The health care reform debate has divided many North Carolinains on their view of President Barack Obama.
According to Public Policy Polling, President Obama has been steadily losing support from conservative and moderate independents in North Carolina since April.
The Daily Tar Heel talked to Ferrel Guillory, a UNC
journalism professor and director of Program on Public Life, about the challenges Obama is facing.
“When a president takes on a deep fundamental issue, he will naturally have to face the fact that this is going to stir up opposition,” Guillory said.
The danger the president faces in losing support, is from the independent voters who aren’t partisan, and likely to be swing voters in the next election, Guillory said.
“The people who are sticking with him are the people who voted for him in the election and are the people who want to see him succeed,” he said.
On the campus, students who supported Obama in the election are still hoping for him to succeed in his efforts with health care.
Will Tate, a junior biology and political science major said his opinion of Obama hasn’t changed since he voted for him last year.
“I thought he was an extremely charismatic politician, but at the same time, I understood that he was a politician,” he said.
Zach Gignac, a freshman political science major said a lot of people he has spoken to feel like he has lost some of his momentum. They were expecting a lot of him, Gignac said.
“I know how long things will take to enact something suitable for the nation. Especially something like health care,” said Gignac.
Jason Sutton, co-chairman of the College Republicans said historically the approval ratings of most presidents starts declining after a couple of months in office, but Obama’s ratings have declined faster than usual.
“People always have high expectations of their presidents,” he said.
“President Obama didn’t help himself. He campaigned on the basis of changing politics the way we know it. The rhetoric he used set the expectations even higher.”
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