First Read is a morning briefing from Meet
the Press and the NBC Political Unit on the day's most important
political stories and why they matter.
Watching Obama -- and his approval rating
Despite the declarations -- including from us --
that the 2014 midterm results would render President Obama a lame duck,
he's been anything but over the past year, as White House Press
Secretary Josh Earnest reminded reporters yesterday. And Obama will
likely make the same reminder at his year-end news conference at 1:50 pm
ET. Consider: Normalization of relations with Cuba. The Iran deal. The
Paris climate deal. Trade. Throw in the Supreme Court decisions on gay
marriage and health care. That string of victories boosted Obama's
approval rating to as high as 48% in our NBC/WSJ poll. Then came the
Paris and San Bernardino terrorist attacks, and the president's approval
is now down to 43%. So he's had a very good first 10 ½ months of 2015,
and then he's had a rough last month and a half. And it's all a reminder
that Obama will play an important role in the 2016 general election --
maybe not a decisive role, but certainly an important one (from framing
the debate nationally to making decisions that everyone has to react
to). Hillary Clinton (or the Democratic nominee) will be sitting pretty
if Obama, six months from now, is back in the high 40s. A Dem victory
still might be doable if Obama's approval in in the mid-40s. But it will
be much, much more difficult for the party if he's in the low 40s.
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Source: NBC News
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