Creating a 60 vote Bloc - gives Obama a bounce of the highest level of strongly disapproval

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 25% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-six percent (46%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21 That’s the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President.

Fifty-three percent (53%) of men Strongly Disapprove along with 39% of women. Most African-American voters (58%) Strongly Approve while most white voters (53%) Strongly Disapprove.

Seventy-four percent (74%) of Republicans Strongly Disapprove as do 52% of unaffiliated voters. Forty-seven percent (47%) of Democrats Strongly Approve.

For the second straight day, the update shows the highest level of Strong Disapproval yet recorded for this President. That negative rating had never topped 42% before yesterday. However, it has risen dramatically since the Senate found 60 votes to move forward with the proposed health care reform legislation. Most voters (55%) oppose the health care legislation and senior citizens are even more likely than younger voters to dislike the plan.

One bright spot in the numbers for the President is that 51% of voters still say former President George W. Bush is more to blame for the nation’s economic woes. Just 41% point the finger of blame at the current President.

Overall, 44% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. Fifty-six percent (56%) now disapprove.

Obama's Falling Poll Ratings: Why He Has To Worry

(Time).George W. Bush used to insist that he didn't read polls, and on the off chance that he did, he didn't care anyway. "I don't give a darn," the former President famously said early this year just before the end of his term, when CNN's Larry King pointed to his anemic approval ratings.

Aides to President Obama, by contrast, have charted a more nuanced course, alternately embracing and dismissing the polls. During a recent meeting with reporters, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs compared the President's daily approval ratings to a heart monitor, saying, "I don't put a lot of stake in, never have, in the EKG that is the daily Gallup trend." By contrast, senior aide David Axelrod often mentions poll numbers, on everything from the rising international reputation of the United States to the resilience of Obama's personal likability numbers. "Every poll I've seen suggests that even among those who don't support necessarily his policies, there is a warm feeling," said Axelrod, in a recent interview with U.S. News. (See "Obama After a Year: What's Changed, and What Hasn't.")

For much of this year, such poll talk was not much of a factor, as the results generally followed the typical pattern of first-term presidencies, with a strong honeymoon period that slowly petered out. But as Obama approaches the first year mark of his presidency, Democratic and Republican strategists are beginning to look more closely at the polls. Here's why:

1. Congress cares about polls.
Obama's success depends upon his ability to get Congress to do his bidding, and as the polls have soured, this has become a much tougher proposition. With the President's approval rating now dipping below 50% in most polls, Democratic pollsters have begun to sound the alarm. In a recent public memo, Celinda Lake, of Lake Research Partners, pointed to a sobering statistic: Presidents with approval ratings below 50% have lost an average of 41 House seats in mid-term elections. (Democrats currently have an 81-seat advantage in the House, so Republicans could gain control of the chamber with a 41-seat pick-up in 2010.) To make matters worse, Republicans now win the generic Congressional ballot by two points, the first time the GOP has outstripped Democrats since January of 2002, according to the George Washington University Battleground Poll.

2. Health-care reform has become a burden.
Something has gone wrong on the long trail to historic health reform. For one thing, Americans no longer support what is going on. The recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found that 44% of the country believe it would be better not to pass any plan at all, while 41% said it would be better to pass the plan. As recently as October, the same poll showed those numbers practically reversed. One reason is a misalignment of priorities. The health care debate has, ironically, intensified American contentment with their current health coverage. The July Battleground poll found that 84% of Americans were "satisfied" with their health care. The same poll in December found 91% of Americans satisfied with their health care. By contrast, 51% of the same group of people rated their economic situation as "just fair" or "poor," a clear signal that people care far more about the economy and jobs than they do about their co-pays and deductibles. In the Battleground poll, 29% of Americans said they feel insecure about their access to health care, compared to 48% who said they feel insecure about their families' finances.

3. The Obama movement has gone missing.
The 2009 elections in New Jersey and Virginia were initially talked about by Obama allies as a test of the President's organizing power. By the time the votes were counted, however, with Republicans winning two Democratic seats, no one at the White House wanted to claim any responsibility. That's because the remarkable enthusiasm that greeted Obama's victory in 2008, with record turnout among independents, blacks and young people, had gone away, along with the minions of Obama organizers. "I think that we all thought, and I think that the President thought, that they would stay with it because we would create this movement," explained Lake, at a recent reporter briefing organized by the Christian Science Monitor. In fact, the enthusiasm gap bodes poorly for 2010, when Obama will be trying to minimize losses in the House and the Senate. According to the recent Battleground poll, just under two-thirds of Democrats say they are extremely likely to vote in upcoming elections, compared to 77% of Republicans and Independents.

4. Washington has not changed.
President Obama continues to get higher ratings for personal likability and trustworthiness than his Republican foes. But there are also signs that Obama is beginning to feel the taint of the long-standing anger against politics and politicians in general. The Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found in December that 61% of the country has only some confidence, or no confidence, in Obama having the right set of goals and priorities to be President. Meanwhile, America's confidence in general remains in the gutter. When asked if they trust that government will do what is right, 32% said almost never and 46% said only some of the time. In the Battleground poll, Democrats, Republicans and Independents all disapprove of the job Congress is doing, though the numbers among swing-voting independents are most concerning for the party in power. A full 77% of this group disapprove of the Congress's job performance. Only 15% approve.

Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith (D) switches to Republican

POLITICO has learned that Rep. Parker Griffith, a freshman Democrat from Alabama, will announce today that he’s switching parties to become a Republican.

According to two senior GOP aides familiar with the decision, the announcement will take place this afternoon in Griffith's district in northern Alabama.

Griffith’s party switch comes on the eve of a pivotal congressional health care vote and will send a jolt through a Democratic House Caucus that has already been unnerved by the recent retirements of a handful of members who, like Griffith, hail from districts that offer prime pickup opportunities for the GOP in 2010.

The switch represents a coup for the House Republican leadership, which had been courting Griffith since he publicly criticized the Democratic leadership in the wake of raucous town halls during the summer.

Griffith, who captured the seat in a close 2008 open seat contest, will become the first Republican to hold the historically Democratic, Huntsville-based district. A radiation oncologist who founded a cancer treatment center, Griffith plans to blast the Democratic health care bill as a prime reason for his decision to switch parties—and is expected to cite his medical background as his authority on the subject.

While the timing of his announcement was unexpected, Griffith’s party switch will not come as a surprise to those familiar with his voting record, which is one of the most conservative among Democrats.

He has bucked the Democratic leadership on nearly all of its major domestic initiatives, including the stimulus package, health care legislation, the cap-and trade energy bill and financial regulatory reform.

He was one of only 11 House Democrats to vote against the stimulus.

“Look at his voting record – he’s had substantial differences philosophically with the Democratic agenda here in Congress,” said an Alabama ally who is familiar with Griffith’s decision. “It’s something that’s been discussed for the last several months… talking to people in his family. And it genuinely is a reflection of where he feels. It’s his own personal conviction.”

