Pew Research: Obama most polarizing president

For all of his many campaign promises of bipartisanship, Barack Obama has the most polarized early job approval ratings of any president in the past four decades.  The 61-point partisan gap in opinions about Obama's job performance is the result of a combination of high Democratic ratings for the president -- 88% job approval among Democrats -- and relatively low approval ratings among Republicans (27%) according to Pew Research.   

Maybe citizens have noticed Obama  specific betrayal of his promise to provide  the first post partisan presidency in history" by failing:
1.) To post all spending bills on the Internet for five days prior to any vote,
2.) Spending trillions in stimulus before any member of Congress could even read the bill, or
3.) Failing to provide electronic copies (PDF) of spending bills to Republicans before forcing votes.

Apparently, voters now understand that in the Obama Administration,  post" or  after" partisan means fascism.    By comparison the research notes there was a somewhat smaller 51-point partisan gap in views of George W. Bush's job performance in April 2001, a few months into his first term.  At that time, Republican enthusiasm for Bush was comparable to how Democrats feel about Obama today, but there was substantially less criticism from members of the opposition party.  Among Democrats, 36% approved of Bush's job performance in April 2001; that compares with a 27% job approval rating for Obama among Republicans today.   

The partisan gap in Bill Clinton's early days was also substantially smaller than what Obama faces, largely because Democrats were less enthusiastic about Clinton.  In early April 1993, 71% of Democrats approved of Clinton's job performance, which is 17 points lower than Obama's current job approval among Democrats. Republican ratings of Clinton at that point (26%) are comparable to their current ratings of Obama today (27%).   

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.  In fact, a majority of Republicans (56%) approved of Carter's job performance in late March 1977, and a majority of Democrats (55%) approved of Nixon's performance at a comparable point in his first term.   

For more from Pew Research, click here.