The table below presents the approval ratings collected on President Obama specifically, separate from the ratings that use the government as an entity. The weekly approval ratings from April 12-18, before the Deepwater Horizon explosion, is used in order to be able to see changes in Obama’s political standing. All data were gathered from Gallup, a global performance-based consulting company that collects information on public polls and approval ratings in several countries including the United States.
The questions used in the polls – under ‘Type of Approval Rating’ in the table below – are as follows:
Type of Approval Rating shown on chart Question used at time of polling
Presidential capacity “Do you approve or disapprove of the job Barack Obama is doing as President?” (Gallup, n.d.a) Handling of Oil Spill (a) "How would you rate the job of Barack Obama in
responding to the oil spill, as very good, good, poor, or very poor?" (Gallup, n.d.b)
Handling of Oil Spill (b) "Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico?” (Gallup, n.d.b)
Approval ratings of certain dates were chosen in order to observe the effect of certain crisis
communication strategies identified in the coding chart above. For example, the first date was selected as the pre-incident rating. The next date, Apr 19-25, show the political standing of the President at the initial moment of the incident. The next two Presidential capacity approval ratings show the standing of the President after he brings in new strategy alongside Blame, which is the occurrence of Ingratiation, in order to analyse any changes in the effect. Two sets of dates were chosen as the communication occurred on May 27, and logistically, it may take time for people to access, read, and then form opinions on the communication made.
The last two Presidential capacity ratings, dated on 2010 Jul 12-18 and Jul 19-25, portray the political standing of Obama after the well was ‘capped’ on the 15th, at the end of the study period for this research paper:
Date Type of Approval Rating Political Standing
2010 Apr 12-18 Presidential capacity
Approve - 48% Disapprove - 45% No opinion - 7% 2010 Apr 19-25 Presidential capacity
Approve - 50% Disapprove - 43% No opinion - 7% 2010 May 24-30 Presidential capacity
Approve - 46% Disapprove - 46% No opinion - 8% 2010 May 31- Jun 6 Presidential capacity
Approve - 47% Disapprove - 45% No opinion - 8% 2010 Jul 12-18 Presidential capacity
Approve - 46% Disapprove - 46% No opinion - 8% 2010 Jul 19-25 Presidential capacity
Approve - 45% Disapprove - 47% No opinion - 8%
The data of the political standing show that President Obama’s political standing went through relatively minor change, from a 48% approval rating in mid-April to a 45% approval rating by the end of July – a 3 point dip - with little fluctuation in between. Following the indicators from the operationalisation table, we see that Obama has remained in office, with a slight/minor decline in approval ratings.
The table below shows polls taken by Gallup regarding Obama’s performance in the handling of the crisis – separate to the government – along four key dates. This shows the changes in progress within the overall timeline, showing the nuance of crisis intensity:
Date Type of Approval Rating Political Standing
2010 May 24-25 Handling of oil spill (a)
Very good/good - 43% Poor/very poor - 53% No opinion - 4% 2010 Jun 5-6 Handling of oil spill (b)
Approve - 40% Disapprove - 46% No opinion - 13%
2010 Jun 11-13 Handling of oil spill (a)
Very good/good - 44% Poor/very poor - 53% No opinion - 3%
2010 Jun 19-20 Handling of oil spill (b)
Approve - 44% Disapprove - 48% No opinion - 8%
The polls of the handling of the oil spill show a slightly more positive finding, since the increase in approval is larger than the increase in disapproval, despite the overall strength of disapproval. The incline/decline in approval ratings indicator is not applicable here, as the oil spill handling data did not exist prior to the crisis by its nature. In the poll regarding the oil spill, we see that Obama is much more unpopular in the initial stages, in comparison to the polls regarding presidential capacity. A large
percentage of those who viewed Obama’s handling of the oil spill as poor/very poor or dissatisfactory in this early stage of the crisis (53% and 48% respectively), and we see that this changes relatively little as time progresses, although it increases by 2% in poll set (b). However, satisfaction had increased slightly (44% and 44% respectively) by late June, with a 1% and 4% increase in favourable reputation of the President’s handling of the crisis. While this shows some inclination of positivity, as the data for pre- crisis standing does not exist, we cannot use this data as a basis to judge the overall political standing of the President. Obama gained some approval in his specific handling of this crisis during the study period, but mixed reviews occurred and ultimately his disapproval remained greater than his approval.
