Obamas Real Approval Ratings

A columnist for the Boston Globe believes that unless President Obama makes some changes to his political agenda quickly, his party will experience a "bloodbath" in November.

 Jeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe says Republican Scott Brown's convincing victory Tuesday for the U.S. Senate makes it clear that even in the "bluest of Blue states," no political seat is guaranteed forever. He says Democrats in Washington are now forced to realize that they too could be challenged and potentially dislodged from office.
 "This wasn't as much a Republican victory as it was, I think, a backlash against Democrats and against a style of governance that President Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress have been pushing very hard and in a very partisan way over the past year," states the columnist. 
Jacoby writes in a new column that Democrat Martha Coakley's loss in the special Senate election in Massachusetts may actually be a blessing in disguise for President Obama.
 "I think that this is a chance for him to think very hard about the way he has governed so far and to read the writing on the wall," he suggests, "and to recognize that unless he wants his party to go through a bloodbath in the mid-term elections this November, he needs to make some changes -- and he needs to make them quickly. If he does that, then I think that the brightest days of the Obama administration may still be to come."

Obama's popularity

According to Gallup, no president beginning his second year in the White House has been as unpopular as Obama currently is. The polling group sees "obvious political peril" for the president in decreasing public approval.

"When presidents' approval ratings have been below 50 percent in a midterm election year, their party has tended to suffer heavier seat losses," states a Gallup report.

After averaging a 57-percent job approval rating during his first year in office, recent numbers (Oct. 20, 2009 - Jan. 19, 2010) have generally hovered around the 50-percent mark, notes Gallup (see graph below).

 Now while Progressives are going around town bragging that Obama has an approval rating of 56% all the other polls put Obamas approval around or under 50%.