Mitt Romney ranked Number 1 in Mark McKinnon's hot list

(DAILY beast).As we head into 2010, it seems increasingly likely that the 2012 presidential contest will at least be competitive. President Obama’s favorable ratings are now consistently below 50 percent; no candidate has been elected president with a favorable of 47 percent or lower and the Rasmussen Poll this week has him at 44. He has yet to pass any signature legislation on the big issues on which he campaigned, and he now has Afghanistan strapped to his back like a political refrigerator.
So where does that leave the field today heading into next year?

1. Mitt Romney
Republicans historically like an orderly process—handing the baton to the candidate who has patiently waited his or her turn in line. That guy, this time around, is Romney. He has been plodding and dutiful. He is tanned. He’s rested. He’s rich. And he appears ready for another round. There’s a great deal to be said for having been through the gauntlet before. He now has the experience and knowledge to navigate the treacherous and tricky waters of a Republican primary contest. He knows economics, has built businesses and created jobs both in the private and public sector, and he established health care reform in Massachusetts. And if he runs his race like he did the last month of the last campaign, true to who he really is, he should be the nominee.

Lowest approval rating yet for Obama - 44%

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 28% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove.

Overall, 44% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. That matches the lowest level of approval yet recorded for this President. Fifty-four percent (54%) now disapprove. See recent demographic highlights from the tracking poll.

As most Americans,Mitt Romney Tells Hannity He Would Give Obama "a Failing Grade"

Here is video of Gov. Mitt Romney on with Sean Hannity tonight where he discussed the Democrats' push to pass a Health Care Bill in the Senate by Christmas.

On the economy, Mitt Romney said the Democrats have failed to create jobs, particularly with the Stimulus Bill passed early this year. Romney said "borrowing your way to prosperity" is a strategy that will not work.

Romney said the "American people are a lot smarter than the Democrats give them credit for." Romney said he would give Obama "a failing grade" on his performance as President thus far. Instead of focusing on what is most important, Romney said Obama is putting all his effort into ideological pursuits like his health care bill.

On Health Care, Romney said the Democrats will try to "come out with something," and that the American people will be "very, very angry" if the Democrats try to just "push something through."

Sen. Franken objects to Sen. Lieberman's request for additional time

WSJ Poll: Obama approval falls to 47%

(NBC News).For much of his first year in office, President Barack Obama has largely defied political gravity in the midst of skyrocketing unemployment, an ambitious legislative agenda and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

His approval rating remained above 50 percent, a plurality viewed his party positively, and even the number believing the country was on the right track — despite the bad news — temporarily spiked during his first few months on the job.

But now nearing the end of his first year in office, the economy, the wars and the legislative skirmishes finally have taken a toll on the president and his party, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

For the first time, Obama’s overall job approval rating has fallen below 50 percent (to 47 percent). In addition, for the first time since Sept. 2007, a plurality (45 percent) sees the Democratic Party in a negative light. And the percentage believing the country is on the wrong track (55 percent) is at its highest level in the Obama presidency.

“This survey underscores what I consider a dramatic and unmistakable change in the political landscape,” said Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted the survey with GOP pollster Bill McInturff. “For Democrats, the red flags are flying at full mast.”

“The sagging economy is beginning to drag him down,” McInturff added. “This is increasingly becoming President Obama’s economy.”

Underlining the entire poll is a deep dissatisfaction with the current state of the country. Only 33 percent believe the nation is headed in the right direction — an eight-point drop since Obama took office.

What’s more, six in 10 say the country is in a state of decline, and a whopping two-thirds say they’re not confident that life for their children’s generation will be better than it was for them.

“All of this says that optimism has crashed through the floor board,” Hart observed.

In addition to Obama’s job approval rating at 47 percent, fewer than four in 10 say they are confident he has the right set of goals and policies, which is down 15 points since his election.

And only one-third have confidence the president has the right goals and priorities to improve the economy, down 13 points since June.

What’s more, while Obama holds an overall 50 percent to 37 percent positive/negative rating in the poll, the number with a “very positive” view of him dropped from 36 percent in October to 29 percent this month.

Hillary Clinton Admits Obama’s Iranian Policy Is a Failure

Read more at the BIBI report.

Obamacare-less sends him to new low in ABC poll

(ABC).A double punch of persistent economic discontent and growing skepticism on health care reform has knocked Barack Obama's key approval ratings to new lows, clouding his administration's prospects at least until the jobless rate eases.

Fifty percent of Americans in this ABC News/Washington Post poll approve of the president's work overall, down 6 points in the last month; nearly as many, 46 percent, now disapprove. On the economy, 52 percent disapprove, a majority for the first time. On the deficit, his worst score, 56 percent disapprove.

Such numbers aren't unexpected; Ronald Reagan, in similar economic straits, dropped to 52 percent overall approval at this point in his presidency. But it's not just the economy: Fifty-three percent also disapprove of Obama's work on health care, and the public by 51-44 percent now opposes the reform package in Congress  both more than half for the first time in ABC/Post polls.

There are further challenges. Obama's approval rating among independents, the crucial center of national politics, is 43 percent, a new low and down from a peak of 67 percent in the heady days a month after he took office. He's down by 9 points this month among moderates. He's got just 41 percent approval among whites, vs. 76 percent among nonwhites; and just 42 percent among seniors, a reliable voting group (looking to the 2010 midterms) and one particularly disenchanted with health care reform.

Shock Poll: Florida GOP Senate Primary: Crist and Rubio are tied at 43%

Governor Charlie Crist and former state House Speaker Marco Rubio are now tied in the 2010 race for the Republican Senate nomination in Florida.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely GOP Primary voters finds Crist and Rubio each with 43% of the vote. Five percent (5%) prefer another candidate, and nine percent (9%) are undecided.

Crist’s support has fallen from 53% in August to 49% in October. Rasmussen Reports noted at the time, “The fact that Crist has fallen below 50% in a primary against a lesser known opponent suggests potential vulnerability.”

Rubio’s name recognition has grown in recent months and he is now viewed Very Favorably by 34% of Likely Primary Voters. That’s up from 18% in August. As his name recognition increased, Rubio’s support in the polls has jumped from 31% in August to 43% today.

Romney to Hit Book tour in March with 10,000 attendees at Utah's Salt Palace

Mitt Romney is preparing for a more prominent presence on the national scene with a new book coming out next spring. Tickets go on sale next week for a major book event in downtown Salt Lake City in March.

One year since the presidential election ended, Romney is stepping up his profile with national TV appearances, newspaper Op-Eds, fundraising for fellow Republicans and a new book called "No Apology: The Case for America's Greatness."

The book comes out March 2. One of the first events in a national book tour will be at the Salt Palace March 13 -- a book signing and lecture hosted by the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics.

Kirk Jowers, a long-time Romney backer, is its director.

"We hope to have about 10,000 people. Everyone that comes to the event will get a first edition signed copy," he says.

The themes he seems likely to write about are already apparent. At an event earlier this month in Provo, Romney said the policies of the president, including the federal stimulus, had made the recession worse, and that the government needed to stop scaring the private sector with takeovers.

