President Obama's approval ratings at lowest so far

It surprising to see how President Obama's handling of the economy and health care has resulted in a large drop in approval ratings since he has taken office.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey results released yesterday show his overall approval number at 53 percent, down from 76 percent in early February, just after he took office.

The increasingly bitter partisanship appears to be taking a toll on the president.

While his approval number among fellow Democrats rose slightly to 90 percent from July, it fell to 43 percent from 53 percent among independents and to 15 percent from 23 percent among Republicans. It is the first time in a CNN poll that independents gave a thumbs down to Obama’s performance as president.