Obama dribbles past job approval, shoots for personal appeal

Posted: March 12, 2012 at 6:12 pm


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President Barack Obamas campaign website is offering to showcase anyone who submits a more accurate prediction of the March Madness basketball results than Obamas personal prediction.

Think You Got Game? asks a recent headline on his official campaign website. Fill out your bracket below and see if you can beat President Obamas bracket predictions. And hows this for bragging rights: well publish a list of everyone who does better than the President here on BarackObama.com after the tournament is over.

The new Obama Bracket Challenge is designed to help him spur base voters, build his mailing list and boost low-dollar donations, while also fronting his personal charm, which gets higher polls from voters than does his record on the economy.

Obamas job-approval rating was only 45 percent in February, but his personal ratings have usually been a few points higher. Last December, for example, Gallup reported only 42 percent of the public approved of his performance, while an ABC/Washington Post poll pegged his personal rating at 48 percent.

That rating is relatively high given the state of the economy, although far below his high point of 79 percent in Jan. 2009.

The bracket competition may also tug the public conversation away from the dour economy.

Gallup says the combined unemployment and underemployment rate is 19 percent, despite Obamas spending $5 trillion more than tax receipts since 2009. Even the official unemployment rate of 8.3 percent is far higher than the historical average, and is well above the 6.1 percent Obamas team promised it would be by early 2012 when Congress passed the controversial $787 billion stimulus bill in 2009.

In fact, Obamas personal popularity can shield him from GOP criticisms, and bring over a percentage of swing-voters who would otherwise vote for his eventual Republican opponent. And his campaign periodically tries to pump up those personal ratings by displaying Obamas personal charm on the website.

In a recent video, for example, Obama is shown talking about the Chicago Bulls basketball team with several supporters who won tickets for a meal with him.

Asked by one man where hed like to work other than the White House, Obama responded genially that, Id be starting point guard for the Chicago Bulls.

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Obama dribbles past job approval, shoots for personal appeal

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March 12th, 2012 at 6:12 pm




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