However, these changes in attitude are important in gaining insight into how Obama’s strategies were successful, and this could be attributed to a varying use of strategies. In mid-June, we see that there was a break in the primary strategy of blame, and instead, elements of Corrective Action are seen. This may reflect the idea that an outstanding concern of the crisis that was not addressed by the blaming strategy was dealt with. While the consistent use of blame gave a clear attribution of responsibility to an outside actor (in this case, primarily BP), the Corrective Action strategy shows that any remaining causal factors generated by the government or its policies will be changed. This strategy deflects the outlying
criticisms against the government for the future; Obama’s communication is also very clear on the exact problems that may have originated from the government, directing the focus on what he would like to highlight as the problem within his control.
Despite the improvements in Obama’s approval, we see that the majority of the population still disapproved of Obama’s handling of the oil crisis, showing a negative view on the public leader’s capability as indicated by the operationalisation table.
With these indicators, we can conclude that Obama’s political standing after his communication strategy was to frame the crisis as an opportunity which led to a middle outcome of staying in office with a decrease in political reputation, based on the Integrated Model in Chapter Two. However, it is important to note that a 3-point dip is a minimal decrease in political standing, and this shows that the crisis did not impact his standing in a particularly major way.
The Blame strategy – the framing of Crisis as Opportunity – acknowledges the existence of a crisis, and use the opportunity to change the status quo or existing policies. Blame is made strongly towards an actor. According to Boin et. al (2009), the use of Crisis as Opportunity has a preferred scenario of elite escape by blame avoidance, and a showdown scenario where all outcomes – elite escape, damage, or rejuvenation – are all possible. When the incumbent denies responsibility, critics can absolve or focus
blame; should they absolve blame, blame avoidance occurs and elite escape is likely. Should critics focus blame, the incumbent can escape, but can also experience damage.
In this case, Obama has certainly framed the crisis as a major disaster: “this oil spill is the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced.” He has also placed the responsibility on BP in the strongest terms, again and again, placing responsibility on an external actor. Critics were mixed in their reaction, but mostly focused their blame onto BP. In terms of changing the status quo regarding policy advocation, his attempts have been less obvious. There are hints of pushing green energy: “The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now” - but there is no strong agenda that is being advocated (“Remarks by the President to the Nation on the BP Oil Spill”, 2010). It is not frequent in his communication, and thus is not his main point of strategy. Therefore, he did not use his strategy of Blame as a prime opportunity to change the status quo from oil dependent policies to policies of renewable energy; a rhetoric rather than action.
In short, during the acute stages of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Obama used the framing strategy of Crisis as Opportunity, employing the use of Blame in his communication. This led to a middle outcome of remaining in office with a decrease in political standing, because while he exogenised responsibility to an external actor, he did not have a clear agenda in terms of advocation of his interests. His strategy was mostly successful because it gave him the outcome of keeping the office with relatively unhurt standing, which is the intended outcome (Boin et. al, 2009). Thus the relationship between crisis communication and outcome here is that denying responsibility by communicating Blame onto an external actor without a strong agenda for changing the status quo in policy under the Crisis as Opportunity frame will lead to elite escape, and a middle case outcome. However, as with the Sewol disaster, it must also be noted that this paper acknowledges the limitations of using crisis communication solely as the basis for the end political standing of Obama; and that this outcome was affected by other factors such as the logistical clean-up process. This is not a causal mechanism.