Barack Obama said at his first press conference as President-Elect that he hoped Americans would "put aside partisanship and politics" in order to deal with the challenges facing the country. But there was clearly a partisan divide in how Democrats and Republicans rated his first press conference according to a Rasmussen Reports poll conducted Nov. 7.
While overall, 52 percent of those surveyed thought Obama set the right tone in his remarks compared to 28 percent who did not, that margin depended on the 83 percent of Democrats who said so while only 24 percent of Republicans agreed. Forty-nine percent of Republicans said he did not set the right tone. Voters said by 53 percent to 44 percent that they were very or somewhat confident Obama and his team could deal with crisis, and Democrats and Republicans divided sharply again - 82 percent of Democrats expressed confidence compared to 23 percent of Republicans.
For respondents who did not identify with either party, 41 percent said Obama had set the right tone against 35 percent, while by a 50 percent to 45 percent margin, unaffiliated voters were not very or at all confident of Obama's ability to deal with crisis.
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