President Gets a Health Care Boost

 Transcript from CNN's The Situation Room aired March 29,2010

Meanwhile, President Obama is set to sign the final piece of health care reform legislation tomorrow -- the Democrats' package of fixes, as they're called, to the law he signed last week. Passage of that landmark reform bill seems to have boosted Mr. Obama's approval rating.

Take a look at this. A new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll shows 51 percent of Americans now say they approve of the way Mr. Obama is doing his job. That's up from 46 percent last week.

Let's bring in our senior political analyst, David Gergen -- should we be surprised, David, about this boost -- this bump in his job approval, presumably as a result of the health care legislation now being the law of the land?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER: I don't think we should be surprised, Wolf. We anticipated it the night that he was -- that he won in the House of Representatives -- he would get a bump out of this. Some other polls, Gallup, for example, has not shown a bump.

But I think the CNN poll captures the reality. And that is, certainly with his own base, he -- that base has been -- is much more enthusiastic, more energized and the approval numbers have gone up. He's got a five point lift.

He's back up now, Wolf, around 51 percent. He's back up about where he was in January of this year. That's good news for the president, just as he -- he and his team sense this momentum on their side.

BLITZER: Yes, but there's also some bad news in this brand new CNN/ Opinion Research Corporation poll. I'll put these numbers up.

How is President Obama handling the economy?, which, to so many Americans, is priority number one. Only 44 percent approve of the job he's doing. Fifty-five percent disapprove -- David, if you take a look at that number, that's not very good -- not very encouraging for the White House?

GERGEN: No. And it's -- it's interesting that his success on health care did not rub off on -- on the economic side. This 44 percent approval rate is almost exactly where he's been now since January. It has held stubbornly low. And that is not good news for him. And frankly, Wolf, the -- the news on health care itself is somewhat mixed in this survey, as you know. When -- CNN was in the poll -- in the field about 10 days ago for a weekend. It came out just as -- as the bill was being voted on in the House. That poll showed that disapproval rate for health care was about 20 percent higher than the approval rate. This new poll does not show that turning around. It does shows that the gap has gone down from 20 to 14. That's progress, but it also means the president has work to do in persuading the public not only on health care, but he's got to show some progress on economics.

We'll be watching the unemployment number this Friday to see if he actually gets a boost out of that.

BLITZER: And that's...

GERGEN: Can I say one more thing, Wolf?

BLITZER: I want you to say one more thing.

But I want you to take a look at this, too, David.

GERGEN: Sure.

BLITZER: How is Obama handling foreign affairs? Fifty-one percent say he -- they approve of the job he's doing. Forty-four percent disapprove. So on foreign affairs, he's doing better than he is when it comes to the economy, at least in our new poll.

GERGEN: You know, it -- and he's been -- he's been doing better steadily on foreign affairs and that's one of the surprises. You know, when people got -- elected him, they thought he would -- his strength would be on domestic side and he would be, you know, naive and uncertain on the foreign policy side.

But I think for a number of months now, particularly the Afghanistan decision, which was so bipartisan, joined by a lot of Republicans who came in to support him, his numbers have been up on -- on foreign policy and things are looking -- you know, they're -- they're mixed, but there are -- there are areas where you can certainly see brightness.

But there's one other area, Wolf, where I think that some concern is -- should be focused. And that is to what extent we're dividing it out by -- by race and ethnicity in -- in the country. And in the approval rating of the president, what one sees is among non-whites, his approval rating is 33 points higher among non-whites than it is among whites. He's at 75 percent among non-whites. He's at 42 percent approval among whites. And it does raise questions -- are there larger issues here about how the country is changing, the direction the administration is moving in? Is -- is -- you know, so I think it's something to keep an eye on as we go here.

BLITZER: I agree with you, David. Good point. And we'll continue to discuss this and take a closer look at these -- these numbers.

David Gergen with some excellent analysis, as usual.