Presidents can get a surge of support in national crises as
they take action.
President Obama was overdue to look presidential as he did
in his ISIS speech last Wednesday. However, early returns show no change in his
approval numbers overall (42% average now) or in foreign policy (32% in WSJ/NBCpoll, 9-9-14; 34%, 9-13-14).
In a follow-up poll (9-13-14), the Wall Street Journal shows more than 62 percent of the public is supportive
of the plan. But, 68 percent are skeptical it will work. If the plan has
problems in implementation, Republicans and independents may fault him for poor
leadership. Democrats, who are still mostly supportive of him, remain
ambivalent toward more military action in the Middle East. Local Democrats,
like Mark Udall and Andrew Romanoff, could suffer if the President’s leadership
appears weak.
“The president is to some extent playing catch-up. The American people have
moved in front of him,” 9NEWS political analyst Floyd Ciruli said. “Foreign
policy could be an issue in a midterm election. That is fairly unusual. It
happened in 2006. We were really angry with President Bush over the slow and
agonizing course of the war in Iraq. This time it looks like it's moving in the
opposite direction.”
The announcement of a strategy that has some preliminary support from
Republicans could swing attention away from the speed of the response.
“We tend to rally behind our presidents when we feel there’s a crisis,”
Ciruli said, with a nod the president’s sagging approval ratings. “I think
there's a possibility that he could come out of this a lot better than he's
been looking.”
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