At this point, polls showing Obama’s approval at roughly 50–50 barely constitute news, but Gallup has Obama’s approval at 47 percent, a new low, and disapproval at 46, a new high.

As recently as mid-November, Obama was at 53 percent approval and 38 percent disapproval.

You’ll hear a million and one theories for what’s driving the slump in Obama’s numbers: the Afghanistan war decision, lack of progress on health care, frustration with a sense of runaway public spending and a government that’s out of touch. I think Obama’s got bad news at a bad time.

It’s December, and the holiday season. It’s a time when folks think about getting Christmas and Hannukah gifts for their friends and family, and they’re finding that financial situations are forcing them to skimp a bit, or in some cases, a lot. They want Santa to leave a lot under the tree. It’s also coming up on the end of the year, and usually a time of reflecting upon the year gone by. A lot of folks, in January, thought that Obama’s inauguration meant better days were ahead. Not yet, they aren’t.

If an unemployment rate between 4 and 6 percent is “normal,” as it was during much of the past decade, it looks like we’re going to take a long time to get back to it, more than one year. The signs of economic pain are still everywhere one looks in a lot of communities – foreclosure signs in front of houses, empty storefronts, construction projects on hold. Food and gas prices seem up a bit, exacerbating the squeeze.

Americans elected Obama for results; they didn’t elect him so they could spend a year hearing him go on and on about all the problems he inherited . . .