In a bit of good news for the Obama administration, a new Rasmussen survey, reports that "51% of voters nationwide continue to believe that the economic woes can still be blamed on Administration of George W. Bush . . . [the] survey finds that just 41% hold the opposite view and believe the policies of Barack Obama are to blame."

According to Rasmussen Reports, most Americans blame George W. Bush and not President Obama for the economic crisis gripping the nation: "Obama contends he inherited the nation’s ongoing economic problems and that his actions since taking office are not to blame. 62% of U.S. voters agree with the president that the problems are due to the recession that began under the Bush administration. Just 27% of voters say the problems are being caused more by the policies Obama has put in place since taking office, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. 10% are not sure which president is more to blame . . . 

. . . Not surprisingly, 88% of Democrats say it’s Bush’s fault. However, Republicans are more evenly divided. Thirty-four percent 34% of the GOP faithful say the economic problems can be traced to the Bush Administration, while 51% blame Obama’s policies. Among voters not affiliated with either party, 61% say the Bush recession is to blame versus 28% who say Obama is at fault."

Gallup publishes this chart, which compares the approval ratings of president's over the past sixty-years in May of their first year in office. As you can see, only three other president's have done better than Obama, though all but two came in over the 60% mark. Kennedy and Eisenhower's approvals were in the stratosphere, at 77% and 74% respectively. Reagan is third at 68%; Obama not far behind at 65%. The numbers for Lyndon Johnson are not reported (perhaps because he was not elected to his first term, having assumed office upon the dead of John Kennedy in November 1963):

Absence does not always make the heart grown fonder, as the saying goes. According to a just released Gallup poll, Americans do not have warm memories of either former President George W. Bush or Vice-Prsodent Dick Cheney: Neither George W. Bush's deliberate silence about the Obama administration nor Dick Cheney's ready criticism of it appear to have altered U.S. public perceptions about either man. The former president and former vice president are each viewed unfavorably by 63% of Americans, very similar to where they stood with the public in their final White House years. The last reading on Bush's favorability that Gallup recorded during his presidency came in a Jan. 9-11, 2009, survey. At that time, 40% of Americans viewed him favorably and 59% unfavorably. However, this represented an unusual spurt in positive feelings toward Bush, possibly due to changes in media coverage of the embattled president as his term ended, or because of Americans' generally buoyant mood leading up to Inauguration Day . . . The 35% of Americans viewing Bush favorably today is close to his all-time low of 32% in April 2008, and matches a favorable rating from August of that year. Bush's ratings have consistently been in negative territory since July 2005, a sharp contrast to his generally positive image throughout his first term."

President George W. Bush is leaving office with one of the lowest approval ratings in history. How do Americans see him relative to other chief executives: as one of the worst. According to a new poll, 57% of Americans say Bush is one of the "five worst presidents in U.S. history . . . Just 6% say he was one of the five best, and 34% place him somewhere in between. Republicans aren’t much help to the retiring 62-year-old GOP president. While predictably 81% of Democrats rate Bush as one of the five worst presidents, so do 20% of Republicans. 65% of Republicans put Bush in the somewhere-in-between category, while only 11% say he was one of the five best chief executives."

