President Obama’s approval rating, based on the RCP average of polls has declined almost consistently since December of last year and is nearing its lowest ebb since he took office in 2009. I don’t know whether this means that he’s due for a recovery or, if he follows the pattern of most presidents, whether it will continue to decline. His disapproval rating is greater than 50% and that’s significant.
The polls most supportive of him are a month old. If they’re replaced by newer polls less favorable to him, as has been the pattern, his approval rating will decline even farther over the next several weeks.
As much as I dislike Obama’s policies and politics, I also am aware of what a tough job it is to be POTUS. To be expected, is the roller coaster of those who love you one minute and then despise you the next. It’s mostly about ‘what are you going to give me’ type of clamor which keeps a presidential figure in the positive or negatives of the presidential approval indexes.
People will flame presidents for indulging in sports that takes them away from stresses of the job, the vacations they take, the gaffes made, whether intentional or not. They are always in a fish bowel awaiting criticism of others, with really no time to call their own. Bush was in that kind of arena with dems giving him the body blows. And, now Obama is there. I don’t envy any of them, D or R, regarding their years of being at the top. As for the polls, which seem to sink or swim on sometimes nothing more than public whims, they basically reflect a testy, impatient or uneasy public wishing for magic dust to be sprinkled on the woes of the economy and revolutions abroad to poof go away, and then all will be well again, and Obama’s numbers will rise.