|
74% of Americans Pessimistic, Want Change
|
View this Thread in Original format
| MisterOpus1 |
Why does America hate America? Don't they know that Bush represents America better than anyone?:
| quote: | Poll Finds Americans Pessimistic, Want Change
War, Economy, Politics Sour Views of Nation's Direction
By Dan Balz and Jon Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 4, 2007; A01
One year out from the 2008 election, Americans are deeply pessimistic and eager for a change in direction from the agenda and priorities of President Bush, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Concern about the economy, the war in Iraq and growing dissatisfaction with the political environment in Washington all contribute to the lowest public assessment of the direction of the country in more than a decade. Just 24 percent think the nation is on the right track, and three-quarters said they want the next president to chart a course that is different than that pursued by Bush.
Overwhelmingly, Democrats want a new direction, but so do three-quarters of independents and even half of Republicans. Sixty percent of all Americans said they feel strongly that such a change is needed after two terms of the Bush presidency. |
How DARE those 50% of Republicans? I really didn't think there'd be so many traitors amongst the GOP party!!!
| quote: | | Dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq remains a primary drag on public opinion, and Americans are increasingly downcast about the state of the economy. More than six in 10 called the war not worth fighting, and nearly two-thirds gave the national economy negative marks. The outlook going forward is also bleak: About seven in 10 see a recession as likely over the next year. |
How dare those Americans! Don't they know how swimmingly things are going in Iraq now? That durn librul media just doesn't let up!!!
| quote: | The overall landscape tilts in the direction of the Democrats, but there is evidence in the new poll -- matched in conversations with political strategists in both parties and follow-up interviews with survey participants -- that the coming battle for the White House is shaping up to be another hard-fought, highly negative and closely decided contest.
At this point, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), the Democratic front-runner, holds the edge in hypothetical match-ups with four of the top contenders for the Republican nomination. But against the two best-known GOP candidates, former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), her margins are far from comfortable. Not one of the leading candidates in either party has a favorable rating above 51 percent in the new poll.
And while Clinton finds herself atop all candidates in terms of strong favorability -- in the poll, 28 percent said they feel strongly favorable toward her -- she also outpaces any other candidate on strong unfavorables. More than a third, 35 percent, have strongly negative views of her, more than 10 points higher than any other contender. |
Including myself.
| quote: | | Overall, the public's sour mood is evident not only in the desire for a change in direction but also in assessments of those who control the reins of power in Washington. For the fourth consecutive month, Bush's approval rating remains at a career low. Thirty-three percent said they approve of the job he is doing, and 64 percent disapprove. Majorities have disapproved of Bush's job performance for more than 2 1/2 years. |
What a winner.
| quote: | In follow-up interviews, people were quick to find fault with what they see in Washington and to express their desire for something different. "I think Bush has been extremely polarizing to the country," said Amber Welsh, a full-time mother of three young children who lives in Davis, Calif. "While I think it started before Bush, I think Bush has pushed it even further. I think the next president needs to be one who brings us together as a country."
Democrats can take little comfort in Bush's numbers, however. A year after voters turned Republicans out of power in the House and the Senate, approval of the Democratic-controlled Congress's performance is lower than the president's rating, registering just 28 percent. That is the lowest since November 1995, when Republicans controlled Congress and the capital was paralyzed in a budgetary fight that shut down the government.
Congressional Democrats now fare just slightly better. Only 36 percent of those surveyed approve of the way they are handling their jobs, down sharply from April when, 100 days into the new Congress, 54 percent said they approved.
Whatever their dissatisfaction with the Democrats, however, a majority of Americans, 54 percent, said they want the party to emerge from the 2008 election in control of Congress; 40 percent would prefer the GOP to retake power. One reason is that 32 percent approve of congressional Republicans, and in a series of other measures it becomes clear that the eventual Republican nominee for president may be burdened by a tarnished party label in the general election. |
Unsurprising about the Congressional Democrats. Their support has tumbled as a consequence of none other than Democratic voters being pissed off at their lack of spine (including myself). Conventional Beltway wisdom trumps either party most of the time, which does very little to help the rest of Americans.
| quote: | Thirty-nine percent of Americans said they now have a favorable impression of the Republican Party, lower than at any point since December 1998, when Republicans were in the midst of impeachment proceedings against then-President Bill Clinton.
Among the GOP rank and file, Republican favorability has fallen 15 percentage points since March 2006 (from 93 percent to 78 percent). It has dropped 19 points among independents, whose support for Democratic candidates in last year's midterm elections contributed significantly to GOP losses in the House and the Senate.
Only 23 percent of those surveyed said they want to keep going "in the direction Bush has been taking us," and the appetite for change is as high as it was in the summer of 1992, in the lead-up to Bill Clinton's defeat of President George H.W. Bush. It is significantly higher than it was in the summer of 2000 or the fall of 1988.
