OVAL OFFICE APPROVAL
The Gallup organization first started asking Americans how they approved of the job the president was doing in the 1940s.
Click on the image above to see how each president since then has fared in the approval poll, look at some news events that influenced public opinion and compare how approval ratings evolved for each president.
By Susan Page, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Americans have gotten to know him.
When Barack Obama was inaugurated one year ago Wednesday, his approval rating in the Gallup Poll was a lofty 67%-14%.
No more. The latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll puts his standing at 50%-45%, lower than any post-World War II president starting his second year in office except Ronald Reagan, who was at 49%.
"I think when he was elected everybody thought, 'Oh, great, we've hired Obama; he's going to magically change all the problems that we have,' " says Michael Fedor, a 27-year-old Obama voter from Massachusetts who was among those surveyed this month. "That expectation was a little unreasonable."
Obama's campaign mantra of "change" from the unpopular Bush administration allowed voters to see just about anything they wanted in the incoming president, says Colorado College political scientist Thomas Cronin — "like an insurance policy where you don't read the small print."
By now, Americans know a lot more about Obama than they did then. The gauzy approval of Inauguration Day has been replaced by more complex views of the 44th president, shaped by decisions he's made and developments in the economy at home and at wars abroad. Opinions are more firmly set than they were in those opening days.
What are those views?
A USA TODAY analysis of polling data has sorted Americans into five groups of like-minded people in attitudes toward the president. They range from those with positive views of Obama and the economy's direction — dubbed "Sunny side up" — all the way to those with the bleakest views of him and the country's future.
Their moniker: "It's all bad."
ONE YEAR LATER: Assessing Obama's inaugural words
That complicated landscape will help determine what happens in November's congressional and gubernatorial elections — when Democrats are at risk of big setbacks — and in the president's expected re-election bid in 2012. The views that Americans hold and the reasons they hold them will help determine whether he can change their minds or summon their support for proposals he'll unveil in the upcoming State of the Union address.
Dan Pfeiffer, White House communications director, says the president's approval rating should be compared with his standing on Election Day, not Inauguration Day, when he was boosted by the "euphoria" of the moment. Obama had won with 53% of the vote, just a tick higher than his rating now.
"The fundamental view of President Obama has not changed — that he's a strong leader, a good person, a good family man, and someone who wants to do the right thing," Pfeiffer says. Still, "he's faced tremendous challenges and a governing environment — with double-digit unemployment, two wars, a housing crisis — that no one has governed in since (Franklin) Roosevelt. ... We had to make some very unpopular but very necessary decisions," including bailouts of banks and automakers.
The USA TODAY study finds that attitudes have been shaped not only by party affiliation and political ideology. Even assessments of how the economy is faring aren't a reliable predictor of how voters feel Obama is handling his job.
Some of those who are optimistic about the economy are his most severe critics; they put moral values above managerial competence as the most important characteristic in judging a president. Some who are glum about the economy's direction are his biggest fans; they say he's had to face more serious problems than previous presidents.
Whether Americans believe Obama shares their values turns out to be a key factor in rating him. So is their choice of the most important characteristic on which presidents should be judged, be it policy positions, moral values or the ability to manage the government.
The analysis is based on a survey of 2,014 adults, taken Jan. 8-9 by land line and cellphone. The survey asked about Obama's job performance and character, about the economic outlook and how much power a president has to influence it, about the challenges he faces and what matters most about a president.
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