I’ve been jestingly referencing Barack Obama’s approval rating as bobbing up and down between 49 percent and 51 percent.  It turns out that, I’m basically correct.

Obama first hit 50% in Gallup’s August 24-26 poll.  He bounced up against 50% several times, finally falling below that mark on November 20.  But instead of continuing to fall, he’s just stuck.  Right around 50%.  Since the first time he hit 50% in August, his high is 56%; his low is 47%.  He has, as Pollster’s invaluable chart makes clear, dropped a couple of points or so since mid-August, but that’s about it, and it looks as if he’s been just flat since around Thanksgiving.  Three months flat.

I’ve been noting this jolting and false political anaylsis from Obama’s natural detractors, to the effect of:
The GOP is in the opposition catbird seat; the economy is in a coma; President Obama’s popularity is in free-fall, and the smaller-government message is the only one that is resonating with voters.
I just can’t make heads or tails of it.  I suppose there’s something in that his party is almost as unpopular as the Republican Party, but surely Tim Cavanaugh socializes with some people who haven’t memorized the work of Ayn Rand or voted for Harry Browne for president twice.

The Atlantic’s analysis concludes with this statement.:

I shall conclude by making absolutely no prediction whatsoever about how long it will last, which direction he’ll head next, or what will cause the eventual change, except for one thing: if Congress does pass health care reform, it will not cause his approval rating to plummet — and if Congress abandons health care reform, it will not cause his approval ratings to surge.

Nay.  The Dems would be better politically with a “Pass the Damned Bill” mantra.  The negatives for Mr. Obama are more negative than the positivies, the only way to strengthen the positives is by passing the damned bill.  But what strikes me about it all comes from this study.

Gallup is now reporting more or less thirty polls a month, or the same number in a month now as it reported for all of 2006, and a bit more than all of 1996.  In 1986, Gallup only released thirteen presidential approval polls, all year.

This is interesting, as it helps lead to an absurd correcting / update statement like this at the gallup website.:

Barack Obama’s latest job approval rating is 51%, according to Aug. 23-25 Gallup Daily tracking. [AUTHOR’S NOTE: Obama’s job approval rating has fallen to 50% since this story was originally published.]

While I won’t begrudge the rise of polling from up from every 28 days or so, I do have to wonder: is there any particular reason we need new polling date every five minutes?  Does this accomplish anything — helping to keep us all ever so update and in need of updating a column to point to a one point drop in polling data?
I’m pretty sure that at this point, if Gallup pared down their polling by, like, half nobody would notice.

While I’m reading through the most trafficked blog of Andrew Sullivan’s, I’ll jostle over to the link to Ezra Klein and the rejoinder, after the 1982 midterm election.:

One measure of that transition was last week’s Gallup Poll showing Reagan trailing two leading Democrats in trial heats for the 1984 election. Former vice president Walter Mondale had a 52-40 percent lead, and Sen. John Glenn of Ohio had a 54-39 advantage.

Such leads for opposition candidates are extremely rare at this stage of the cycle when all presidents, including Reagan, enjoy an aura of authority. But presidential polls change.

In that vein, this item on a possible Charlie Crist jump to run as a Democrat or Democrat-leaning Independent is interesting with this false (at least in the short term) analysis:

The best possible storyline for them going into the 2010 election is that the Republican Party’s apparatus has been captured by extremists and ideologues. If Crist leaves — which will follow Arlen Specter’s defection and the Republican mess in New York’s 23rd District — that’ll go a long way towards cementing the impression that the modern GOP is no place for moderates.

Notable is that that NY-23 election was subsumed by the two Republican Gubernatorial victories (one from a Reagant Graduate, no lest).   See also:

For better or worse, however, I think it’s implausible to believe that a Crist third-party win will convince anyone of anything.  Republicans are extremely likely to wake up on November 3 this year with an election they perceive as a landslide; (even if they only win 2-4 seats in the Senate and 20 in the House they’re going to think of it as a big win), and consequently they’re likely to interpret everything that happened since the 2008 election as helpful.

Yeah, well.  In that vein, What would be the significance of a Democratic primary candidate in Arkansas, if he wins the general or loses the general?
Gallup should come up with something in the weeds of polling data, I suppose.

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