Thursday, July 16, 2009

OBAMA'S POLL NUMBERS: SUFFERING FROM LOW T?

Hot Air is gleefully flagging a new Diageo/Hotline poll (PDF), which shows a decline in President Obama's approval rating (and, yes, it's significant -- 65% to 56% in about a month, although that's 56% positive as opposed to 38% negative).

But here's what jumps out at me: Obama's approval among men in this poll is down to 46% (a big drop from 61% a month ago). Math is hard, but I infer that if he's at 56% overall and 46% among men, he's at about 66% among women.

Is there really a 20-point Obama gender gap right now?

If so, I suppose there are a lot of explanations: job losses hitting men more than women; Fox News/tea party rhetoric stirring up testosterone; some sort of primal sociobiological blah-blah-blah about domestic spending as "profligacy" whereas men would prefer "husbanding" of resources. Your amateur psychological/sociological guess is as good as mine.

But whatever's going on, if this gap starts showing up in more polls, expect the right to start arguing that "real" voters despise Obama, "real" in this case being not (or not merely) white people or heartland people but people with penises.

No comments: