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President Barack Obama told an audience in San Francisco Tuesday that the famous “hope” poster, popular during his 2008 campaign for president, is “kind of faded” and that it’s “not as trendy to be an Obama supporter” today as it was during his first run for the White House. “We’ve made a lot of change, but we’ve got a lot more work to do,” he told an audience during a campaign event at the W Hotel in San Francisco, California. “And I know that I’m now a little grayer. You know, and it’s not as trendy to be an Obama...

09-24) 06:25 PDT DENVER (AP) -- People like Christine Alonzo are keeping President Barack Obama afloat and giving his political team hope that he can win re-election despite high unemployment and sour attitudes about his policies and the country's future. Alonzo volunteered for Obama during the 2008 campaign. A few months after Obama's victory, she lost her job. She's still looking for work. Instead of blaming Obama for the economic crisis, she's volunteering full time to help him capture a second term. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/09/24/national/a062218D89.DTL#ixzz1Yt5KLq6S

Osama Killing Largely Unmourned By Ashfaq Yusufzai ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan, May 4, 2011 (IPS) - Three days since the death of Al-Qaeda chief and U.S. public enemy No. 1 Osama bin Laden, there are no public demonstrations to protest his killing, nor are there any other displays of anger or grief in this country of 170 million where he once enjoyed tremendous support. Instead, the aftermath of bin Laden's assassination in a 40-minute air assault by U.S. Special Forces Sunday night brought to the spotlight the dwindling popularity of bin Laden, who was once regarded as the leader of the Muslim...

Sarah Palin's favorable rating continues to drop, in a new WSJ/NBC poll. Only 25% view her positively, while 53% view her negatively.

Remember the ecstatic atmosphere of near euphoria that surrounded the election of Barack Obama? Yeah, we can’t either. But assume it for a moment. Then read this from CBS: ...

In what may be the result of one of the great political miscalculations of our time, Scott Walker’s popularity in his home state is fast going down the tubes. A Rasmussen poll out today reveals that almost 60% of likely Wisconsin voters now disapprove of their aggressive governor’s performance, with 48% strongly disapproving. While these numbers are clearly indicators of a strategy gone horribly wrong, there are some additional findings in the poll that I suspect deserve even greater attention. It turns out that the state’s public school teachers are very popular with their fellow Badgers. With 77% of those...

White House Insiders Feel Shellshocked, And Already Think It's Over For Obama Joe Weisenthal Oct. 13, 2010, 10:32 AM The talk of the town for the next few days will be this big piece by Peter Baker in the NYT on President Obama. The piece paints a picture of a despondent administration: Yet even if the White House saw it coming, this is an administration that feels shellshocked. Many officials worry, they say, that the best days of the Obama presidency are behind them. They talk about whether it is time to move on. While not in the 30s, Obama’s...

Americans between ages 18 and 29 are significantly more likely to be satisfied with the overall state of the country than those who are 65 and older, according to the latest Society for Human Resource Management/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll, conducted with the Pew Research Center. While fully 72 percent of voters 65 and over saying they are dissatisfied with the direction of the country, only 39 percent of those under 30 share that dissatisfaction. Fifty-nine percent of respondents between 18 and 29 said they believed the federal government would make progress in solving the nation's crucial problems over the...

Barack Obama’s fading popularity could cost him the next U.S. presidential election, according to a poll today. Most Americans would vote for any Republican politician over their current leader, the independent survey shows. With the U.S. mid-term elections fast approaching in November, Mr Obama’s popularity ratings make grim reading for Democrats hoping to cling to power on Capitol Hill. His job approval rating has dropped to 44 per cent, his worst ever score, in Connecticut's Quinnipiac University poll.

Will Austerity Be The Catalyst For War? Tyler Durden on 07/02/2010 As always SocGen's Dylan Grice comes out with some tremendous insights in his latest weekly piece "Double dips, siren calls and inflationary bias of policy." While the gist of the piece is presenting a comprehensive overview of the traditional and cognitive biases toward inflationary policies and away from hard, unpopular, deflationary/austere measures, Dylan provides a chilling anecdote involving the 1980s conflict between the UK and Argentina, in which it was precisely war that pulled an extremely unpopular government, that of Maggie Thatcher, out of the gutter of public opinion,...

