President Obama will this week launch a counter-offensive branding the GOP contenders 'Tea Party lackeys' as his approval rating hits an all-time low. The President's approval rating has dropped to below 40 per cent for the first time, according to Gallup's daily tracking poll.
The poll released last night said found 39 per cent of Americans approve Mr Obama's performance, while 54 per cent disapprove.
The fall comes as Mr Obama launches a political counteroffensive this week, while he's weighed down by wilting support among some of his most ardent backers, a stunted economy and a daily bashing from the slew of Republicans campaigning for his job.
'We've still got a long way to go to get to where we need to be. We didn't get into this mess overnight, and it's going to take time to get out of it,' the President told the U.S. over the weekend, all but pleading for people to stick with him.
A deeply unsettled political landscape, with voters in a fiercely anti-incumbent mood, is framing the 2012 presidential race 15 months before Americans decide whether to give Obama a second term or hand power to the Republicans.
Trying to ride out what seems to be an unrelenting storm of economic anxiety, people in the United States increasingly are voicing disgust with most all of the men and women, Mr Obama included, they sent to Washington to govern them.
With his approval numbers sliding, the Democratic President will try to ease their worries and sustain his resurrected fighting spirit when he today sets off on a bus tour of Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois.
The trip is timed to dilute the buzz emanating from the Midwest after Republicans gathered in Iowa over the weekend for a first test of the party's White House candidates.
The state holds the nation's first nominating test in the long road toward choosing Obama's opponent.
Much of the President's criticism will be focused on describing the candidates as lackeys to the Tea Party.
Democrats have been trying to depict the Tea Partyers as right-wing zealots bent on destroying the U.S.
'While protecting tax breaks for the wealthy and big oil while proposing to end Medicare, slash Social Security and pile additional burdens on the middle class might win plaudits with the Tea Party, it's not remotely what the American people are looking for,' Democratic National Committee Communications Director Brad Woodhouse said yesterday.
'In a Republican field that has already pledged allegiance to the Tea Party and failed to present any plan that will benefit the middle class or create the jobs America needs to win the future, Governor Perry offers more of the same,' campaign spokesman Ban LaBolt said on Saturday after Texas Governor Rick Perry joined the race.
