The news is apparently a flutter this morning over declining approval numbers for the President Obama, the Democratic Party, and many of Obama’s policy reforms, including health care and the stimulus package (see for example here, here, and here). As a political scientist, it does not seem particularly surprising to me that Obama’s support would go down (especially among Republicans and independents) as unemployment continues to climb and whatever “honeymoon effect” he had with the American public continues to wear off. (Although it is interesting to note that the actual Gallup Report shows a pretty flat looking trend line – if gradually declining a bit – over the last couple months for Obama himself).
In line with the goals of the Monkey Cage, this seems like a perfect time for political scientists to weigh in on a contemporary political story and put some context on it. So I was wondering whether there was any definitive article/paper out there on “honeymoon effects” in the American politics literature and/or if anyone had current research on the topic. Is there a “normal” honeymoon drop off in public opinion? How might we know if a president was going through a “regular” drop off in public support, of if there was somehow a more serious erosion in popular support for a particular president? And what about the link between presidential approval and presidential policies? Do these two usually track closely in the early days of an administration, or is there often less of a honeymoon effect on policies than on the president?
As an aside, US Today actually has a pretty cool interactive graph looking a the approval ratings of all the post-WWII presidents that allows the user to select any combination of presidents and compare their approval ratings over the course of their terms in office.
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UPDATED: For more on honeymoons, John had a post earlier this year that reviews some research on honeymoons in terms of legislative output (e.g., is there more of it? do presidents get more of what they want?).
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Stimson has a nice discussion of the myth of the honeymoon in his book “Tides of Consent.” For the several presidencies at least, there really hasn’t been much of a honeymoon.
Dave: So does that mean Obama ought to be concerned about dropping poll numbers, because they don’t just merely reflect the “end of the honeymoon”? Or that he ought not to be concerned, because there is no real substance to artificially inflated public opinion numbers early on in a presidential term anyways?
Brody argues that the real ‘honeymoon’ is in the DISapproval numbers (which are what he’s often more interested in).
We have to remember that there are 3 possible answers: approve, disapprove, and don’t know.
I’ve heard that your honeymoon will be extended if you get shot or if a major building is blown up.
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