Presidential Popularity

Time has a way of blurring memory. I've been wondering recently why Obama has such a high popularity rating, when even the AP is taking note of his many failures (more on that to follow). Well, turns out his approval is only average when compared to the last nine presidents at the same point in their presidencies.

Charles Franklin, at Pollster.com, has lots of interesting political analysis, on many different aspects of today's political scene. The link will take you to his blog, rather than the specific analysis which led to the chart below - he offers so much information it seemed wrong to link to one specific post. But the bottom line on presidential popularity is that The Messiah is currently smack-dab in the middle of those last nine presidents, and trending lower. Historically, most recent presidents were still trending higher at this point in their first term, with only Eisenhower and Carter starting out with falling popularity. Take a look (click the image for a larger view):

Somehow that does a lot to restore my faith in my fellow Americans (probably foolishly, but you take what you can get). Even with all the screaming about the "stolen" election of 2000, George W. Bush was more popular at this point in his first term than Obama is now. Maybe all is not lost after all.

Be sure you check out the rest of Mr. Franklin's analysis...there's some really fascinating stuff there.