It might be a good time for Obama to hit the road on a Midwestern bus-tour campaign: on Sunday, his approval rating dipped to an all-time low of 39 percent, with 54 percent disapproving. The result marks the first time that the president's approval has fallen below the 40 percent threshold since arriving in office. As you can see from the chart below (interactive version here), the president's early May boost after bin Laden's death has evaporated. RealClearPolitics' David Paul Kuhn put the numbers in gloomy context: "The poll bookends a historically bad week....There is the mercurial stock market, trending more down than up. Last week, consumer sentiment hit its lowest point since the dusk of Jimmy Carter's presidency."

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Erik Hayden