Nobel bump?: Obama's approval rises

Video: Nobel Prize In A New Light
President Obama's surprise win for a Nobel Peace Prize has his critics fuming and, as Bob Schieffer notes, the Nobel Committee has only managed to change the way we look on the honor.
Nobel bump?: Obama's approval rises

by Mark Silva

Something funny has happened on the way home from Copenhagen, where President Barack Obama lost his bid for the Chicago Olympics:

His public approval has risen.

Something else came out of Osso in the meantime: A Nobel Prize for Peace.

We're hard-pressed for any other explanation for today's measurement of the president's job approval in the Gallup Poll's daily trackng surveys: 56 pecent.

Up 2 percentage points in a day.

Just last week, the president's approval rating had fallen to 50 percent in the Gallup track, as measured in the average of surveys from Oct. 3-5. That marked a second slump to the lowest point of his presidency in the Gallup track -- Obama had seen 50 a month before. That also followed the International Olympic Committee's rejection of Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympic Summer Games on Oct. 2.

But later n the week, and with two days of polling in since the Nobel Committee announced Obama's Peace Prize at dawn Eastern Daylight Time on Friday, Obama's approval rose again.

Today, it's 56 percent -- still some 13 points shy of the peak that Obama reached, 69 percent, in the days following his inauguration. But still well above water.

If anyone has another explanation for the turnaround in the last few days, we're glad to hear it, here in the Swamp.

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