Is it panic time at Obama headquarters in Chicago? You might get that impression from watching events -- and the polls -- over the past few weeks.

Karlyn Bowman is a senior fellow and Andrew Rugg is a research assistant at the American Enterprise Institute. The views expressed in this article are the authors' and do not necessarily reflect those of any other person or institution.

In this article, Bowman and Rugg discuss the public's opinion about...

Just when the mainstream media thought that Barack Obama was pulling ahead in the polls, with positive job ratings, and just after the media have been savaging Republicans for two words Rush Limbaugh uttered on his radio program, Obama's numbers seem to be tanking.

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Ronald Reagan signed the legislation making Martin Luther King’s birthday a national holiday in November 1983. In January that year, public opinion was divided, with 47 percent in favor of the holiday and 48 percent opposed in an ABC News/Washington Post poll. In an October 1983 Harris poll, however, 59 percent supported it.

One of the few issues on which opinion has moved left over the last few years is same-sex marriage. Why? One reason is probably that as people learn that friends and relatives are gay, they become more sympathetic to gay rights. But increasing support for same-sex marriage causes problems for politicians.

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

Barack Obama is obviously scrambling in his attempt to win re-election. He has proclaimed himself the underdog and has given up his pretense of being a pragmatic centrist compromiser in favor of harsh class warfare rhetoric. But it's worth taking note of what he has squandered.