President Barack Obama
The approval rating of President Obama reached 55%, which was the highest during his second term. The steady rise in his approval rating was vital for him having dropped as low as 38% in many instances during his term as the President. As much as he attributed the high approval ratings to the Democrats, some Republicans and independents also had positive opinion of him hence indicating a change in how the whole country was evaluating his performance. Different presidents leave the office with different public approval ratings that are only left for the scrutiny of the public.
Obama’s high public approval ratings towards the end of his term could only be compared to that of President Ronald Reagan, which hit over 60% before leaving the office for George H. W. Bush in 1988. The factors that affected his approval ratings were directly linked to his performance as the president as well as the manner in which he approached issues affecting the country (In Newport, 2019) . One factor that made his approval ratings to shoot up was the idea of having more international trips across differ countries. The trips boosted his rapport with the public because people felt that he was taking charge as President. As he moved and held talks with different heads of states while attending various conferences, citizens felt that he was busy addressing their plight and looking for ways of addressing national matters such as the problem of terrorism and unemployment. Citizens believed that such trips would only serve to boost the economy and create job opportunities for the jobless youths (In Newport, 2019) . The public also had a positive approval rating for Michelle Obama, the former first lady, which translated into improving the approval ratings of President Barrack Obama. The other factor that contributed to high approval rating is the economic improvement during his second term in office. Compared to when he took office in his first term, the economy significantly improved with more jobs opening up for the youths (In Newport, 2019) . Given that the state of the economy is a matter of national interest, it must obviously affect the approval rating of the sitting president.
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The other reason for a rise in Obama’s approval rating is the media’s positive portrayal of the president to the public. During his first term, most of the stories about Obama were positive and meant to depict him as a nice and cool president who is never abrasive or aggressive. During his first year in office, about 70% of stories covering him were positive and 54% of stores talking about his job performance were equally positive (In Newport, 2019) . Other than the positive stories by media personalities, other celebrities as well as media pundits were all over different platforms praising him as a good resident for the country. By all means, such kind of depiction of Obama had to change the perception of the public towards him. His popularity was also based on racial affiliation given that he is an African American. His approval rating was high among nonwhites compared to whites. He was widely supported by youths and African Americans during his first term. Given that a good number of whites also loved and approved him, his approval rating significantly shot up in the first few months of his presidency.
On the other hand, the approval ratings of President Obama reached an all-time low during the six month of his second term. The first factor that led to his low approval rating is the Obamacare tax hike that saw American families pay more taxes to finance the policy. It was recorded to be among the largest tax hikes in the history of United States (In Zelizer, 2018). Some of the taxes associated with Obamacare include medical device tax and Medicare payroll tax increase. Worse still, the Obamacare led to high premiums. The initiative was so unpopular that 52% of the population disapproved it. In reality, it increased the market premiums to 146% as opposed to what Obama was saying while doing his campaigns. In this regard, the citizens felt betrayed with such an initiative hence significantly dropping his approval ratings. Close to this point is the rise in unemployment rates to 7.6% (In Zelizer, 2018) . The high level of unemployment was attributed to $16 trillion in debts during his term as president, which put pressure on citizens to pay higher taxes. Such events painted the president negatively on the eyes of the citizens hence leading to a sharp decline in his approval ratings.
Obamacare required every employer to provide health insurance to employees on part-time terms for thirty hours a week. The directive negatively affected workers across the United States because over two million employees in the United States began to face cuts in their working hours because the tough conditions pushed companies to the wall, to the point that they had to devise ways to survive and continue operating (In Zelizer, 2018) . For instance, Long Beach reduced its employees’ working hours to about 1,500 for part-time workers, which translated to approximately thirty hours per week. The company made the decision in an effort to prevent $2 million compliance costs of the Obamacare. Resultantly, the employees had to work for fewer hours and in effect receive low wages. For this reason, the Obamacare policy was received with a lot of negativity in the United States and its subsequent implementation significantly dropped the approval ratings of the president during his time in office.
The other factor is Obama’s energy plan that failed the expectation of citizens. His speech concerning the energy plan was perceived as unfortunate and unexpected. Under his plan, he made a directive to EPA to initiate war against Coal (Waterman, Silva, & Jenkins-Smith, 2014, p. 65) . The directive was given even as much as coal supplies produced about 40% of electricity in the United States. Rather than focusing on increasing exploration and domestic production of energy, the President’s directive gave priority to importation of energy so as to please local environmentalists who were less concerned about the impending job losses as well as the changes in energy rates (Waterman, Silva, & Jenkins-Smith, 2014) . It then took several months for the president to initiate the construction of Keystone Pipeline to create about 20,000 job opportunities as well as other million dollar economic activities.
During the early years of Obama presidency, his popularity was promoted by the media that often wrote positive things about his performance. However, this came to a stop after citizens began to witness the actual things going on around them and even noticing some of the president’s failures, which in effect declined his approval ratings. Some of the economic polices adopted by president Obama during his term such as the Obamacare left the economy struggling, which affected his approval ratings towards his last days in office.
References
In Newport, F. (2019). The Gallup poll: Public opinion 2016 . Lanham, Maryland : Rowman & Littlefield.
In Zelizer, J. E. (2018). The presidency of Barack Obama: A first historical assessment . Princeton : Princeton University Press.
Waterman, R. W., Silva, C. L., & Jenkins-Smith, H. C. (2014). The presidential expectations gap: Public attitudes concerning the presidency . Ann Arbor : The University of Michigan Press.
