Obama's Approval Tumbles, D's Still Lead Portman For Senate Race

Quinnipiac University's latest poll results on the state of the political landscape here in Ohio were released this morning, and it wasn't pretty for President Obama.

Given a 62-31 approval rating just two months ago, President Obama now gets a 49-44 approval rating. What's remarkable about this to me is that both the drop in approval and rise in disapproval are exactly 13%, meaning there is no net increase or decrease in the number of Ohioans feeling ambivalent about their new President, a President who has not yet spent 6 months in the White House. My feeling is that Ohioans frustrations with the slow progress on the economic recovery are coming out in these numbers.

On the 2010 Senate front, Quinnipiac finds both Fisher and Brunner slightly leading the likely GOP candidate former Rep. Rob Portman. Fisher has a slight 3 point lead on Brunner in the Democratic primary, within the polls margin of error.

New Quinny Poll on 2010 U.S. Senate Race Tomorrow

Quinnipiac University will be out with a new poll tomorrow on Ohio's 2010 U.S. Senate race plus President Obama's approval rating in the Buckeye State. Stay tuned for details.

EFF: Obama Administration Takes Bush Position On Warrantless Wiretapping

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, whose goals I support as you can tell from the banner at the bottom of this website, has issued a statement today saying that the Obama Administration has taken the same position as George W. Bush on warrantless wiretapping. Just a note: this is NOT change we can believe in.

San Francisco - The Obama administration formally adopted the Bush administration's position that the courts cannot judge the legality of the National Security Agency's (NSA's) warrantless wiretapping program, filing a motion to dismiss Jewel v. NSA late Friday.

In Jewel v. NSA, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is challenging the agency's dragnet surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans. The Obama Justice Department claims in its motion that litigation over the wiretapping program would require the government to disclose privileged "state secrets." These are essentially the same arguments made by the Bush administration three years ago in Hepting v. AT&T, EFF's lawsuit against one of the telecom giants complicit in the NSA spying.

"President Obama promised the American people a new era of transparency, accountability, and respect for civil liberties," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "But with the Obama Justice Department continuing the Bush administration's cover-up of the National Security Agency's dragnet surveillance of millions of Americans, and insisting that the much-publicized warrantless wiretapping program is still a 'secret' that cannot be reviewed by the courts, it feels like deja vu all over again."

A Great Way to Lower Health Care Costs

I just wanted to pass along this great article from the Washington Post about one Pennsylvania health care system that has found a way to lower the costs of bypass surgery by about 15 percent while improving patient outcomes. And, much to the GOP's disappointment, it has nothing to do with trial lawyers:

You could think of them as the Maytag repairmen of health care.

In an industry that makes its money by selling more -- more tests, more surgeries, more drugs -- Geisinger Health System officials gambled three years ago that they could succeed by doing less, but doing it better.

Mimicking the appliance company that advertised its products' reliability, the health system devised a 90-day warranty on elective heart surgery, promising to get it right the first time, for a flat fee. If complications arise or the patient returns to the hospital, Geisinger bears the additional cost.

The venture has paid off. Heart patients have fared measurably better, and the health system has cut its bypass surgery costs by 15 percent. Today, Geisinger has extended the program to half a dozen other procedures, and initiatives such as the counterintuitive experiment in Pennsylvania coal country are now at the heart of efforts in Washington to refashion how care is delivered across the United States.

Though not identified by name, the Geisinger model tracks closely with the policy goals of President Obama. A key target is to reduce expensive errors, duplication, and unnecessary procedures that do nothing to improve health and may actually result in worse outcomes.

Wall Street Loves Obama Plan For Bad Assets. GOPers Run for Exits

Since President Obama was sworn in on January 20th, he has maintained approval ratings between 60-70 percent. So, the GOP fringe, led by Faux News, turned to the performance of the stock market as a way to insist that President Obama was doing a bad job. Remember this?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
The Dow Knows All
comedycentral.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Important Things w/ Demetri Martin Political Humor

Well, how do you think the GOP feels about this? "Stocks spike on bank plan" is the headline on CNN Money right now. Can anyone else hear the footsteps of the GOP running scared?

WSJ Columnist: Obama's No Socialist

Signs of sanity in the GOP: a columnist for the Murdock Wall Street Journal states the obvious: President Obama is no socialist. 

