LiveWire

It’s about time.

Obama’s 39% Gallup Rating Lowest Amid Health Care Fallout

President Barack Obama’s rating in the daily Gallup poll has fallen to its lowest level since October 2011 as his administration continues to be tarnished by the rocky debut of his health-care program.

The Democrat’s approval rating stands at 39 percent in the survey, down since the start of October when the rollout of online health exchanges began. The last time his Gallup approval rating was at or above 50 percent was in late June…

His current rating remains above the 37 percent second-term average recorded by former President George W. Bush in the Gallup survey. Former President Richard Nixon, who left office in August 1974 amid the Watergate scandal, averaged 34 percent in his second term.

Republicans are comparing this point of Obama’s presidency with Hurricane Katrina, when Bush’s botched response to the 2005 storm that ravaged the Gulf Coast and led to more than 1,800 deaths damaged his public standing.

Obama’s second-term woes also have included Edward Snowden’s disclosures of National Security Agency telephone and Internet surveillance and opposition to his request to use force in Syria.

The health-care law remains the centerpiece of a first-term Obama agenda that included an $830 billion economic stimulus, ramped-up support for clean-energy production, and the most far-reaching financial-regulatory law since the Depression.