President Obama’s approval rating remains at over 50 percent despite constant GOP scandal mongering, and it seems attempts to disrupt the early days of his second term with a three-headed scandal beast has not hurt the administration among most voters.
The Obama approval rating poll conducted recently by CNN revealed that while Americans are taking the three current controversies surrounding the administration seriously (and that reservations are certainly present), overall, the issues have not impacted the President’s perception among voters.
As of now, the controversies cited as “scandals” in the Obama approval rating poll relate to three separate issues.
One is the attack on an American consulate in Benghazi, an issue that became politicized during the election and ultimately was the flashpoint of one of three debates between Mitt Romney and President Obama. During that debate, Romney claimed that Obama had not referred to the attack as “terror,” and the President called upon moderator Candy Crowley to review a transcript and fact-check Romney’s claim.
The second is recent revelations that the IRS may have specifically targeted Tea Party groups claiming certain statuses for tax purposes, a “scandal” that has not been linked to the Obama administration in any way. President Obama decried the actions of IRS workers in using certain key words to single out political groups for review.
The last “scandal” hyped by conservative news outlets has to do with the Associated Press, and the the Justice Department’s practice of examining phone records in order to investigate the leak of classified information.
One Washington Post writer suggests that GOP attempts to spin the “scandals” into massive issues has not affected Obama’s approval rating because outside core audiences, none of the three issues are reading as particularly scandalous in relation to the President:
“In the case of the IRS and Benghazi stories, the lurid and nefarious view of Obama’s involvement in them being peddled by the right is held only by Republicans — big majorities of them — while most moderates and independents, i.e. the middle of the country, believe the White House’s arguments.”
Do you think Obama’s approval rating reflects an American public not influenced by the scandalmongering?