Don’t let the screen door hit ya on the way out:
No other president’s disapproval rating has gone higher than 70 percent

As President-elect Obama visits the White House, a new national poll suggests that the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is the most unpopular president in the six decades since presidential approval ratings were first measured.

Seventy-six percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday disapprove of how George W. Bush is handling his job as President. That’s an all-time high in CNN polling, or in Gallup polling dating back to World War II.

“No other president’s disapproval rating has gone higher than 70 percent. Bush has managed to do that three times so far this year,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “That means that Bush is now more unpopular than Richard Nixon was when he resigned from office during Watergate with a 66 percent disapproval rating.”

Prior to President Bush, the record holder for presidential disapproval was Harry Truman, with a 67 percent disapproval rating in January of 1952, his last full year in office.

Meanwhile, in opposite world:

Nearly seven in 10 adults, or 68 percent, said they have a favorable opinion of President-elect Barack Obama. Almost that many — 65 percent — said they think the country will be better off four years from now.

“The reception he’s getting is unlike anything we’ve seen in decades,” says Andrew Kohut, director of the non-partisan Pew Research Center. “It’s a very high set of expectations to live up to. On the upside, it means people are going to be pulling for him.”