Gulf Oil spill fades as issue





The oil spill on the Gulf Coast is fading as an issue for most Americans. Photo by Derick E. Hingle/Bloomberg



Even as BP works to (finally) cap the leaking well in the Gulf Coast, there is new polling data out of Gallup that shows the American public has begun to turns its gaze away from the oil spill.

Asked to name the most important problem facing the country, just seven percent of respondents in the July Gallup poll said "natural disaster response/relief" -- a major drop off from the 18 percent who said the same in June. (In Gallup's May poll, just one percent named "natural disaster response" as the most important problem in the country.)

"Americans' reduced likelihood to see the spill as the top problem could reflect the reality that the spill is no longer 'new' news or perhaps that Americans are becoming more confident that they spill will be fixed," wrote Gallup poll director Frank Newport in a memo detailing the results.

Our money is on the former option laid out by Newport -- that the wall-to-wall coverage of the spill (as symbolized by the ever-present "spill cam") has effectively dulled the public's outrage about the spill.

It's not a new phenomenon. Coverage of wars often follows a similar arc; the public pays very close attention at the inception of the conflict but interest fades as the story plays out day in and day out via newspapers, websites and, most importantly, television.

With that fading of interest typically comes a cementing of public opinion about the rightness/wrongness or skill/ineptitude of the players involved.

If that blueprint is being followed in the Gulf, new polling from the Washington Post/ABC News should be alarming for the Obama Administration.

Just one in three (34 percent) gave a positive rating to the federal government's response to the spill while 65 percent offered a "not so good" or "poor" assessment of the handling of the environmental disaster.

(Of some solace to the Obama Administration: BP's handling of the spill is viewed even less positively with just 19 percent saying the company has done an "excellent" or "good" job.)

Context matters here.

That same July Gallup poll showed the economy as the overarching issue for most people with nearly two-thirds of respondents naming some aspect of it -- economy generally/jobs/unemployment -- as the most important problem facing the country.

The lone non-economic issue that ranks in double digits in the Gallup poll is dissatisfaction with politicians and the government (11 percent). Things like immigration (seven percent), the war in Afghanistan (three percent) and health care (seven percent) barely register.

What all of that means is that the fate of congressional Democrats this fall -- and, to a lesser extent, President Obama -- hinges on how people are feeling about the economy. That is THE top of the mind issue for most Americans.

The oil spill -- along with any number of other issues -- are secondary; that is, they could play a small factor in determining how someone votes but there is no sign they will displace the economy as the primary concern for most people heading into the ballot box

That doesn't mean, of course, that the spill -- and the public's current belief that the federal government responded poorly to it -- doesn't matter politically.

At the core of President Obama's brand is competency -- an ability to make the levers of government work properly and in the interest of the public. The oil spill has taken some of the shine off of that image but the president has the better part of the next two years to polish it anew.