Americans less sure about Obama a year later: Poll

I / Washington November 4, 2009, 11:52 IST

A year after he was elected as the US President, American citizens are less sure about Barack Obama, with the leader getting only 53 per cent job approval rating, says a latest opinion poll.

The US President is almost near the bottom of the list of elected presidents since World War II, ranked on the basis of their approval ratings one year after their initial election, a poll by US agency Gallup has said.

"Americans are much less positive than they were a year ago that President Barack Obama will be able to accomplish a number of challenges facing his administration.    

In particular, far fewer Americans believe he will be able to heal political divisions and control federal spending," the poll said.    

"Two-thirds of Americans now say the country is more deeply divided on major issues facing the country than it has been in the past several years, an increase of 11 points from the record-low reading on this last November," it said.    

Gallup said given Obama's decline in overall job approval, it may not be surprising to find that Americans have become "at least somewhat less optimistic" about Obama's ability to accomplish these goals.

"The drop since last November in the percentage, saying Obama would be able to accomplish them, ranges from 5 percentage points for "keeping the US safe from terrorism" to a 26-point drop on "healing political divisions in this country," it said.    

The opinion poll has found that in spite of the decline, more than half of Americans remain confident that Obama will be able to achieve four important goals — increase respect for the US abroad; keep the country safe from terrorism; bring US troops home from Iraq in a way that is not harmful to the US itself and reduce unemployment.    

At the same time, less than half of the respondents were confident that Obama will be able to achieve success on four other goals — bring US troops home from Afghanistan in a way that is not harmful to the US, improve the healthcare system; control federal spending and heal political divisions in the country.