Ever since President Barack Obama released the budget last month, we have been hearing a fusillade of criticism claiming that the president, contrary to previous advertising, is not a centrist, but a "leftie" intent on leading the country down the path of socialism.

Let's see. Socialism means public ownership and control of businesses, right? So which industries does the president propose to nationalize?

Banking? Well, no. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner has made it clear that he opposes nationalizing banks, despite much outcry from the political left -- and even some from the right -- to do just that. Yes, it's a valid criticism that we are still waiting for Mr. Geithner's banking plan. But the budget commits an outrageous act of accounting honesty by including a $750 billion allowance as "a reserve for further efforts to stabilize the financial system." Given the popularity of bank bailouts, that was a courageous thing to do.

What about health care? Doesn't Mr. Obama want "socialized medicine"? No. He wants to reform the current system so that it costs less and covers more people. Disgracefully, the United States is the only advanced nation in the world that fails to cover every citizen -- even though we spend vastly more on health care than other nations.

Whoa! Obama Won OH-15 by 9, OH-12 by 7

Thanks to this article over at the Swing State Project, we finally have a breakdown of the 2008 Presidential vote by congressional district, and it reveals some surprising facts.

The most surprising, in my opinion? President Obama won the Ohio 15th, in which Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy eked out a victory that wasn't decided until at least a month after the election, by 9 points, 54-45. In the neighboring Ohio 12th, in which first-timer David Robinson had a respectable showing against entrenched incumbent GOPer Pat Tiberi, Obama won by 7 points, 53-46.

Here is the full list:

District	Vote Split	Winner
Ohio 1st (Driehaus)	55-44	Obama
Ohio 2nd (Schmidt)	40-59	McCain
Ohio 3rd (Turner)	47-51	McCain
Ohio 4th (Jordan)	38-60	McCain
Ohio 5th (Latta)	45-53	McCain
Ohio 6th (Wilson)	48-50	McCain
Ohio 7th (Austria)	45-54	McCain
Ohio 8th (Boehner)	38-60	McCain
Ohio 9th (Kaptur)	62-36	Obama
Ohio 10th (Kucinich)	59-39	Obama
Ohio 11th (Fudge)	85-14	Obama
Ohio 12th (Tiberi)	53-46	Obama
Ohio 13th (Sutton)	57-42	Obama
Ohio 14th (LaTourette)	49-49	TIE
Ohio 15th (Kilroy)	54-45	Obama
Ohio 16th (Boccieri)	48-50	McCain
Ohio 17th (Ryan)	62-36	Obama
Ohio 18th (Space)	45-52	McCain

So, what can we learn from this? There seems to be an awful lot of people in and around Columbus who voted for President Obama but still voted for a GOPer for Congress. We need to go out and find those people and get them to vote for Democrats up and down the ticket. If we do that, then Mary Jo should have no problem holding on to her seat, and can put into play some State Senate seats that the GOPers currently have locked down.

Quinnipiac Poll: Obama Approval Rating in Ohio at 57 Percent

In a poll released this morning, Quinnipiac University finds that President Barack Obama has a 57 percent approval rating in Ohio with 33 percent disapproving roughly two months into his term in office.

These numbers are down from last month, where Quinnipiac found a 67-16 approval rating. A lot of the movement has come from self-described Republicans, who last month disapproved 31-42 but this month disapprove 22-68. IMO, this is to be expected as the honeymoon period wears off and President Obama begins rolling out an agenda not exactly calculated to please GOPers.

One of the items on that agenda is President Obama's $75 billion mortgage rescue plan. In a development I consider stunning, 63 percent of Ohioans say the plan is unfair to those who make their payments on time, but 55 percent of Ohioans support the plan anyway because they think its necessary to stablize the housing market. 

In the red-hot race for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by George Voinovich in 2010, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher leads former Bush Administration official Rob Portman 41-33, and Auditor of State Mary Taylor 41-31 in hypothetical matchups. In a Democratic Primary, Fisher takes 18 percent to 14 percent for Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, 12 percent for Rep. Tim Ryan, 10 percent to all other candidates and 46 percent undecided. 

More Quinnpiac analysis later. For now, read the full poll results yourself here.