Obama and Reagan; or "It's the Economy Stupid!"

As some begin to question Obama's direction, it's once again time to put things into proper context. As we look upon the past for guidance, there's a notable comparison of Obama to Lyndon Johnson, who's sweeping domestic vision was marred by a messy war in Vietnam. Despite his best efforts to be open about his intentions in Afghanistan, President Obama has not had the resounding support he'd hoped for his troop increase.

I think James Carville might have said it best during the Clinton campaign: "It's the economy, stupid." The economy single handed ended both Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush's presidencies, despite largely successful international policies.

Professor Charles Franklin of the University of Wisconsin has a short and simple comparison at Pollster.com between Presidents Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan. Both Obama and Reagan are currently tied for the lowest approval ranking of any post-WWII President after their first year in office at 46%.

Says Franklin, "Both [Reagan and Obama] replaced deeply unpopular predecessors. Both enjoyed significant gains for their party in both houses of Congress. Both faced "worst since the depression" economic circumstances. And each in his own very different ways attempted to reshape government in the early months in office."

Both Presidents were also extremely talented orators and just as championed as they were despised.

There's been lots of buzz on the blogosphere on this comparison, and it certainly makes for an intriguing argument. One can only wonder if the Democrats are facing a similar "correcting" as the Republican Congress did in 1982.

Yet in reality, when I look at this graph, I don't see a pattern- I see chaos. If we look at the wide fluctuations of public opinion for each president, it's remarkable that anyone would event attempt to draw any correlation here. The reality is this- people's opinions on the issues and on presidents fluctuation to such a degree that subjective truths are the most to be gained from these statistic.

Truman's popularity dropped from 86% to 33% in just over a year; G.W. Bush goes from 52% to 90% in less then a month; Carter's popularity goes from 37% to 56% in less then 5 months. The fluctuation is so remarkable that there's really no way to make any logical prediction based on this data- this is a discussion to be had by historians decades from now- not by realists who want to keep this country moving in a positive direction.

What does opinion polling mean? According the Republican's during George Bush's presidency, it meant nothing and I imagine Obama's administrators might say the same.

What we do know is this: if the economy declines, heads will roll. It's just about the only certainty there is in politics.