WASHINGTON — US President Barack Obama gets a more favorable rating in western Europe and Asia than at home, but his standing in the Muslim world is slipping, a global poll showed Thursday. The Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project found that overall opinion of Obama remains broadly positive in most non-Muslim nations. The survey of 24,000 people in 22 nations conducted April 7 to May 8 showed a largely favorable view of the United States for a second year, in sharp contrast to perceptions of America under former president George W. Bush. When asked whether the US president would...

New book out on stands in Japan which took many by surprise: Title: "Obama Shitsugen De Manabu America" (オ�マ失言�学�アメリカ), by Marie Nishimori (KK Bestsellers (2010/5/15) ISBN-10: 4584132372 ISBN-13: 978-4584132371 Subtitle: "Top 101 Gaffes of Barack Obama" Background: As in many countries overseas, Japan went absolutely crazy two years ago at the prospect of a "President" Obama. Once he won, a whole cottage industry came alive, selling (hawking) CDs and texts of speech upon speech by He Who Must Be Worshipped, The Messiah, teaching Japanese everything from "the spirit of Change and Hope possible in Great America", to "correct English pronunciation...

CBS News doing a poll... How's Obama doing? Grade him NOW!

Only 9 percent of Israeli Jews believe that President Obama is pro-Israel, according to a poll taken by Smith Research on behalf of the Jerusalem Post. 48 percent said that the Obama favors the Palestinian side, while 30 percent said his administration is neutral. The remaining 13 percent expressed no opinion. The 9 percent number is up from 4 percent last August, but the difference is only slighly outside the margin of error. Moreover, the poll was taken before Prime Minister Netanyahu's chily reception at the White House on Sunday. President Bush was considered pro-Israel by 88 percent of Israeli...

In a January 20, 2010 editorial, the Editor in Chief of U.S. News & World Report, Mortimer Zuckerman, had this to say: “Obama’s ability to connect with voters is what launched him. But what has surprised me is how he has failed to connect with the voters since he’s been in office. He’s had so much overexposure. You have to be selective. He was doing five Sunday shows. How many press conferences? And now people stop listening to him... He’s lost his audience. He has not rallied public opinion. He has plunged in the polls more than any other public...

Does President Obama care about pleasing world bodies like the EU, the UN, and the Nobel committee more than the people of the United States? Is he, as David Gutmann at frontpagemag.com puts it, “already getting restless in his present job, and … seek[ing] a promotion to an even greater status” — some grander, as yet uncreated position? Of course it would be impossible to answer this question now; still, I am ready to bet that a vague sense that Obama is not terribly interested in being our president is behind his continued drop in job approval ratings among Americans....

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama announced a new spate of measures aimed at jumpstarting an economy suffering from record levels of unemployment, and designed to complement last Thursday's jobs summit in Washington. While last week's event was greeted with a healthy dose of skepticism in some quarters, critics may find succor in at least a few of the proposals floated by the president...

The day after the election, Barack Obama was viewed more favorably by Americans than his wife, Michelle. Not any more. A USA Today/Gallup Poll taken in the last week shows a surge in positive views of the first lady over the past year even as her husband's ratings have eroded. As the anniversary of the presidential election approaches, Michelle Obama is viewed more favorably than her husband. "She has conducted herself as an educated, sensitive, down-to-earth woman -- not a black woman, a woman -- like when she does the gardening [to encourage healthful eating] and taking care of the...

CARACAS, Venezuela – Hugo Chavez's support has declined in the polls as many Venezuelans say they are fed up with 27 percent inflation, a stagnant economy, faulty public services — and a government they see as incapable of doing much about it. .. "Whatever he offers, everything gets half-done," said Maria Martinez, a 32-year-old who once voted for Chavez but now is disenchanted. She says the government's health programs are insufficient, and the $500 or so she earns each month selling books in the street is no longer enough to support her five children. She said water reaches her Caracas...

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - The United States is the most admired country globally thanks largely to the star power of President Barack Obama and his administration, according to a new poll. It climbed from seventh place last year, ahead of France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan which completed the top five nations in the Nation Brand Index (NBI). "What's really remarkable is that in all my years studying national reputation, I have never seen any country experience such a dramatic change in its standing as we see for the United States for 2009," said Simon Anholt, the founder...

