Gay Patriot Header Image  Did president’s budget speech cause
his numbers to plummet?  According to the “Gallup Daily tracking
three-day average,     The president has also lost considerable
support among independents, only 35% of whom approve of him,
“nine points off his average from independents this year.”
Perhaps they’re turning because the speech because most people
expected a conciliatory gesture after Paul Ryan, chairman of the
House Budget Committee, introduced a serious plan to rein in
federal spending.  They may well have been expecting that he the
president would acknowledge Ryan’s efforts, praise him on his
commitment to reducing the deficits and then offered his plan,
explaining why it was the better alternative.  Ryan himself
certainly expected the speech would be “a call for common ground
on deficit reduction”, but found instead as Allahpundit puts it,
“that it was a campaign stemwinder aimed at ambushing him and
the GOP.”  Obama, the blogger opines further, “elected as a
healing force of post