Byron York notes that “Biden’s popularity plunges; lower than Cheney’s:”
Vice President Joe Biden’s favorable rating has fallen to 42 percent in a new Gallup poll, down from a high of 59 percent just after last year’s election. Biden’s unfavorable rating in the new poll is 40 percent, up from 29 percent last November. (Eighteen percent of those surveyed say they have no opinion of Biden.)
Biden’s average favorable rating during his time in office so far is 45 percent — well below the average 65 percent favorable rating for Vice President Dick Cheney during Cheney’s first year in office. Vice President Al Gore’s favorable rating during his first year, 55 percent, was also higher than Biden’s. (Gallup did not measure vice presidential popularity before Gore.)
AdvertisementBiden’s rating has fallen most dramatically among independents. Last November, 55 percent of them had a favorable impression of Biden. Now, it’s 32 percent. Biden’s favorable rating among Democrats is 73 percent, down from 88 percent last December, and among Republicans it is 18 percent, down from 33 percent last year.
Finally, there is a greater gap between Biden’s favorable rating and President Obama’s than there was between Cheney and President George W. Bush and Gore and President Bill Clinton. Biden’s 45 percent average favorable rating this year is well below Obama’s average of 63 percent. Cheney’s 65 percent average was near Bush’s average of 69 percent, and Gore’s 55 percent rating was close to Clinton’s average of 57 percent.
And that’s despite the recent effort by the Obama-approved Newsweek to prop up his veep’s popularity.
(At least I think it was an attempt to prop-up Joe’s popularity. But Newsweek’s cover headlines often inflict a fair amount of blowback these days.)
This was in many ways inevitable. The more attention is paid to Biden the more likely he demonstrates why he’s a punchline to political observers.
Of course I blame his candid honesty in that Newsweek article when he said (words to the effect) this is the first time in 37 years he’s had a boss. Were that all Congress critters so honest.
Let’s not make too much fun of Joe Biden. The current vice-president will probably become president within another year. Barack Obama’s world is collapsing around him. He may experience a mental breakdown in the near future.
Fun, but let’s be accurate in the perception. Cheney was quite popular early in Bush’s first term, it was later that he was actively demonized and fell to very low approval ratings. Biden is still far above those lows.
What does it matter, I suspect few ordinary Americans give a second’s thought to Joe Biden.
I think part of the reason for Biden’s really sharp drop among independents is buyer’s remorse over electing his boss, mixed in with a certain sense of denial and hope that Obama can turn it around. They’re angry at the course of things since Barack took over, but aren’t ready yet to take out all their anger on the president and admit they threw their vote away last November. So many of the moderate swing voters still say they support Obama in general, but re-target that hostility at Clueless Joe, who is more someone to be mocked or pitied than someone who deserves lower approval ratings than the man at the top of last year’s Democratic ticket.