Obama's public opinion dilemma

OBAMA'S PUBLIC OPINION DILEMMA: Jonathan Chait explains the dilemma Obama will have to face in the public opinion department. "You have a public extremely unhappy with everything, blaming Republicans more than Democrats, but with President Obama finding his popularity sucked down along with everybody else. He remains relatively quite popular, both compared to others and adjusted for circumstances, but absolutely pretty unpopular. In particular, the impression that has taken shape is of a reasonable, well-intentioned man with the country's best interests at heart but not necessarily able to enact change." I would count myself among those who hold the aforementioned opinion – however, I never counted myself among those who saw Obama as some form of messiah, as a president who, with a simple wave of his magic political wand, could make the country's issues vanish overnight. So, I suppose, in that sense I'm hardly disappointed. The president is, naturally, a likable character; it's easy to see how voters warm to him, and how I did too. In the end, it will be a matter of whom he's going up against. Michele Bachmann or Barack Obama, for example? I'd pick the latter any day.