SALON

Wednesday, Feb 15, 2012 12:57 PM UTC

The GOP’s emerging Bob Dole problem

The last Republican to take on a Democratic president never recovered from his primary season wounds VIDEO

By

Topics: Opening Shot,

The GOP's emerging Bob Dole problemBob Dole and Mitt Romney (Credit: AP)

A flood of new data points to one clear conclusion: At least for now, President Obama and his Republican opponents are heading in opposite directions.

A CBS News/New York Times poll released last night puts Obama’s approval rating at 50 percent — his best performance in that survey since the spring of 2010 (not counting last May’s brief bin Laden bounce). The poll also shows Obama enjoying his best score since the summer of ’10 on his handling of the economy and his best score since at least late 2009 (when the question was first asked) on job creation, and finds voters more optimistic than they’ve been in nearly two years on the overall direction of the economy.

This comports with other recent surveys. According to RealClearPolitics’ database, three polls released in the last two weeks have the president’s job approval at or over 50 percent. Before this, you have to go all the way back to the very end of the bin Laden bounce, in mid-June, to find a single poll with Obama that high. (In that same span, three surveys put his approval rating below 40 percent.) The relationship between Obama’s improving fortunes and the economic headlines of the past few months — declining unemployment since last September punctuated by a jarringly strong  January jobs report — seems undeniable.

But something else is happening too. Since the start of the year, the general election positioning of Obama’s would-be Republican challengers has eroded as their intra-party fight has intensified.

Mitt Romney, who despite his latest crisis remains the favorite to capture the GOP nomination, was running 2 points ahead of Obama — 47 to 45 percent — in a CBS/NYT poll released just after New Year’s, but he now trails by 6. In fact, Romney has run behind the president in every poll released this month, with RealClearPolitics pegging his average deficit at nearly 6 points. Romney’s slippage is particularly pronounced among independent voters. A Pew poll earlier this week showed him 9 points behind Obama among them; three months ago, Romney led the same group by 12. Nor is Rick Santorum, the latest Consensus Romney Alternative to emerge in the GOP race, any better positioned. In the CBS/NYT poll, he loses to Obama by 8 points.

There is, to be sure, reason to take this all with a grain of salt. Primary seasons can be rough and candidates who end up performing well in the fall can look terribly vulnerable during their nomination campaigns; the story of Bill Clinton in 1992 comes to mind. And the encouraging economic news of the past few months could give way to demoralizing headlines in the months ahead, reversing Obama’s polling gains and lowering his approval rating to crisis levels.

But the convergence of the best economic news of Obama’s presidency with a messy GOP nominating contest also calls to mind the path that the last Democratic president took to reelection.

Like Obama, Bill Clinton began the 1996 cycle on the heels of an epic midterm election defeat and with the opposition party convinced it had found the formula to defeat him. But the Republican Party’s image plunged in 1995 and early ’96, the product of overreach by its new congressional majority and the toxic antics of a House speaker named Newt Gingrich, while the economy — and Clinton’s approval scores — improved. By the time Bob Dole, who suffered an embarrassing series of early primary season defeats (including to Pat Buchanan in New Hampshire), finally secured the GOP nomination he was running far behind Clinton. And despite predictions throughout the spring of ’96 that the race would ultimately tighten, it never really did.

After his defeat, Dole was known to lament that the election had come two years too late. Obama’s recent gains are tenuous, but it seems a lot more likely now than it did a few months ago that the 2012 Republican nominee will end up saying the same thing.

* * *

I was on MSNBC’s “The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell” last night and talked about Santorum’s surge, Romney’s struggles and Obama’s good fortune. Here’s the segment:

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

Steve Kornacki

Steve Kornacki writes about politics for Salon. Reach him by email at SKornacki@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @SteveKornacki More Steve Kornacki.

Next Article

You Might Also Like

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

Gripping photos: The people of the Turkey protests (slideshow)

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • The protests take on a festive element as police forces move out of the park and square. Wearing a gas mask, this young man dances to traditional Turkish music in front of Taksim Square’s Ataturk Monument.

  • In Gezi Park since March 31st, this protester, originally caught off-guard by the Government’s teargas and water cannons, went out and bought a Russian army mask from WWII, preparing for what was to come.

  • This rambunctious boy seems to be enjoying the chaos. After taking this picture he threw a stone at the already destroyed building in the background.

  • Forming a line, the police face off directly with protesters in Taksim Square. After a while, they retreated and there was a general cheer – a back-and-forth dance that has been common since the beginning of this protest.

  • An elderly woman in Gezi Park reads the news. The tent community occupying the park was violently destroyed on June 16th.

  • Many different groups had set up booths to promote their cause in Taksim Square and Gezi Park. Standing in front of one, this man waves his flag while posing with conviction.

  • Many home-remedies are used to minimize the effects of tear gas. This woman has put a milky solution on her face, removing her mask after the tear gas dissipated. Before sunrise, the police came again for another round of teargasing.

  • People capitalize on the uprising -- selling flags, beer, gas masks, sky lanterns and spray paint to name just a few of the popular items.

  • On Monday morning, June 11, the police execute a strong offensive. Many plain-clothed police officers, like the ones seen here, clash with protesters in the side streets away from the main stand-off in Taksim.

  • The authorities seem to be most aggressive in the night, pushing protesters away from the square and park. After being teargassed this young woman catches her breath with other protesters on Siraselviler Street.

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

More Related Stories

Comments

 40 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username ( settings | log out )

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

Alex Pareene surveys the burgeoning and bloated world of political news and opinion and explains the day's most essential story in Opening Shot, posted by 8:30 a.m. each weekday. Bookmark this page; follow @pareene on Twitter.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: "We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves": Growing up primate

Recommendations