reagan scored a landslide over walter mon dale. in july, 1986, his approval rating is a goddy 63%. it s the president at the peak of his popularity. but now, let s look at the time magazine cover just five months after that, five months after reagan stood on that ship and tickled america s sweet spot. there it is, it is an ominous photo of the white house. how far does it go in to it there is the iran contra. it was an illegal scheme in which the administration throughouted arms embargo to sell weapons to iran and used the proceeds to illegal war in central america. this time the first line in time story had a different ring to it. washington, it read, is in its full watergate crouch wand that not quite halfway through his second term the momentum behind reagan s presidency stalled out. overnight, his poll numbers plummeteted. you see from 63 to 47%. this became the story of the final two years of reagan s
media love, a narrative. the story of a pretty losing steam. but here s what i m wondering, is there really anything do it? is anything really changed in how obama is doing his job and how he is perceived to be doing his job. for all the criticism on syria, he did get assad to fess up on missiles. are we in the condition so conditioned to look for second term slumps that we re bengd over backwards to create one to fit a few weeks of bad headlines into something bigger, something doper? are we force s narrative here? we will talk about that with the panel after this. .
saga of his second term. he did lose a year of his presidency. george w. bush, did anything go right for him after katrina? now, less than a year after he beat back mitt romney, we are starting to here it. the chatter from washington that president obama is reaching a tipping point. in his own second term slump, the lame duck status is upon us. that noise got louder this week. here s a taste from politico. their head lines, what s wrong with barak barak. across the capital, it reads, anxious friends and enemies alike are asking what is wrong with obama? the evidence that something is wrong with obama, has something gone bad, of course, in his 62nd term? well, his approval rating has dropped from the high 40s now to the mid-40s in the last few weeks. there has been vocal dissent, democrats opposing the white house on syria. there is a whole syria drama, itself. stories about the white house haphazardly lunching from one posture to another. you add that together. have you something w
presidency. there were congressional hearings. there were criminal investigations. there were criminal convictions. reagan was forced to go on national tv and admit that he traded arms for hostages. at one point the articles of impeach e peachment were introduced. with that finally settled, reagan kept his job. -se a lame duck. he coasted through the final days of his presidency on fumes t. thing is the story of reagan s second term is more or less par for the course when it comes to the modern presidency t. details vary, but for presidents who win two terms, the basic arc is the same. an invigorateing rejuvenateing re-election victory, lofty talk of ambitious goals. somewhere in the second term, a slump, declining poll numbers increaseing dissent. talk of diminished clout. lost relevance, all the markers of lame duck status. richard nixon won all but one state in 1972. but his second term, at least the year-and-a-half he got to serve was lost to watergate. bill clinton never lost the
at the start of this week, we are reminded of accelerated passage of time. in congress, lawmakers have seen to it the clock is kicking down to another government shutdown. the deadline is now only days away. they are the ones that activated the detonator. we will have full details on that in just a moment. we will also be looking at the calendar for the time president obama has left during his second term to get things done to meet the promises of his 2012 re-election campaign. you may think he has three more years. washington s calendar does not necessarily match the one hanging on your mother s kitchen. my money for the most interesting race in the country right now is on the great state of virginia. it s not exactly a tough calm. there are only two governor s races going on this year. with weeks to go, we will be joined by a former governor of that state to hash out where we stand and where he stands. are you ready to go up against the clock? it s time for another exciting edition o