Is Obama in worse shape than Jimmy Carter?

I am not in the habit of defending President Obama, though I have done so on occasion. I am not prepared to do so again. This post from the blog Jamie Wearing Fools has attracted some attention on the web:

President Obama's slow ride down Gallup's daily presidential job approval index has finally passed below Jimmy Carter, earning Obama the worst job approval rating of any president at this stage of his term in modern political history.

JWF (this is the first post on that site that I have read) apparently reading Gallup's Presidential Job Approval Center, which allows you to compare the job approval of every President from Truman to Obama. This interactive page is a very valuable resource. Here is the Carter/Obama comparison chart.

The chart tracks job approval by days in office. What JWF is talking about is the intersection of Obama's line with Carter's line. At day 1032 Obama is at 43% and Carter at 38%. At day 1034, Carter is at 51% and Obama still at 43%. So Obama is now running worse than Carter!

Or not. As JWF acknowledges, Carter was surging at the time due to the Iranian hostage crisis. Carter's approval rating would rise precipitously for 68 days, presumably a rally round the flag response to the crisis. Then it declined just as precipitously back into the thirties, where it remained until Ronald Reagan flattened him in the 1980 election. It was only Carter's crisis surge that puts his approval above Obama's now.

Over the last two hundred days, President Obama's approval rating has been consistently better than Carter's. Obama is running an approval rating in the low forties. That surely reflects a lack of public confidence. If it goes on, reelection looks like a real challenge. Still, low forties is much better than low thirties, where Carter was stuck for most of the last two years of his presidency.

If it were my job to cheer the President up, I would point out two facts. Given the state of the economy and the unpopularity of his key legislative achievement, he ought to be in the low thirties. So an approval rating in the forties suggests surprising strength. Second, he isn't going to have to run against Ronald Reagan. Whatever one might say about Mitt or Newt, neither of them is a Gipper.

If it were my job to bum the President out (it sort of is, by proxy of some of his supporters), I would point out that the problems facing the United States make Carter's problems look like a walk in the park. The President is likely to be dealing with a world economic crisis next year as Europe dissolves. We may be about to watch Egypt turn into another Iran. All this may, and I repeat may, be enough to force the President to stop campaigning and return to doing his job. Perhaps a rally effect will save his presidency, but it will come at the moment when the electorate has to decide whether he is up to the job. It is hard to imagine what there is in his record to inspire confidence.

Comments

[larry kurtz]

Black men shouldn't be President unless they leave a string of white women on their backs in motel rooms, right, Doc? Get real: President Lincoln's first term looked just like the one you white guys have given to President Obama. Wake up and smell the grits, amerika: Barack will whip whichever earth hater emerges from the Reagan look-alike mold.

[Ken Blanchard]

Have you always been a racist, Kurtz?

[Bill Fleming]

Curious that there has been another embassy attack (Great Britain) in Iran in just the last few days. These are volatile times. I wouldn't put much stock in any polls at this time. Too many irons in the fire on too many fronts. I'm just sayin'.

[jhm47]

Kurtz and his liberal friends remind me of Christmas lights---They all seem to hang together, only about half of them work, and none of them is very bright.

[GOF69]

Ken, the answer to your question would be "Yes", and he always will be.

[larry kurtz]

I started about 1492, it got worse on December 29, 1890; and in January, 2001 after Bush v. Gore, I began hating all white people with R's after their names. Obama in 2012!

[duggersd]

Larry, it must really eat away at your insides seeing as there are so many people to hate. And living in the state of SD must really grind you up inside. If I were you, I would pull up stakes and move to a state that has a lot more people with D behind their names.

[larry kurtz]

Typing from Santa Fe right now learning from the masters from within the DCCC, Barnes, and will be back in to the chemical toilet in May after the primaries have selected an earth hater for you to love.

Hope you freeze your ass off.

[Dave]

So ah, KB... How are the GOPers doing? And The GOPers in Congress, how are they polling? You're gonna do a bit on them, right? I didn't think so...

[Ken Blanchard]

Dave, you amazing man! The only polling I know of on the "GOPers in Congress", as you put it, is the "generic question". Democrats are four points ahead in the Quinnipiac poll and Republicans are five points ahead in the Rasmussen poll. So?

[Dave]

From GALLUP:

"Congressional job approval remains at 13% in November, tying its all-time Gallup low. The 2011 average is on track to be the lowest annual rating of Congress in Gallup's history."

My point being that Obama's approval is 3 times that of Congress...

[Donald Pay]

Well, let's look at Obama versus the opponents:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/president_obama_vs_republican_candidates.html

Only Romney has a chance to topple Obama. Romney probably isn't going to get the Republican nomination. If he does, some credible conservative or libertarian alternative (Paul, Palin) probably will run an independent candidacy and the Republicans will lose the election.

The two leading Republican opponents (Gingrich and Romney) are as fake as it gets in politics. Neither can take a position on anything that they haven't argued forcefully on the other side. Both have been solidly in favor of the individual mandate, a conservative idea (Heritage Foundation). Obama's health care plan may be unpopular, but the most unpopular part of it is the conservative idea of the individual mandate, which both Gingrich and Romney supported.

Obama would be in a world of hurt if someone from the left runs a credible independent candidacy. I don't see that happening.

[Ken Blanchard]

Dave: Congress is not "the GOPers". Yes, Congress is unpopular. That is always true, even if the numbers are unusually bad. What matters is how people vote. It still looks like the GOP will hold the House and may well take the Senate. The GOP usually does rather better in any election than the generic poll predicts. There is no news there.

The fact that Obama has been polling well below 50% for months looks a lot more significant. That can be compared against every president since WWII, and it looks bad for Barack. I am not making predictions, I am just paying attention to the news. I was also defending the President, in my fashion.

[Ken Blanchard]

Donald: I tend to agree with much of what you say, but I have not the confidence you have in predicting what is possible. It may well be that Obama is so damaged that almost any Republican challenger will win. I don't say that is so, but one can certainly make that case.

[Tasos]

@Donald I agree on this with you. It seams that no matter how low is Obama, other side stands even lower than him.