Details, Details

The poll numbers tell the story. President Obama's job-approval ratings soared after his impressive Feb. 24 speech to a joint session of Congress, which drew praise from virtually all but his most partisan and vociferous critics.

The first polling by the Gallup Organization conducted after the president's speech pegged his approval rating at 67 percent, up from 59 percent and just 2 points shy of his highest and earliest honeymoon ratings. But two days later, the administration released its budget proposal, and Obama's numbers dipped 6 points to 61 percent in Gallup's March 1-3 polling. The slippage is a reminder that moving and unifying the American people is one thing, but managing the details of governing is quite another -- and generally less popular.

A new Cook Political Report/RT Strategies national survey of 880 registered voters, conducted from Feb. 27 through March 1, put Obama's job-approval rating at 57 percent, a bit below most recent polls that measured his standing among all adults. Obama's Cook/RT disapproval rating was 28 percent.

Meanwhile, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll taken from Feb. 26 to March 1 among 1,007 adults put Obama's approval rating at 60 percent and his disapproval rating at 26 percent. This was the first NBC/WSJ poll conducted since Obama took office, and the rating was among the lowest recorded by any live-interviewer poll of adults. Apparently, the budget proposal erased the boost that Obama's speech had given him.

The Cook/RT Strategies poll found that Obama received nearly universal approval ratings among fellow Democrats, 91 percent, with approval among independents considerably lower, 51 percent. Among Republicans it was 25 percent.

Gallup polling showed that Obama started off with an extraordinarily high 41 percent approval rating among Republicans. After he had been in office a few weeks, that number drifted down to 27 percent, spiked to 42 percent after his speech, and is now 35 percent.

High job-approval ratings among members of the opposition party, while flattering, are usually quite fleeting and create artificially inflated overall ratings that aren't sustainable. The longer Obama is involved in the gritty details of governing, the less likely he is to regain his popularity among Republicans.

Obama's losing support among Republicans was to be expected. The group to watch is independents, who made up 30 percent of the sample in the Cook/RT poll and generally run around 36 percent in Gallup surveys. For a Democratic president, sequentially, losing ground among Republicans comes first, among independents second, and among Democrats last. Obama's numbers among independents have remained remarkably stable, averaging 62 percent in Gallup's first two weeks of tracking; 63 percent in the second two weeks; dropping to 54 percent during the Feb. 21 to 23 survey; and then rising to 60 percent in the Feb. 23 to March 1 polling.

The biggest thing driving Obama's numbers has been his nearly monolithic support among Democrats, who hold an 8-to-10-point advantage over Republicans in party identification. In annual compilations of those numbers by Gallup, what had been a 1-point GOP advantage in 2003 shifted to parity in 2004 and bulged to a Democratic advantage of 8 points last year. Thus, widespread approval among Democrats combined with a high Democratic advantage in party identification is a very potent combination for Obama.

One striking feature of recent polls is the breadth and strength of Obama's support among Americans ages 50 to 64, arguably the people most hurt by the stock market's nosedive. In the most recent Gallup Poll, the president's approval rating among those in this age group was higher than ever -- 65 percent -- and was second only to his support among the youngest voters. In the latest Cook/RT survey, Obama's backing among the 50-to-64 set was 68 percent, the highest of any age group. And 47 percent strongly approved of his performance -- again, the highest of any age group.

With his first address to Congress behind him and a microscopic examination of his budget proposal still to come, Obama's 67 percent approval ratings are probably a thing of the past. Popularity in the 55-to-60 percent range is much more likely in the coming months.