奥巴马民众支持率下降到底意味着什么

    这两条曲线是如此的吻合。对此，我们可以从这样一个角度来理解：在小布什的第二个任期中，人们越发认为总统是问题的一部分。随着情况恶化——小布什政府开始无法控制伊拉克局势，在新奥尔良这座大城市遭遇洪灾时又令人震惊地无所作为——既有人认为小布什有能力解决问题，可能也有同样数量的人认为小布什本身就代表着坏消息。共和党民调专家大卫•温斯顿指出，卡特里娜飓风促使人们更快地重新评估小布什政府。他说：“那是个非常关键的转折点。鉴于当时美国的局势，人们对小布什的作用和对总统职能的看法出现了变化。”

    现在，让我们来看一看按照同样的标准奥巴马的情况如何：     

    One way to understand why these two trend lines match up so neatly in Bush's second term is that people increasingly viewed the President as part of the problem. As things got worse—with the Bush administration losing control of the situation in Iraq and mounting a shockingly incompetent response to the flooding of a major American city—Bush himself was as likely to be seen as a feature of the bad news as he was a potential solution to it. Republican pollster David Winston says Katrina accelerated that reassessment. "That was very much a key inflection moment in terms of how people viewed his role and the presidency given the situation with the country," he says.

    Now look at how Obama's fortunes relate to the same measure:      

    作为倡导改变的候选人，奥巴马首次入主白宫时整个美国都处于经济崩溃的边缘。这两条曲线的起点相距这么远并不奇怪，因为民众知道奥巴马接手的是一场危机，而且把票投给他的目的就是要化解这次危机。五年来，民众对美国局势的满意程度一直在20%上下波动。而奥巴马的支持率一直高于这个水平，主要是因为人们持久的善意。

    2012年大选期间，在投票站出口进行的调查有助于证明，这种善意仍在延续——53%的选民仍认为当时美国面临的经济问题应更多地归咎于小布什，而不是奥巴马，而持相反意见的选民只占38%。温斯顿指出，2013年春末，选民终于开始认为奥巴马应该为经济复苏缓慢负责——从那时起奥巴马的支持率一路下滑，这正是民意发生转变的体现；它同时表明，医改困局的不利影响有可能扩大。

    奥巴马也许可以度过这场危机，人们也可能一如既往地相信他能够解决问题。正如《纽约时报》的这篇文章中部分批评人士所说，飓风灾害是孤立事件。只要应对不当，小布什就不会有第二次或者第三次机会来予以纠正。而另一方面，实施医改法案是个不断推进的过程。本月底奥巴马就会得到第一次重新来过的机会——政府已经承诺，届时医改网站Healthcare.gov将向绝大多数用户开放。

    然而，如果医改不断地出岔子，对奥巴马领导班子的信心就会继续减弱，他的支持率曲线就会和民众对美国现状的满意度曲线重合——这种情况将表明，实施医改以来一直存在的重大管理失误已经开始让大批民众重新对奥巴马的工作进行评估。而且就像小布什当初所经历的那样，第二个总统任期苦不堪言的局面将难以改变。（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie        

    He rode a movement candidacy to office at a time when the entire country teetered on the brink of economic collapse. No wonder then that the two trend lines start so far apart: People understood that he inherited a crisis and had been elected to fix it. Over the last five years, popular satisfaction with the state of affairs has bumped along around the 20 percent line. But Obama has managed to float above that assessment on a cushion of enduring goodwill.

    An exit poll from the 2012 election helps explain that durability: By a margin of 53 to 38, voters continued to blame Bush more than Obama for the country's current economic troubles. Winston argues voters finally began assigning responsibility for the sluggish recovery to Obama in late spring of 2013—a development evident in his waning popularity ever since, and one that the healthcare fiasco threatens to exacerbate.

    It may be that the President can emerge from this crisis with his problem-solving credentials intact. As some of the critics of the Katrina comparison note, the hurricane was a discreet event. Once Bush bungled the response, he didn't get a second or third chance to make it right. The implementation of the healthcare law, on the other hand, is rolling process. Obama will get his first do-over at the end of the month, when his administration has pledged to have Healthcare.gov accessible to the vast majority of users.

    But if foul-ups keep dogging the law, look for confidence in Obama's leadership to continue its tailspin. His approval rating will merge with the gauge of the general state of affairs—a signal that the epic management failure defining the healthcare rollout so far has prompted a wholesale reevaluation of the President. And as Bush's example shows, second-term woes can be hard to shake.