Six months in.

Every once in a while I like to do a little statistical analysis. Being approximately 6 months into the Obama Administrations 4 years, I thought it might be a good time to look at these poll numbers that we keep hearing about, and to compare them to his predecessors. Along the way, I bounced my thoughts off my old liberal buddy Sven. Sven is from Scandinavia, and like most modern Democrats just slightly to the left of Lenin.

I asked Sven what he thought, and he went right into spin mode. "Well, it's gravity, isn't it? When you go in as one of the most poplar presidents of all time, you are also susceptible to a larger nominal drop when the traditional 'reality check' sets in." I wasn't going to beat him up to bad, but this statement just begged to have some numbers attached. Specifically "most poplar presidents of all time". There have been 12 Presidents since World War 2 ended. Obama's start of term popularity puts him at number 6. Dead in the middle, and certainly not the most popular president of all time. Take a look at the numbers:

Obama did out perform every other president by a wide margin in one category. Biggest drop in approval in 6 months. He cam in at whopping negative 17 point swing. His closest competition (Clinton) came in at a negative 11.

Seeing that he started out in the statistical middle, I thought I'd take a look at the averages. The average start was at 65.5 making Obama about average. The average drop was about 3.5. As I stated above, Obama "overachieved" here.

Sven also noted that Obama had a more difficult job than everyone else. This is simply not true. Reagan inherited a worse economy, the cold war and the complete collapse of American prestige. Truman inherited World War 2. Johnson and Nixon both got stuck with Viet Nam. Ford inherited a party and government shaken by Watergate. Many of these men faces daunting personal challenges. All performed statistically better than Obama.

The bottom is still a long way down. I have a feeling we wont find it for quite some time. Unfortunately, I believe that while America is already starting to realize that the Bush years will be compared to modern times as the good old days by most Americans. Obama will soon join this group of envious Americans- when he checks his polls in another 18 months.