The Obamessiah's Poll Swirly Continues

Oh-oh:

Lowest mark yet found by any pollster.

President Barack Obama's popularity has plummeted to a record low, with just 45 percent of voters now approving of his performance as commander in chief, according to the latest Zogby International poll.

Asked whether they approve or disapprove of the president's job performance, just 45.3 percent of likely voters say they approve. That compares with 50.5 percent who disapprove of the job Obama is doing.

The results are a strong indication that contentious national debate over healthcare reform has taken a major toll on the president's popularity.

Those numbers also indicate that Obama clearly is in serious political trouble, Fox News analyst and best-selling author Dick Morris tells Newsmax.

"As soon as Obama dropped below 52 percent . . . he was leaking real voters who had backed him in November," Morris tells Newsmax. "Now that he is down to 45 percent among likely voters . . . he is in deep political trouble."

Of greatest concern to Obama may well be his decline among all-important independent voters. Just 37.5 percent of self-identified independents say they approve of how Obama is handling the presidency. That compares with 59.2 percent of independents who disapprove.

Powerline has a very interesting post up, too, putting Obama's decline into the proper historical perspective.  It's on a different poll but the same basic idea:

At The Corner, Peter Wehner cites data from an email by Nicholas Thompson, vice president of the Tarrance Group. Thompson analyzed data from the Gallup poll on Presidential approval ratings from the Eisenhower administration to the present:

Obama's approval is down 14 points from his initial rating -- tying President Clinton for the biggest drop since the Eisenhower era.

For those interested, here's how different presidents match up when comparing their initial approval rating with their average approval rating in the August of their first term: Eisenhower +6 (from 68 to 74 percent), Kennedy +4 (from 72 to 76 percent), Nixon +3 (from 59 to 62 percent), Carter -3 (from 66 to 63 percent), Reagan +9 (from 51 to 60 percent), George H. W. Bush +18 (from 51 to 69 percent), Clinton -14 (from 58 to 44 percent), George W. Bush -1 (from 57 to 56 percent), and Obama -14 (from 68 to 54 percent).

Wehner doesn't emphasize the point, but Obama has the lowest Gallup approval rating at this stage of his term of any post-Truman President, with the exception of Bill Clinton. I assume that what sank Clinton's rating was Hillarycare. Seems to be a pattern there.

His poll numbers will more than likely go up again at some point (unless he continues pushing his radical Leftist agenda despite the American people's wishes...then all bets are off), but until then I think it's greatly amusing to see The One's fall from grace in its proper place - at the top of the list.

There's my two cents.