From the latest Rasmussen poll information:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

Obama’s personal approval ratings:
Strongly Disapprove: 40%
Somewhat Disapprove: 10%
Somewhat Approve: 20%
Strongly Approve: 29%

This is the first time he’s been below 50% on personal approval.
But it’s still close overall, and it indicates that the honeymoon period is over. The 48% that voted against him have all come back home. But only a very few, so far, of his supporters have moved negative. It seems clear he’s going to try simply to hold onto them. He’ll make no inroads into those who opposed him during the election; that’s over.

Also interesting from that article:
The President is now seen as politically liberal by 76%. That’s up six points from a month ago, 11 points since he was elected, and the highest total to date. Forty-eight percent (48%) now see him as Very Liberal, up 20 points since he was elected

Considering how Obama ran as a centrist, with all the circumlocutions, dissemblings, out-and-out lies, and near-infinite number of contradictory statements made to different groups, this must be alarming. He’d better hang onto that 24% who still see him as centrist, as I’m sure they form most of the 20% who “somewhat approve” of him. Lose them, and he’s in free fall.

What to expect:

Which leads me to another article with an interesting viewpoint. I’ll quote the first paragraph of it.

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2009/07/06/get_ready_for_14_percent_unemployment_97295.html

Get Ready for 14 Percent Unemployment

The June “Jobs” report issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on July 2 caused shock and dismay. Payrolls declined by 467,000 jobs, more than the 345,000 lost in May, and much more than the 363,000 that economists had predicted. The only reason that the reported unemployment rate rose by only 0.1 percentage points (to 9.5%) in June was that many jobless people became discouraged and stopped looking for work.

At some point, the Obama administration will be held responsible for poor economic performance. Their efforts to demonize the Bush administration can only work for so long. The American people hold still for endless excuse-making only for awhile.

Most Americans dislike higher taxes and high unemployment, and they’re learning, for the first time in a long while, to fear massive national debts, and also fear when the government turns on the printing presses and just cranks out the money. I’m not sure they understand the devastating effects of high inflation rates yet.

But Americans do tend to understand that the way to produce jobs is by cutting taxes, decreasing regulation, and perhaps decreasing government spending (though I’m not too sure they really do fully grasp this last one, due to pervasive Keynesian thought).

Obama is vastly increasing taxation. How in the world will that improve the economy and provide jobs? Americans understand at a gut level it won’t.

Obama and the Dems have given us the massive crank-job of the Cap And Trade clean energy bill. It vastly addes overwhelming regulation onto our economy. How in the world will that improve our economy, and provide jobs? Of course it won’t. It can only have a hugely harmful effect. Americans at a gut level get this.

Obama and the Dems are trying to give us overwhelming regulation of the health care industry. Again, Americans understand at a gut level this can only harm the economy and will harm jobs.

And messing with people’s doctors is a third rail in American politics. Not quite as deadly as messing with Social Security, but close. Very, very dangerous. The Clintons found this out in the early 90s.

GM sales are way down. It will become clear that the Obama takeover of most of the auto industry (GM/Chrysler) is a failure, again producing harm. Add the intrusions into the private sector by upsetting centuries of common bankruptcy law in the area of secured vs unsecured loans, the attempt to have government bureaucrats set corporate salaries, etc… these intrusions will provide malaise in the American people’s attitude towards Obama.

The one other significant factor that could drive Obama downward is gasoline and natural gas prices. Obama is firmly on record, already, during the campaign, as desiring that the American people pay higher and higher prices for gasoline, natural gas, and all forms of energy; and he has already made it clear he is an enemy of the coal industry and it’s irrelevant to him whether those prices go up or unemployment within that industry goes up. (He’s on record on all of this from the campaign, and was consistently clear on each of *these* points at least.) He bemoaned the fact that gasoline prices shot up so quickly, but stated only that he’d expected and hoped that they would rise more slowly.

Higher gasoline prices are probably the one economic factor for which the President really takes it on the chin with the American people. It always provokes a large, very nasty reaction. We’ll have to see what happens throughout the rest of this year and 2010 on energy prices. Given all of Obama’s other difficulties, if energy prices spike again approaching the 2010 elections, it will prove utterly disastrous to his administration.

Civility will keep you from missing the signs that the officer is providing you with an opportunity to commit an arrest-able offense. As with the Gates case, his disorderly conduct occurred after he followed the officer outside where his tumultuous behavior startled the public. The officer knew the elements that make up disorderly conduct, Professor Gates either didn’t or missed his crossing the threshold into public.

I know, the actual election of Obama does demonstrate that for short periods of time we can fly off into the most absurd kind of mass-insanity. Mob psychology of some sort, like of like a huge Friday night party where the celebrants go a little nuts all together.

But then comes Saturday morning. Hung over, head-pounding, body aching… we drag ourselves out of bed and try to pull it all back together. Because the kids are hungry, and if we’ve been neglectful enough in our hangover malaise, they might even be crying. And the rest of the real world intrudes as well. The bills must be paid, the grass must get cut, those social commitments kept.

Reality intrudes after the short-lived party insanity. Welcome back, Americans!!!!
Welcome back!!!!

OH joy. I can hardly wait.

and to ensure that citizens cooperate with them in keeping communities safe.

Whoa, that sentiment is a little disturbing. It is not the police’s job to ensure citizens cooperate, nor is it a permissible right. While eroding, there are quite a few Constitutionally protected rights not to cooperate. You can say police’s job is to ensure that citizens do not interfere with the lawful performance of their duty. Or you could say citizens have a civic duty to cooperate with police in keeping communities safe. But that the police are to ensure the citizens cooperate is not within their job, excepting posse comitatus.

The police’s job is to enforce laws, most of which, thankfully, are in place to ensure the public’s safety. But some laws, such as disorderly conduct, do not keep the public safe but rather are in place so the public is not disturbed. That the police protect the public is derived from the laws they enforce rather than any duty the police directly have to a citizen.

Check this out! Someone else likes lists!!

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2009/07/early-contenders-for-barack-obamas-2012.html