"We're in a terrible mess," said Jay Davis, who works on computers for an insurance company and lives in Portland, Maine. "The war is an incredible mistake, and it becomes more and more obvious. The economy is just being propped up with toothpicks."
Jo Wright, a retired Episcopal priest from Vinita, Okla., said, "It just seems that after these eight years most people think there's got to be a change, and I'm with them."
Greg Coy, a 911 dispatcher who lives in Shippensburg, Pa., is less pessimistic about the overall state of the country than Davis or Wright, but he is unhappy with both the president and Congress. He voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004, but he said: "If he came up again [for reelection], I wouldn't vote for him. The last year I think he's dropped something, and I'm not sure what it is."
Coy also offered a broader indictment of a political system he sees as gridlocked by partisanship. "Here's the problem with this country," he said. "Just because it's a Republican idea, Democrats don't like it, and because it's a Democratic idea, Republicans don't like it. The Congress should go with what works for this country. We have gotten away from that."
Justin Munro, a contractor from Reading, Pa., offered a less widely held view of Bush's policies and the direction of the country. "I'm pretty confident that time will prove that maybe going into Iraq was the right thing to do," he said. He also believes that Bush has not gotten enough credit on the economy: "I think we'll look back on that, too, and see that the tax cuts were the right thing to do."
At this stage, three issues dominate the electoral landscape, with the war in Iraq at the top of the list. Nearly half of all adults, 45 percent, cited Iraq as the most or second-most important issue in their choice for president. About three in 10 cited the economy and jobs (29 percent) or health care (27 percent). All other issues are in the single digits.
Iraq is tops across party lines, but Democrats are twice as likely as Republicans to highlight health care as one of the two most important issues for 2008 (34 percent to 16 percent). Health-care concerns peak among African Americans: Twenty percent called it the election's most important issue, and 38 percent said it is one of the top two.
While 12 percent of Republicans and 10 percent of independents cited immigration as one of the top two issues, it was highlighted by 3 percent of Democrats. Terrorism is also a more prominent concern among Republicans; 17 percent put it in their top two, while 3 percent of Democrats did the same.
The Democratic Party holds double-digit leads over the GOP as the party most trusted to handle the three most frequently cited issues for 2008: Iraq, health care and the economy. The Democratic advantages on immigration and taxes are narrower, and the parties are at rough parity on terrorism, once a major Republican strong point.
There are other signs suggesting that the political landscape has become less favorable to Republicans than it was at the beginning of Bush's presidency. By 50 percent to 44 percent, Americans said they favor smaller government with fewer services over bigger government with more services -- long a key Republican argument. But support for smaller government is significantly lower than it was before both the 2000 and 2002 elections.
In the new poll, support for allowing same-sex civil unions is up significantly from 2004. A majority of respondents, 55 percent, now support giving homosexual couples some of the legal rights of married heterosexuals.
There is a more even divide on another hot-button issue: Fifty-one percent would support a program giving illegal immigrants now living in the United States the right to live here legally if they pay a fine and meet other requirements; 44 percent would oppose that.
Strategists in both parties agree on the overall shape of the political landscape a year from the 2008 election, but they differ as to how voters will ultimately register their desire for change.
Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg said an electorate that took out its anger on Republicans a year ago remains mad, with the hostility still focused on the president's party.
Republican pollster Neil Newhouse said, "It is a political environment pretty heavily tilted toward the Democrats." One hope, he added, is that an early end to the GOP nominating battle will allow the winner time "to put the current administration in the rearview mirror, placing the focus on the nominee's candidacy and agenda."
Still, strategists on both sides foresee another close election. "The biggest dynamic is that people want change from the policies of the Bush administration," said Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton's chief strategist. But he added that "it's not a clear path" to victory for the Democrats, noting that no Democratic nominee has won 50 percent of the general-election vote since Jimmy Carter in 1976.
Stuart Stevens, a media adviser to former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, said no Republican candidate will argue next year that the country is in great shape, but he discounted the effectiveness of running against Bush in the fall of 2008. "A year from now, it's not going to be a referendum on President Bush, it's going to be a choice between two candidates," he said.
Much will happen in the coming months that could reshape the political climate. But at this point, in a matchup of current front-runners, Clinton and Giuliani are tightly paired: 50 percent of respondents would support Clinton, 46 percent Giuliani. Against McCain, Clinton has a clearer edge, 52 percent to 43 percent. She has even larger advantages over former senator Fred D. Thompson of Tennessee (16 points) and Romney (18 points), both of whom remain undefined in the eyes of many voters.
