http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2009/12/poll-obama-job-approval-at-49/1

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There's a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll out today and Washington bureau chief Susan Page has the latest on President Obama's numbers:

When he was inaugurated in January, Obama scored a job rating of 64% approve-25% disapprove in the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll -- a net positive rating by a formidable 39 percentage points.

As the year comes to a close, he's still in positive territory, but not by much. The latest survey, taken Friday through Sunday, puts the president's approval at 49%-46%. That is Obama's narrowest margin of the year, with his approval matching his low point in early October and his disapproval matching his high point later that month.

In comparison to the approval ratings for modern elected presidents in December of their first year in office, Obama's standing is the worst, though he's close to Ronald Reagan. In December 1981, Reagan's approval rating was also 49%, though his disapproval rating was a bit lower, 41%.

Gallup Poll ratings for the others: George W. Bush was at 86%, in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks; John Kennedy at 77%; the elder George Bush at 71%; Dwight Eisenhower at 69%; Richard Nixon at 59%; Jimmy Carter at 57%; and Bill Clinton at 54%.

Obama continues to have a higher favorable rating than job approval, a sign that some of those who don't like his policies as president still think highly of him as a person. Among those surveyed, 56% had a favorable opinion of him; 42% an unfavorable one.

And Sarah Palin?

The nationwide tour promoting her best-selling book, Going Rogue, seems to have helped boost her image, although she still has a way to go. Now, 44% have a favorable opinion of the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee. Forty-seven percent have an unfavorable view.

In October, her favorable rating was 40%-50%

The poll of 1,025 adults, taken by landline and cellphone, has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

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Change I can believe in ;)

Let's face it went downhill from there fast  .

That's a very small sample size, I thought these polls used a far larger sample size.

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Anyway, I think the approval ratings are so low due to his slow action sorting out Afghanistan and withdrawing from Iraq. During his campaign a major point he sold himself on was withdrawing from Iraq and focusing on Afghanistan, with eventual aim to pull troops out when Afghanistan is more stable *sniggers*. It's taken him almost a year just to outline the plans. I think people are growing tired of how he is handling this, he's made the war go even more stale if anything, there doesn't seem to be any major progress.

I think the drop in approval was expected on this point alone.

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Halogamer, I'm not going to lie, I don't think I annoyed you enough in that post because for the most part I agreed with you; So I'm going to post pictures of some famous communists/socialists .

IMO it's mostly due to the economy and unemployment. The US gov managed to get the GDP to increase a bit via massive stimulus spending, now they're doing stuff specifically to increase employment which may make people a bit happier in the short term... However if it goes back to being worse (which it probably will considering the massive amount of stuff which is going wrong in the world's economies), he could face a lot of pressure in 2010. Even more than he's facing now.

lol.  I trust Rasmussen better because of a 3 or below sample size + it uses strongly agree/disagree (great measure for the Ind. electorate).  Today's release http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll has him @ -15 down from -19 from earlier this week. 

Btw, I like this 1 better:

There are better Maobama pictures:

Also, Bushobama:

This 1 ftw!

Unfortunately, American pollisters do not use a sample size much over 1,000 people.

However, we have a great aggregate at Real Clear Politics that shows the data in great terms:

This is based on aggregating every poll available within a period of time (usually 2-3 weeks).

At any rate, his decline really comes down to hope vs. results. Everyone hoped he would be a good president. Unfortunately, he's been either neutral (keeping the status quo) or bad (federal deficit). Not a very good first year for a president.

I bet you'd love to see this country completely fail. All you're preoccupied with is Obama doing badly.

People have too much time on their hands.

Most of it is funded by the right