90% Against Higher Spending, 10% Not Paying Attention

The luster is off and the honeymoon is over for Obama and it all comes down to his huge spending plans:

More broadly, worries about the deficit remain widespread, with almost nine in 10 Americans saying they are "very" or "somewhat" concerned about its size.

One factor that continues to work for Obama, however, is that most Americans still see him as a new type of Democrat, one "who will be careful with the public's money," rather than an old-style, "tax-and-spend Democrat." By this point in 1993, Clinton had lost the new-style label, which he had maintained over the first months of his presidency.

Obama has used the power and financial resources of the federal government repeatedly as he has dealt with the country's problems this year, to the consternation of his Republican critics. The poll found little change in underlying public attitudes toward government since the inauguration, with slightly more than half saying they prefer a smaller government with fewer services to a larger government with more services. Independents, however, now split 61 to 35 percent in favor of a smaller government; they were more narrowly divided on this question a year ago (52 to 44 percent), before the financial crisis hit.

Losing Independents is telling as they were the ones who put him over the top. If he loses them and loses any more Democrats he will have a hard slog come the 2010 midterms.

This is good news on another front as the administration will have a much more difficult time pushing through healthcare.

Obama overshot his perceived mandate by a good margin it appears.