Jowers says the book will offer ideas about turning around a nation some see as in a decline.

"I think he sees the danger. I think he's very optimistic and thinks we're not at that precipice necessarily -- we can continue to ascend -- but I think he sees some very dangerous fault lines," he says.

When it was suggested two weeks ago he sounded like he's running, Romney told us, "No, I sound like I'm working hard for good Republican candidates across the country."

However, with other top Republicans like Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee confronting recent troubles and the economy top of mind, Romney seems poised for another shot.

"If you're a Romney fan, I think everything has broken his way so far," says Jowers.

Mitt Romney on Meet The Press

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The right course here is not to create a new stimulus but to fix the one they’ve already passed. So let’s take that money that has been allocated to all sorts of government programs that aren’t necessary and are not growing the American economy and let’s, instead, focus that on efforts that will actually create jobs. And, investment tax credits, allowing businesses to expense capital expenditures in the first year, reducing the payroll tax – these kinds of things will get jobs growing immediately.

Less then half of Democrats strongly approve Obama's job handling

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 23% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -19.

The 23% who Strongly Approve matches the lowest level of enthusiasm yet recorded. Just 41% of Democrats Strongly Approve while 69% of Republicans Strongly Disapprove. Among voters not affiliated with either major party, 21% Strongly Approve and 49% Strongly Disapprove.

Among those who consider the economy to be the most important issue, just 26% Strongly Approve of the President’s performance while 39% Strongly Disapprove.

Overall, 46% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. Fifty-three percent (53%) disapprove.

leading GOP candidates sport best performance yet against Obama

(PPP).With Barack Obama's approval rating hitting new lows in most polling it should come as no surprise that his leads over potential 2012 Republican opponents are as well. Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, and Tim Pawlenty all have their best performances relative to Obama in this month's poll and Mitt Romney matches his strongest standing yet.

Huckabee comes the closest, trailing Obama 46-45. It's interesting to note that Huckabee's share of the Democratic vote is up from 11% a month ago to now 16%, but his share of the Republican vote is down from 87% to 83%. There's a similar trend in his favorability numbers. Although they're pretty much unchanged overall from 36/37 a month ago to 35/35 now, he's dropped from 65% of Republicans seeing him positively to 57% but has increased from 13% to 17% with Democrats.

Mitt Romney comes next closest to Obama, trailing 47-42, matching his five point deficit from a month ago. His biggest problem continues to be lagging popularity with Republicans- 51% of them view him favorably, well behind Huckabee and Sarah Palin.

Palin has her top showing against Obama, trailing 50-44. That's quite an improvement from March when we first tested the Obama-Palin contest and found her trailing 55-35.

Opposition leader? As Obama dooms, Mccain emerges as critic-in-chief

(POLITICO 44).Barack Obama began his presidency with an open hand toward the man he had just defeated in a race that was at times bitter.

"There are few Americans who understand this need for common purpose and common effort better than John McCain," said Obama at an inauguration-eve tribute dinner to his former foe.

But in the year since that evening of comity and collegiality, McCain has emerged as one of the leading critics of the new president. On foreign policy, his traditional area of expertise, and domestic affairs, where McCain has shown new passion, the 73-year-old Arizonan is making it plain that he has no plans to serve out his years in the rank-and-file, as a politician known more for what he lost than what he will yet accomplish.

For years, McCain relished being an outsider and a maverick, a style that often led to battles with his own party's leadership. Today, for reasons that friends and McCain observers say could range from unresolved anger to concern for his right flank as he seeks re-election to genuine dismay about Obama's agenda, he is helping lead a fiery crusade of GOP loyalists against Democratic priorities - and irked some of his Democratic colleagues in the process.

“The same ferocity he had about beating on Republicans ... is now being focused on people on the other side whose agenda is really overreaching,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of McCain’s closest friends in the Senate. “He has every reason to be upset. There’s no change there. What would have been a change was if he wasn’t pissed off.”

“He is now the de facto leader of the Republican Party.”

Because of his Senate platform, longtime fame and a relative dearth of high-wattage Republicans, McCain has become something close to an opposition leader in the Obama era: There he is on the Senate floor denouncing Democrats’ health care plans; there he is on “Meet the Press,” offering the GOP response to the administration’s Afghanistan policy; and there he is back down in South Carolina, holding another town hall meeting with Graham as though the race never ended and the Straight Talk Express is still gassed up and ready to go.

“The first year has been like an extension of the presidential campaign in many ways,” said John Weaver, formerly one of McCain’s closest advisers.

Some of the senator’s oldest and closest friends say he is being true to an innate sense of public spiritedness.

“His motivation — and he wears it on his sleeve — is that he loves this country and wants to leave it a better place than he found it,” said Orson Swindle, a fellow Vietnam prisoner of war and longtime friend.

Mark Salter, McCain’s former Senate chief of staff, ghostwriter and close confidant, said McCain may have responded differently if Obama had governed more from the center.

“You can’t expect him to do things that are antithetical to his beliefs,” said Salter, who still talks to the senator multiple times each week.

Discussing Obama’s first big initiative, the stimulus, Salter said that his old boss could not get behind what was mostly an infrastructure spending bill.

“If [Obama] had said we’re going to do this half my way and half your way, guys like John McCain and others would have been all over it,” he said.

PPP: 44% Americans want Bush back as President

(PPP).....Perhaps the greatest measure of Obama's declining support is that just 50% of voters now say they prefer having him as President to George W. Bush, with 44% saying they'd rather have his predecessor. Given the horrendous approval ratings Bush showed during his final term that's somewhat of a surprise and an indication that voters are increasingly placing the blame on Obama for the country's difficulties instead of giving him space because of the tough situation he inherited.

The closeness in the Obama/Bush numbers also has implications for the 2010 elections. Using the Bush card may not be particularly effective for Democrats anymore, which is good news generally for Republicans and especially ones like Rob Portman who are running for office and have close ties to the former President.

Quinnipiac: Obama Approval At New Low - 46%

American voters give President Barack Obama A 46% approval, President Obama's latest job approval rating is the lowest ever in Quinnipiac polls, and he has an upside down rating for his handling of health care.

The new survey (Dec. 1-6, 2313 RV, MoE +/- 2%), released this morning, finds 44% disapproving of the job Obama's doing. More than half (51%) of independents now disapprove of Obama's job performance, while 37% approve.

"The decline in Obama's overall approval in the last month has been small, with the exception of independent voters who went from three points negative to 14 points," said Quinnipiac assistant director Peter Brown. "If the trend continues, it won't be long before he could be in the unenviable position of having more Americans disapprove than approve of his job performance."

On health care, 56% approve of giving people a government-run insurance option. However, voters disapprove by a 52%-38% margin of the overall reform package currently being debated in the Senate, and disapprove of Obama's handling of health care 56%-38%.

