BY GARY ANDRES
Reprinted from the weeklystandard.com
Many factors are contributing to President Obama’s decline in popularity since his historic election less than two years ago. A stagnant economy with stubbornly high unemployment certainly caused part of the downward trend. But there is more.
A White House out of step with many Americans on both public policy substance and style in office also explains a huge part of the dip.
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BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON
“The Vanishing Middle in American Politics” That headline made me reach for the reading glasses Sunday morning. Holy voter! Batman, when did the middle vanish?
The headline on a story by AP reporter Ron Fournier was misleading, of course. The great middle of American politics–centrists, independents, moderates, whatever you call them (it’s instructive that they don’t have a brand), has not vanished at all. Those voters, in the words of Democratic consultant Steve McMahon, make up “the invisible middle.” The middle is ignored, he said in the article, because the politicians are concentrating on the noisemakers.
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