From Hope to "Nope"

Carol Platt Liebau | February 23, 2009 3:57 PM

In some sense, President Obama's repeated invocation of imminent catastrophe has been useful in getting some politicians -- and some in the public -- to go along with government measures they might otherwise oppose.

But as David Paul Kuhn argues over at Real Clear Politics, all the doom-and-gloom is taking a toll on the President's public support. He notes that:

Obama’s popularity today, by Gallup’s measure, is a few points higher than Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan at the infancy of their presidencies. He precisely matches George H.W. Bush. And excluding Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson who took office amid tragedy, and therefore earned staggeringly high early approval, Obama is notably shy of other new presidents.

Hm. It will be interesting to see if the press continues to harp on the "strong public support" for Obama (documented before his inauguration) as a reason that Republicans should accede to his wishes. After all, right after George W. Bush's election in 2000, we were being told that because of the disputed election, "compromise" with Democrats was supposed to be the order of the day.

One month into their administrations, who would have guessed the two men's level of support would have been the same?