Obama a factor in this election

Opinion: October 15, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

To reduce the 2010 election to its essentials, one need only look at the factors that polls and interviews tell us are motivating the major blocs of voters.

For Republicans, ideological opposition to President Barack Obama’s major programs and a sense they can reverse their 2006 and 2008 defeats are inspiring the enthusiasm lacking when the Bush administration’s failures put them on the defensive.

For many Democrats, disappointment that Obama failed to produce promised policy changes is depressing participation needed to counter increased GOP voting.

And for independents, Obama’s failure to change Washington’s political culture, plus concerns about government and its cost, are driving them to vote Republican, regardless of their view of the GOP.

It’s natural for the out-of-power party to oppose the one in power. But the key factor is the loss by Obama and the Democrats of support from the coalition that fueled their 2006 and 2008 victories.

Despite Democratic claims of a narrowing gap, the months-long stability of national polls suggest attitudes are so firmly held Obama can’t do more than reduce the Democratic falloff and perhaps salvage a few seats.

An Arkansan named Joshua reflected Democratic problems in a call to NPR’s Diane Rehm Show last Friday.

“I am one of those disillusioned liberal Democrats,” he said, faulting Sen. Blanche Lincoln for “torpedoing” the “public option” in Obama’s health plan and opposing repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military.

In fact, neither the “public option” nor repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” had enough votes, and Lincoln helped pass Obama’s health bill. But Joshua said, “I cannot bring myself to vote for a senator who just does not represent me,” adding he would vote for a Green candidate, though that may help elect a Republican more opposed to his positions.

Health reform

Obama has won passage of key measures on his agenda — health reform, financial market reform, and the economic stimulus. In each case, he settled for less than he wanted to get the 60 votes needed to cut off Senate debate.

“We’re probably better off,” John Duda, a Veterans Administration physician at Obama’s Philadelphia rally last Sunday told The Associated Press. “But there wasn’t this sea change” that people expected.

Polls indicate most Democrats stand by Obama and the party’s candidates, but enough are reflecting Joshua’s views to reduce party turnout.

Still, Obama’s bigger problem may be loss of independents.

Polls show a majority will vote Republican despite a mixed view of which party did better on major issues and distrust of both. “They are the lesser of two evils,” said Carol Wortham, 62, a retired government worker from Bayou Vista, Texas, surveyed in a Bloomberg national poll this week.

Most independents in another survey by the Pew Research Center felt Obama had made the economy worse, disapproved his performance in general, opposed the health care plan and preferred smaller government.

It’s dubious that Obama has made the economy worse. Though the jobless rate peaked a year ago at 10.1 percent, that process was well under way when he took over. The last nine months have seen a small but steady increase in private employment after a prior sharp drop.

However, the Obama administration undercut its success in passing its much derided stimulus bill, which economists estimate helped save some 3 million jobs. It predicted the jobless rate would peak at 8 percent, a level surpassed in his first full month in office.

Carl P. Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.