Top Five Reasons Obama Presidency is Faltering

It’s no secret that the approval ratings for President Barack ObamaBarack Obama have fallen precipitously since he took the oath of office back in January, falling from over 65% in January to below 50% for the first time just this week. There are many reasons for this decline, but here are the top five which I believe have fueled his bend of his curve downward.

1. It’s the economy, stupid. The president was astute enough to figure out that one of his first acts had to addressing the economic downturn he inherited, unfortunately, the bloated stimulus package which the president hurried through Congress has done absolutely nothing to improve the only measure that matters to Americans which is the unemployment rate. While the president assured Americans that the unemployment rate would not rise above 8% if the stimulus package was passed, the “stated” unemployment rate is close to 10% and over 4 million additional jobs have been lost since its passage. If these figures don’t improve in the next 12 months, he can kiss his majorities in Congress and, potentially, a second term, good bye.

2. Credibility Gap. The American people were more than willing to give the new president the benefit of the doubt at the outset of his presidency. Unfortunately the president’s credibility has been seriously damaged by his practice of making every one of his deficit-laden initiatives a crisis which had to be acted on immediately. After the American people were able to see the ineffectiveness of the 787 billion dollar stimulus package, they were extremely skeptical of the other initiatives such as “Cap and Trade” and “Health Care Reform”.

3. Too many balls, “in the air”. During the campaign, candidate Obama famously chided Senator McCainSenator McCain, “…that a president has to be able to do more than two things at once…” as Senator McCain suspended his campaign to address the financial crisis. President Obama seems to have a penchant for initiating a multitude of projects without having a strategy or plan for completing these projects as we’ve seen with energy policy, health care reform, the war in Afghanistan, a Mideast peace accord and the situation with Iran acquiring nuclear missiles.

4. Guilt by association. As occurred during the campaign, Barack Obama has often been forced to address associations from his past with questionable backgrounds. This trend has continued into his administration as many of his appointments have been forced to withdraw their nominations or resign their office after revelations have come out about non-payment of taxes or previous inflammatory statements they have made.

5. Overexposure. Eloquent as President Obama can be as a speaker, the president’s advisors seem to be prepared to trot out the president in front of every camera or microphone that is available. So much so that lately it seems you can’t turn on the TV without seeing the president on news shows, talk shows, sports shows, prime time press conferences, one-hour specials, and town hall meetings. The president is quickly wearing out his welcome by flooding the airways with his ever present image, and Americans are starting to tune him out all together.

The President would do well to revisit his priorities, focus on the most important five programs, roll up his sleeves and reach across the aisle to demonstrate he is above the same-old partisan politics he decried during the presidential campaign.