To here the MSM tell it, Obama is just doing fabulous in his first 100 days. Often cited in this is Obama’s poll numbers – such as those from Gallup:
Now, 56% say he has done an “excellent” or “good” job as president vs. 20% who rate him as “poor” or “terrible.” An additional 23% say he has done “just OK.”
Hey, 56% is pretty good – but is it really all that good?
Over the past four decades, the average approval rating for presidents in April of their first year in office has been 61 percent — Bush’s now stands at 62 percent. That makes him slightly more popular at this juncture than his father or Bill Clinton were, and slightly less popular than Ronald Reagan at the same point in his presidency.
Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?
Approve 62%
Disapprove 29
Sampling error: +/-3% pts
April approval ratings in first year in office
Bush now 62%
Clinton, 1993 55
Bush, 1989 58
Reagan, 1981 67
Carter, 1977 63
Nixon, 1969 61
Sampling error: +/-3% pts
The poll question here in 2009 seems a bit different than back in 2001, but I think that no matter how you slice it up, Obama is clearly not getting public approval at any greater level than his predecessors, and a strong case can be made that he’s actually coming off worse.
The bottom line here is that Obama won about 53% of the vote in November and he’s hovering right around that level of support among the American public right now. The good news for Obama is that his support is still ok – the bad news is that it hasn’t gotten any stronger than it was when he was the fresh, new face of hope and change for an overdrawn and worried America. Outside the kook left, with its servile devotion to Obama, the people seem willing to give Obama his chance, but they aren’t holding him up as some sort of mythical hero come to save the world.
Clearly, the MSM is doing all it can to keep the myth of Obama alive – they own “Obama the Great” and if Obama proves something less than “Great”, it will reflect poorly on an MSM already losing out in the popularity stakes.
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