Americans Feel Good About Military, Church, Presidency, Small Business

By CQ-Roll Call Staff | June 24, 2009 8:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is a picture that Norman Rockwell could have painted: an America with high confidence in the American military, in the police, in the church, in the presidency, and in small business.

In a new Gallup poll, the military drew an 82 percent confidence rating, similar to previous spikes in public approval during the 1991 Gulf War and the early stages of the war in Iraq. Confidence in small business ranked high with 67 percent of the people polled, followed by the police at 59 percent and organized religion at 52 percent. The presidency, which was at a low ebb of approval at the end of the Bush administration, evoked confidence among 51 percent of the people responding to the poll.

"Public confidence in the presidency has risen by 25 points over the past year, exceeding the 11-point increase in confidence in the military," Gallup said in explaining its findings. "The percentage of Americans saying they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the presidency has in fact doubled since June 2008, from 26 percent to 51 percent."

Doing not so well in the public confidence game were newspapers (25 percent), TV news (23 percent), banks (22 percent), organized labor (19 percent), Congress (17 percent) and big business (16 percent).

"The near-collapse of U.S. financial markets last fall and recent bankruptcies within the auto industry are obviously key contributors to reduced confidence in big business and banks," Gallup said. "The increased confidence Americans show toward small business may simply be the natural result of contrasting small business with big business."

The poll was conducted by telephone interviews with 1,011 adults nationwide June 14-17. It carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

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