Obama and the Democrats Are Down, But Hardly Out

It's time to do what the late, great New York Governor Al Smith would do, and cut through the rhetoric and the hype and "look at the record" to evaluate the economic players in Washington. Investors have probably read a lot about the drop in President Barack Obama's job-approval rating. And they're correct. It has declined to about 50% in the first quarter of 2009 from about 63% at the start of his presidency, according to a Gallup Poll. But what many investors probably don't know is that the job-approval rating for every president declines in his first year in office.