Gallup Poll: President Obama Rates Higher Than Speaker John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid on Debt Situation

Gallup poll: Obama Rates Higher Than Boehner, Reid on Debt Situation, but nothing to cheer about, all three get more negative opinions from public than positive.

The results of a USA Today/Gallup poll show that more Democrats are loyal to President Barack Obama than Republicans are to Speaker of the House Rep. John Boehner. That played out Thursday night in his inability to bring his debt ceiling plan to a vote on the House floor because he could not get the 217 votes he needed along party lines. Some of the Republicans in the House are willing to throw Boehner under a bus and greatly diminish his stature in the process. Here are the findings from Gallup poll:

President Obama's 41% approval rating on handling the situation is 10 percentage points higher than Boehner's and 18 points higher than Reid's. However, more Americans have an opinion about Obama's handling of the situation than is the case for the other two men, so when those with no opinion are factored out of the results, Obama's advantage is lessened. Among those with an opinion about his handling of the situation, the president has 44% approval and 56% disapproval, compared with 39% and 61% for Boehner and 31% and 69% for Reid.

Obama does better than the other two, based in large part on the high approval rating he receives from his fellow Democrats. Boehner receives significantly less loyalty from Republicans, half of whom approve of his handling of the situation. This no doubt reflects the current divisions within the Republican Party, with conservatives and Tea Party supporters pressing for a rigid stance against compromise and tax increases, while other Republicans are more inclined to push for a settlement with Obama and the Democrats. At this point, the former group is the most supportive of Boehner, which suggests that he faces more problems from the moderate wing of his party than from the conservative Tea Party wing. The fact that as many Republicans who do not support the Tea Party say they disapprove of how Boehner is handling the situation as say they approve highlights his leadership challenges.

No matter how you view this situation, it clearly shows the world our many of our elected officials are nothing more than a bunch of hypocrites who don't know what the word "compromise" means.