In each of these potential contests, Clinton has a big edge among women. In a head-to-head with Giuliani, 56 percent of women would back Clinton, and 40 percent would vote for Giuliani. By contrast, men would tilt toward Giuliani 51 percent to 44 percent.
Independents, who fueled the Democratic takeover of Congress last November, are evenly divided, 47 percent for Clinton, 46 percent for Giuliani. The split is one indicator that, despite current Democratic advantages and an electorate strongly oriented toward change, the 2008 election is likely to be closely and hotly contested.
The Post-ABC poll was conducted by telephone Oct. 29 to Nov. 1 among a random sample of 1,131 adults, and includes additional interviews with randomly selected African Americans for a total of 203 black respondents. The results from the full poll have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...ml?hpid=topnews |
Just clap harder. It always works for me. |
|
|
| Krypton |
| I find people like latinlover very dangerous to this country. People who give the government 100% benefit of the doubt, they are nothing more than lambs waiting for the slaughter. The founding fathers always knew that the only thing that can take away our freedom is ourselves. If you neocons want to give up your rights so you can protected from an enemy we created ourselves, then be my guest. But I'll fight you tooth and nail to prevent it. |
|
|
| Krypton |
2007 is on route to become to deadliest year for Americans in Iraq... You can't fix a political situation with military force. Sun Tzu would probably be laughing his ass off at our follies... The civilians may be just a bit more safer, but without a cohesive government, it will all fall apart as soon as the Americans leave.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2007 toll nears highest for US in Iraq
By LAUREN FRAYER, Associated Press Writer 2 minutes ago
BAGHDAD - With just under two months left in the year, 2007 is on course to be the deadliest year on record for American forces in Iraq, despite a recent sharp drop in U.S. deaths.
At least 847 American military personnel have died in Iraq so far this year — the second-highest annual toll since the war began in March 2003, according to Associated Press figures.
In 2004, the bloodiest year of the war for the U.S. so far, 850 American troops died. Most were killed in large, conventional battles like the campaign to cleanse Fallujah of Sunni militants in November, and U.S. clashes with Shiite militiamen in the sect's holy city of Najaf in August.
But the American military in Iraq has increased its exposure this year, reaching 165,000 troops — the highest levels yet. Moreover, the military's decision to send soldiers out of large bases and into Iraqi communities means more troops have seen more "contact with enemy forces" than ever before, said Maj. Winfield Danielson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad.
"It's due to the troop surge, which allowed us to go into areas that were previously safe havens for insurgents," Danielson said. "Having more soldiers, and having them out in the communities, certainly contributes to our casualties."
Last spring, U.S. platoons took up positions — often in abandoned houses or in muddy, half-collapsed police stations — in the heart of neighborhoods across Baghdad and nearby communities. The move was part of President Bush's new strategy to drive al-Qaida from the capital.
The idea was to fight the "three-block war" — in the words of the Pentagon counterinsurgency manual written in part by America's commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus — by embedding U.S. forces inside Iraqi communities in order to win the trust and, crucially, the aid of residents.
It was the first time many residents had seen U.S. troops up close, rather than whizzing by in armored convoys en route to huge bases that house thousands of troops. And it was the first time many U.S. troops went to bed each night outside those fortresses, to the sounds of Iraqi life: gunfire, the roar of helicopters overhead and an occasional explosion.
The move has worked, U.S. officials say. Increasingly, the sounds of Baghdad include children playing in the streets.
"It's allowed Iraqi civilians to get more comfortable with U.S. forces — increasing the number of tips we get from Iraqi citizens," Danielson said. "That leads us to insurgent leaders and cells, and cleaning those up has led to a decline in violence over the past couple months."
Stationing U.S. troops in communities, where they have reduced the level of Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence, also appears to have helped win the trust of the leaders of Shiite and Sunni communities. And that has helped the U.S. persuade those leaders to join the fight against radical groups, especially al-Qaida in Iraq.
The U.S. troop increase also put pressure on anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who called a formal cease-fire in August. That, it appears, has slashed the number of mutilated bodies discovered on the banks of the Tigris River and other dump sites each day, the apparent victims of sectarian murders.
At least 1,023 Iraqi civilians died in September, but in October, that figure was just 875.
On average, 56 Iraqis — civilians and security forces — have died each day in 2007. Twenty were killed or found dead on Sunday, including an aide to the finance minister, who was ambushed in Baghdad. Twelve of the deaths were in volatile Diyala province, including an Iraqi soldier, a policeman and an 8-year-old child, all killed separately.
But the same strategy that U.S. military officials say has reduced violence so sharply in recent months is what made 2007 so deadly for American forces.
Small patrol bases make attractive targets for insurgents. In April, nine U.S. soldiers were killed and 20 wounded when two suicide truck bombers rammed into their building in the heart of Diyala, northeast of Baghdad.
