Gallup: Biden Stinking Up The Joint

Byron York reports on a new Gallup poll that says Vice President Joe Biden is less popular at this point in his term than Dick Cheney was in his:

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.)

More here.

Gratuitous but directly on point Reason.tv flashback:

 

Comments

[24BehindDotCom]

Did anything happen to push up Bush and Cheney's favorables between August and October 2001? Lemme think.

[Tulpa]

Word to the wise: making an intelligent, insightful comment while attempting to spoof Lonewacko is self-defeating.

[John Thacker]

Except that the article mentions that Biden's average favorables for the whole first year have been twenty points below Cheney's.

[Polls]

Mostly just the realization that they're the grown-ups here and that either of them is way smarter than that whiny little brat 0bama and anybody who voted for him.

[Jonny Scrum-half]

I don't care about Biden one way or the other, but this seems to be just another Republican operative (York) finding a creative way to make things look bad for the Obama administration.

[John Thacker]

Except that one of the key points of the article is: "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."

It doesn't make the Administration look bad, except insofar as the Administration chose Biden.

It's possible that there's some kind of cognitive dissonance going on whereby people are disappointed with the Administration but don't want to take it out on President Obama, whom they like so much.

It's also possible that Biden remains a horrible choice for VP, as I said he was when chosen.

[higgins1990]

"but this seems to be just another Republican operative (York) finding a creative way to make things look bad for the Obama administration"

Johnny, things look bad for the Obama administration, regardless of how you look at it. Obama is a bad president, period.

[Jonny Scrum-half]

You may be right. His domestic policies are consistent with what I would have expected from a Democrat, and I generally disagree with those. His foreign policy, except in "tone," is pretty similar to Bush's, which I disagreed with. He may, in fact, be a bad President.

I just can't stand shitheads like York who cheerlead for one side.

[Jim Treacher]

Then perhaps you have a different theory about the poll in question.

[Pro Libertate]

Leaving aside issues of constitutionality, ethics, etc., there's no question that people perceived Cheney as competent. Even Biden's family probably doesn't use that word in describing him.

[Thomass]

Yeah, Biden did blow citing the right section of Constitution to criticize Cheney's view of the VP position... in the debate with Palin... on national TV!

And then there is the problem that Cheney's view was also probably correct (it really was something of a cross over position... when created).

So yeah, set it aside by all means. It makes Biden look even more dumb. 🙂

[Pro Libertate]

Competent and a willingness to do bad things are two separate matters. Darth Vader was reasonably competent, unless you blame that whole Death Star thing on him.

[Mango Punch]

Biden is far too incompetent to be the "Puppet Master", I think that honour goes to Rahm, so I find it highly unlikely that he will end his term as despised as Cheney.

[Tulpa]

But this is just people venting their frustrations at the Obama administration in general. Biden hasn't done or failed to do anything that most Americans know about.

[John Thacker]

""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."

Perhaps all cognitive dissonance from people frustrated at the Administration but who don't want to say a word against President Obama, but perhaps not.

[Pro Libertate]

Hate Joe Biden! It's okay, he's white!

[@]

Reverse racist!

[TrickyVic]

What do you expect from people that give Congress a low rating then elect two people from that group to the Whitehouse.

Being what Congress's rating was, Biden has moved up. Of course that doesn't change the fact that Biden was a horrible pick for VP.

Cheney was popular with the conservatives from his past work. He was experienced and well liked by the base, which is why Bush chose him as a running mate.

[TrickyVic]

""Perhaps all cognitive dissonance from people frustrated at the Administration but who don't want to say a word against President Obama, but perhaps not.""

Perhaps. Cognative dissonance must have been big for the right to give Bush a second term.

But I have a different theory. Neither team, blue or red, wants to speak badly about it's self. That would make them appear weak, and give talking points to the other team. So the name of the game is to fault your opponent at every step while pretending your team isn't making the similar transgressions.

[T]

So, if we ever get a libertarian elected to national office, will we be doing the same thing? Praising our guy while ignoring his problems?

Past experience suggests to me we'll all sit around and explain, loudly, to everyone within earshot, how he's not really a libertarian.

Or just stand around in slack-jawed befuddlement that someone actually got elected running as a libertarian.

[TrickyVic]

""So, if we ever get a libertarian elected to national office, will we be doing the same thing? Praising our guy while ignoring his problems?""

Maybe, well have to wait and see, but I do agree with your past experience claim.

If a real libertarian, was elected I would be slack-jawed.

[ConservativeButNotReligiousNut]

there's no question that people perceived Cheney as competent.

I think PL hit the nail on the head. One may have disagreed or even thought he was evil, but one thing about Cheney he is a competent evil bastard. Maybe that is why the left worked so hard to demonize him.

[JW]

How can anyone not like Joe Biden? He's hilarious!

[Pro Libertate]

He's the VP voted most likely to have his own talk show after his term of office.

[JW]

Really? I so had him pegged for sidekick status. He has Hank Kingsley written all over him.

[Pro Libertate]

Much better. Man, he'd be great at that! Stumbling, bumbling, unintentionally entertaining.

[JW]

I mean, just think of the new dignity he could bring to "Hey now!"

[T]

Huckabee has a talk show. They could put Biden on as his goofy sidekick. Imagine the wacky antics!

[Pro Libertate]

I'd pay to watch that.

[DJF]

I bet that most people had to be told by the pollsters that Biden was Vice President.

[Pro Libertate]

Let's put it this way. With Old Man Bush, Gore, and Cheney (leaving out Quayle), there's no way a blog could get away with posts suggesting that a certain actor was actually vice president.

[JW]

Still optimistic?

Oh my.

[Pro Libertate]

I like the idea of Takei as VP. Much better than the idea of Biden as, well, anything public other than a talk show sidekick.

[Nick]

If you are a stimulus proponent, you wouldn't like him because he can't seem to spend the trillion dollars quickly. If you are not a stimulus proponent, you will dislike him because he's the guy who will find a way to spend the money eventually. Lose-lose for him, which is exactly why Obama chose him for the job. Obama doesn't have to take blame for not knowing what he's doing. Biden is supposed to be a big boy that can handle this on his own.

[Tulpa]

If you're a Democrat incumbent in Congress, you like him because he's going to spend all the stimulus money in the summer of 2010 and create a mini-boom right around election time.

[wingnutx]

Has anyone else seen the Biden issue of Newsweek?

An Inconvenient Truth Teller: From health-care reform to Afghanistan, Joe Biden has bucked Obama?as only a good Veep can.

You'd think they have a bet placed on him.

[bigbigslacker]

Biden's sole purpose is to keep BHO alive. He's doing some good work in that area. Biden is Dave Chapelle's Mexican:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDnYB61o1EU

[Steven Smith]

Your kidding, right? Biden is actually less popular than Dick Cheney was, post-September 11?

[Jim Treacher]

Did you know that Cheney was vice president before 9/11 too?

[Phd]

Remember, Biden was selected for VP at a time when it was widely viewed that Obambi was totally devoid of any international gravitas. Biden was supposed to provide that to the ticket. It was certainly not the bucketful of electoral votes coming out of Delaware. They hate Cheney because he's a grown-up who doesn't take sh_t from anyone, and obviously doesn't tolerate lies about him or his record, particularly from a small time putz like Rahm. I wish to hell he was potus.

[Jim Treacher]

I wish to hell he was potus.

So you're the one.

[Andrew Lynch]

Oh, boy, another Nick Gillespie "poll" post. If polls were suddenly to disappear, I wonder what his new low-brow tool of choice would be.