Honeymoons, Presidents, and Policy

I was flipping channels yesterday and saw someone on cable waxing about the meaning of the latest polling showing that President Obama's approval rating had slipped below 60% for the first time. Of course, with the usual lack of insight, the person (I do not remember the channel or the person, since I have little time to waste on uninformed talking heads) wondered why this might have happened and whether this is the beginning of the end of the Obama presidency.

I have several things to comment on regarding this issue. First, President Obama's approval ratings do not seem to have varied much at all, hovering around 60% and, in some polls, dipping to the upper 50s several times since January. A single data point of a CBS poll done right before the Sotomayor hearings and during presidential travel abroad, does not a trend make.

Second, comparing the trends we have seen thus far to recent presidents (with data courtesy of the Roper Center for Public Opinion at the University of Connecticut, the first clear decline in support has generally occurred long before July of the first year. George W. Bush saw a dip by May of 2001, Bill Clinton say ratings in the low 50s by February, and George H.W. Bush was in the mid 50s by May. So, in comparison to recent presidents, the "honeymoon" for Obama is longer than we might expect.

Third, I want to remind everyone that the definitive research on presidents and public opinion, done by Paul Brace and the late Barbara Hinckley, finds that when it comes to public support, presidents have two basic choices: they either retain their popularity at the cost of promoting their policy agenda, or they push their agenda, with the expected decrease in the level of public approval.

It seems to me that grown-up (or, to use the political science label, modern) presidents choose the latter approach, while postmodern presidents choose the former...