WASHINGTON -- President Obama might need to start taking a few more campaign trips to New York -- and not just to raise cash.
A stunning new survey gives the president a negative approval rating in the Empire State for the first time, with just 45 percent approval and 49 percent disapproval among voters, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll.
That's a sharp turnaround from June, when Obama's New York popularity was a healthy 57-38.
In the 2008 presidential election, Obama carried New York with 63 percent of the vote.
The poll of 1,640 registered voters was conducted from Aug. 3-8, just after Congress approved the hard-fought debt legislation and before this week's market mayhem on Wall Street.
But according to Quinnipiac, Obama in his re-election bid next year would still take 49 percent of the vote in New York state versus a generic GOP challenger's 34 percent.
"The debt-ceiling hullabaloo devastated Obama's numbers even in true-blue New York," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
The bad New York polling news came as Obama jetted into town last night for his latest big-bucks fund-raiser -- a party for 50 guests at the home of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein on Bank Street in the West Village.
"This is a pretty good-looking crowd," Obama said.
The event was co-hosted by Vogue editor Anna Wintour, and celebs on hand included singer Alicia Keys, actress Gwyneth Paltrow and husband Chris Martin of the rock band Coldplay, and comedian Jimmy Fallon.
Obama was also attended an intimate event for just 15 big-bucks contributors at the Ritz-Carlton.
Guests at both events paid $35,800 each, with proceeds going to Obama's re-election campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
That means Obama was set to haul in more than $2 million last night in New York, just the latest of several fund-raising visits to the Empire State.
In his 2008 White House run, $1 out of every $20 Obama raised came from New York state, where he took in $42 million, and New York City was his biggest cash center, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Earlier yesterday, Obama flew to Holland, Mich., to promote fuel-efficient technologies and at the same time slam Congress -- a useful punching bag with its public-approval rating even lower than his.
"There is nothing wrong with our country," Obama said. "There is something wrong with our politics."
Rush said today that there is nothing wrong with our politics, that the debt deadlock proved that our system is working - Obama wasn't allowed to hike taxes, and will not be allowed to do so everytime he tries it.
And in that instance perhaps Rush is right, but there *are* plenty of things wrong with our political system that really do need to be fixed.
For example, the practice of throwing everything and the kitchen sink into an upcoming bill, so that if the bill is passed, all these extraneous things that have nothing to do with it, our passed also, and no one knows about it until the new laws start being implemented.
That was part of Obamacare, all sorts of things hidden in that 1,000 page bill that no one ever read...
Politicians who can be convicted of felonies and retire and continue to receive their pension, or who can be re-elected!
Presidents who spend the last year and a half of their term campaigning to get money to run for re-election, instead of staying home and conducting the business of the country....
Oh, the list goes on and on.
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My Schedule of Regular Posts:
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday throughout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.
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