Those nice people over at the reliable Mitofsky ratings agency in Mexico have put together their regular "poll of polls" for leaders in the Americas (I'd say 'Presidents', but Harpo is there) as at the end of 2009. Here's the chart (click it to make it bigger), below some comments:
Martinelli and Funes top the bill, but both are still early into their terms and enjoying that honeymoon period.
- Lula is Yoda.
- 'Chelle (Chile) and Tabby (Uruguay) are now wrapping up their very successful terms and both should be congratulated on good jobs done.
- Uribe (Colombia) is still popular but has been dropping all through the year, his attempt to muscle in on the May elections largely to blame.
- Evo (Bolivia) and Felipe (Mexico) batting well enough and Lugo (Paraguay) at 50% doing just enough to get a green.
- The Hawaiian (USA) under 50% already? That didn't take long, did it?
- Studmuffin (Ecuador) has seen a sharp drop in 2009, a lot due to the electricity crisis late year but the unemployment inertia is to blame too.
- The ones in red? Yep, totally agree. All of them "ugh".
Finally, you'll note that Hugo Chávez doesn't make the list. Mitofsky doesn't cover him in its poll of polls, probably because they like to be accurate and the polls that come out of Venezuela show wild differences. For example, the latest December numbers for Chávez from pro-gov't pollsters IVAD have him at 60.3% while the pro-oppo Datanalisis guys have him as low as 46.3% for exactly the same time period. I wonder why.........