WASHINGTON ��" Fewer Americans believe the presidency of Barack Obama, the first African American elected to the White House, has helped advance race relations compared with a year ago, a Washington Post-ABC News poll suggests. The poll, published on the US holiday commemorating civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., found 41 per cent now say Obama's presidency has helped race relations, compared with 58 per cent on the eve of Obama's inauguration a year ago who said his presidency would help race relations. The decline was the sharpest among African Americans, with 51 per cent now saying Obama has helped advance race relations, compared with 75 per cent who, last January, said they expected Obama's presidency to help. The poll was conducted by telephone from January 12 to 15 among a random sample of 1,083 adults, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. For the 153 African Americans polled, the margin of error was 8 percentage points. One year ago, Obama came into office with soaring approval ratings as the US struggled with two difficult wars against terror and a deepening recession. Americans, it seemed, put great stock in their new leader. One year later, the president's approval ratings have plummeted to 50 per cent, down from 64 per cent shortly after he took office, according to the latest USA Today. "Obama also has had trouble fulfilling some top campaign promises, such as closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The public is split over a key goal: passing health care legislation. Efforts at the bipartisanship he promised have withered," one US analyst wrote in the USA Today. Obama's advisors are devising ways to revive his political prospects and rebuild the coalition that propelled him into office, but the overriding question for 2010 is: Can President Obama rebound? Rahm Emanuel, the White House' chief of staff, told The New York Times that Obama “considers his speech in Cairo to the Islamic world in Junecentral to his efforts to combat terrorism”. Obama said in his June 4 speech in Cairo University: America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles, principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings. The President must pursue a more targeted agenda in his sophomore year, Democratic politicians and strategists said. Healthcare proved an untimely detour, and some said the White House can't afford another one.
