Will the GM bailout be Obama's tipping point?

A customer looks at vehicles at a General Motors dealership in Burlingame, Calif., Monday, June 1, 2009. General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as part of the Obama administration's plans. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

Observers across the political spectrum have marveled at Barack Obama's ability to maintain a high job approval rating even as the public grows skeptical about some of his key policy initiatives. There's a feeling, among Republicans at least, that sooner or later he’s going to reach a tipping point between his personal popularity and the unpopularity of his proposals, and that his job approval rating will suffer. That moment will come when Obama has to actually stand behind specific proposals -- when he has to put his name on a health care plan that will lead to the rationing of medical treatment, or an energy plan that will lead to significantly higher electrical bills.

We might be catching a glimpse of Obama’s tipping point with his handling of General Motors' bankruptcy, and Chrysler's before it. The government takeover of the automakers is by far the most unpopular thing Obama has done so far. And it's not just unpopular -- it is partisan, appealing to the base of his party and virtually no one else.

In a Washington Post poll in late April, just 41 percent of those surveyed approved of Obama's handling of the automaker problem, compared to clear majorities who approved of the job he was doing in other areas. According to a detailed breakdown of a Gallup poll from the same time, people in virtually every demographic and political category looked askance at the continuing bailout of the automakers.

People of all age groups disapproved. People in every region of the country disapproved. Men disapproved. Women disapproved. People with graduate degrees disapproved. People with less than a high school degree disapproved. People who go to church a lot disapproved. People who don't go to church at all disapproved. People who make more than $75,000 a year disapproved. People who make less than $20,000 a year disapproved.

Among Republicans, 72 percent disapproved. Sixty-six percent of independents -- a group key to Obama's success -- disapproved. The only group to approve of continued bailouts to the automakers was Democrats, by 57 percent to 42 percent. On the auto issue, at least, Obama is playing to his party base and little else.

Those numbers might worsen in coming weeks. Obama knows the public doesn't want the government to run GM and Chrysler, which is why he has said hundreds of times that the government has "no interest" in running the automakers. But on Monday, at a White House event to hail the GM bankruptcy, he gave away the game when he said the feds will stay out of running GM "in all but the most fundamental corporate decisions."

It didn't take any parsing to realize that in Obama's vision, the government will let GM management handle the small stuff, but when something really, really matters, the new owner -- the United States government -- will do the deciding.

During a telephone briefing with reporters the night before Obama's speech, a senior administration official made the point even more explicitly. "The government will not interfere with or exert control over day-to-day company operations," the official said. "As a shareholder, the government will limit what it votes on to core governance issues, particularly the selection of the company's board of directors; major corporate events or transactions."

The bottom line: No government interference with the automakers, unless it involves a "fundamental corporate decision," or the selection of the companies' boards, or a "major corporate event" or some important transaction. Obama has placed a giant asterisk next to his pledge not to run GM and Chrysler.

At the moment, the auto situation seems not to have affected the president's job approval rating. It's still high -- around 60 percent in the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls. But opposition is slowly solidifying. The RealClearPolitics average shows the number of those who disapprove of Obama's job performance has grown from 20 percent in his first week to 32 percent today.

Now, with the government takeover of the car companies, we have a major policy initiative from the Obama White House. And people don't like it.

In the months to come, we'll have more major initiatives. Besides health care and energy, there will be education and a decision on the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay. Can Obama stay at 60 percent approval through all that? The tipping point draws nearer.