Are Any Pols More Popular Than They Were Six Months Ago?

President Obama has been learning lately that politics is a zero-sum game. When someone wins, someone else always loses. For a while, it was Obama doing the winning; his 53-46 percent victory in November came at the expense, of course, of John McCain and GOP voters. Lately, though, Obama has been slipping. His approval rating now sits at 56 percent, down from a high of 69 back in January, according to Gallup. But here's a question: if Obama's losing, who's winning? Certainly not members of his administration, who have also taken minor hits. Vice President Joe Biden started at a 52 percent rating earlier this year but has since lost about five points, says a CNN poll. Same with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (in the same poll), who dropped from 66 percent several months ago to 61. Not even health-policy purveyor Sen. Ted Kennedy, who has taken leave from the Senate to fight a malignant brain tumor, has escaped without losing a few points of support.

It's fair to say that a sour economy and contentious debates on climate policy and health care haven't portrayed any leading pol as completely benevolent. Neither GOP elder Newt Gingrich (from 36 to 34, says a collection of polls) nor media king Rush Limbaugh, who fell three points this year to 37 percent, have been spared. But has anyone been able to cash in on Obama's lost footing?

John McCain would be proud to argue that, yes, some leaders are thought of better now than they were six months ago; he's one of them. McCain's been able to bump his approval to 58 percent from 52 back in February, reports a CNN poll, likely due to his decreased profile compared with last year. So has former Massachusetts governor and GOP candidate Mitt Romney, who's taken a three point rise to 37 percent (according to Gallup) by taking a sideline-advocate approach to the health-care debate.

And then something a bit surprising. Even though former VP Dick Cheney has taken heat lately for the Bush administration's interrogation policies and several other White House snafus (Plamegate, attorney firings) and has fanned the flames by publicly criticizing his successors, he's riding higher this summer (37 percent) than he was in March (30 percent), according to a USA Today/Gallup survey. The same slight upward trend we suspect is true for his former boss, President George W. Bush, who has taken some time off from appearing in public, although no large polling organization has measured Bush's approval since he left office in January.

Still, that's not to say that winning and losing has fallen strictly along party lines. Two of the biggest losers so far this year? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who Gallup reports has fallen from 42 to 32 percent this year, and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, owner of the steepest loss: as measured by an ABC News/Washington Post poll, from 52 percent before last fall to a recently measured 40.