European takes on Obama

Nile Gardiner of the Daily Telegraph, bucking the British equivalent of the MSM & the political elites of the UK, again provides a perspective on Obama & his chances – or lack thereof – in the upcoming 2012 election.

Unsurprisingly, the polls are again looking problematic for the president. The latest Rasmussen Presidential Tracking Poll shows just 25 percent of Americans strongly approving of Obama’s performance, with 36 percent strongly disapproving, for a Presidential Approval Index rating of minus 11 points. In a projected match up between Obama and a Republican opponent, the president now trails by two points according to Rasmussen – 43 to 45. The RealClear Politics poll of polls shows just over a third of Americans (34.5 percent) agreeing that the country is heading in the right direction, with nearly three fifths (56.8 percent) believing it is heading down the wrong track. That negative figure rises to a staggering 66 percent of likely voters in a new Rasmussen survey, including 41 percent of Democrats.

This comes after Obama returns to the US from a tour that seemed to end on a polite note but not the adulation that he is used to from his previous campaign trip.  A telling symbol was on his last stop, in a Poland still moody after Obama reneged on the anti-missile system that was to be emplaced against the threat of an Iranian nuclear programme.  The great & charismatic Lech Walesa, leader of Solidarnosc & almost personally responsible for the liberation of Poland from the Soviet empire, turned down an invitation to meet with Obama, saying essentially that he had nothing to say to him.  The story dominated the Polish press.

To me, this has an aroma of an Obama Rainbow Tour.