Hysteric Gibbs Rips Gallup Daily Tracking Poll That Shows Obama at a 47% Low

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs slammed Gallup's daily tracking poll on Tuesday after it showed President Obama's approval rating had fallen to 47 percent, the lowest approval rating for any president at this stage of his presidency dating back to President Harry S Truman.

"If I was a heart patient and Gallup was my EKG, I'd visit my doctor," Gibbs said in the morning, off-camera briefing with reporters. "Five days ago there was an eleven-point spread. Now there is a one-point spread. I'm sure a six-year-old with a Crayon could do something not unlike that."

Gibbs reference to an "eleven-point spread" between Obama's approval and disapproval rating "five days ago" cannot be found in Gallup's data. In a Nov 30-Dec. 2 survey, Gallup found Obama's approval at 51 percent and his disapproval at 42 percent. A Nov. 27-29 survey found the ratio to be 51 percent approval to 41 percent disapproval.

Despite the scope of Gallup's data and its reputation for professional political polling, Gibbs dismissed its survey.

"I don't put a lot of stake in, never have, in the EKG that is daily Gallup trend. I don't pay a lot of attention to the meaninglessness of it."

Hope? Nope! Marist poll: Obama's approval 46%

(Maristpoll).Registered voters nationally are divided about President Barack Obama’s job approval rating. 46% approve of his job performance while 44% disapprove. One in ten voters is unsure.

This is the first time the president has lost majority support on this question since taking office. When Marist last asked this question in October, 53% of voters gave the president high marks.

Partisanship is alive and well here, but Mr. Obama has slipped slightly among voters in both parties. 77% of Democrats approve of the president’s job performance compared with 12% of Republicans. Two months ago, 84% of Democrats and 21% of Republicans gave him a thumbs-up. Independents remain divided, 41% approve while 44% disapprove.

Obama Approval Slips to 47% - lowest ever for a president in first year

(gallup). Barack Obama's presidential job approval rating is 47% in the latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update, a new low for his administration to date. His approval rating has been below 50% for much of the time since mid-November, but briefly rose to 52% last week after he announced his new Afghanistan policy.

Any slight bump in support Obama received coincident with his new Afghanistan policy proved to be very short-lived, as his approval rating returned to below the majority level by the weekend, and slipped further to 47% in Dec. 4-6 polling.

Obama's 47% job approval is lower in contrast to the December averages for Ronald Reagan (49%) and Bill Clinton (53%), who also took office when the economy was struggling. All other recent presidents elected to their first terms had approval averages of 57% or above in their first December in office.

Romney on CNN: Timtable-"conflicting and confusing signals", hurts US credibility.

Former (and perhaps future) GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said on CNN this afternoon that he agrees with President Obama on the escalation of the Afghanistan war -- though the former Massachusetts governor took a couple shots at how long it took Obama to make his decision.

"It took him a long time," Romney said. "That was a mistake, of course."

He also criticized Obama for setting a timetable for the withdrawal of the troops, giving the impression to the Taliban to just wait out the time:

“I think he is mistaken also in sending these conflicting and confusing signals about the timeline because you don’t want in any way to have [Pakistan or Afghanistan] thinking that somehow we’re only in there for 18 months and then we’re getting out no matter what. That’s not the message you want to have heard.”

Romney also questioned Obama’s judgment in providing Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan with 30, 000 additional troops when McChrystal had reportedly requested 40,000 more.

“My first question is not, ok, how do I get it down to 30,000?” Romney told CNN Chief National correspondent John King. “My first question is what’s the right number?”

“I think [Obama] may have been a little unwise to cut back on that number,But we sure hope [Obama’s surge] works,” the Republican added.

Obama's approval drops to 48% In 'CNN' poll

(CNN) - Support for President Barack Obama's Afghanistan policy is fairly high, but that hasn't stopped his approval rating from dropping below 50 percent for the first time in a CNN poll.

According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation national survey released Friday, 48 percent of Americans approve of the job Obama's doing as president, with 50 percent disapproving. The 48 percent approval is a 7 point drop in approval from last month.

"The poll indicates that the biggest drop in approval comes from non college educated white voters," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "That's one indication among many that Obama's growing unpopularity may be more related to unemployment and the poor economy."

The poll was conducted Wednesday and Thursday, after the president spelled out his new Afghanistan policy in a prime time address Tuesday night at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York.

Several late-November polls have indicated Obama's approval rating this low even before his speech at West Point. Weekly averages of national polls showed Obama's approval consistently at 52 or 53 percent from mid-October through mid-November.

"But in the week before Thanksgiving, his average approval rating slipped to 49 percent - solid evidence that something was going on before Obama announced his Afghan policy," adds Holland.

Obama's rating dropped 18 points among non-college whites, but only four points among whites who attended college - a good indication that the economy and other domestic issues are hurting the president.

Obama also dropped 15 points among whites under the age of 50, but only four points among older whites

Obama on 10% unemployment rate: "Just in time for the season of hope" (:0).

"The nation lost 11k jobs in November, which is about 115k fewer than was forecast and is about close to zero...The unemployment rate ticked down instead of up [applause]. The report also found that we lost about 160k fewer jobs over the last 2 months than we had previously thought, so overall this is the best jobs report we've seen since 2007, this is good news, just in time for the season of hope..."

Via Hotair pundit:

Obama campaign relentlessly attacked John McCain for saying "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" in September 2008, (unemployment was 6.2% and the Dow was over 11k)

MItt Romney on Larry King on the Economy, Afganistan, Palin and GOP

*Suggestion for Obama on Economy:
KING: Governor Romney, let's say Obama called you and said 'Mitt, I respect you, your business. What's the #1 thing I should do right now?'

ROMNEY: Well, stop the stimulus spending, because it's not working, and instead, use those stimulus dollars to make it easier and more attractive for businesses to grow and hire. Do that by putting in place a more robust tax credit program, by letting businesses expense capital expenditures this coming year in the year those expenditures occur, lower the payroll tax to make it easier for people to hire others. Those things will make a difference immediately.

*I'll only campaign for Republicans:
ROMNEY: I'm going to campaign for Senate candidates and House candidates...

KING: [interrupting]... only Republicans?

ROMNEY: Yeah, only Republicans. Conservatives across the country.

*Romney: Palin would be a "terrific candidate":
KING: Concerned about Governor Palin as an opponent?

ROMNEY: I'm not making any decisions about my own plans to run, and she's a terrific, energetic person. She'd be a terrific candidate, She's got a great following. She brought energy and passion to our party.

I haven't read her book yet. I look forward to reading it. I heard John McCain say it was an enjoyable read. I always enjoy enjoyable reads, so I'll get a chance to do that and wish her well.

Romney: Mr. President, Here’s How to Lift Our Economy,If you dont, We will bring change in 2010

(Mitt Romney Op-Ed in USAtoday).Today's White House jobs summit comes too late for millions of Americans who through no fault of their own have lost their jobs, their homes, their savings and, in many cases, the self-esteem and self-respect that come from work. Like other presidents before him, Barack Obama inherited a recession. But unlike them, he has made it worse, not better.

