奥巴马民众支持率下降到底意味着什么

    奥巴马的反对率最近达到了55%，是他当政以来的最高点。

    一边是一场带来重大生命和财产损失的飓风，另一边则是为了让没有医疗保险的人获得保障而笨拙登场的一项法律，用这两样事物来作对比当然会显得很可笑。但我们对《纽约时报》（New York Times ）多少还应该有点儿信心——虽然上周五这份报纸的头条新闻极尽愤怒谴责之辞，但它从来没说过人们应该把卡特里娜飓风造成的直接破坏和奥巴马医改法案的实施相提并论。

    《纽约时报》这篇报道的真正用意在于说明，未能恰当应对卡特里娜飓风灾害让布什失去了公众的信任，而现任政府目前所面临的危机可能让奥巴马的政治生涯出现类似的转折。文章按照这样的思路指出，如果奥巴马政府不能扭转局势，医改方面的拙劣表现将动摇奥巴马的总统宝座，从而削弱他继续开展工作的能力。

    这样的假设并不是没有道理。仅仅几周之前，曾在《纽约时报》上撰文抨击政府的埃兹拉•克莱因就指出，奥巴马领导班子的形象是一个机智的21世纪政府，但匆匆启动医改法案让它的形象大打折扣；而且和医改法案相比，政府形象要重要得多。他说，就算奥巴马医改大获成功，“让人们再次相信政府能够妥善处理大事也会变得更加困难。”

    现在就对全面实施医改的整体影响进行可靠评估还为时过早。《纽约时报》指出，最近的两项调查表明，多数美国人现在都不信任奥巴马——这是其一。今天出炉的《华盛顿邮报》（Washington Post）/美国广播公司（ABC）民调结果则为奥巴马声望下降提供了最新的证据——这项调查显示，奥巴马的反对率已经达到55%，创下了他当政以来的最高点。

    但这些调查都没有发现，公众对布什和奥巴马的态度存在着结构性差异。正是因为有这样的差异，对上述两种情形的评判才显得相当站不住脚，就连纯粹的政治评估也是如此。

    想想看，每位总统的支持率和民众认为美国的整体状况是否良好有着怎样的联系？9.11事件和军事打击阿富汗初获成功后，小布什的支持率一路飙升。但成功连任后，小布什发现自己的支持率呈长期缓慢下跌态势。小布什支持率的下降和公众对美国所处形势的判断惊人地相似。盖洛普的调查结果就说明了这一点：   

    Of course it would be ridiculous to compare a hurricane that wrought horrendous loss of life and destruction with the botched rollout of a law that aims to extend health coverage to the uninsured. But give the New York Times a little bit of credit. The paper—in a Friday front-pager that's launched a flurry of outraged takedowns—never claimed the direct outcomes of Hurricane Katrina and the healthcare law's debut deserve to be considered side by side.

    What the Times story really posited was that the crisis this White House now faces could mark apolitical inflection in Obama's presidency similar to the way Bush lost public faith after mangling the response to the Katrina disaster. If the White House can't turn it around, this line of thinking goes, the debacle could ripple through what remains of Obama's presidency, undermining his ability to advance his agenda.

    That's not an unreasonable premise. Just a few weeks ago, Ezra Klein—author of one of those rebukes of the New York Times piece—argued that blundering Obamacare's launch dealt a serious injury to Obama's much bigger vision of a nimble, 21st Century government. Even if the law becomes a runaway success, he said, "reviving the idea that government can do big things right will be harder."

    It's too early to credibly assess the full impact of the rollout on Obama's broader program. The New York Times pointed to a pair of recent polls indicating a majority of Americans now distrust Obama—a first. Fresh evidence of Obama's skid comes today from a Washington Post/ABCpoll that finds his disapproval rating at 55 percent, his worst ever showing on that score.

    But those surveys miss a structural difference in the popular attitudes toward Bush and Obama that makes even a purely political appraisal of the two moments pretty wobbly.

    Consider how each president's approval ratings compare to the sense of whether the country, generally, is in decent shape. Bush enjoyed a burst of popularity after the September 11 attacks and the initially successful invasion of Afghanistan. But he saw his approvals begin a long, slow slide after his reelection. That loss of altitude strikingly mirrored the public perceptions about the state of the country, as measured by Gallup: