The Republicans vs. ... everyone else

[Riot]

Just thought this info interesting, based upon all the "polling" data we've seen in the past few months.

Republicans have turned overwhelmingly against President Obama, while Democrats are still largely supportive -- leading to the most polarized approval ratings ever recorded during a president's first year in office, a new report by Gallup finds.

Over the course of this past year, Obama has averaged a job approval rating of 88 percent among Democrats and just 23 percent among Republicans, according to the study released on Monday morning. That year-one 65-point margin is the largest that the public opinion research firm has ever recorded.

At the end of his first year, former President Bill Clinton averaged a smaller 52-point gap -- not because Republicans liked him any more than they like Obama, but because Democrats didn't like him as much. President George W. Bush averaged a 45-point gap; during his first year, he had almost universal support from Republicans, while nearly half of Democrats were still giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Looking at the data going further back in history, it's evident that the country has grown far more polarized since the age of Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson.

At the same time, to the extent that Obama pledged to end the partisan rancor in Washington, he clearly has not succeeded. But much of that stems from the calculation among Republicans that opposition to (if not demonization of) Obama presents the quickest path back to power. GOP favorability of the president went from 41 percent when he took office to 18 percent today.

Another factor in Obama's dwindling Republican numbers is the dwindling number of people - particularly moderates -- who identify themselves as members of the Republican Party. In a recent Pew poll on the same topic, only 24 percent of respondents identified themselves as Republicans, down nine percentage points from 2004.

From: Gallup Polls

January 25, 2010
Obama's Approval Most Polarized for First-Year President
Shows much greater party differences than approval for any prior first-year president
by Jeffrey M. Jones
PRINCETON, NJ -- The 65 percentage-point gap between Democrats' (88%) and Republicans' (23%) average job approval ratings for Barack Obama is easily the largest for any president in his first year in office, greatly exceeding the prior high of 52 points for Bill Clinton.

Overall, Obama averaged 57% job approval among all Americans from his inauguration to the end of his first full year on Jan. 19. He came into office seeking to unite the country, and his initial approval ratings ranked among the best for post-World War II presidents, including an average of 41% approval from Republicans in his first week in office. But he quickly lost most of his Republican support, with his approval rating among Republicans dropping below 30% in mid-February and below 20% in August. Throughout the year, his approval rating among Democrats exceeded 80%, and it showed little decline even as his overall approval rating fell from the mid-60s to roughly 50%.

Thus, the extraordinary level of polarization in Obama's first year in office is a combination of declining support from Republicans coupled with high and sustained approval from Democrats. In fact, his 88% average approval rating from his own party's supporters is exceeded only by George W. Bush's 92% during Bush's first year in office. Obama's 23% approval among supporters of the opposition party matches Bill Clinton's for the lowest for a first-year president. But Clinton was less popular among Democrats than Obama has been to date, making Obama's ratings more polarized.