His failure to stem the unemployment tide should not have been a surprise. With no experience whatsoever in the world of employment and business formation, he had no compass to guide his path. Instead, he turned over much of his economic recovery agenda to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, themselves nearly as inexperienced in the private sector as he. Congress gave him and them everything they asked for, including a history-making three-quarters of a trillion dollar stimulus.

But it did little to stimulate the real economy — where jobs are created. Studies, initiatives and programs that liberal think tanks had long pined for were given life even as the private economy was on life support. The president's team assured us that their massive stimulus would hold unemployment below 8%. So with unemployment now at 10.2%, it is clear that their stimulus was a miscalculated failure.

In an attempt to disguise the truth, the administration has touted inflated figures of jobs "created." But every month, in good times and bad, jobs are created and jobs are lost. What matters is the net difference between the two numbers. Focusing solely on jobs created while ignoring the far greater numbers of jobs lost is Harry Houdini economics.

Here is a 10 point plan:

•Repair the stimulus. Freeze the funds that haven’t yet been spent and redirect them to immediate, private sector job-creation priorities.

•Create tax incentives that promote business expansion and hiring. For example, install a robust investment tax credit, permit businesses to expense capital purchases made in 2010, and reduce payroll taxes. These will reignite construction, technology and a wide array of capital goods industries, and lead to expanded employment.

•Prove to the global investors that finance America’s debt that we are serious about reining in spending and becoming fiscally prudent by adopting limits on non-military discretionary spending and reforming our unsustainable, unfunded entitlements. These are key to strengthening the dollar, reducing the threat of rampant inflation and holding down interest rates.

•Close down any talk of carbon cap-and-trade. It will burden consumers and employers with billions in new costs. Instead, greatly expand our commitment to natural gas and nuclear, boosting jobs now and reducing the export of energy jobs and dollars later.

•Tell the unions that job-stifling “card check” legislation is off the table. Laying new burdens on small business will kill entrepreneurship and job creation.

•Don’t allow a massive tax increase to go into effect in 2011 with the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. The specter of more tax-fueled government spending and the reduction of capital available for small business will hinder investment and business expansion.

•New spending should be strictly limited to items that are critically needed and that we would have acquired in the future, such as new military equipment to support our troops abroad and essential infrastructure at home.

•Install dynamic regulations for the financial sector – rules that are up to date, efficient and not excessively burdensome. But do not so tie up the financial sector with red tape that we lose a vital component of our economic system.

•Open the doors to trade. Give important friends like Colombia favored trade status rather than bow to protectionist demands. Now is the time for aggressive pursuit of opportunities for new markets for American goods, not insular retrenchment.

•Stop frightening the private sector by continuing to hold GM stock, by imposing tighter and tighter controls on compensation, and by pursuing a public insurance plan to compete with private insurers. Government encroachment on free enterprise is depressing investment and job creation.

The 10% unemployment crisis hangs like an albatross around President Obama's neck. Eventually, as with every recession and recovery, the economy will improve and jobs will be created, but those who were unnecessarily unemployed due to the president's faulty economic program will not forget. In order to most rapidly re-employ all Americans and to speed a strong recovery, the president must change course. If he does not, Republicans will bring a change of their own to Washington in the 2010 elections.

DER SPIEGEL: 'Never before has a speech by President Barack Obama felt as false' - Obama's magic no longer works.

(Spiegel online).Never before has a speech by President Barack Obama felt as false as his Tuesday address announcing America's new strategy for Afghanistan. It seemed like a campaign speech combined with Bush rhetoric -- and left both dreamers and realists feeling distraught.

One can hardly blame the West Point leadership. The academy commanders did their best to ensure that Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama's speech would be well-received.

Just minutes before the president took the stage inside Eisenhower Hall, the gathered cadets were asked to respond "enthusiastically" to the speech. But it didn't help: The soldiers' reception was cool.

One didn't have to be a cadet on Tuesday to feel a bit of nausea upon hearing Obama's speech. It was the least truthful address that he has ever held. He spoke of responsibility, but almost every sentence smelled of party tactics. He demanded sacrifice, but he was unable to say what it was for exactly.

An additional 30,000 US soldiers are to march into Afghanistan -- and then they will march right back out again. America is going to war -- and from there it will continue ahead to peace. It was the speech of a Nobel War Prize laureate.

For each troop movement, Obama had a number to match. US strength in Afghanistan will be tripled relative to the Bush years, a fact that is sure to impress hawks in America. But just 18 months later, just in time for Obama's re-election campaign, the horror of war is to end and the draw down will begin. The doves of peace will be let free.

The speech continued in that vein. It was as though Obama had taken one of his old campaign speeches and merged it with a text from the library of ex-President George W. Bush. Extremists kill in the name of Islam, he said, before adding that it is one of the "world's great religions." He promised that responsibility for the country's security would soon be transferred to the government of President Hamid Karzai -- a government which he said was "corrupt." The Taliban is dangerous and growing stronger. But "America will have to show our strength in the way that we end wars," he added.

It was a dizzying combination of surge and withdrawal, of marching to and fro. The fast pace was reminiscent of plays about the French revolution: Troops enter from the right to loud cannon fire and then they exit to the left. And at the end, the dead are left on stage.

But in this case, the public was more disturbed than entertained. Indeed, one could see the phenomenon in a number of places in recent weeks: Obama's magic no longer works. The allure of his words has grown weaker.

It is not he himself who has changed, but rather the benchmark used to evaluate him. For a president, the unit of measurement is real life. A leader is seen by citizens through the prism of their lives -- their job, their household budget, where they live and suffer. And, in the case of the war on terror, where they sometimes die.

Political dreams and yearnings for the future belong elsewhere. That was where the political charmer Obama was able to successfully capture the imaginations of millions of voters. It is a place where campaigners -- particularly those with a talent for oration -- are fond of taking refuge. It is also where Obama set up his campaign headquarters, in an enormous tent called "Hope."

In his speech on America's new Afghanistan strategy, Obama tried to speak to both places. It was two speeches in one. That is why it felt so false. Both dreamers and realists were left feeling distraught.

The American president doesn't need any opponents at the moment. He's already got himself.

Flashback: Obama & Biden Bash Bush Surge that they now admit brought success in Iraq

President's Afghan drawdown plan called risky, 'unrealistic'

(CNN).President Obama's timetable for winding down the war in Afghanistan may be too short for the United States to achieve its war aims but too long to hold American public support, observers said Tuesday.

Andrew Bacevich, a Boston University professor and former Army officer, said the balancing act could leave Obama facing "really unpalatable" choices in 2011 and beyond.

"If you're in my camp, you're hard-pressed to see how everything is going to go smoothly in Afghanistan," said Bacevich, who has called the Afghan war unnecessary and impossible to win.

"It's hard to conceive that public support will have risen," he said. "On the other hand, a president facing re-election who pulls the plug on a failing war is going to find himself charged with being an ineffective commander-in-chief."

