Shocker polls: That Sarah Palin-Barack Obama gap melts to 1 point [Updated]

Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, look what the pollsters just brought in.

A pair of new surveys revealing that President Obama is still declining and has hit a new low in job approval among Americans just 56 weeks after they elected him with a decided margin.

---

FOR THE RECORD:
A Top of the Ticket post Tuesday on the relative popularity of Sarah Palin and Barack Obama erred in stating in the text and the headline that there was a Palin-Obama gap of 1 point. Two separate polls were cited, as the post notes, so the findings are not directly comparable.

---

And -- wait for it -- Republican Sarah Palin is successfully selling a whole lot more than books out there on the road. Even among those not lining up in 10-degree weather to catch a glimpse of pretty much the only political celebrity the GOP has these days.

First, el jefe. Facing double-digit unemployment, rising spending, deficits and Afghan war casualties plus a keystone but stalled healthcare reform effort that caused a rare Sunday presidential visit to Capitol Hill, Obama recently fell below 50% job approval for the first time.

Then, last week's deft dance of rhetoric over sending reinforcements to Afghanistan but, on the other foot, bringing them home quickly maybe gave him a brief boost. That, however, collapsed with equal rapidity.

Obama's new Gallup Poll job approval number is 47%. Last month it was 53%.

Regular Ticket readers will recall how in this space in late November we pointed out that Obama's closely watched job approval slide was coinciding with Palin's little-noticed rise in favorability. And it appeared they might cross somewhere in the 40s.

Well, ex-Sen. Obama, meet ex-Gov. Palin.

The new CNN/Opinion Research Poll shows Palin now at 46% favorable. [A previous version of this post said that, at 46%, Palin was “just one point below her fellow basketball fan." The CNN/Opinion Research Poll did not ask respondents about Obama.]

(The same poll, btw, has bad news for Dick Cheney-haters; the outspoken former VP has climbed out of the 29% basement, back up to 39% now. How do you suppose he's done that without a new book? But that's another story.)

Not that either Palin or Obama will admit caring about such trivial things as disparate political polls....

...1,071 days before the 2012 election, when Republicans will have the concept of change on their side. Obama's camp is already using the looming Palin pall as a fundraising tool. Never let any potential threat go unmonetized.

The new numbers seem to indicate that despite oft-cited predictions about the dire impact of Palin resigning her Alaska governor's job in July, a lot of people who don't live in Alaska (and, come to think of it, most people don't live in Alaska) don't seem to care. She wasn't their governor then and she still isn't.

Palin's low favorable poll point of 39% came right after the midsummer resignation and she's been slowly climbing since, fueled by media attention, eager reader response over her book contents, her tour and the spontaneous outpouring of support at her carefully-calculated bus stops along the way -- 31 appearances in 25 states, many of them politically crucial.

Imagine what critics would be saying now if Palin was neglecting her elected Juneau job to sell books in the Lower 48 and talk to an elite club of Washington journalists, if there is such a thing.

The view, Palin told the capital's Gridiron Club Saturday night in her self-deprecating and at times pointed remarks (full text right here), is a whole lot better from inside the bus than from under it.

Palin critics -- and, by golly, there still are some, believe it or not -- say that she's a polarizing political figure.

And they're dead-on correct: 46% like her (including eight of 10 Republicans), 46% don't (including seven of 10 Democrats) and only 8% are undecided (no doubt including many who've been living underground since John McCain unveiled his VP GOP running mate in Dayton, Ohio, some15 months ago).

But here's the fascinating, little-noticed catch:

The very same polarization now holds true for Obama, the fresh fellow from the old Chicago Democratic machine who was supposed to bring hope and change to a nation tired of divisive politics and the harsh partisan tone of Washington.

Fully 83% of Democrats approve of him, but only 14% of Republicans do.

Among independents, who provided the crucial winning boost for the Democratic ticket in November 2008, Obama's support has melted to 42% today, in large part over immense spending and deficit concerns.

And as political veteran Dave Cook points out over on the Vote blog, just since last month, 3% of Obama's own Democrats have abandoned his ship, another 4% of Republicans and fully 7% of independents.

Other recent polls have shown Republicans leading for the first time this year on the generic congressional ballot and self-identified Republicans closing the gap with self-identified Democrats.

Meanwhile, Palin continued her book/celebrity sales tour across the heartland, stopping Sunday in -- oh, look! -- Iowa. "No politician comes to Iowa by accident," Republican strategist Tim Albrecht told AP's Mike Glover.

More significantly, Palin was in western Iowa, which is ruled by the Republican Party, which in the Hawkeye state these days is ruled by conservative evangelicals, who form a large chunk of Palin's evolving base. As another ex-governor, Mitt Romney, learned to his dismay in the 2008 GOP caucuses won by another ex-governor (and Baptist preacher), Mike Huckabee.

Obviously, not every politician visiting Iowa each election cycle ends up running for president. And not every Iowa winner collects the big prize. But no one gets to the White House without going to Iowa. Which Palin has now done on her own. Purportedly selling a book.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Click here to receive Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item every day. Or follow us @latimestot. We're also over here on Facebook. And our new Facebook Fan page is here.

