Despite conducting more than twice as many media interviews as his predecessor, President Barack Obama hasn’t seen a resulting bump in his approval ratings.
According to the New York Times, Obama has sat down for 818 one-on-one interviews since taking office, far more than the 297 conducted by George W. Bush.
"The discrepancy is due to the fact that Mr. Obama prefers long interviews to the short question and answer sessions or news conferences that some of his predecessors did more of," the Times’ Alan Rappeport wrote on Monday.
If the president thinks such interviews will help his standing with the public, poll numbers suggest otherwise. RealClearPolitics shows Bush and Obama at roughly the same level in the polls at this point in their respective presidencies.
