Like most of his predecessors - President Obama’s image has been up and down during his first year in office. Now, in an effort to keep his approval ratings up he has taken to the road. I’m talking about his healthcare policy and his work to gain support around it.
Right now, Obama is on vacation and the West Coast swing of his healthcare tour, which is bringing even more controversy to his policies. The most current poll shows that 49% of those surveyed disapprove of the healthcare policy and 43% approve. With basically a split, Obama is working to speak directly to “the common man” (the way he won the presidency in the first place).
Obama is spending his time out west checking out several national parks with his family and plans to stop at a few town hall meetings in Montana and Colorado on the way to promote his healthcare policy. His goal is to attend at least three question and answer sessions at town hall meetings to address what he is calling “misunderstanding and misinformation.”
On the one hand, this is a good way to get some positive PR, reach out to small-town folks and try to gain their support for his plan. On the other, many people are upset that he is taking yet another vacation with the family, seeing as he has already taken 55 days off in his seven months of service.
There have been protests every time that Obama has been somewhere to promote his plan, but the president’s advocates say that the protests have not been representative of the entire population.
So what do you think about how Obama is handling his critics? Whether you agree with his healthcare policy or not, the real issue is how his image will hold up. Is this good or bad PR? How do you think this vacation/healthcare tour will overall affect the president’s image?