Kori Schake, an associate professor at West Point and a former National Security Council staffer in the Bush administration, said the timetable Obama is laying out is "completely unrealistic."

Washington has been unable to commit the kind of civilian resources needed to help Afghanistan build civil institutions and has "an imperfect partner" in Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government, she said. It is unlikely to meet its goals for standing up an effective military and police force in that time.

"I think he's repeating a lot of mistakes that the Bush administration made in the early years of Iraq by suggesting that they will improve on the timeline we politically want them to improve," Schake said. "This is going to be hard, and it's going to take a long time."

And talk of a U.S. departure is "not something Afghan people want to hear," journalist and author Ahmed Rashid said.

"What they really want him to say is how he's going to improve security for ordinary people in the country, especially in the population centers," Rashid, the author of two books on the Taliban and the Afghan war, said on CNN's "Amanpour" program.

Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, resisted any talk of a timetable in Iraq and vetoed a war spending bill that would have required all U.S. combat troops to leave by March 2008. Setting a deadline, he argued, would allow insurgents to wait out the American presence.

Matthew Hoh, a former Marine officer and State Department official who resigned in protest of the administration's Afghanistan policy in September, argued Obama's expected timeline is too long.

"I think it should be sooner, coupled with serious negotiations to produce a political resolution to a conflict that has been going on for about 30 years now," Hoh said. Earlier on CNN's "American Morning," he said adding more troops to Afghanistan "will only increase the conflict."

"Roughly half of Afghanistan wants us in Afghanistan, and the other half doesn't," he said. "The other half that doesn't will fight us harder because they're fighting because they're occupied by foreign powers."

"Before you can talk to the Taliban, you have to position yourself in a position of strength," Rashid said. "And at the moment, the perception in Afghanistan among many ordinary people is the Taliban are winning and the Americans are losing."

The president is ordering military officials to get the reinforcements to Afghanistan within six months, White House officials said. But Peter Mansoor, a retired U.S. Army colonel who helped plan the "surge" campaign in Iraq in 2006, said the "critical element" in U.S. plans "is time, not necessarily troops."

"Any counterinsurgency takes years to fully tamp down the insurgents and create a viable state that we can leave as U.S. troops withdraw," Mansoor told CNN.

He said it is possible that U.S. troops could stabilize Afghanistan within the three-year horizon Obama is laying out, but "I just wouldn't want to take the risk that it will be, and I'd like to see a longer-term strategy out of the administration."

But Bacevich said Obama made an early mistake by "allowing himself to be cornered into obsessing about Afghanistan." Instead, he argued, with al Qaeda dispersed into Pakistan and beyond, U.S. policymakers need to rethink how they deal with the threat of terrorism.

"Afghanistan has kind of hijacked the larger foreign policy debate in ways that are not likely to be good for the United States and are not likely to be good for President Obama," he said.

FACT CHECK: Obama Overlooks Some Harsh Realities

(Foxnews).President Obama's speech Tuesday night did not always match the reality on the ground in Afghanistan.

The president raised expectations that may be hard to meet when he told Americans his troop increase in Afghanistan will accelerate the training of that country's own forces and be accompanied by more help from allies.

A look at some of his claims and how they compare with the facts:

OBAMA: "Because this is an international effort, I have asked that our commitment be joined by contributions from our allies. Some have already provided additional troops, and we are confident that there will be further contributions in the days and weeks ahead."

THE FACTS: When Obama says he is confident that allied countries will provide more troops in the weeks ahead he is setting aside years of mostly empty-handed American efforts to get others, including allies in NATO, to deepen their commitment to combat in Afghanistan.

One reason, which Obama did not mention, is that other countries, particularly those in Europe, have viewed the conflict -- and its likely solution -- much differently than Washington. They have seen it primarily as a humanitarian and reconstruction mission, rather than a counterinsurgency fight. And they have pushed for greater nonmilitary means of addressing Afghanistan's instability.

For a time there also was a European sense of hangover from the U.S. invasion of Iraq and a perceived go-it-alone bent by the Bush administration.

Obama is technically correct in anticipating that some allies will offer more assistance, possibly as early as the coming week during a series of NATO consultations about how the troop requirements of commanders in Afghanistan might be met. But history has shown that these troop contributions often are incremental, sometimes slow in materializing and frequently with conditions attached.

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OBAMA: The extra U.S. forces for Afghanistan "will increase our ability to train competent Afghan Security Forces, and to partner with them so that more Afghans can get into the fight. And they will help create the conditions for the United States to transfer responsibility to the Afghans. "

THE FACTS: The problem with Afghan forces is not just their lack of numbers. And it's not an unwillingness to fight. The problem too often is their effectiveness, once trained for combat. Too many get into the fight but don't remain or don't perform.

A major change of approach promised by Obama's new chief commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is to partner whole U.S. and NATO combat units with newly fielded Afghan units -- large and small -- so the Afghans get more exposure to professional military leadership practices and combat tactics. This is an approach that was used to good effect in recent years in Iraq.

McCain: 'Success is the real exit strategy'

McCain's response to the speech:

“The President has made the right decision to embrace a counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan and to resource it properly. I think the 30,000 additional U.S. troops that will deploy as part of this mission, plus greater allied commitments, will enable us to reverse the momentum of the insurgency and create the conditions for success in Afghanistan. I support the President’s decision, and I think it deserves the support of all Americans, both Republicans and Democrats.

“What I do not support, and what concerns me greatly, is the President’s decision to set an arbitrary date to begin withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan. A date for withdrawal sends exactly the wrong message to both our friends and our enemies – in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the entire region – all of whom currently doubt whether America is committed to winning this war. A withdrawal date only emboldens Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, while dispiriting our Afghan partners and making it less likely that they will risk their lives to take our side in this fight.

“Success is the real exit strategy. When we have achieved our goals in Afghanistan, our troops should begin to return home with honor, but that withdrawal should be based on conditions on the ground, not arbitrary deadlines. In the days ahead, I will seek to address this and other questions I have about the President’s policy, including my continuing concern about the civilian aspect of our strategy.

“The past months of delay were extended and unnecessary, but that is now behind us. Our focus going forward must be on winning the war in Afghanistan. The nature of our commitment to the success of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and their region will change over time, but our commitment must remain enduring.

“We now have an opportunity to build a bipartisan consensus in support of a vital national security priority: defeating Al-Qaeda and its violent extremist allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and ensuring that these countries never again serve as bases for terrorist attacks against America and our allies. Americans need to know why winning this war is absolutely essential to our country’s security. They need to know that things in Afghanistan will get worse before they get better, that casualties will likely go up in the year to come, but ultimately we will succeed.

Did we hear Win the war on Terror ?? Obama: 'End this war successfully'.

In a room full of young Army cadets on the campus of the country’s oldest military academy Tuesday night, President Barack Obama took ownership of the Afghanistan war.

