Are Charlie's poll numbers hitting the skids?

The man who ran President Barack Obama's successful presidential campaign in Florida has crunched the numbers in the state's high-profile U.S. Senate race and come up with a bold prediction:

Charlie Crist, the state's governor and a no-party candidate, will not win.

In a blog post published Aug. 31, 2010, Democratic operative Steven Schale said Marco Rubio is amassing enough of the Republican vote to keep Crist out of the U.S. Senate. But that's not Crist's biggest hurdle, Schale wrote.

"The bigger problem is (Crist) is falling into the same place as many other long time office holders: his personal approval numbers are plummeting," wrote Schale, who is supporting but not working for Democrat Kendrick Meek. "He no longer has that deep well of cross party lines personal support built up that allows him to transcend normal political divides. Instead, he now has to block and tackle like everyone else. In this political environment, absent some significant and unfortunate event that would thrust him back into the spotlight, the odds of him finding 15-20 points of political approval in the next nine weeks are slim, at best."

Schale's message has been spread by both Democrats and Republicans on the Internet. We wanted to see if it was true. Are Crist's personal approval ratings plummeting?

Read our analysis here.