It is worthy to note how the president’s popularity has dissipated so rapidly in his first year. I believe it is for three reasons.

Obama’s success was more related to luck than his party wants to admit. The timing of the financial collapse could not have been more fortuitous to his success.

Campaign promises are easy compared to the reality of implementation. Progress requires change, change requires pain. The real costs and sacrifices of his promises are hitting the constituencies. The young may have supported Obama. Now they must buy expensive insurance and face dire employment prospects. This may not have been the change they expected.

And finally Obama and his party totally misread the mandate. Fred Barnes notes in Why Obama Isn’t Changing Washington (WSJ 11/26/09):

Mr. Obama misread the meaning of the 2008 election. It wasn’t a mandate for a liberal revolution. His victory was a personal one, not an ideological triumph of liberalism. Yet Mr. Obama, his aides and Democratic leaders in Congress have treated it as a mandate to radically change policy directions in this country. They are pushing forward one liberal initiative after another. As a result, Mr. Obama’s approval rating has dropped along with the popularity of his agenda.

Mr. Obama should have known better. The evidence that America remains a center-right country was right there in the national exit poll on Election Day. When asked about their political beliefs, 34% identified themselves as conservative, 22% as liberal, and a whopping 44% as moderate.

As Mr. Obama has unveiled his policies, the country has tilted more to the right. A Gallup Poll on Oct. 21 found the country to be 40% conservative, 36% moderate, and 20% liberal.

Nearly every Obama policy has thrilled either the president’s base in the Democratic Party or a liberal interest group but practically no one else. Nearly every policy is unpopular with a majority or large plurality of Americans. The $787 billion economic stimulus was enacted in February with strong public support. But it has long since lost favor.

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