As he retreats to Camp David for a final summer getaway, President Barack Obama is mapping out a post- Labor Day plan to regain the political offensive, including a private meeting next Tuesday with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid . After taking office with a two-thirds approval rating, Obama has watched it slip closer to 50 percent. Over the summer, he lost ground on the health care debate and other aspects of his crowded agenda, and his dealings with Congress — controlled by fellow Democrats — also worsened as worries increased about losses in next...

WASHINGTON – Slightly more than one-third of Americans have a favorable opinion of the Democratic-led Congress, a new poll said Wednesday in a clear warning to the majority party. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press said the 37 percent expressing a positive opinion represents a decline of 13 points since April. The favorable percentage is one of the lowest in more than two decades of Pew surveys — if not the lowest, the poll said. The previous low was 40 percent in January, but the difference is not statistically significant because of the margin of error....

For the first time since President Obama entered the Oval Office, a majority of voters disapprove of the president's job performance in a Rasmussen tracking poll - a downturn that has the potential to sap the White House's clout as it begins the heavy lifting required for health care reform. Political strategists and pollsters said Mr. Obama is likely sacrificing his popularity by pursuing an ambitious agenda that engenders opposition. "As the president attempts to rebuild the economy and improve the health and welfare of an entire nation, he must use his political capital," said Democratic political strategist Donna Brazile....

British essayist Walter Bagehot once wrote, “Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to think other men’s thoughts, to speak other men’s words, to follow other men’s habits.” Or, as Abe Lincoln put it more succinctly about the U.S., “Public opinion in this country is everything.” If Lincoln is right, then Barack Obama, “the man who would be Lincoln,” has reason to be uneasy. Just six months into his presidency, polls show dwindling support for Obama’s policies, and significant push back against his administration’s incontinent spending. But public apprehension may only deepen...

On Monday, the daily presidential tracking poll for Rasmussen Reports showed that Barack Obama no longer has the job performance approval of a majority of Americans. His overall approval rating was down to an even 50 percent. Released on the same day was a demographic breakdown of that rating: only 41 percent of white Americans approve of the job he’s doing, while 97 percent of blacks approve and 58 percent of all other ethnicities combined approve. The approval rating of blacks jumps off the page because it’s such a glaring anomaly — or at least it should be. Upon seeing...

According to a new Gallup Poll Barack Obama is a "10" - not the kind of 10 girls like to look at, but the kind of numbers Obama's political opponents like to look at: At six months in office, Obama's 55% approval rating puts him 10th among the 12 post-World War II presidents at this point in their tenures. When he took office, he ranked seventh. Or to put it another way, Obama is the third lowest rated president at this point in his presidency. "His ratings have certainly come back down to Earth in a very short time period,"...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama's tumbling poll numbers have dipped below those of his predecessor George W. Bush at the same point in his White House tenure, according to a national poll released Tuesday. Obama's approval rating is 55 percent six months into his presidency, a USA Today/Gallup poll found. But 56 percent of those polled approved of the job done by George W. Bush after six months, the daily reported. Obama's handling of the economy appears to be key in his fading popularity, as Americans become more pessimistic about how long it will take the economic downturn to...

Something has changed over the course of the last five weeks. Barack Obama, who seemed politically invincible to his supporters and many media commentators, now seems vulnerable. His approval ratings are dropping, public concern is rising, the debt is exploding, and the economy is, in many respects, worsening. This may simply be a bit of a rough patch he can ride through and overcome; or it may be the beginning of a longer slide. Time will tell. But Obama seems less politically formidable than he did. The main reason for this shift is that Obama’s signature initiative to date, his...

Like ex-senators and former presidents, ex-governors retain their honorific titles, so Sarah Palin will still be addressed as "Governor Palin" after she officially turns the reigns of her office over to Sean Parnell July 26. The 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate has never been much of a stickler for that kind of thing, though, as she signs "Sarah" to her non-official correspondence. So what will she be doing after July 26? Only one specific event has been announced so far that will have Gov. Palin's participation. According to the Simi Valley Republican Women Federation (SVWF), Sarah Palin will be at...

