Other politicians losing popularity too

Barack Obama's approval slide has received all the attention, but he's far from alone among politicians in seeing their popularity decline over the course of 2009.

Let's look at his approval and the favorabilities of Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and Sarah Palin from our first 2012 poll conducted back in April and see how they match up to now:

	April Numbers	December Numbers	Net Shift
Obama	53/41	49/47	-10
Huckabee	42/34	35/35	-8
Palin	42/49	41/50	-2
Romney	40/35	32/36	-9

These numbers suggest that at least part of Obama's decline in popularity can be attributed to a general dissatisfaction of voters with politicians right now regardless of their party. Across the board voters are seeing elected officials as part of the problem instead part of the solution and that's not likely to change until they start really feeling that things are headed in the right direction. Obama is the main person being hurt by that sentiment but it's not restricted to him by any means.