How Popular Is He Really?

If you're listening to the mainstream media, you probably believe that the Obamessiah walks on water and is universally loved.  Weeeeellllll...not exactly.  Andrew Malcolm reports on the latest Gallup numbers:

One month down, 47 to go.

And Barack Obama's poll numbers have slid almost 10% already. According to the latest Gallup Poll, the new president's approval rating of 68% in January has slipped now to 63%, about average for recent new presidents one month in.

What isn't average, however, is Obama's new disapproval rating -- 24%, or 50% higher than the 16% average for a month-old new presidency.

And it's twice the 12% disapproval rate that Obama had last month.

While liberal and independent support has held fairly steady, the rookie chief executive's approval among Republicans has plunged from 41% to 30%, presumably tied at least somewhat to growing awareness of the spending program. The drop has been especially steep among conservatives, from 36% at inauguration to 22% now.

Additionally, Obama's support has weakened among middle-class Americans, those touted during the campaign as benefiting from his promised tax cuts. Among that working crowd, Obama's approval fell from 69% to 58%. 

Historically, 63-62% approval after a month is about average; Ronald Reagan had the worst at 55%, and Jimmy Carter had the best at 71%. Look how they turned out.

In fact, after 30 days, the Gallup Poll shows Obama has about the same approval rating as did George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush, the man whose eight years in office the Illinois senator so often denounced as destructive during the recent campaign.

What's surprising, as the astute Don Surber points out this morning, is that the gap between approval and disapproval is worse now for Obama than it was for the newly departed Texan after his first month. Bush's differential gap was 41 points between approval and disapproval. Obama's is 39 points, still above Bill Clinton, who had the worst differential of 30 points. Carter again had the best after one month of 62. Richard Nixon had 54.

How.  About.  That.

I expect this to be a continuing dichotomy.  As more and more Americans get hammered in real life by Obama's policies, they'll get angry; on the other side of things, though, we have the mainstream media, who will stop at virtually nothing to portray their golden boy as flawless and politically invincible.  At some point, though, we'll reach a critical mass where they just can't spin responsibility away from Obama and the Democrats anymore, and that's when things will come crashing down.  The question, then, becomes not if, but when.  If the GOP gets their act together, it will be sooner rather than later.  And that's good, because we simply can't afford to let Obama get his entire agenda for the next 8 years.

There's my two cents.


***Update***
It appears the numbers today are slightly worse than those used by Malcolm for the article above:

For the first time since Gallup began tracking Barack Obama's presidential job approval rating on Jan. 21, fewer than 60% of Americans approve of the job he is doing as president. In Feb. 21-23 polling, 59% of Americans give Obama a positive review, while 25% say they disapprove, and 16% have no opinion.