Why do you think Barack Obama has the most polarized early job approval ratings of any president in the past four decades?

As @philipy pointed out, there has been a trend towards increased polarization over the past several presidents, so in some sense, Obama’s high polarization index is just a continuation of that. But I recall that part of Obama’s platform—on which he banked much of his image during the campaign was bringing “change” to Washington, part of which would come from a departure from petty partisan politics. Now, again, as @philipy mentioned, it’s still early in his tenure—certainly much too early to conclusively say he’s failed in his goal of uniting.

However, the gallup.com/poll/117355/Obama-Approval-Ra... Gallup poll that shows his approval rating becoming more polarized during the past three months suggests that whatever actions his administration has taken since coming into office have had an effect other than unification. In fact, his inauguration-day poll numbers were actually not horrible among republicans (from the Gallup poll, there is a -47 R-D gap on inauguration day, comparable to the R-D difference noted in the Pew data for the Clinton or Reagan administrations in April and May (respectively). This suggests that at the start of his tenure, republicans regarded him no worse than they regarded Clinton after a few months in office, or than democrats regarded Reagan after a few months in office.

What’s interesting from these two polls, then, is not that there is a current high degree of polarization in Obama’s approval rating, but that the candidate who campaigned on promises to end bipartisan bickering has apparently so far made it worse. Why is that? Well, one suggestion would be that republicans simply don’t respond well to not being in power, or as @dumblonde suggested in a comment above that low approval ratings could be attributed in part to the hard times during which he took office, and the fact that his approval numbers have dropped primarily among republicans may suggest simply that as the opposition party, they are more critical of his actions.

I suspect that's true. But then again, to believe in your conciliatory abilities strongly enough to make hope and change an integral part of your campaign rhetoric, shouldn’t you be able at least to “sweet-talk” the opposition into going along with you? Isn’t bringing people together and working alongside them a part of being a great leader?

I realize it’s a lofty standard, but it’s one Obama set for himself.

As @philipy pointed out, there has been a trend towards increased polarization over the past several presidents, so in some sense, Obama’s high polarization index is just a continuation of that. But I recall that part of Obama’s platform—on which he banked much of his image during the campaign was bringing “change� To Washington, part of which would come from a departure from petty partisan politics.

Now, again, as @philipy mentioned, it’s still early in his tenure—certainly much too early to conclusively say he’s failed in his goal of uniting. However, the gallup.com/poll/117355/Obama-Approval-Ra... Gallup poll that shows his approval rating becoming more polarized during the past three months suggests that whatever actions his administration has taken since coming into office have had an effect other than unification. In fact, his inauguration-day poll numbers were actually not horrible among republicans (from the Gallup poll, there is a -47 R-D gap on inauguration day, comparable to the R-D difference noted in the Pew data for the Clinton or Reagan administrations in April and May (respectively).

This suggests that at the start of his tenure, republicans regarded him no worse than they regarded Clinton after a few months in office, or than democrats regarded Reagan after a few months in office. What’s interesting from these two polls, then, is not that there is a current high degree of polarization in Obama’s approval rating, but that the candidate who campaigned on promises to end bipartisan bickering has apparently so far made it worse. Why is that?

Well, one suggestion would be that republicans simply don’t respond well to not being in power, or as @dumblonde suggested in a comment above that low approval ratings could be attributed in part to the hard times during which he took office, and the fact that his approval numbers have dropped primarily among republicans may suggest simply that as the opposition party, they are more critical of his actions. I suspect that's true. But then again, to believe in your conciliatory abilities strongly enough to make hope and change an integral part of your campaign rhetoric, shouldn’t you be able at least to “sweet-talk�

The opposition into going along with you? Isn’t bringing people together and working alongside them a part of being a great leader? I realize it’s a lofty standard, but it’s one Obama set for himself.

I'm quite surprised to see that's the case. But an interesting thing to note from the table is that Bill Clinton's early job approval rating from Republicans was even lower! (26% for Clinton in Apr 1993, as opposed to 27% for Obama.) So what makes Obama's "gap" big is not that he is exceptionally disliked by Republicans, but that he is so loved by Democrats.

He's also much more approved by independents than Clinton was, though that doesn't contribute to the measure of "partisan gap" that is being used here. The article also states: "The growing partisan divide in presidential approval ratings is part of a long-term trend. Going back in time, partisanship was far less evident in the early job approval ratings for both Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon.

" So we've had another 16 years of that long-term trend since the comparable data point for Bill Clinton. From the data, I wouldn't draw too many conclusions about Barack Obama being divisive. Perhaps the only thing that we can really say is that in the few months since he was elected, he has not yet made much difference to bridging the partisan divisions that have been growing for a long time.

But that was never going to be the work of a few months, and I'm glad to see he seems intent on keeping working to achieve that. Also, his concept of bipartisanship is not that people always agree, but that they can disagree respectfully, and still value each other despite their differences. I suspect that many Republicans who think his policies are a mistake would still feel that he's a good and capable man.

I think the times are tough, the election was extremely polarizing, and Republicans have not yet recovered enough to even begin approving of Obama. There's still an element of race. Some people will never approve because he's black.

You can safely say that many republicans and conservatives are not keen on having a black president. The conditions are so different now than when Bush was elected president. Even though there was the controversial court case and the Florida fiasco, the economy was stable, things were looking up, budget surplus, peacetime, and everyone was relatively happy.So it wasn't as much a polarizing election.

When we see now, we have a black president in the face of millions of white conservatives, many of them racist; the elections left the Republican party in shambles and "Change has not come". The economy is in the dumps, we're at war, there's a ridiculous deficit... It is to be expected that opinions would be much more divided. And stemming from this, Obama needs to stop pandering to be bipartisan and just follow his agenda because if this poll proves anything is that the way Republicans will regain political capital among their constituents is by naysaying Obama all the way to 2012.

And if they bet against Obama and Obama's policies fail, they will win.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.