CNN just put out a poll conducted from Friday through Sunday (December 19-21) which shows that Obama has the highest approval rating in modern history of the presidency during a president's transition period. Obama has an 82% approval rating and 80% of Americans approve of Obama's transition. This is higher than Reagan's and Clinton's.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...
With the economy tanking and America mired in 2 wars, Americans are really looking for Obama to do a good job and thus I suspect is the main reason why Obama's approval rating is so high. Americans WANT and NEED Obama to succeed for their own future.
Blagogate hasn't touched him and this worsening economic news hasn't dampened Americans' hope that Obama will be a great president. Well even Pat Robertson praised Obama which means that hell has frozen over.
According to the CNN poll:
Eighty-two percent of those questioned in a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Wednesday morning approve of the way the Obama is handling his presidential transition. That's up 3 points from when we asked this question at the beginning of December. Fifteen percent of those surveyed disapprove of the way Obama's handling his transition, down 3 points from our last poll.
Comparing Obama to past president-elects:
The 82 percent approval is higher than then President-elect George W. Bush 8 years ago, who had a 65 percent transition approval rating, and Bill Clinton, at 67 percent in 1992.
"Barack Obama is having a better honeymoon with the American public than any incoming president in the past three decades. He's putting up better numbers, usually by double digits, than Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, or either George Bush on every item traditionally measured in transition polls," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
How Americans view his cabinet:
The poll also suggests that the public approves of the President-elect's cabinet nominees, with 56 percent of those questioned saying Obama's appointments have been outstanding or above average, with 32 percent feeling the picks have been average, and 11 percent saying Obama's choices have been below average or poor.
That 56 percent figure is 18 points higher than those who said then President-elect Bush's cabinet appointments were outstanding or above average and 26 points higher than those who felt the same way about then President-elect Clinton's nominees.
The poll also points out that President's approval ratings always decrease when they govern but Obama has a large cushion.