only because the SCOTUS won’t have been shifted to the extreme right with more Koch employees like Scalia and Thomas.”

    The Kochs aren’t that powerful, and they aren’t even conservatives — they are libertarians. One of them was the Libertarian Party’s 1980 vice presidential nominee. The Koch brothers support gay marriage, Pentagon cuts and (reluctantly, due to skyrocketing deficits) tax increases, as the gay-community publication The Advocate noted:

    http://www.advocate.com/politics/marriage-equality/2012/08/30/koch-brother-supports-marriage-equality

    By contrast, Scalia and Thomas aren’t libertarians, and aren’t even consistently pro-free-market or anti-trial lawyer votes on the Supreme Court, so they aren’t exactly dream justices for business owners like the Kochs (Thomas opposes all constitutional limits on punitive damages, and all of the Supreme Court justices have often voted to overturn lower federal court rulings in order to expand the reach of federal employment laws allowing discrimination plaintiffs to sue employers in retaliation and harassment cases, and certain kinds of discrimination cases, see, e.g., Lewis v. Chicago. Although Scalia, Thomas, and Alito have dissented against some rulings expanding employer liability, unlike the more liberal justices, they often have voted against employers as well, see .e.g., Burlington Northern v. White, Lewis v. Chicago, Thompson v. North American Stainless, Harris v. Forklift Systems):

    http://www.openmarket.org/2011/01/27/the-supreme-court-is-not-pro-business/

  11. David M says:

    @Hans Bader:

    There’s no functional difference between most (all) libertarians and GOP, as the support for those libertarian issues is just window dressing. Their unceasing support for the GOP and tax cuts over everything else is pretty good evidence for that, and regarding the Koch brothers specifically, I seem to recall them tiring of hearing the libertarian voices at CATO last year?

  12. Surreal American says:

    @Hans Bader:

    It’s funny how progressives cannot tell the difference between a conservative on the one hand and a moderate or libertarian on the other (anyone who does not think like a progressive must think alike, they falsely assume)

    A libertarian is a Republican and/or Conservative who smokes pot and cannot be arsed to give a tinker’s cuss beyond what personally benefits him (or her, in some cases).

  13. Tsar Nicholas says:

    Seems like a real stretch to compare Obama, W. Bush and Truman. That’s sort of like comparing apples, oranges and apple pie.

    Back in Truman’s day we had a hard-working public that was extremely patriotic and had recently won a global world war. And that was decades before the politics of personal destruction became de rigueur in the media and among the chattering classes. Comparing the body politic in 2013 with the body politic in 1949 is like comparing Stan Musial to Barry Bonds. Class and grace vs. classless and overblown.

    W. Bush’s approval ratings nearly for his entire two terms did not jibe with reality, largely because of Bush Derangement Syndrome, which in turn was driven by the incessant 24/7 drumbeat of negative media coverage.

    In any event, regarding what undoubtedly will be a very short honeymoon for Obama, ultimately it’s tough to be in the good graces of too many people when unemployment is so rampant. Speaking of which, check out the following unemployment rates for 2nd term presidents since and including Truman:

    7.8% – December 2012
    5.3% – January 2005
    5.3% – January 1997
    7.3% – January 1985
    4.9% – January 1973
    4.9% – January 1965
    4.2% – January 1957
    4.3% – January 1949

    Dystopian.

  14. OzarkHillbilly says:

    Why should Obama expect a honeymoon from political commentators and lawmakers, when his supporters have poisoned the well and political discourse by labeling even the mildest and most constructive criticism of his administration’s proposals as stupid, venal, and racist?

    Such self-righteous whining… Just exactly what political discourse are you talking about? Birtherism? McConnell’s pledge to make Obama a “one term President?” Give me a break.

    I would say more, but I don’t want to make you cry.

  15. Surreal American says:

    @Surreal American:

    No offense to pot smokers intended. 🙂

  16. Surreal American says:

    @Tsar Nicholas:

    W. Bush’s approval ratings nearly for his entire two terms did not jibe with reality.

    Jibing with reality: Ur doin it wrong, Tsarevich.

    Although I agree with you in this one instance. Mainly because W’s approval ratings should haven, much, much, MUCH lower.

  17. Console says:

    @Surreal American:

    The right was and is too heavily invested in pretending iraq and afghanistan didn’t exist to comprehend why people thought Bush was incompetent.

  18. Hans Bader says:

    @David M:

    Whatever their faults, the Koch brothers support Pentagon cuts — the exact opposite of neo-conservatives. And not only don’t they show “unceasing support for” tax cuts, as you claim, but the Koch brothers admit some tax increases are likely necessary due to skyrocketing budget deficits. (They oppose Obama mainly due to regulatory policy, and Obama’s support for massive federal spending). Their support for the GOP is comparatively recent, and one Koch brother ran against Reagan in 1980, as the vice presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party.

    You wrote:

    “There’s no functional difference between most (all) libertarians and GOP, as the support for those libertarian issues is just window dressing. Their unceasing support for the GOP and tax cuts over everything else is pretty good evidence for that, and regarding the Koch brothers specifically.”