The approval rating for The Greatest President In History has been trending south lately. And the pace is accelerating. According to Rasmussen, he just hit his lowest negative rating to date: The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 32% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-seven percent (37%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –5. The number who strongly disapprove inched up another point to the highest level measured to date and the overall Approval Index is at the...

Apparently Sarah Palin's decision to quit her post as Governor of Alaska wasn't as misguided as it sounded at first, because it has certainly already begun to work it's magic on winning over the Republican party. According to a new USA Today/Gallup Poll, her popularity has surged amongst Republicans since she made the announcement. 71 percent of Republicans said they would vote for Palin if she ran for president in 2012, and three-fourths believe that Palin has been treated unfairly by the media. Two-thirds of Republicans want Palin to be "a major national political figure" in the future, while three-fourths...

The cost of the high popularity of Lula Notwithstanding his anti-life and anti-family policies, huge state investments in propaganda ensure popularity for Lula Julio SeveroBrazilian newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo reported, “Approval ratings for Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva rose from 78% on March to 80% on June, according to data from the CNI/Ibope polls released June 9. The percentage of respondents considering the Lula administration very good or good also improved: it went up from 64% to 68%. The rates of those disapproving the Lula administration fell from 19% to 16%”.Certainly, the respondents were not asked...

American freedom lovers studying the reign of Obama have been in a constant state of anxiety over the administration's assault on capitalism and America's very solvency, its thuggish political style, its PR war against America's history, its radical social policies and its Carteresque foreign policy. But for the first time, there are signs that America is starting to wake up. The latest daily Rasmussen Reports Presidential Tracking Poll has Obama slipping into negative net approval territory, with more Americans strongly disapproving of his performance (34 percent) than strongly approving (33 percent). Just 54 percent of voters say they at least...

The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have two articles in today’s papers that tell essentially the same story. The headline from the Times is “Poll Finds Unease With Obama on Key Issues.” It’s followed by this: A substantial majority of Americans say President Obama has not developed a strategy to deal with the budget deficit, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, which also found that support for his plans to overhaul health care, rescue the auto industry and close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, falls well below his job approval ratings.

Heard on a DC talk radio show...in answer to the question: Why does this president remain so popular?

Question: Why are liberals so upset with Glenn Beck? Answer: Because he’s popular and it is a popularity based on ideas and humor. In the garbage time slot of 5 p.m. Eastern, he outdraws Keith Olbermann in prime time. Wrote Greg Pollowitz at NRO: “What really scares the pants off of liberals when you mention Glenn Beck is how fast his show on Fox has become a hit.” So they have their knives out for him just as they do Republican Gov. Sarah Palin. Perhaps liberals realize that as their ideas become realities, the people are going to turn on...

Where Ronald Reagan tore down a wall, Barack Obama has hit one – and it’s made of bricks. European support for the American president is suffering. As Gregor Peter Schmitz asserts in Der Spiegel, “it has become clear that the most contentious issues [between the U.S. and Europe] have been shelved.” This means Obama is no longer asking Europe to replicate his idea of a stimulus plan and he’s not pushing for military help in Afghanistan. On both issues European leaders have declared, “No we can’t.” And people say Bush squandered the world’s sympathy? Anyone remember nuggets like this from...

The difference how the troops received President Bush and Obama.

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama enjoys widespread backing from a frightened American public for his ambitious, front-loaded agenda, a new poll indicates. He is more popular than ever, Americans are hopeful about his leadership, and opposition Republicans are getting drubbed in public opinion, the new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll suggests.

While the number of Americans who approve of Barack Obama’s job performance remains steady and high, the number who Strongly Approve has slipped. Following Congressional passage of the stimulus bill, consumer confidence has fallen to another all-time low. ... Twenty-six percent (26%) of all voters now Strongly Disapprove to give Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of +10. That Approval Index rating is also the lowest yet for the President (see trends).

Barack Obama's foreign tour loses him ground back home Tim Reid in Washington Barack Obama denied yesterday that he was ignoring the concerns of ordinary Americans while he tours the world, amid signs that the adulation he is receiving abroad has alienated some US voters. After the Democratic presidential candidate holds meetings with Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron in London today, the last leg of his nine-day international tour, he returns home to a general election campaign with new polls showing him in a tightening race against John McCain, the Republican candidate. Mr McCain and his surrogates have...

