For the first time since early July, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds more Americans approve of the job President Obama is doing than disapprove, 50% to 48%.

Some other polls have shown a recent dip in Obama’s approval rating, and linked that to rising gasoline prices.

A new Bloomberg poll shows Obama’s approval at 48%.

“Had he failed in that audacious mission, he would’ve been a one-term president.”

— Vice President Joe Biden, quoted by The Hill, on President Obama ordering the mission to kill Osama bin Laden.

First Read looks at the dramatic drop in President Obama’s approval rating found in last night’s CBS/NYT poll but suggests it may be an outlier since there’s no major event which occurred in the past month to account for this drop.

“It’s probably worth waiting for a few more national polls before reaching the conclusion that something has happened to Obama’s standing in the past month.”

The latest CBS News/New York Times poll shows President Obama’s approval rating has hit the lowest level ever and “may be partially attributable to rising gas prices.”

Key finding: Just 41% of Americans approve of the job Obama is doing as president, while 47% disapprove of his performance.

This follows a new Washington Post/ABC News poll that found President Obama’s approval rating dropping to 46%. 

The New York Times learns of a lunch between New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and President Obama at the White House a few weeks ago:

“Over a long private lunch at the White House, President Obama posed a question to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg: what are you interested in doing next? Mr. Bloomberg’s precise response is unknown. But their meeting a few weeks ago, confirmed by aides to both leaders and previously undisclosed, was potentially significant for both men, as Mr. Obama seeks support for his presidential campaign and Mr. Bloomberg ponders his post-mayoral career.”

“Mr. Obama, facing a bruising re-election fight, is eager to attract the kind of centrist, independent voters drawn to Mr. Bloomberg’s brand of politics. Mr. Bloomberg, confronting the end of his career in elected office, is grappling with how to exert the kind of influence over public discourse that he has had as mayor of the nation’s largest city.”

Ezra Klein notes there’s a lot of evidence that presidential persuasion isn’t effective when applied to the public. In fact, it’s often counterproductive during times of divided government when a stirring presidential speech on a particular bill can make it harder, rather than easier, for the opposition party to support it.

The implications are fairly radical: The power of the presidential bully pulpit is wildly overrated in the Beltway, and overrated in a way that actually makes it harder for voters to hold legislators accountable and for politicians to get anything done.

The White House posts a photo that when enlarged shows the edits President Obama made to his State of the Union address earlier this year.

Jake Tapper reports the memo White House economic adviser Larry Summers didn’t want President Obama to see was almost certainly leaked to journalist Noam Scheiber by former budget director Peter Orszag.

By making the original memo available to readers on the web, Scheiber also allowed people to see the document properties which indicate the document last resided on Orszag’s computer.

“The expectations for him were absurd. And they were wrong. They expected him to be something he couldn’t possibly be given his level of experience. It was impossible to ask him to be all the things that people poured into him.”

— Former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), in an interview with GQ, on whether President Obama has lived up to his promise.

Gallup finds that the historically high gap between partisans’ job approval ratings of President Obama continued during his third year in office, with an average of 80% of Democrats and 12% of Republicans approving of the job he was doing.

In fact, that 68 point partisan gap is tied for the fourth highest dating back to the Eisenhower administration. Only George W. Bush’s fourth, fifth, and sixth years in office showed higher degrees of political polarization.

The Washingtonian reports that the ultimate victor of the presidential election, no matter who he is, “may not get to claim the ultimate prize: the Oval Office.”

Beginning sometime next year the President may be relocated from the White House West Wing and the iconic Oval Office to temporary office space next door while his office undergoes needed repairs and restoration.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told Bloomberg TV that President Obama is “not going to ask me to stay on, I’m pretty confident. I’m confident he’ll be president. But I’m also confident he’s going to have the privilege of having another secretary of the Treasury.”

A new CBS News poll finds that 91% of Americans who watched President Obama’s State of the Union address approved of the policy proposals he put forth, while just 9% disapproved.

Caveat: “Americans who watched the speech were generally more Democratic than the nation as a whole. Forty-four percent of viewers polled were Democrats and 25% were Republicans. (Historically speaking, that is not an unusual statistic: a president’s supporters are more likely than his opponents to watch State of the Union addresses.)”

This is fantastic: The New York Times has a video of President Obama’s State of the Union address alongside a rolling transcript and inline fact checks.

A new RNC video confirms that much of what you heard much in President Obama’s State of the Union speech last night was recycled from previous addresses.

BuzzFeed: “Not sure it’s exactly an attack, but it’s a pretty compelling video.”

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A Smart Politics study of the 70 orally delivered State of the Union Addresses since 1934 finds the text of President Obama’s 2012 speech to have tallied the third lowest score on the Flesch-Kincaid readability test, at an 8.4 grade level.

Twitter
has put together an interesting graphic from last night’s State of the
Union Address, showing the tweets per minute during the speech and how
members of Congress reacted.

Behind the numbers: While Republican members of Congress are generally seen as more prolific
users of Twitter than their Democratic counterparts, last night’s
congressional tweets were overwhelmingly by Democrats, with 60%, while
Republicans made up the remaining 40%.

Here’s the complete text of President Obama’s State of the Union address as released by the White House:

Last month, I went to Andrews Air Force Base and welcomed home some of our last troops to serve in Iraq. Together, we offered a final, proud salute to the colors under which more than a million of our fellow citizens fought – and several thousand gave their lives.

We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected around the world. For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq. For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country. Most of al Qaeda’s top lieutenants have been defeated. The Taliban’s momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home.

These achievements are a testament to the courage, selflessness, and teamwork of America’s Armed Forces. At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They’re not consumed with personal ambition. They don’t obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together.

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