The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza is relatively liberal. Yet he headlines
this edition of his politics blog
The Fix, "President Obama's competence problem is worse than it looks." I had to read further to see how Cillizza believed this possible:
Obama is faltering badly on the competence question and, in so doing, badly imperiling not only his ability to enact any sort of second term agenda but also Democrats' chances this fall. A series of events -- from the VA scandal to the ongoing border crisis to the situation in Ukraine to the NSA spying program -- have badly undermined the idea that Obama can effectively manage the government.
Cillizza summarizes the polling data which chronicles Obama's fall:
Back in December 2009, more than three quarters of respondents in a CNN/ORC poll said that Obama was an effective manager of the government. By early November 2009 that number had dropped to 58 percent. It dipped below 50 percent for the first time in June 2010 and in the three polls in which CNN has asked the question since mid-November 2013, 40 percent, 43 percent and now 42 percent, respectively, have said that he is a good manager.
Partisanship is alive and well in the polling data, but the opinions of independents tip the balance:
Eighty nine percent of Republicans say Obama isn't a competent manager while 76 percent of Democrats say he is. Two thirds of independents say that Obama ins't (sic) an effective manager of the government.
When you lose a quarter of your own partisans, you're in trouble. The career Management professor who writes
COTTonLINE concurs with the judgment of Obama's inability to manage.
