Why Can’t Fox News Dent Obama’s Approval Rating?

Why Can’t Fox News Dent Obama’s Approval Rating?
January 06, 2011 9:02 am ET by MMFA Staff

The new year got off to a dark, dismal start for Fox News staffers when on Monday, Gallup posted its latest polling results regarding Obama’s job rating: He hit it the 50 percent approval mark, having climbed nine points from a low in late October. It was the first time Obama had reached the symbolic half-century mark since late May 2010, and I’m guessing folks at Fox News were not happy.

And there was more bad news for Fox this week. Another poll, this one from Opinion Research, found that nearly two-thirds of Americans hope Obama succeeds this year, while 73 percent “approve” of Obama as a person.

So why the sad faces at Fox News? Because it’s the job of Rupert Murdoch’s cable channel to make sure Obama fails. Fox News, along with the larger, unreliable GOP Noise Machine, remains dedicated to undermining and destroying Obama’s presidency. Not to hold Obama accountable or challenge his polices, but to destroy his presidency. Fox News’ entire corporate mission is to be an anchor around Obama’s neck and to drive his approval numbers into the 30s.

And right now, Fox News is losing. Despite its Herculean efforts, Fox News over the last year has been unable to move the needle on Obama’s Gallup rating:

Jan. 2, 2010: 51 percent

June 2, 2010: 49 percent

Jan. 2, 2011: 50 percent

Why the futility? It’s probably because outside the walls of the right-wing media echo chamber, news consumers are becoming numb to the relentless attacks and hysterical claims made about Obama.

It’s telling that the president has been able maintain that same level of support for more than a year despite a hyper-active right-wing media machine that stretches from television to radio and to the internet and is dedicated to furiously attacking him on an hourly basis. It’s a machine that remains utterly committed to ginning up every conceivable type of controversy to drag Obama, his administration, and even his family through the mud in an endless attempt to discredit the man and to destroy his presidency.

Yet in the face of that avalanche of invective, there Obama sat this week, right around Gallup’s 50 percent approval mark, which put him, at least temporarily, 13 points higher than where Ronald Reagan was at the same juncture of his first term in office.

It must be driving Fox News bonkers.

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http://mediamatters.org/blog/201101060004

It looks like vitriol may have finally lost its appeal.

The only people who watch Fox News already hate Obama.
It's not changing any minds...

It takes time and effort, but we just have to keep telling everyone who doesn't already know it that Fox is nothing but a mouthpiece for the rich corporate dirtbag Republicans who are trying to take over our government for themselves.

When you're constantly crying wolf, everybody stops paying attention. That's Fox News. Because they're so un-balanced, anyone that isn't a Wingnut True Believer starts to tune them out. They might have been more successful if they could manage to be more sly about their agenda, only picking on a few things here and there instead of throwing everything at the wall to see what stuck. Basically, they've thrown so much that not only does the stream of crap stop sticking, but it starts knocking off the stuff that DID seem to stick.

Fox sucks. I hope they rip out all their hair over the next 6 years!!!

They don't know when to quit, as evidenced by the manufactured controversy over the First Lady's sleeveless dresses and, for anyone with two brain cells to rub together, the President's foreign citizenship.

They blew the whole DADT thing too, more than reversing the approve/disapprove numbers from just a few years ago.

Rupert's propaganda machine is failing/flailing.

Would that we had decent MSM exposure for reporting the simple truth about the Wingers, NeoCons and Corporatists.

but it actually does go a long way in an election, especially if your opponent is perceived as an unlikeable prick.

on DU. People remember the George Bush years. And they know we are better off today than we were then.

Obama's earlier slide in the polls wasn't as impressive as one might think, when you consider the fact that...

1) Obama got 52 to 53 percent of the vote on election day.

2) Things in politics continue to become more partisan over the years, making it harder and harder to maintain sky high approval ratings.

3) People who voted for McCain were the people dumping him for a while early on.