Obama poll rating down into the 50’s for the first time

President Barack Obama's approval rating is down into the 50's for the first time since he took office, according to a new poll by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press.

Obama has a 59 percent approval rating and a 26 percent disapproval rating in the poll, which quizzed 1,308 adults by phone (including 326 who were called on their cell phone) from March 9 to 12.

This is down from Pew's poll last month, which showed Obama with 64 percent approval and 17 percent disapproval.

But an interesting thing about the poll is that the number of people who view Obama as a conservative or moderate has gone up to 40 percent from 34 percent (he's viewed as a conservative by 14 percent in the latest poll, up from 11 percent).

The number of people who see Obama as liberal or very liberal has gone from 52 percent to 44 percent in the last month.

And the poll shows that people view the president as listening much more in the past month to liberal members of his party rather than moderates.

According to the Washington Times, Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, are hurting. They've got a 28 percent approval rating in the poll, their lowest score in almost 14 years of Pew surveys.