Obama gets good marks from focus group
TOWSON, Md. -- President Obama has seen his approval ratings slide, but a dozen independent voters who gathered here for a roundtable discussion about politics were still inclined to give him a break.
The area residents expressed deep worry about the country's direction and a sobering view of the problems ahead. There was also a reservoir of good feeling for a president several referred to familiarly as "Barack."
Asked what he would like to say to Obama, Scott Wood, 35, who has been looking for a job since February, advised: "Don't give up yet; we haven't."
"We've found out he's not Superman," said Nora Seeley, 54, when asked what she had learned about the president during his first six months on the job. Still, she said, "things are starting to turn around."
The focus group, held Wednesday night, was sponsored by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
There were some warning signs for the president in their assessment of his tenure so far. Several were concerned he was spending too much and moving too fast, especially on health care.
"Sometimes I think the speed he's doing things — it's a little bit of a gamble," said Tim Polen, 24.
When Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who moderated the session, asked them what Obama's spine was made of, two chose steel and metal.
The others' choices ranged from Teflon and plastic to bamboo and wood. "Wet cement," said Marsha Welder, 59, the account manager at a security firm, "because it's going to dry."
Afterward, Hart called those choices "pretty malleable." That could reflect a sense that the new president's mettle had not yet been fully tested.
Overall, however, Hart said the hopeful assessments of Obama provided a sort of counterweight to the decline in his standing. The USA TODAY/Gallup Poll last week put his job approval rating at 55% and an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll out Wednesday had it at 53%.
There was a broad consensus that Obama erred in weighing in on the controversy over the arrest of African-American scholar Henry Louis Gates at his home in Cambridge, Mass.
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