Related items:

The secret Sarah Palin speeches we never heard

Sarah Palin's book tour: What to watch for

What's actually in Sarah Palin's book

Sarah Palin breaks with GOP to endorse Conservative

Photo: Associated Press

Comments

[don]

Obama is a chicago street snake oil salesman. He never did anything in Chi town and we all know it here. He is without a doubt the most incompetent leader this country has ever elected. Never worked,never did anything,never listened in church,never refused to kiss a foreign leaders ass! He couldnt even shine Palins boots because he would screw that up. He makes Peanut Carter look like a conservative genius! LOL

[E.L.]

Not too surprising that the last 10 or so comments in a row on this page have been made by Palin-haters (Perhaps it's even largely the same person, posting repeatedly under different names). Regardless, I've noticed that left-leaning commentators tend to be much more present on blogs, when it's dead-of-night in the U.S...just something I've noticed, repeatedly. I can only surmise that if they really perceived this woman Sarah Palin to be the fool they claim, I doubt they'd be wasting so much of their obviously abundant time attacking her, as they are; I for one am curious as to how she would perform her duties in office. I can tell you this man Obama has been a major, major disappointment, in Europe. He's expanding war, and seems to be much more interested in promoting himself than in leading. I'm relieved that a fair number of Americans seem to be waking to this fact; I've noticed he hasn't anywhere near the backing that he did a year ago. Anyway...good night, and good day, elsewhere.

[John Skookum]

What Hillary Clinton couldn't do on Bill's coattails, Sarah is going to do all by her lonesome, with a song in her heart and a smile on her lips, right in the face of the most determined and spiteful and underhanded left-wing enemedia onslaught that any politician has ever faced in the entire history of the nation.

A lot of women who found her presence on the McCain ticket to be patronizing tokenism will be singing a different tune when she is the first female to win a major party nomination in her own right. I wonder how many of the enemedia whores who now elbow each other aside for the chance to kiss Obama's backside will follow suit?

[jd]

Hmm...when people talk about Palin for president I stop and think about her basic attributes. A relatively inexperienced former governor of a vast, largely philosophically libertarian oil-producing state...a tendency to mangle sentences and resort to folksy slogans... this all sounds vaguely familiar! In fact, I think we tried it for eight years and decided it wasn't quite working!!!! Obama's certainly not perfect and could never have lived up to expectations but Palin is more a retread of Bush than McCain ever possibly could have been.

[kenflot]

One really nice thing about Palin, there's no filthy Chicago machine in her past.

I'm looking forward to the 2012 Presidential election. I can hardly wait to see her debating this President. Palin will win such a debate even if she spots him a teleprompter.

[GOPSarecloseted]

palin is insignificant, she's obviously using u uneducated monkees to enrich herself.. its pretty funny how desperate u clowns have gotten... it was anticipated though... lets face reality gopsuckheads, without a broad agenda the republicants are over... the writing is on the ground...... poor babies

[HERB T]

If you want your President to think the earth is 6,000 years old & that a T-Rex was a vegetarian because it walked with Adam & Eve, then she's your gal. Bill Maher is right, America is full of idiots. These same retards scoff at having a Constitutional law Professor in the White House.

[Delta]

AHHHHHH.....THE MENTALY ILL LIBERALS ARE SCARED! LOL! AS THEY SHOULD BE! ((((PALIN 2012 !)))

[Delta]

YOU GO GIRL!

[Jim Q. Citizen]

Seems that the more the "main-stream" media tries to crush Sara Palin the higher her numbers go. You betcha! So GO all you jaded left-wing pinkos! Screach from the rooftops your boring anti-American hogwash. Let your red noses verily jump out of joint with your righteous indignation. But remember, the louder you knash your teeth- the higher Sara's numbers go! You betcha!!!

[student1776]

The amazing thing is that she moves forward to parity in the face of the most vicious campaign of vilification since Robert Bork while Obama sinks like a stone despite the most adoring press any politician has had in American history. Sarah is authentic. Obama is a thin-skinned narcissistic ideologue who successfully pulled the wool over the eyes of the electorate by posing a moderate but who has governed as the most far left leader in the history of the US by far. Go Sarah Go.

[Shannon Bertuch]

I don't think its quite time for Obama to take advice from Pallin just yet. The media is manipulating lots of numbers for this poll and its the media hype trying to make something out of two irrelevant numbers. Obama is the President; Pallin is not. Obama is in the hot seat; Pallin is in the luxurious position of quitting her governorship to "go rogue and not be a quitter," whatever that all means. her ghost writers have done a good job; the media is having fun; Americans are not buying it. We live in a broken system and we all knew it would take Obama, even as intelligent and shrewd as he is, more than a year to fix all systems. As long as the Republicans are going to just deride the America we all voted for, we will have a broken system, it is no reflection on OBama.

[Honneymoon in Tehran]

So amusing to read the frustrated comments of the ACORN and moove on dirt
bags.Hell has no fury as vicious as the lefts fright and jealousy.Trust the voter
to correct the 2008 mistake.

