Since August 15th, President Obama's job approval rating has mirrored the results of the 2008 election almost precisely. By superimposing the results of the 2008 election over Pollster.com's graph of Obama job approval rating since August 15th, you can see just how little has changed politically over the past year:
The graph adjusts for the undecideds in Pollster.com's job approval rating by multiplying the 2008 results, Obama 52.87%--45.60% McCain, by 0.9633. (This figure is derived by taking the 5.2% undecided in the Pollster.com graph, subtracting the 1.53% that voted for a third-party candidate in 2008, and then subtracting the resulting 3.67% from 100%.)
For the past 95 days, President Obama's approval rating has hovered in a very tight range, between about 50.5% and 52.0%. Similarly, his disapproval has also hovered in a narrow range, from about 42.5% to 45.0%. Both narrow ranges are neatly bisected by the results of the 2008 election, when those results are adjusted for undecideds.
For President Obama, essentially nothing has changed politically since November 4th, 2008. He has as many supporters as he did back then, and as many opponents. From November 5th through August 14th, his approval rating was unnaturally inflated by soft supporters who had actually backed McCain in 2008. Now, however, his coalition has shed all of those soft supporters, and has entered a period of balance nearly identical to that just before the 2008 elections.
The same can not be said for Congressional Democrats. One year ago, House Democrats won the national popular House vote by 8.88%, but are currently leading Republicans by just 3.19% in the national House ballot. Similarly, the Democratic edge is partisan self-identification stood at 10% (39%-29%) on Election Day, 2008 (according to exit polls), but now stands at 6% (40%-34%).
So, it would appear that President Obama has been able to maintain a bit more buoyancy than the rest of his party. This could perhaps be viewed as a political benefit to taking a relatively hands-off, "congressionalist" approach to major legislation such as the stimulus, climate change and health care. Then again, one could counter that passing that major legislation earlier, and making that legislation stronger, would have been more of a political benefit and could have been accomplished with a more hands-on approach.
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