CHICAGO (CBS)  If there is any place President Obama is going to get the benefit of the doubt, it's here in his hometown. Yet public opinion polls show that even here, confidence has slipped. Though they're a bit hesitant to talk about it.

When one resident was asked how Mr. Obama was doing, the answer was not very convincing.

"Don't ask me that question."

On Monday the president was just 90 miles away in Milwaukee, unveiling yet another $50 billion infrastructure improvement package. That's in addition to what's already underway in Chicago and around the nation.

"Our infrastructure's pathetic; especially the railroads," said Chicagoan Paul Keck, adding the money would be well spent to improve things like roads, bridges and railways.

Tonight CBS 2 spoke with people power shopping the Magnificent Mile, relaxing in Bucktown and stocking up at a South Side supermarket.

"You have to consider where we were," Chicagoan T'oni Gray said, "He walked into an office that was already messed up."

Illinois residents polled by the Chicago Tribune indicate that while 62 percent voted for him in 2008, and 59 percent approved of the job he was doing a year ago, his approval rating here has now fallen to 51 percent.

Though it's hard to get people here to criticize him.

"I'm not goin' there; he's our president," Irving Jacobson said. "You gotta stand behind him."

But when pressed a bit, he added: "I don't like the programs he's putting through."

Why not?

"Because I don't think it's going to lead to things getting better for anyone, anytime soon."

While the stimulus program unveiled Monday won't produce any new jobs for months, we found people who say they owe their jobs his efforts. Keisha found a new job, Corey was called back to his.

"They brought everybody back," Corey said. "They're hiring more people," added Keisha.

In Milwaukee today, the president criticized Republicans, who've already pledged to fight his new plan.

"Hopefully, Washington will decide to work together instead of fighting each other," Sonia Vega, visiting from Minnesota, said, "And that they'll remember they're working for us and that they should be trying to help us and not each other."

People we spoke with are sick and tired of partisan battles in Washington. They understand President Obama didn't create the crisis; he inherited it. But they wish his policies would yield results, sooner. What they don't agree on is when, or if, they will.

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There you have it Barry: just barely 51% of Chicagoland is desperately clinging to the myth that it's all Bush's fault and you inherited everything that's wrong with anything, anywhere. But the trend is down, the belief in your magic is slipping inevitably away.

I've been to Chicago. Al Capone is still a celebrated tourist attraction. You're going to be "that asshole president who wasn't actually from here anyway, he was from Hawaii or Africa or someplace like that".

Thomas Wolfe wrote a book called "You Can't Go Home Again". You should read it. He was a real smart guy, he went to Harvard too. That was back in the days when one got into Harvard with brains, not ethnicity.