Obama's approval rating

Rasmussen is taking approval polls of President-elect Obama? This is ridiculous. He hasn't even been sworn in yet and they're already taking Presidential approval polls. I guess they need to do something now that the election is over.

According to the poll, 54 percent approve of his job as President-elect and 41 percent disapprove. If only 54 percent approve of him now, I'd hate to see what his approval rating will be a year from now.

41% of voters nationwide Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is handling his new role as President-elect. Twenty-nine percent (29%) Strongly Disapprove. (see trends ). Overall, 54% of voters somewhat or strongly approve of Obama’s performance so far while 41% disapprove.

Forty-seven percent (47%) say Obama will do a good or an excellent job on national security issues.

Among Democrats, Obama’s ratings are +64 (74% Strongly Approve, 10% Strongly Disapprove).

Among Republicans, Obama receives a -41 (9% Strongly Approve, 50% Strongly Disapprove).

Unaffiliated voters are much closer to the center—33% Strongly Approve and 31% Strongly Disapprove for a Presidential Approval Index rating of +2.

Obama's got my luck. He's going to need it. He's got a big mess to clean up. I hope he does a good job and comes through on some of his promises. I'm not expecting him to come through on all of them, as I don't care for all of them. Most politicians say whatever to get elected anyway. If Obama makes due on 20 percent of his promises, I'll be surprised.

Look at what Bush promised us. The only thing he delivered on was lower taxes. That's what, one percent of his promises? Though look how terrible that worked out for us. Our economy isn't any better than it was when he stepped in office, now is it? What happened to the great economic growth we were supposed to get from the tax cuts? You dunno? I dunno either.

Myth about the 2004 election

There is a myth about the 2004 election: John Kerry was ahead in the polls throughout the 2004 campaign and still lost the election. I'm glad someone finally debunked the myth that Kerry was ahead in Oct 2004 going into election day. Some of us know that is not true. Kerry was never consistently ahead the way Obama has been this election year.

Take a look at this graph provided by RCP. It shows that Bush was ahead in the popularity polls consistently from September until election day in 2004.




Now compare that to this year (graph provided by pollster):

As you can see from the graph above, Obama has been consistently ahead since September (and since the beginning of the primaries in January) just as Bush was ahead from September till election day in 2004.

Now, if that's not enough to convince you, let's look at the electoral polls:

2004:



2008:

Both graphs provided by Electoral Vote.

As you can see in the 2004 graph, Bush lead Kerry consistently from September till election day and ultimately won the election. The 2008 graph shows that Obama has lead McCain consistently as far back as April. Kerry never had the leads that Obama has had in this election. If you want to look at this election from a 2004 perspective, Obama = Bush, McCain = Kerry, although Obama has had the upper hand in this race from the beginning.

Now if anyone claims that the polls showed Kerry leading Bush in all polls in 2004, direct them here.