Darth Vader is more popular than President Barack Obama at the moment, but bad poll numbers are not a problem for Russian President Vladimir Putin in his home country.
In spite of — or because of?– the downing of Malaysian Airlines 17 by pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine and the mustering of thousands of troops near the Ukrainian border, a new poll shows that Putin has an approval rating of 87 percent, a record high for his administration.
The poll also found that 66 percent of Russians thought that their country was “moving in the right direction.” The poll was released by the Levada Center, a polling group that has repeatedly fought the Russian government for its independence.
To put this in perspective, Mashable reports that this rating is higher than that of all but two U.S. presidents. Both President George W. Bush and President George H.W. Bush enjoyed higher popularity ratings during portions of their presidencies.
On the other side of the world, however, Putin is not as popular.
Americans rate Putin less favorably than their own representatives. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that a mere 4 percent of Americans held a positive view of the Russian president. Some 68 percent of the population disapproves of him, a jump of five percentage points since March.
Congress is less popular than head lice, but at least they have better approval ratings than Putin. It’s also probably safe to say that Russians are looking for something different from their leader than Americans are.