Obama announced to Americans in a primetime nationally televised address that he has ordered the deployment of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, and he promised to begin to draw down U.S. forces there in July 2011:

"To address these issues, it is important to recall why America and our allies were compelled to fight a war in Afghanistan in the first place. We did not ask for this fight. On Sept. 11, 2001, 19 men hijacked four airplanes and used them to murder nearly 3,000 people. They struck at our military and economic nerve centers. They took the lives of innocent men, women and children without regard to their faith or race or station. Were it not for the heroic actions of the passengers on board one of those flights, they could have also struck at one of the great symbols of our democracy in Washington and killed many more".

"Under the banner of this domestic unity and international legitimacy -- and only after the Taliban refused to turn over Osama bin Laden -- we sent our troops into Afghanistan. Within a matter of months, al-Qaida was scattered and many of its operatives were killed. The Taliban was driven from power and pushed back on its heels. A place that had known decades of fear now had reason to hope. At a conference convened by the U.N., a provisional government was established under President Hamid Karzai. And an international security assistance force was established to help bring a lasting peace to a war-torn country"

"Yet huge challenges remain. Afghanistan is not lost, but for several years it has moved backwards. There is no imminent threat of the government being overthrown, but the Taliban has gained momentum. Al-Qaida has not re-emerged in Afghanistan in the same numbers as before 9/11, but they retain their safe havens along the border. And our forces lack the full support they need to effectively train and partner with Afghan security forces and better secure the population ...."

"And as commander in chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home...."

"Our overarching goal remains the same: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future..."

"Now we must come together to end this war successfully..."

"America -- we are passing through a time of great trial. And the message that we send in the midst of these storms must be clear: That our cause is just, our resolve unwavering. We will go forward with the confidence that right makes might, and with the commitment to forge an America that is safer, a world that is more secure, and a future that represents not the deepest of fears but the highest of hopes."

Chris Matthews calls West Point the "Enemy Camp"

Rove: Deficit Will Factor Big in 2010

(Newsmax).GOP strategist Karl Rove envisions a repeat of the landmark 1994 midterm elections next year as the ballooning deficit and runaway federal spending rile voters and polls show a shift toward Republicans.

Since Barack Obama’s inauguration in January, he has stepped back from his campaign theme of fiscal restraint and his promise to eliminate unnecessary federal programs, President Bush's former deputy chief of staff wrote in a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed.

Instead, the deficit has exploded from $422 billion to an unprecedented $1.42 trillion at the end of October under the weight of numerous expensive programs. Obama has added more than $1.3 trillion to the national debt, compared with the $1.6 trillion-plus that Bill Clinton added during his eight-year presidency.

Obama started his administration pushing the controversial $787 billion stimulus plan, his $33 billion expansion of the S-CHIP child healthcare program, a $410-billion omnibus spending program and his $80 billion bailout of the automobile industry. His $821 billion cap-and-trade program passed the House in June but has yet to be taken up in the Senate, and his $1 trillion-plus healthcare program is being debated on the Senate floor.

“An honest appraisal of the nation’s finances would recommend dropping both of these two priorities,” Rove wrote. “But the administration has long planned to run up the federal credit card. Mr. Obama’s budget plan for the next decade projected that revenues would equal about 18 percent of GDP while spending would equal 24 percent of GDP, up from its post-World War II average of 21 percent.

“Annual deficits of about 6 percent of GDP were projected for years to come.”

An October NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll asked voters whether they preferred boosting the economy if it meant larger deficits or reducing the deficit even if it took longer to spur economic recovery. It found only 31 percent chose boosting the economy, while 62 percent said they prefer keeping the deficit down.

A recent Quinnipiac Poll found that 19 percent of Americans believe the president’s healthcare plan will not add to the deficit, and Rove sees the plan as being filled with “budget gimmicks” such as steep Medicare cuts and a 40-percent excise tax on “gold-plated health plans.”

“It’s just not plausible that this Congress will actually cut Medicare or tax health plans the unions have spent decades creating,” Rove wrote.

Rove sees this as significant because 59 percent of voters said they disapproved of Clinton’s handling of the then much smaller $203 billion federal deficit in 1994 just before the Republicans captured both Houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years.

Recent polls have shown an 18-point shift toward the GOP in the past year in terms of generic party preferences, and Gallup now shows Republicans having a 48-44 percent advantage over Democrats going into the 2010 midterm elections. That is up from the 12-point deficit the Republicans had against the Democrats a year ago.

Rove attributes this shift to voter angst over spending.

“The change has been driven by independents, who now favor Republicans by 22 points,” Rove wrote. “By comparison, in the run-up to the 1994 congressional elections, Republicans first eclipsed the Democrats in March of that year, when they gained a 1-point advantage, before falling behind Democrats until fall.”

Other analysts see a repeat of 1994 as unlikely because voters have fresh memories of a Republican-controlled Congress, something that no one in 1994 had seen since the 1950s.

“Today, the Republican Party brand is badly damaged. The period of 2001-2008 was not good for the GOP on either end of Pennsylvania Avenue,” Charlie Cook of the Cook Political Report wrote on his Web site. “Scandals, exploding deficits, obsession with Terri Schiavo and social issues, and a very unpopular war all conspired to send the unfavorable rating of the GOP soaring.

“And unlike 1994, there is no clear leader like former Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and no clear appealing positive message.”

The dynamics that were in play in 1994 have changed, Cook wrote. That year, 40 percent of the 52 seats the GOP picked up came in open districts, but there are fewer problem districts for the Democrats in the 2010 midterms than there were in 1994.

But further Democratic retirements could turn out to be a wild card next year that could determine whether Democrats lose around 15 seats or more than 30.

“As it stands, there seems to be little chance that 30 to 35 Democrats will lose next year,” Cook wrote. “It would take a dozen or more retirements from marginal districts to lose the majority. So far that has not happened.”

But the facts that turnout will be lower than during the presidential election, and Barack Obama’s name will not be at the top of the ballot, could hurt Democrats.

Pollster Scott Rasmussen recently told a meeting of conservative activists in Washington that the electorate probably will be older, and the minority turnout, lower, in 2010, which makes the political climate more favorable to the GOP.

Obama's tough job tonight - RECOVER - Obama Approval on Afghanistan, at 35%, Trails Other Issues

Americans are far less approving of President Obama's handling of the situation in Afghanistan than they have been in recent months, with 35% currently approving, down from 49% in September and 56% in July.

"The decline in Obama's approval rating on Afghanistan is evident among all party groups, with double-digit decreases since September among Republicans (17 points), independents (16 points), and Democrats (10 points)."

Tuesday, Obama outlines his new strategy for the war in Afghanistan in a nationally televised address. The policy has been months in the making as Obama held numerous meetings with his military and foreign policy advisers, drawing some criticism for the delay in formulating a new strategy. The commanding U.S. general in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has recommended that the United States increase the number of troops it has in that country by about 40,000. Obama is expected to announce a slightly smaller increase.

The decline in Obama's approval rating on Afghanistan is evident among all party groups, with double-digit decreases since September among Republicans (17 points), independents (16 points), and Democrats (10 points).

