WHAT a difference a year makes!
On 20th January last year, Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States of America, having beaten John McCain in the election in November 2008.
After 100 days, Mr Obama's approval remained high - only President Ronald Reagan had higher figures at that stage.
But with his latest rating now as low as 49%, Mr Obama is the least popular President at the one-year stage since President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s.
The Democrats are suffering and this was no more amply shown than in last night's Senate election in Massachusetts.
The seat has been vacant since the death of Ted Kennedy, the elder brother of President John F. Kennedy who was also a Massachusetts man.
Yet Massachusetts chose Scott Brown, their first Republican senator since 1972, and his victory causes Mr Obama a major headache.
It means that the Democrats are now one vote short of the 60 required for any bill to be passed into law - and Mr Obama still needs the Senate to approve of his healthcare plans.
So, where has it all gone wrong?
Firstly, Mr Obama inherited many of his problems - most notably, a horrendous deficit, worsened by two costly foreign wars, and a recession which has sent the unemployment level soaring above 10%.
In fact, Mr Obama's approval figures compare favourably against President Reagan when the United States was gripped by a recession of the early 1980s.
President Reagan, of course, went on to win a second term and remained widely popular after the end of his tenure.
Going back to Mr Obama and it would be fair to say that he has hardly been helped by certain factions within his own party.
Many Democrats were upset that he beat Hillary Clinton to the candidacy in the first place. Some have demanded concession in return for supporting a now watered down healthcare bill.
It seems inexplicable that access to healthcare in the United States is not universal and that 30 million of its citizens have no health insurance.
Surely, treatment for injury or illness is a human right, not a privilege dependant on your wealth. Some Americans just don't seem to get it.
Mr Obama has been slated for the healthcare bill - derided as a Marxist even though this is patently not the case. To me, he is only trying to implement something which should have been in place decades ago.
Indeed, the ignorance regarding Mr Obama defies belief sometimes.
The Guardian's Gary Younge attended a public meeting and took an unscientific straw poll of 14 people in the coal-mining area of Lexington in Kentucky.
Younge writes: "Half believed Obama is a Muslim, just one thought he's a Christian and the overwhelming majority thought he was a communist, socialist and Marxist.
"None believe that he was born in America, most said they did not know."
Those views do not say much for the ability of the US media to get across even the most basic facts.
But why waste time doing that if it is going to cut into time used for forwarding their own agenda?
Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News, stridently right-wing and so naturally opposed to Mr Obama, are most guilty of this.
Some of its presenters, like Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, do not read the news but use the studio in prime-time to broadcast their views and rile public opinion.
Mr Obama was never going to win over these people, and he never will.
So far, this review has provided plenty of mitigating factors for the President but he must take a share of the blame himself.
Having been in the Senate for less than three years, many Democrats worried about Mr Obama's inexperience during his election campaign.
He certainly seems to have shown some naivety over how quickly he would be able to get his bills passed through House and Senate.
He has missed self-imposed deadlines on the healthcare bill and the closing of the Guantanamo Bay compound.
Frankly, at times, his deadline failures have made him come across as just another politician who cannot keep his promises.
Mr Obama deserves credit for realigning the United States more favourably on the worldwide stage after the divisive administration of President George W Bush.
Whereas President Bush refused to be part of the Kyoto agreement in cutting greenhouse gases, it was heartening to see the United States at the centre of the recent talks in Copenhagen.
But the Hollywood-style public appearances abroad have understandably irked Americans struggling with the recession.
Indeed, the adulation did become quite ludicrous when Mr Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize despite announcing that another 30,000 troops would be sent to Afghanistan.
Considering all this, it is important at this stage to remember that Mr Obama still has time to make a positive impression in his presidency.
Plenty of his predecessors have recovered from a slow start and, once the economy improves, his approval rating will increase again.
Even a compromise healthcare bill will give more security to the lives of millions of Americans while Mr Obama undoubtedly hopes the increase in troops will resolve the war in Afghanistan.
The Democrats may have disappointingly lost their Senate majority but Mr Obama still has plenty of cards in hand to make his a memorable presidency.
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