Why Independents Are Abandoning Obama

President Obama road into office on the coattails of some horrible economic realities while promising Americans "hope and change." The nation needed both to energize new policies and to help us continue down the path to recovery, specifically in the areas of job creation and economic growth.

Those who ignorantly -- and I use this word literally not pejoratively -- voted for him, have now woken up saying to themselves over and over and over again, "What the heck have I done?"

In 2008, 43% of evangelical Christians voted for him and he rewarded them by turning around and signing an executive order to authorize the spending millions of dollars for international abortions via the Mexico City policy. And he did it at the peak of the economic meltdown.

Those who wanted America to withdraw from Iraq and to see Gitmo closed are still waiting for those promises to come true.

Afghanistan has seen five of the six bloodiest months since our engagement there began while waiting for President Obama to make the decision that he would "follow through" with his earlier decision from March. (And, as we know, that was really a reaffirmation of the decision the Bush administration made from the previous November.)

A very interesting side note: The president has played more golf in 2009, in the midst of "the worst recession since the Great Depression," than his predecessor played in his entire eight years.

With his cap-and-trade policy the president wants to tax the carbon dioxide produced by everything on the continuum from big and small business to the family pet and farm animal. He also wants to force you to drive a battery operated car (whose production plants and lithium battery creation would create more pollution than all of the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico combined.)

On the rest of the domestic front, using whatever tax dollars haven't already been spent, the president seeks to grab hold of the cash with the broadest expansion of government control in our nation's history through the "reform" of our health care system. He wants to do this even though numerous polls show an 80+ percent satisfaction rate for Americans with their current health care provider. Of course, fixing the economy and jobs would increase the level of satisfaction for even more Americans. (And in the end, fixing the economy and jobs will be his only hope of re-election.)

President Obama accepts awards he is not worthy of, for things he has not done, and in an interview with "Oprah" on Sunday he gave himself a "B+" grade on his performance for his first year in office.

So is it any surprise that the Rasmussen daily tracking poll, what it calls the "passion index," looking at how Americans feel about Mr. Obama's performance hit a RECORD LOW on December 13?

Here's the breakdown:

Amongst ALL the nation's voters: -19%
Strongly Approve: 23%
Strongly Disapprove: 42%

Amongst ONLY Democrats:
Strongly Approve: 41% (so less than half of JUST Democrats)
Amongst Independents: -28%
Strongly Approve: 21%
Strongly Disapprove: 49%

Amongst those who believe "Economy" is most important issue: -13%
Strongly Approve: 26%
Strongly Disapprove: 36%
Amongst those who believe "Fiscal Policy" is most important issue: -80%
Strongly Approve: 1%
Strongly Disapprove: 81%

I've said this so often I feel like my head will explode to repeat it one more time but... "Change is coming in 2010."

For either...
President Obama will change his policies.

Or those who have employed him as our administrator-in-chief, will dismiss many of his allies in Congress, and serve him notice that his job performance is "poor" in the mid-course review period.

He's our employee. Let's not allow him to forget that central truth.

Kevin McCullough is the nationally syndicated host of "'Baldwin/McCullough Radio"  now heard on 197 stations and columnist based in New York. He blogs at www.muscleheadrevolution.com. His second book "The Kind Of MAN Every Man SHOULD Be is in stores now.