Pessimism Rising Despite Obama's Popularity

From Nationaljournal.com

Three new polls are out, and all convey the same message: Progress in Washington has stalled, partly because President Obama is more popular than his policies.

Take the CBS News/New York Times poll, which gave the president an overall approval rating of 63 percent. Obama gets just shy of 60 percent approval on foreign policy and terrorism, his strongest issues. His economic rating is holding up reasonably well (57 percent approval), even though the prevailing sentiment is that the president's economic policies have not yet had much effect.

On health care, Obama's ratings are less than 50 percent. Many Americans are not yet familiar with his health care proposals.

The president gets his worst marks on his handling of the auto industry (41 percent approval). The public doesn't like bailouts. "Some of those things are popular; some of those things are not popular," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs commented in response to the poll. "I think the president would tell you that he's going to do what he thinks is in the best interest of the American economy."

Bottom line? In the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, three-quarters of Americans said they like Obama. But only about half (51 percent) said they support his policies.

People think that the economic recovery may be slowing. From February to May, more Americans began to think that the economy was getting better (5 percent in February, 26 percent in April, 32 percent in May), according to the CBS/Times poll. But now the number of optimists has dwindled a bit -- to 27 percent.

The Pew Research Center poll? From January to May, the number of people who said they were satisfied with the way things are going in the country increased from 20 percent to 34 percent. Now the number has sagged to 30 percent.