In what may be a plus (but also potentially a hindrance), Barack Obama begins his presidency with an exceptionally high approval rating--now hovering around 70%. Even more remarkable, according to a recent national poll of adults, 32% of Americans choose Barack Obama as the "man they most admire living anywhere in the world today, putting him in the No. 1 position on Gallup's annual Most Admired Man list." To put Obama's standing in perspective: Obama is the first president-elect since Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 to top the list. And he has done it with a runaway high figure. For comparison, as president-elect in December 2000, George W. Bush was mentioned by just 5% of Americans, ranking him fourth. In December 1992, president-elect Bill Clinton ranked second behind outgoing president George H.W. Bush, with 15%. And in 1988, then president-elect Bush achieved third place, with 9%." Almost as important for the incoming administration:  Hillary Clinton earns the top spot for Most Admired Woman, named by 20%." Clinton's numbers are significant given the highly public and important role she will play in the White House. Obama's numbers suggests that the president-elect is coming into office with a good deal of political capital--an electorate that both admires and respects him. Indeed, a recent CNN/Opinion Research survey reported that 76% of Americans believe Obama is a strong and decisive leader. (By contrast, just 60% of voters felt the same way about George W. Bush when he took office in 2001.) "That's the best number an incoming president has gotten on that dimension since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. "The public's rating of his leadership skills is already as high as George W. Bush's was after 9/11 and easily beats the numbers that both Bush and Bill Clinton got at the start of their first terms in office." And what do Americans expect Obama to actually achieve. According to a Washington Post/ABC News survey, it's quite a bit: 70% of Americans expect Obama to improve the U.S. image abroad; 68% expect him to bring about health care reform; 67% say he will implement policies to deal with global warming; 64% believe he will end U.S. involvement in Iraq; and 46% percent believe he will improve the economy." The the issue of the economy is significant in this poll, out because it is the only one of these goals in which a majority (52%) don't believe Obama will succeed. In the end, high hopes sometimes lead to dashed expectations if the public perceives a new president's initiatives as failed, problematic, or counterproductive. PollTrack will closely watch these numbers over the next few months to see if this extraidinary public goodwill continues and flourishes.

A new national poll reports that nearly half of U.S. voters (49%) "oppose President Bush’s decision to extend $17.4 billion in emergency taxpayer-backed loans to the failing U.S. auto industry, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. 38% are in favor of the president’s decision, which he announced Friday, while 13% are undecided. The day before, Bush acknowledged that he has been forced to turn his back on many of the free-market principles he believes in because of the severity of the country’s economic situation." President-elect Obama also supports the auto bailout.

Gallup is out with an interesting analysis of the approval ratings of lame duck presidents, evaluations that usually rise as the leader's terms drwas to an end: "It is common for presidents who are about to leave the White House to receive a bump in their job approval ratings between Election Day and Inauguration Day. Of the eight post-World War II presidents who left office after serving two terms, declining to seek an additional term, or being defeated for re-election, six saw increased job approval ratings in their final two-plus months in office . . . The largest spike occurred for the elder George Bush, of whom only 34% of Americans approved in October 1992, shortly before Bill Clinton defeated him for re-election. Immediately after the election, Bush's approval rating jumped to 43%, and by the time he left office, his rating had increased further to 56% -- a remarkable increase of 22 percentage points . . . Harry S. Truman and Jimmy Carter are the only two post-World War II presidents whose approval ratings did not improve after their successors were selected." Recent public opinion polls indicate that George W. Bush's end-of-term popularity registers a modest rise, on average +4%. 

One important advantage that Obama held in Election 2008 was the poor standing of the Republican brand. The incumbent president dropped to the lowest approval rating in history during this cycle. Voters routinely blamed the Republicans--and pointed to a perceived sense of incompetence or mismanagement on the part of the party--for the Wall Street Crisis and subsequent economic meltdown. As much as John McCain attempted to distance himself from the George W. Bush and his own party, the devastation of the Republican brand made it very difficult for him to break the wave of advantage that Obama rode for all but three weeks of the cycle. Even so, McCain was able to pull ahead of Obama after the conventions, a sign that the Democrat's victory was not inevitable and that the damaged Republican brand had not entirely hamstrung the Arizona Senator, who positioned himself as a maverick and an independent. Still, the president's low approval had a profound effect on the outcome of the election. MSNBC reports: "With the single exception of Missouri (which barely went for McCain after a delayed call from NBC News), Obama won every state where Bush’s approval rating was below 35% in the exit polls, and he lost every state where Bush’s approval rating was over 35%. The state with the highest Bush rating? Utah, at 47%, which supported McCain by a 29-point margin. The place with the lowest? Washington DC, at 8%, where McCain got just 7% of the vote." It's hard to imagine a more inhospitable political environment for a party in power.

Keep in mind: All closed states not yet called were Bush-red states in 2004. Interesting to see what happens when the Kerry-blue states begin reporting at 8:00 PM. Will Obama start blowing these out . . . or will these states come in a bit closer? Stay tuned.