    This claim is belied by the fact that many Libertarians didn’t vote for the GOP (voting instead for former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, or — in the case of some young, misguided Libertarians — for Obama as the lesser of two evils).

  19. grumpy realist says:

    @Hans Bader: When the Libertarian Party manages to be any more than a mouse’s fart in a hurricane, then you can get back to us.

    And if you want to see why most people think that Libertarians are nothing more than kooks, look at the stances and comments made by some of your banner-carriers. Thiel thinks it would have been better if women hadn’t gotten the vote. Rand Paul thinks that the Civil Rights Act shouldn’t have been passed. One of your other nitwits-running-for-POTUS was against license plates.

    I ask, are you totally mad?

  20. David M says:

    @Hans Bader:

    How does their professed support of those causes matter in light of their actual financial support for the GOP?

  21. Stan says:

    @Tsar Nicholas: “W. Bush’s approval ratings nearly for his entire two terms did not jibe with reality…”

    Truly, one of the strangest remarks I’ve read on this site. Or anywhere. What do you define as reality, Tsar Nick? What you and your friends think?

  22. Rob in CT says:

    voting instead for former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson

    Who, of course, tried for the GOP nomination first, like Ron Paul did many times. After failing miserably (unfortunate, since he seems relatively sane), he went Libertarian.

    This is why folks associate Libertarians with Republicans. When push comes to shove, libertarians seem to mostly lean Republican as LOTE instead of Democrat as LOTE… basically because they put taxes at the top of the list, and the other stuff that is more liberal-friendly isn’t as important to them. Taxation is theft, etc etc. We’ve all heard it a thousand times. The passion is over taxes. Comparatively few are as fired up about other issues (I’ll give Radley Balko a pass for his work on justice system overreach/abuse. There are a few others as well. But mostly? Come on. Taxes, taxes, taxes).

  23. Surreal American says:

    @Hans Bader:

    So do the Koch brothers support reproductive rights or are they more like the Paul team (Ron and Rand), who get all right wing religious-y with regards to women parts? What’s the Koch brothers’ definition of “legitimate rape”?

    My guess: If the Koch brothers can’t make money from it, Koch brothers don’t care.

  24. Surreal American says:

    @Surreal American:

    Perhaps it would be a different story if we were talking about the “Koch sisters.”

  25. swbarnes2 says:

    @Hans Bader:

    The Koch brothers support gay marriage,

    And here it comes again, the prosperous white man’s lament that the feelings of rich old white men are what really matter, and that looking at their actions and policies is vulgar, or cheating, or somehow or other not quite cricket.

    The Koch’s give huge amounts of money to politicians whose polices are anti-gay. That’s what matters, that’s how responsible adults judge the extremely powerful, not by their empty words, and precious feelings

  26. Console says:

    @swbarnes2:

    The interests of the privileged come before the basic rights and dignity of people not like them.

    We aren’t the only country this exists in, but we might be the only one that pretends these privileged elites are only interested in freedom.

  27. David M says:

    @Hans Bader:
    It’s rare we get conservative comments that are worth reading, so I hope you haven’t left for good. I would like point out something worth considering:

    Why should Obama expect a honeymoon from political commentators and lawmakers, when his supporters have poisoned the well and political discourse by labeling even the mildest and most constructive criticism of his administration’s proposals as stupid, venal, and racist?

    How are the following quotes not stupid and venal?

    Government spending [under Obama] is much higher as a percentage of GDP than it was during virtually the entire post-World War II era (by a good 5 percent of GDP).
    ….
    Obama’s judicial appointees include virtually no moderates
    ….
    Obama won reelection without appealing to independent voters
    ….
    Under Obama, the federal government has spent more money annually than under any other President.

    Evaluating spending as a percentage of GDP isn’t necessarily wrong, but using an average Obama’s first four years serves no purpose but to mislead others. The “no moderate judicial nominees” is only a sign are unable to objectively evaluate Democratic nominees. as the evidence shows the opposite is true. Claiming Obama did not appeal to independent voters does nothing to add to a constructive conversation. And I shouldn’t even have to point out how mind-numbingly stupid the last quote was, even you should recognize that evaluating spending without adjusting for inflation or GDP is useless.

  28. Hans Bader says:

    @swbarnes2:

    Without realizing it, swbarnes2, by making gratuitous racial references, has proven the precise point I made in my comment at 11: 58 a.m.

    (S)he wrote:

    “here it comes again, the prosperous white man’s lament that the feelings of rich old white men are what really matter.”

    Such race-based references are a poor substitute for fact-based arguments, but they are the norm for today’s Left. When someone turns to race-baiting, it’s a sign that their argument is weak, and they have to hide that effect with appeals to emotion rather than reason.

    As I noted above (citing examples).

    “the invariable refrain of (1) You’re stupid, and (2) You’re racist” is “the catch-all response to any fact-based criticism of the administration by some of its supporters,” whether the subject is “government stimulus spending, gun control, welfare reform, and Obamacare.”

    Barnes’ comment is simply a shopworn, unoriginal version of the second refrain. Just a stale left-wing talking point for people who can’t think for themselves and rely on cliches.