Economics -- to most people as useful a course of study as ancient Bulgarian literature -- is really the study of human behavior. This kind of behavior is labeled “emergent” -- meaning it is a large-scale pattern that emerges spontaneously out of the interactions of numerous individuals each independently following a more local program. (In the case of the economy, this more-local program is the perceived self-interest of each of the millions of people within the economy.) Because of the huge number of factors involved, and the constant feedback of one factor on another, predicting emergent effects is as difficult...

I am really curious on this one. I became a fan in 1975, with 'Born To Run', and was dazzled by the force, power, Spector-like grandeur. It was the epitome of 'Americana' for me. I saw him live three times, last in 1987. However, my fandom abated around 1990 or so, but I kept following what he did. Uneven albums, band changes, divorce, a new and happy marriage. Like any other artist, he has his shortcomings, one of these being a tendency towards bombast, pathos, a bit too much of 'grandeur'. But I think he does have his heart in...

A new study reveals that for teens, it's not whether you're really popular. It's whether you think you are. Perhaps no period of life is more fraught with obsessive worries about popularity, social hierarchies and reputations than that treacherous, three-year period known as middle school. The social anxieties of adolescence have driven plotlines from "The Wonder Years" to "Hannah Montana" where teens and pre-teens spend entire hours and episodes agonizing over what their peers think. Figuring out whether you'll end up being a cool prom king or queen bee--or the kid who eats alone in the cafeteria--is an integral part...

IN LOS FELIZ, across from a 7-Eleven on North Vermont Avenue, a few dozen men in their early 20s to late 80s share a dinner behind closed doors. Some wear full tuxedos with bow ties and jeweled cuff links, some have shoulder-length hair, and others wear open-collared shirts that reveal the slightest filigree of tattoo arching across their chests. Over Italian food, retired lawyers and judges sit elbow-to-elbow with owners of scrap metal yards and vintage clothing boutiques. They hold forth on philosophy, the weather; they rib each other and joke about saving room for cannoli. As they reach for...

-- snip -- The real lesson in the years since 9/11 is different from what the Democratic candidates imagine: It is easy to be loved when you are a victim. It is harder to be popular when you act decisively to protect yourself and others. A successful president should strive for America to be liked -- and expect, on occasion, for America to be resented in a good cause.

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Republican Fred Thompson, Hollywood celebrity and former Tennessee senator, went from hot to not in short order. Now, he's trying to create another popularity burst in the presidential race, this one perfectly timed. His voice and expression serious, Thompson told Iowa voters this past week: "I would ask people to think of one thing _ when our worst enemy's thinking about what he can do to the United States of America, who do you want sitting on our side of the table representing you? That's probably the guy you ought to elect president." It was Thompson...

The job of Democratic Senate majority leader can be a dangerous one, as a major spokesman for the party. Former Sen. Tom Daschle lost a reelection bid after his tour as majority leader as the folks in South Dakota apparently came to think he wasn't paying enough attention to his home state. Reid has never been the most popular politician in Nevada. The last time he had a serious Republican opponent -- John Ensign in 1998 -- the results were very close in Reid's favor. Two recent newspaper polls found that 49% and 51% of voters disapprove of Reid's job...

According to the Kremlin's opponents, the president's standing -- his approval ratings now exceed 80 percent -- is an artifice. They say it is built on an increasingly autocratic political system and fueled by a tidal wave of petrodollars that may not last. With a slavish press, a docile parliament, a restricted menu of political parties and a willingness to smother dissent, Putin is glassed off from real democratic competition, his critics argue. "Everything is based on the oil pillow," said Yuli Nisnevich, a political scientist at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. "But the system itself is not...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's appeal among Nevadans has plunged dramatically in a new Review-Journal poll, which finds him viewed unfavorably by most likely voters in his home state. Reid is still slightly more well-liked than Gov. Jim Gibbons. Both the Democratic senator and the Republican governor are less favorably viewed than President Bush. "Fortunately for Reid, he doesn't have to run for re-election for a while," said Brad Coker, managing partner of Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc., the Washington, D.C.-based firm that conducted the poll. If they decide to run again, Reid's name won't be on the ballot until...