It was the deadliest attack on U.S. troops in Iraq in a year and a half.
U.S. troops ventured out on Iraq's roads more frequently in 2007, and insurgents responded by building larger, more powerful and more difficult to detect roadside bombs. On a single day in June, the military announced the deaths of 14 troops, most killed by such explosions.
Diyala's provincial capital, Baqouba, was planted with so many hidden explosive devices that some streets were declared off-limits to U.S. military vehicles.
Today, many places where U.S. troops did not dare venture last year are relatively quiet. Anbar Province, once the heart of the Iraqi insurgency, is now one of the country's most peaceful areas.
Approaching the year's end — more than four months after U.S. forces completed the 30,000-strong force buildup — the monthly death toll among Americans and Iraqis has fallen dramatically.
The number of U.S. troop deaths dropped from 65 to 36 in the same period, according to statistics kept by the AP. That's the lowest monthly toll of American deaths this year. |
|
|
| DJ Shibby |
| quote: | Originally posted by Krypton
I find people like latinlover very dangerous to this country. People who give the government 100% benefit of the doubt, they are nothing more than lambs waiting for the slaughter. The founding fathers always knew that the only thing that can take away our freedom is ourselves. If you neocons want to give up your rights so you can protected from an enemy we created ourselves, then be my guest. But I'll fight you tooth and nail to prevent it. |
There's no way he's old enough to vote. He's not dangerous to anyone except maybe himself, but annoying on the other hand.... :rolleyes: |
|
|
| josh4 |
| quote: | Originally posted by MisterOpus1
Why does America hate America? Don't they know that Bush represents America better than anyone?:
How DARE those 50% of Republicans? I really didn't think there'd be so many traitors amongst the GOP party!!!
How dare those Americans! Don't they know how swimmingly things are going in Iraq now? That durn librul media just doesn't let up!!!
Including myself.
What a winner.
Unsurprising about the Congressional Democrats. Their support has tumbled as a consequence of none other than Democratic voters being pissed off at their lack of spine (including myself). Conventional Beltway wisdom trumps either party most of the time, which does very little to help the rest of Americans.
Just clap harder. It always works for me. |
Its depressing that so many people still approve of this bull. Who the are these morons? |
|
|
| Lebezniatnikov |
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll. Sept. 25-26, 2007. N=900 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 3.
"Do you approve or disapprove of the job the United Nations is doing?"
Approve 34%
Disapprove 48%
Unsure 18%
Pew Poll. 10/17-23/07.
Presidential Approval Rating.
Approve 30%
Disapprove: 63%
Unsure: 7%
lol.
And I wonder how many people who disapprove of the UN really know what the United Nations actuall encompasses. |
|
|
| d-miurge |
| quote: | Originally posted by MisterOpus1
Why does America hate America? Don't they know that Bush represents America better than anyone?:
How DARE those 50% of Republicans? I really didn't think there'd be so many traitors amongst the GOP party!!!
How dare those Americans! Don't they know how swimmingly things are going in Iraq now? That durn librul media just doesn't let up!!!
Including myself.
What a winner.
Unsurprising about the Congressional Democrats. Their support has tumbled as a consequence of none other than Democratic voters being pissed off at their lack of spine (including myself). Conventional Beltway wisdom trumps either party most of the time, which does very little to help the rest of Americans.
Just clap harder. It always works for me. |
Sarcasm detector ON |
|
|
| Shakka |
Hey Opus,
Has it ever crossed your mind that Dubya is just a tool of the Cllntons to ensure Hillary's victory in '08? |
|
|
| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Shakka
Hey Opus,
Has it ever crossed your mind that Dubya is just a tool of the Cllntons to ensure Hillary's victory in '08? |
You really know how to hit a guy where it hurts!
How's the family?
And are you guys gonna have enough water out there for Christ's sakes? |
|
|
| Shakka |
| quote: | Originally posted by MisterOpus1
You really know how to hit a guy where it hurts!
How's the family?
And are you guys gonna have enough water out there for Christ's sakes? |
The family is good, the yard is starved (but going dormant for the winter)...it's just one thing after another I tell ya! I think we have about 50 days of water left if you believe what you read. My father-in-law is considering digging a friggin' well on his property. Wild times. |
|
|
| LazFX |
| quote: | Originally posted by Shakka
The family is good, the yard is starved (but going dormant for the winter)...it's just one thing after another I tell ya! I think we have about 50 days of water left if you believe what you read. My father-in-law is considering digging a friggin' well on his property. Wild times. |
Man I hope it pours for you guys ...... have some kin folk over in your area and they are just about to pack up and head over to Texas.... |
|
|
| Zild |
| Damn you really are from Texas if you say things like 'kin folk'. |
|
|
|
|
