The Los Angeles Times quotes Neil Newhouse in an article about Chrysler filing for bankruptcy.

The White House’s deep involvement in the Chrysler bankruptcy proceedings means Obama will be blamed if it turns out badly by hurting union members and retirees, said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster.

“After 100 days in office, this is another sign that he is taking ownership of the nation’s economy,” he said.

Neil was quoted again by Chris Cillizza in The Fix in reference to the results of the recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that shows that Obama himself is more popular than his policies.

On the one hand, more than eight in ten Americans feel warmly toward Obama, suggesting he has a deep reservoir of personal likability and will continue to tap it in order to sell his agenda to the country.

On the other, the fact that three in ten like Obama but dislike his policies could well portend a much more difficult political environment for the president over the next 100 days than he dealt with in the first 100 days.

How big an issue is the chasm between Obama’s personal favorability and the approval of his policies?

“It poses a significant challenge for Obama to turn the ‘hope’ voters have for his success into ‘results,'” explained Republican pollster Neil Newhouse of Public Opinion Strategies. “The more stark the gap between those two, the more his programs are at risk.”

Steve Kinney also comments on the poll’s results in Peter Roff’s blog on the U.S. News and World Report site.

America also continues to embrace Obama. According to a recent survey by Public Opinion Strategies, a GOP firm, “an amazing 79 percent of the voters we talked to told us they liked President Obama as a person.” His agenda, however, is less popular.

“Just fifty-five percent of Americans say they like President Obama’s policies,” says POS’s Steve Kinney. “This is still a solid majority, but the economic conditions in this country are still not improving, and these numbers show that Obama’s charismatic personality can only carry him so far.”

So, our POS poll shows President Obama sitting on top of the world.  He’s got a 63% approval rating and he’s nearly single-handedly shifted the mood of the country from 12% right direction in November to 40% right direction now.  (Come on now, it’s certainly not the rising unemployment rate, the surging deficit, the flagging economy or the foreign entanglements that have made D partisans more positive about the direction of the country!)

In fact, our poll shows that fully 79% of voters say they “like” President Obama.  Even 58% of GOP’ers and 57% of McCain voters say they like him.  So, he should be home-free with his policies – leveraging his popularity into support for his programs like reforming health care, right?

Not so fast.  When voters are asked about President Obama AND his policies, it turns out that fully 25% of voters LIKE Obama, but dislike his policies.  Add that to the 17% who dislike Obama AND his policies, and you’ve got a 55%-42% split (including rounding) on President Obama’s policies.  That’s a 24-point popularity/policy gap!

And, among some key groups:

Independents:    28 point gap
White voters:     29 point gap
Seniors:             29 point gap

So, while these voters are saying they personally like President Obama, they’re not quite sure about the policies he’s pushing.  The real danger for Obama is if this popularity/policy gap turns into a popularity/PERFORMANCE gap.

Voters are generally rating the President now on effort, and he receives positive marks.  Soon, he’ll be judged on results, and the numbers may tell a different story.

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Public Opinion Strategies