Charles Franklin has an interesting analysis of Barack Obama's free fall in job approval numbers since taking office eight months ago. Depending on how you interpret the numbers, Obama has experience the biggest decline or second biggest decline in popularity since polling began with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Franklin says.
Whether he's No. 1 or No. 2 on the dubious list (either ahead or behind Bill Clinton), it doesn't change the fact that Obama is in a downward spiral that could cripple his presidency in its infancy.
Franklin's analysis is in response to a column in The New York Times by David Brooks in which the columnist argues: "All presidents fall from their honeymoon highs, but in the history of polling, no newly elected American president has fallen this far this fast." (Read Brooks' full column, "The Obama Slide," at the newspaper's Web site.)
Despite efforts by the liberal media to discount the polls, Franklin dispels one of the biggest myths about presidential polling -- Not all presidents experience declining popularity after an initial "honeymoon" period.
Five of the last nine presidents "actually gained in approval from late January to the end of August, and one more finished where he began," Franklin writes. "Usually the gains are modest, but the first President Bush gained 13 points over this time, and President Reagan picked up 9. More modest gains of 6, 4 and 3 points came to Eisenhower, Kennedy and Nixon respectively. Carter held even at 0 change. So of the nine, only the second Bush (-2) and Clinton and Obama have dropped between first poll and the end of August ... It is just not the case that everyone falls off over the first 8 months."
Check out Franklin's "How Fast Does Approval Fall?" complete with graphs at Pollster.com
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