50% in CNN Poll Think Obama’s First Year in Office a Failure

Wow.

“Washington (CNN) - Americans are giving Barack Obama a split decision on his first year in office, according to a new national poll.

Forty-eight percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Tuesday say Obama’s presidency has been a failure so far, with 47 percent saying Obama has been a success. The poll’s January 12 release comes just 8 days before Obama marks one year in the White House.

The survey indicates that Obama’s approval rating as president stands at 51 percent, down 3 points from last month, with 48 percent disapproving, up 4 points from December.

“On the plus side for Obama, he remains personally popular and he gets decent ratings on foreign policy and national security issues. That may explain why his overall approval rating is a little higher than the number who say Obama’s first year has been a success,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “Unfortunately for Obama, domestic issues - led by the economy - are far more important to the public than foreign policy issues, and a majority disapprove of how he is handling every single economic and domestic issue tested.”

According to the survey, the economy by far remains issue No. 1 with Americans, with 47 percent saying it is the most important issue facing the country today - up 7 points from last month. Health care, at 15 percent, is the second most important issue with the public, followed by the deficit at 11 percent. Terrorism is tied with the deficit, and up 7 points from last month, most likely do to widespread coverage of the attempted terrorist bombing of a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day.

The dominance of domestic issues in importance is most likely a contributing factor to the slight dip in Obama’s overall approval rating.

“Only 44 percent approve of how Obama is handling the economy; just 4 in 10 give him a thumbs-up on health care and his approval rating on the federal deficit has plunged to 36 percent. Those are three of the four most important issues on the public’s mind today,” says Holland. “The president’s ratings also suffer from the growing perception that he is too liberal - 46 percent feel that way today, up 10 points from March.

The poll also indicates that 1 in 10 say that Obama has not been liberal enough. But while the public takes issue with Obama on the issues, two-thirds continue to believe that he has the leadership skills and personal characteristics that a president should have, and that may explain why his overall approval is so much higher than his rating on the issues of greatest concern to the public.”

Of course this is a CNN poll, known for wide oversampling of Democrats to Republicans. We don’t know the sample here because - for the first time - CNN’s mole, Opinion Dynamics isn’t telling us. I wonder why.

But this is earth shattering to say the least. Obama get crummy marks on just about everything that matters especially the economy just when he’s trying to ramrod his unpopular Obamacare down American’s throats. Not exactly going to further endear him to the people for sure. Even more important as his unpopularity continues the decline as we get closer to the 2010 elections watch more and more Democrats who are running for seats to distance themselves from him.

That translates into lack of support for any of his policies, especially Obamacare. Remember it all still has to come to a vote after the Senate and House versions are combined and since the original votes were cast there have been retirements and lost elections - I’m looking for Brown to upset Coakley in Mass.

In any case it’s what I predicted when Obama was elected that sooner or later the facade would fall away and the American people would realize the mistake on election day 2008. In fact it’s happening sooner than I expected.

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