[Kathy]

I don't know where they are taking these polls, but no one I've talked to has been polled for their opinion. These numbers are based on a selection as small as 1,000 people, I'd give more weight to a poll if it was nationwide. They are just spouting baseless statistics, and disillusioned and deluded people (known by their idiotic posts) jump on a negative band wagon, rather than manning up to make a difference.

[JcFractal]

Republicans were supposed to be against celebrities,
or so they said at some point.
Palin is just that, a slogan, talking point, walking celebrity.

[wildmon251]

I am a Palinista. Therefore, it bugs me when her supporters use the same twist- the-truth tactics as the legions of anklebiting detractors. I know you mean well, buddy, but this is not a good tactic. Comparing Obama's JOB approval numbers with Sarah Palin's FAVORABILITY ratings is comparing apples and oranges and doesn't enhance her stature at all. Just let her get there on her own merit. And pray for the anklebiters to keep up their slams. Their venomous falsehoods are so easy to see through, they have become the best reputation enhancers she's got.

[S.E.M.]

It's not a shocker to me....I love Sarah Palin and if she runs for President, she is my choice!!

[steve rodriguez]

Look at all the post Sarah Palin generates? It's no wonder her book is the NY Times #1 best seller! Long live Sarah Palin!!!

[Richard V.]

Anybody who thinks Sarah Palin has any of the qualifications to be President is off his rocker. It amazes me how the right has embraced this woman. She flip flops more than a pancake at Denny's. Incredible!!!

[Sarah Sucks]

It's is unbelievable how stupid some Americans are. Only conservatives would support someone who quit their job to sell books.

I love the people who say she stands for "truth." Are you kidding me? Was she for the bridge to nowhere or against it? She is a politician like any other, but conservatives love her because she talks their bs. Just because she spews the hate and lies that you want to hear doesn't mean she stands for truth.

Go watch the video of people in line at her book signing. No one could tell what her foreign policy stance was, what cap and trade is, or any of her policies.

People who are for Sarah Palin are just as ignorant, stupid, judgmental, and stubborn as she is. We should elect a person to the Presidency who is highly educated, who knows that Africa is a continent, who can name newspapers she read or a Supreme Court decision she disagrees with. Someone who has the slightest idea what powers the Constitution gives each branch of government, not someone who is utterly clueless but says what the stupid right wants to hear.

All you Palin freaks, would you want her operating on you when you needed surgery? Then why elect someone so utterly unqualified for the most important position in the world? Oh, I know, because you are ignorant racist idiots. I have never seen so much disrespect for a President. I don't care if you hate his policies, you should respect the office enough to call him President Obama instead of the racist and disrespectful nonsense conservatives use.

The ultimate hypocrisy of Palin and the right is their use of God and Jesus as a justification for their beliefs and all they do. Do you think Jesus is a capitalist? Go read the Bible. "Whatever you did for the least of My brothers and sisters, you did for Me." Matthew 25:40

So all you people against abortion, who don't want any taxes, who want to cut spending, who expect the poor to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, who think people are not entitled to healthcare, is that what the Bible you use to justify your stance on other issues says?

[Alton Jones]

Much like taking Castor Oil as a kid, I have read the book. It doesn't take much to cut through the fluff and bull. If someone can read it and come away thinking she's presidential timber, then we're a dumber nation that I ever imagined. She actually brags about being dishonest to get out of her commitments. She brags about doing things in a half-assed fashion. The woman is an egomaniac and dumber than a fence post. Presidential? Not to any rational being.

[DET]

Let's remember that this is a Gallup poll, which probably lags a few days behind reality. Given that nothing has happened to change the direction of Obama's approval trajectory (except that snubbing the Norwegians while picking up his unearned Nobel Peace Prize may have made it go downhill even faster), it's likely that former Gov. Palin is now more popular than Obama.

It will be interesting to see how polls go in the next few weeks.

[katelynn]

u rock i wanted u as president sarah

[Brian MacDougall]

Is this a gag? You're conflating a favorability poll with a job performance poll and coming up with an apples to apples analogy? You'll notice, but perhaps not state in your piece, that Obama wasn't even mentioned in the poll you cite. Where is your editor? Day off, maybe? Is it LA Times editorial policy to take two separate polls and just smoosh them together and call it good?

To wit: I'm really favorably disposed to Megan Fox, but I'd probably rather she didn't remove my appendix. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess you could say that Megan Fox has a higher favorability rating than either Palin OR Obama based on the ticket sales of "Transformers II." Take a poll, another poll, and a box office summary and voilà: a headline! That's about the level of your "science."

I think you should probably keep your Palin powder dry until someone does a "who would you vote for right now" poll pitting Palin and Obama head to head. I don't think that will go so hot for you.

[lnelson]

Go Sarah!

[pigeonca]

If this country elects $arah Palin, this country deserves $arah Palin. I'll be living elsewhere.

[Jack Grace]

Keep up the great work Sarah Palin, unlike Obama who is not even an American-born citizen who has told more lies and broken more promises then any 2 presidents in history put together.

Fight the good fight.

[Kenneth Jordan]

I'll take a Constitutional Conservative over a Rino Republican any day, Thank you very much and that includes Romney.