While a slim majority of Obama's fellow Democrats approve of his handling of the issue, his new policy may not be well-received by Democrats, who have indicated opposition to troop-level increases in Afghanistan. The details of the policy will likely be more appealing to Republicans, who are supportive of putting more U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

The question about Afghanistan comes from a Nov. 20-22 USA Today/Gallup poll that also asked Americans to rate Obama's handling of six other issues. The president registers less than majority approval for his performance on all seven issues, with Afghanistan his worst rating. His best rating is on energy policy, with 49% approval.

The president's decisions on U.S. military action in Afghanistan are arguably among the most important and difficult of his presidency. He met several times with his advisers in recent weeks before outlining his new policy to the American public Tuesday night. The speech gives the president a chance to regain the confidence of Americans on the issue, after a sharp drop in his ratings over the past two months.

Number of Democrats Falls to Four-Year Low; Republican behind by 3%

The number of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats fell by nearly two percentage points in November. Added to declines earlier in the year, the number of Democrats in the nation has fallen by five percentage points during 2009.

In November, 36.0% of American adults said they were Democrats. That’s down from 37.8% a month ago and the lowest number of Democrats since December 2005. See the History of Party Trends from January 2004 to the present.

The number of Republicans inched up by just over a point in November to 33.1%. That’s within the narrow range that Republicans have experienced throughout 2009 - from a low of 31.9% to a high of 33.6%.

The number of adults not affiliated with either party grew half a point last month to 30.8%.
Despite the changes, there are still more Democrats than Republicans in the nation. But the gap is down to 2.9 percentage points, the smallest since December 2007.

Republicans winning recruiting battle - '10 election looking favorable for the GOP

(POLITICO-The Scorecard).Cook Political Report House analyst David Wasserman notes a telling indicator that the political environment in 2010 is shaping up to be favorable for Republicans: Several Democratic candidates have decided to drop out of tough races, while Democratic members of Congress who rarely face serious challenges are finding themselves with their toughest re-elections in years.

Over the last week, three Democratic candidates touted by national strategists abruptly withdrew from their races: Solano Beach Councilman Dave Roberts (running against California Rep. Brian Bilbray), state Rep. Todd Book (running against Ohio Rep. Jean Schmidt) and Tennessee Commerce and Insurance Commissioner Paula Flowers (in the seat held by retiring Rep. Zach Wamp).

In a neutral political environment, the seats held by Bilbray, Schmidt, and the open Tennessee seat would be enticing targets for Democrats. Democrats aggressively contested the first two seats in both 2006 and 2008, and experienced unexpected success in Southern open seats over the last two elections.

But in 2010, defense is the name of the game for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is defending several dozens vulnerable freshmen and second-term members, while also protecting veteran members who could find themselves in newfound trouble. It will be a lot more challenging for a first-time candidate running in a tough district to get financial support from the DCCC when the party is worried about defending its own.

The story is different on the Republican side, where recruiting hasn’t been a problem lately. As I note in my story today, some of the most senior Democratic members of Congress have, for the first time in years, serious challengers.

Thanksgiving Week Disappoints-Americans Spending on Fri. and Sat. Down 8.6% From ’08

(Gallup).Americans report spending an average of $106 each day on the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving this year, down 8.6% from the $116 average reported on those same days last year.

Gallup analysis has suggested that spending for Christmas gifts this year will be roughly the same as last year, a weak forecast given last year's dismal overall holiday spending. Gallup's current day-to-day assessment of overall spending on the critically important days after Thanksgiving appears consistent with this earlier forecast.

Estimated daily spending for the two days after Thanksgiving this year is an average of $106, compared to a daily average of $116 last year. This is an 8.6% drop, similar to what the National Retail Federation has reported. Last year, Americans reported spending more on Black Friday than on Saturday; this year, Saturday was the bigger day.

The percentage of Americans who report spending any amount of money on these two days this year is comparable to the percentage for the same days last year. On Black Friday and on Saturday, Gallup estimated that about 70% of Americans spent at least some money on each day.

By way of comparison, about half of Americans spent nothing on Thanksgiving in both years -- much higher than usual, as would be expected.

Democrats 'nervous' about Afghanistan plan; Cheney slams Obama for projecting ‘weakness’

(Politico).Democratic Rep. John Murtha — just back from a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan — said Monday that he never got a clear definition of what constitutes an “achievable victory” for the United States and fears that American commanders are assuming more time for the war effort than voters at home will allow.

“I am still very nervous about this whole thing,” Murtha told POLITICO. “If you had 10 years, it might work; if you had five, you could make a difference. But you don’t have that long.”

A top Democrat on military matters, the Pennsylvania lawmaker captures the skepticism facing the White House as President Barack Obama prepares to commit up to 35,000 more troops to the war effort. Obama has chosen a military forum, West Point, for his nationally televised speech Tuesday night, but Congress is the real test and a better reflection of the unease among everyday Americans.

Murtha, who chairs the defense appropriations panel in the House, is among the senior lawmakers slated to meet with the president at the White House on Tuesday. A Marine veteran of the Vietnam War and close ally of House SpeakerNancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the Pennsylvanian has worked closely with retired Marine Gen. James Jones, Obama’s national security adviser, who also served in Vietnam.

But it will be next to impossible for Obama to build broad support among Democrats in the House without bringing Murtha along.

“What’s the meaning of victory? I can’t remember a clear answer,” the chairman said of his briefings by military commanders and State Department officials in Afghanistan. And a later stop in Kuwait, where his delegation met with generals managing the withdrawal from Iraq, underscored the time pressures and costs facing Obama.

Meanwhile Former Vice President Dick Cheney slammed President Barack Obama for projecting “weakness” to adversaries and warned that more workaday Afghans will side with the Taliban if they think the United States is heading for the exits.

In a 90-minute interview at his suburban Washington house, Cheney said the president’s “agonizing” about Afghanistan strategy “has consequences for your forces in the field.”

“I begin to get nervous when I see the commander in chief making decisions apparently for what I would describe as small ‘p’ political reasons, where he’s trying to balance off different competing groups in society,” Cheney said.

“Every time he delays, defers, debates, changes his position, it begins to raise questions: Is the commander in chief really behind what they’ve been asked to do?”

Obama administration officials have complained ever since taking office that they face a series of unpalatable — if not impossible — national security decisions in Afghanistan and Pakistan because of the Bush administration’s unwavering insistence on focusing on Iraq.

But Cheney rejected any suggestion that Obama had to decide on a new strategy for Afghanistan because the one employed by the previous administration failed.

Cheney was asked if he thinks the Bush administration bears any responsibility for the disintegration of Afghanistan because of the attention and resources that were diverted to Iraq. “I basically don’t,” he replied without elaborating.

“Here’s a guy without much experience, who campaigned against much of what we put in place ... and who now travels around the world apologizing,” Cheney said. “I think our adversaries — especially when that’s preceded by a deep bow ... — see that as a sign of weakness.”

Dick Morris: GOP will take both houses of congress in 2010!