McCain has his work cut out for him if history is any model. According to Gallup, "there have been only 2 instances in the past 14 elections, from 1952 to 2004, when the presidential candidate ahead in Gallup polling a week or so before the election did not win the national popular vote: in 2000 (George W. Bush) and 1980 (Jimmy Carter). And in only one of these, in 1980, did the candidate who was behind (Ronald Reagan) pull ahead in both the popular vote and the Electoral College and thus win the election." Thus, the 1980 election represents the only time in over 50 years that a candidate behind nationally one week before the election went on to win the popular vote and an electoral majority.

Another big challenge for McCain--one that may be impossible at this point to overcome--is his standing with independent and unaffiliated voters. Last night's NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll had sobering news for the Republican: with 13 days to go, Obama has opened a breathtaking 12% lead among independent voters, 49% to 37%. While it is true that Obama does not break the 50% mark with these voters, and some may still be persuadable, these numbers present an enormous roadblock to McCain, who is facing renewed Democratic enthusiasm and a dramatic jump in new Democratic voters. In effect, in a two-party system that is now closely divided by affiliation, unaffiliated voters are the tie breakers. Why are they moving to Obama? [1] His campaign has been very effective at reaching these voters. Obama's first debate performance will probably be seen as a turning point in the election: cool under fire, eminently knowledgeable and focused, detailed in his response to complex questions and issues, the Democrat went far in allaying the doubts (and prejudices) of non-partisan voters. [2] The fundamentals of the economy are NOT strong. McCain's politically devastating remark, made hours before the full impact of the Wall Street crisis would become known, undermined his credibility on the economy at a time when most voters were losing confidence in the country and its direction. With under 10% of the nation believing the nation is "headed in the right direction," a national record, the electorate (and especially non-partisan voters) want a president who can make things better. [3] The Republican brand is suffering. With President Bush also breaking records with an all time low in public approval of his performance--and the Republicans in general blamed for the economic meltdown--independents may be ready for a change. Until the meltdown, McCain's own reputation as an independent and maverick helped to convince these voters that he, too, was an agent of change from the policies of the current administration. Indeed, until the Wall Street disaster it appeared as if he could actually win, despite the ailing Republican brand. What a difference an economic crisis makes.

An ABC News/Washington Post national survey released today--indicating a +10% lead for Obama--has another piece of bad news for John McCain: 51% of registered voters think McCain as president would lead the nation in the same direction as the profoundly unpopular Bush, as persistent a problem for McCain as experience has been for Obama." Given the president's historically low approval ratings, is the damaged Republican brand too much for McCain to overcome?

President Bush's approval rating has dropped to an all-time low, according to Gallup: "Before the U.S. House of Representatives voted down a proposed financial rescue plan endorsed by the Bush administration, just 27% of Americans said they approved of the job George W. Bush is doing as president, the lowest of his presidency and already down 4 points since the financial crisis intensified." To what extent, PollTrack wonders, is this decline, coupled with the voters' tendency in recent surveys to blame Republicans in general for the present economic crisis, contributing to McCain's declining polling numbers? Over the next month, will it be possible for McCain to transcend the negative standing of his party? Is his fate inexorably linked to the success or failure--or the public perception thereof--of the bailout package and its economic aftermath? Interestingly, while McCain's numbers have drawn back to pre-convention levels--and Obama's are up accordingly--the Democrat still does not break the 50% mark in most national polls. PollTrack observes that there remains a undertow of resistance to Obama in the electorate at large. This inability to seal the deal with the American voter may be due to a number of factors--including uncertainty about the candidate's experience, his inability to lock up support from working class and so-called Reagan Democrats (thus, McCain's leads in OH, TN, WV, and KY) and die hard Hillary Clinton supporters, overt or unconscious racism, or the perception that the Democrat is somehow "foreign" or "out of touch" with middle American values. Will the nation's economic implosion help Obama to seal the deal or will McCain retake the momentum?