Obama Gets First Approval Numbers

Barack Obama has received his first approval rating as president - 68%, down from 83% when he wasn't actually doing anything:

The Gallup Poll on Saturday released the first job-approval rating for President Obama, based on interviews during his first three full days in office: 68 percent.

Now that he’s in office, Obama’s approval ratings are starting to normalize, as partisan back-and-forth picks up. Just a week ago, Gallup found an astonishing 83 percent approval of how he has handled his transition, showing he had even won over most Republicans.

The new job-approval figure puts him at the upper end of opening poll numbers for presidents, but doesn’t set a record.

Gallup’s initial job approval ratings were President John F. Kennedy, 72 percent; Dwight Eisenhower, 68 percent; Jimmy Carter, 66 percent; Richard Nixon, 59 percent; Bill Clinton, 58 percent; George W. Bush, 57 percent; and Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, 51 percent.

I don't think he's gotten off to a sterling start. I'll bet those numbers drop into the mid-50's before too terribly long.

By the way, this quote came from a meeting on the stimulus package:

"If we don't get this done we (the Democrats) could lose seats and I could lose re-election. But we can't let people like Rush Limbaugh stall this. That's how things don't get done in this town."

He's been on the job 3 days and he's already worried about re-election.