Americans approve of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president by 63 percent to 22 percent and by large margins they believe that he is trying to work with Republicans more than Republicans are trying to work with him, according to a New York Times/CBS News Poll conducted Feb. 18-22. The findings were in line with polls released today by Washington Post/ABC News and Gallup.
Seventy-seven percent were generally optimistic about the next four years under an Obama administration, 65 percent said Obama had the same priorities for the country that they did and 53 percent believe Obama cares about their problems "a lot" with another 30 percent saying he does "some."
Nearly three-quarters of those polled say Obama was trying to work with Republicans to get things done compared to 31 percent who said Republicans were trying to work with Obama. When the same question was asked about whether Democrats in Congress were trying to work with Republicans, 45 percent said they were and 43 percent said they weren't. Fifty-six percent said it was more important for Obama to stick to his policies than work with Republicans in a bipartisan way while 79 percent wanted Republicans to work with Obama than stick to their guns.
Asked about all the kinds of problems Americans were facing because of the economy, 40 percent named jobs and unemployment and all other economic woes were in single digits. After the economy, 40 percent said they wanted Obama and Congress to focus on health care, 27 percent said education and 22 percent named Social Security. On foreign policy, respondents put equal emphasis on Iraq and Afghanistan.
While 76 percent were very or somewhat confident in Obama's ability to make the right decisions about the economy, a far lesser margin of 56 percent to 40 percent said they had a good understanding of his economic plans.
Sixteen percent said it would take Obama a year to make real progress on the economy, 30 percent said two years, 29 percent said three to four years and 11 percent said more than four years.
On other issues:
- Seventy-eight percent said it was very or somewhat important to withdraw most U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months.
- A plurality (42 percent) said U.S. forces in Afghanistan should be increased, as Obama has ordered, 23 percent said troop levels should stay the same and 24 percent said they should be decreased.
- Fifty-eight percent say they do not think it necessary that Congress investigate the Bush administration for alleged wrongdoing on issues like treatment of detainees, wiretaps, or past Justice Department actions.
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Comments
Since Republicans can't get their numbers up by appealing outside their hardcore base, they have only 1 option - attack and obstruct Obama in order to drive down his numbers. It will be interesting to see if this tactic works again this time.
Posted by: billp
| February 24, 2009 2:02 AM
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