Salesman-in-Chief

Via Pundit, Byron York has put his finger on it. Obama is a salesman, and he's giving us the high-pressure sales pitch.

But the public understands that he wants to rush, rush, rush, and voters told the RNC researchers that they were tired of the pressure. “Repeatedly,” the Republican strategist says, “we’d hear, ‘Wait a second. We had to do the stimulus in the dead of night, we had to do cap and trade without anybody reading the bill, we had to move quickly on a multitrillion-dollar budget without any serious public debate, and now we’ve got to get health care done in two weeks?’ ”

Republicans believe there’s a real chance Obama will make his own situation worse by pushing too hard. People have heard this sort of thing before. Anyone who’s bought a car, a TV or an insurance policy knows the feeling when a salesman amps up the pressure to close the deal. You need to buy this today, sign the papers right now, don’t wait another minute. When that happens, the smart customer backs off a little: Why is this guy trying to rush me into this? Behind all the focus groups and the message, that’s the simple version of what is happening now, with Obama in the role of the salesman and the American people as the smart customer.

Exactly. Just this morning a commenter referred to Obama as a pitchman. Wary consumers are uncomfortable with all the pressure. And when the salesman starts to sweat a little and gives off that desperate Willy Loman vibe, we just want him to go away.

That seems to be what's happening. Look at the Gallup numbers from yesterday:

Whoa: Gallup offers a bit of a game-changer as Obama gets ready for a health-care-heavy prime-time news conference tomorrow night: "As the debate over healthcare reform intensifies, the latest USA Today/Gallup poll finds that more Americans disapprove (50%) than approve (44%) of the way U.S. President Barack Obama is handling healthcare policy. There is a tremendous partisan gap in these views, with 74% of Democrats but only 11% of Republicans approving. Independents are more likely to disapprove than to approve of Obama's work on healthcare," with 40 percent approving, 55 percent disapproving.

He's in dramatically worse shape across the board in Gallup's latest numbers, with his approval on the economy at 47 percent (49 percent disapprove!), taxes at 45 percent (48 percent disapprove!), and the deficit at 41 percent (55 percent disapprove!).

Ouch. But the salesman is relentless and needs to hear no over and over and over again. So keep bugging your representatives. Hannity has all the phone numbers here.

*Update: Double ouch. Americans trust themselves more than Obama on economic issues. This is indeed good news, though you have to wonder about the sorry 29% who trust Obama more.

Related: Polls: America doesn't want what Obama is selling

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