President's popularity holding steady...

AP-GfK Poll: Gains for Obama, not his Afghan plans

By LIZ SIDOTI
AP National Political Writer


WASHINGTON (AP) -- Budget deficits are in the stratosphere. Unemployment has hit 10 percent. The health care overhaul is incomplete.

Still, Americans appear to like President Barack Obama and the way he's doing his job.

The latest Associated Press-Gfk poll shows the president's popularity holding steady, with 56 percent of those polled approving of the way he's taking care of the country's business. His marks for handling the 8-year-old war in Afghanistan have jumped by double digits, with more than half now approving, since he capped a three-month strategy review by announcing a big troop increase.

But despite his prime-time TV speech explaining how he reached his decision to boost U.S. forces in Afghanistan to 100,000, and begin bringing them home in July 2011, there was no change in the public's resistance to escalation. Just 42 percent favor sending more troops while 56 percent oppose it, essentially unchanged from November.

The findings suggest limits to Obama's persuasive skills - and underscore what's seemingly become the public's default position in his first year in office: People like him, but they're squeamish about his policy.

"These were tough decisions this guy had to make," said Steve Pollaro, 67, a bus driver from Torrance, Calif., praising Obama for showing leadership. But Pollaro, a registered Republican who calls himself a recent Democratic convert, is lukewarm at best on the new strategy itself. He opposes a public timeline for beginning a withdrawal and reluctantly backs the troop increase - on grounds that Obama knows more than he does.

more...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_AP_POLL_OBAMA_AFGHANISTAN?SITE=CONGRA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

:dem:

-Laelth