Closer Look at the Poll Results....independents are 50-50 ... Over All 56% Approval Rating..

Mr. Obama's overall job approval and personal ratings have slipped, particularly among independent voters. His job approval rating now stands at 56%, down from 61% in April. Among independents, it dropped from nearly two-to-one approval to closely divided.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, President Obama acknowledged the toll.

"If you have an argument made frequently enough -- whether it's true or not -- it has some impact," he said Tuesday. "If you want to attack a Democratic president, how are you going to attack him? Well, you're going to talk about how he wants more government and he wants to socialize medicine and he's going to be oppressive towards business. I mean, that's pretty standard fare."

Mr. Obama ran down some of problems he said he had been forced to deal with, and said the real argument is about whether to take on health care and energy.

"I suppose we could just stand pat and not do anything on either of those fronts...That's been tried for four or five decades. And in both energy and health care, the problems have gotten worse, not better," he said.

By some measures, the public seems to agree. Only 37% of people said that Mr. Obama is taking on too many issues.

A solid majority -- 60% -- said that he is focused on many issues because the country is facing so many problems.

MOVING ON TO WHAT I WANT- NATIONAL HEALTHCARE COVERAGE FOR ALL CITIZENS

"Still, overall, the public finds the economy in dreadful shape today, and people living in the Midwest were much less likely to express optimism about the future than those on the coasts.


On health care, the public remains open to persuasion. Without being told anything specific about the Obama plan in the survey, about a third of people said it's a good idea, about a third said it's a bad idea and the rest had no opinion.

When given several details of his approach, 55% said they favored it, versus 35% who were opposed.

There was also support for the Democratic push to let people sign up for a public health-care plan that would compete with private companies, one of the toughest issues in the health-care debate.

Three in four people said a public plan is extremely or quite important. But when told the arguments for and against the plan, a smaller portion, 47%, agreed with arguments in support of the plan, with 42% agreeing with the arguments against it.

At the same time, nearly half the participants said it was very or somewhat likely that their employer would drop private coverage if a public plan were available.

FD: you might get to read the whole story and see the poll data at
http://online.wsj.com/wsjgate?subURI=%2Farticle%2FSB124527518023424769-email.html&nonsubURI=%2Farticle_email%2FSB124527518023424769-lMyQjAxMDI5NDE1NzIxNzc1Wj.html