    (It’s an odd argument in another respect, given that I am no whiter or more prosperous than many of today’s left, including many of the commenters here, having grown up in modest circumstances as the son of a widow.)

  29. David M says:

    @Hans Bader:

    You missed the point of swbarnes post completely, in addition to objecting to a statement that was factually true.

  30. swbarnes2 says:

    @Hans Bader:

    Such race-based references are a poor substitute for fact-based arguments, but they are the norm for today’s Left.

    Sorry, but it is fact based. It’s a fact that you told us to ignore the money the Kochs spend on anti-gay politicians, and to just concentrate on their magical intentions. It’s a fact that James Joyner justified his vote for Romney based not on what the evidence showed his policies would be, but by divining what was really in Romney’s heart. Remember Bush saying that he could read Putin’s soul, not by studying his policies, but by looking into his eyes?

    That is how conservatives think. If they valued the lives and experiences of other people over their own feelings, they would not be conservatives.

  31. Hans Bader says:

    The New York Times is not exactly a moderate or ideologically neutral paper when it comes to legal issues.

    For example, its editorial board has falsely claimed that the Supreme Court consistently rules in favor of business. Wrong. Here is a commentary listing some of the many court rulings in which the Supreme Court not only ruled AGAINST business, but overturned lower court rulings in favor of business in the process, taking a more liberal position than the lower federal courts:

    http://www.openmarket.org/2011/01/27/the-supreme-court-is-not-pro-business/

    Moreover, the New York Times has occasionally implied that there are no liberal Supreme Court justices, and the the Court consists only of a moderate bloc and a conservative bloc.

    If you accept the Times’ faulty premise — that liberals are moderates, and moderates (like Supreme Court Justices Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O’Connor) are right-wingers — then you can argue as the New York Times article David M. cites does (the claim by Charlie Savage of the New York Times that Obama appointees are moderate, and Bush appointees were conservative).

    But the premise is wrong. And while Bush appointed many moderate judges and even a few liberal judges (liberals like Roger Gregory on the Fourth Circuit, Barrington Parker on the Second Circuit, and Helene White on the Sixth Circuit), in order to appease Democratic Senators like Carl Levin and Charles Schumer, I can’t think of any moderate Obama appointees to the federal appeals courts or the Supreme Court.

    But Bush appointed even some liberals, like Sixth Circuit Judge Helene White, who thinks (as Obama’s appointees to the Sixth Circuit, all of them leftists, do) that ballot initiatives banning affirmative action are unconstitutional — a position rejected as extreme and untenable even by the liberal Ninth Circuit in Coalition for Economic Equity v. Wilson (9th Cir. 1997), which upheld California’s ballot initiative banning affirmative action. (States are not constitutionally required to adopt voluntary affirmative action programs, as the Supreme Court indicated in its 1982 Crawford decision, and as the California Supreme Court also ruled in a 6-to-1 vote upholding Proposition 209. That’s why they are voluntary.).

    But, what would I know? I have only practiced law for 20 years since my graduation from Harvard Law School, and published about Supreme Court decisions. Obviously, a slanted New York Times reporter who doesn’t practice law (and defines liberal as moderate and moderate as conservative) knows better than I do.

    (I am not exactly a social conservative. My most cited law review article is a criticism of a conservative Supreme Court ruling dealing with education law, and I once published a letter in the Wall Street Journal saying nice things about the moderately-liberal Justice David Souter. Only in the current political climate would I qualify as “conservative” in relative terms.).

  32. bill says:

    the media honeymoon will go another year or 2, minimum. it’s embarrassing- the presidency isn’t some self esteem building job, it requires unbiased media review at all times.

  33. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    Who is Hans Bader the sock puppet for, anyway? It’s getting so that I can hardly keep track of the characters on the threads anymore.

  34. David M says:

    @Hans Bader:

    CEI is conservative
    NY Times is neutral
    The Nation is liberal

    I can’t think of any moderate Obama appointees to the federal appeals courts….Obama’s appointees to the Sixth Circuit, all of them leftists

    Again? Really? It’s tired and sad.

  35. An Interested Party says:

    Back in Truman’s day we had a hard-working public that was extremely patriotic and had recently won a global world war.

    Comparing the body politic in 2013 with the body politic in 1949 is like comparing Stan Musial to Barry Bonds. Class and grace vs. classless and overblown.

    Ahhh, so because the country is no longer what you think it should be, it should simply be trashed…and let me guess, the country is now a hell in a handbasket because of decades of liberalism, right? You’re as pathetic as a child who takes all of his toys and goes home because he isn’t winning anymore…

    W. Bush’s approval ratings nearly for his entire two terms did not jibe with reality, largely because of Bush Derangement Syndrome, which in turn was driven by the incessant 24/7 drumbeat of negative media coverage.

    I see the childishness, as well as the Victimhood Tour, never ceases…who could have guessed that legitimate criticisms against Bush, in some cases by known former supporters and conservatives, is nothing more than “Bush Derangement Syndrome”…that these criticisms are based on reality explain why Tsar Nicholas would fail to appreciate them…