Approval ratings...

Thought this was kind of interesting...

I was reading another dodge from the White House Press Secretary Gibbs about the Obama plan to let the Bush Tax Cuts fall off in December, and what that might do to Obama's approval ratings. Well, a link or two later, and I found this gem of a SITE.

Seems Gallup has been keeping polls of Presidential approvals since FDR was in office, and it is damn interesting, looking at the figures as they show them broken down.

Who was the most approved President since 1936? Kennedy.

Who was the least approved? Not Nixon (which would have been my guess) or Bush (given his reputation since Obama's election)... it's Truman. That's right kids... even Carter had him beat in the average approval by 1/10th of a percent.

Now, of course, I realize that Carter's four years a quite a bit less than either Nixon's or Truman's... and that Kennedy didn't even finish his first term... so the numbers are not 100% comparable, but it is an interesting statistic to consider, isn't it?

For example, look who had the lowest "low" point in their approval ratings:

The lowest was Truman in '52 at 22%.

The next lowest was Nixon in '74 at 24%.

Then Bush Jr., who hit 25% three times in 2008.

For the highest "high" points in their ratings, we see a different dynamic:

Bush Jr. holds top billing with a 90% approval rating in Sept of '01 (the Ground Zero Speech).

Bush Sr. gets #2 with an 89% rating in Feb of '91 (immediately after the Desert Storm victory).

Then Truman gets an 87% in June of '45 (the surrender of Germany to Allied forces).

The next on the list are FDR (84%), Kennedy (83%) and Eisenhower and Johnson (79%). Reagan never gets higher than a 68%, and even Carter gets a 75% in 1977.

Seems that, unless one is ending one's Presidency right at the point where a shooting war is ending with a win for the US, wartime President's have a tough time staying popular, doesn't it?