BTW, those poll numbers are from ObamaPollWatch.com, a pro Obama site. I used it because the graph was big, and there’s no way to hide that first big drop.
In reality, I believe the drop was far more precipitous, with the biggest portion of the drop happeneing in July 2009.
Also, the polling methodology used very often determines the party affiliation percentage based on the last national election, and for that time period would have been the November 2008 election, a period where democrats were abnormally over-represented.
So what does that tell you?
Obama’s drop was deeper! Take off about 10 points and you’d have his real poll numbers for like voters. I do not doubt he was in the low 60’s for the first quarter of 2009. That makes the drop more telling, and I believe it was the injection of Race into an otherwise pretty cut and dried case of the police in Cambridge bending over backwards to be sensitive. People thought, “What the Hell is the President of the United States getting involved in a local matter that the race-baiters are hyping that isn’t a race matter at all?”
As it turns out, that is Obama’s M.O. Every time he does this, he drops in the polls.
This Trayvon Martin thing is a big, big mistake for him.