New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in proposing a city-wide ban on the sale of large sodas and sweetened drinks, stumbled upon a policy more unpopular than Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Sixty-five percent of American adults oppose the ban, according to a new Rasmussen survey. Sixty-one percent of Americans had a somewhat-to-very unfavorable view of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the former KGB officer widely-regarded as perpetrating election fraud in the last election, in a Rasmussen survey conducted in March.

Bloomberg called critics "ridiculous" when responding to the backlash against his ban last week. "I look across this country, and people are obese, and everybody wrings their hands, and nobody's willing to do something about it," he said.

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Strong majorities of Americans oppose such efforts to influence their eating choices. "Support for so-called 'sin taxes' on junk food and soft drinks is at its lowest level yet," Rasmussen reported in a poll released yesterday, as he found that 63 percent of Americans oppose the 'sin taxes' on unhealthy foodor beverages.

A silver lining for Bloomberg: More people support his ban (24 percent) than approve of Putin (15 percent). For Putin, though, 23 percent of Americans have no opinion; just 11 percent of Americans are undecided about the large soda ban.