I took the poll...sm

The messages you are viewing are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select the boards given in left menu

PRINCETON, NJ -- Americans' job approval rating of Congress is up an additional 8 points this month, after a 12-point increase last month, and now stands at 39% -- the most positive assessment of Congress since February 2005.

0ht92lp5mko26m1teo2spw

Americans who identify themselves as Democrats are mostly responsible for the improved ratings of Congress measured in the March 5-8 Gallup Poll. After showing a 25-point increase in their approval of Congress from January to February and a further 14-point increase in March, a majority of Democrats (57%) now approve of the job the Democratically-controlled Congress is doing. Independents also show improved ratings of Congress, but not nearly to the extent that Democrats do. Republicans' evaluations of Congress have changed very little this year.

ppzjbmzq3kojg7bmohawxw

Quick Turnaround

Even though Congress' job approval rating is still low on an absolute basis, the recent ratings represent a quick turnaround from the historically low ratings of 2008. Last year, on average, only 19% of Americans approved of the job Congress was doing -- one of the three lowest yearly congressional approval averages in Gallup records dating back to 1974, along with 1979 (19%) and 1992 (18%).

In January of this year, Congress' job approval rating among remained low at 19%, before jumping to 31% in February after the change in presidential administrations from Republican George W. Bush to Democrat Barack Obama. But this month brings an even more positive evaluation of Congress, with 39% of Americans now approving.

The latest increase suggests the reason for the improved ratings of Congress in 2009 may go beyond simply the change from split control to one-party control of the federal government, to include an assessment of the work Congress has been doing with the new president on the economy and other issues.

Such an explanation seems plausible given that a majority of Democrats now approve of the job Congress is doing, and that the gap between Democratic and Republican approval of Congress is growing, as Congress passes and President Obama signs laws to deal with the economy and other issues that largely follow a Democratic philosophy of governing.

Even though the Democratic Party had majority control of both houses of Congress in 2007-2008, it was able to achieve little of its legislative agenda while Republican Bush remained in the White House. This lack of results may have soured Democrats' opinions of Congress. During this time, rank-and-file Democrats' approval ratings of Congress sank to as low as 11% in July 2008, after starting out near 40% shortly after the party took control of Congress in early 2007.

z8zawoaajuqcaodtozho0a

Now that the strengthened Democratic-controlled Congress is able to pass most of what it wants with little or no help from Republicans, and can count on the president to sign it into law, rank-and-file Democrats hold Congress in much greater esteem. The 57% approval rating for Congress among Democrats is the best the party has given the institution since March 2002, when Congress' job approval scores were at historical highs in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Survey Methods

Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,012 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted March 5-8, 2009. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is �3 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

This not only applies to the discussion below but also any wrong behavior such as stealing, murder, rape, or any one of the other blights on the face of mankind. Please explain your answer citing whatever source of information supports your argument.

Asked whether former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, 52 percent said he was not, but 43 percent said they believe he was. The White House has denied Hussein's 9/11 involvement -- most recently in a news conference August 21, when President Bush said Hussein had nothing to do with the attacks.

Who will get the Democratic nomination, and who will that person pick for a running mate?

Who will get the Republican nomination, and who will that person pick as a running mate?

Winner gets a 22K gold-plated crystal ball, and the top position on Wall Street..!!!l

Sarah Palin has made a good first impression. Before being named as John McCain�s running mate, 67% of voters didn�t know enough about the Alaska governor to have an opinion. After her debut in Dayton and a rush of media coverage, a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that 53% now have a favorable opinion of Palin while just 26% offer a less flattering assessment.

Palin earns positive reviews from 78% of Republicans, 26% of Democrats and 63% of unaffiliated voters. Obviously, these numbers will be subject to change as voters learn more about her in the coming weeks. Among all voters, 29% have a Very Favorable opinion of Palin while 9% hold a Very Unfavorable view.

In the new survey, 35% of voters say the selection of Palin makes them more likely to vote for McCain while 33% say they are less likely to do so. Most Republicans say they are more likely to vote for Palin and most Democrats say the opposite. As for voters not affiliated with either major party, 37% are more likely to vote for McCain and 28% less likely to do so. Those numbers are a bit more positive than initial reaction to Biden.

After McCain's announcement, Clinton issued a statement saying, "We should all be proud of Governor Sarah Palin's historic nomination, and I congratulate her and Senator McCain. While their policies would take America in the wrong direction, Governor Palin will add an important new voice to the debate." Palin is now viewed favorably by 48% of women. That figure includes 80% of Republican women, 23% of Democratic women, and 61% of women not affiliated with either major party.

Polls are what they are and change like people change socks. However, these are good preliminary numbers. Time will tell how it all plays out.

I am encouraged by the responses to this poll. I think that SOME Republicans and those who support McCain/Palin are sincere in their beliefs the same as supporters of Obama/Biden are sincere in their beliefs. Those who just said "McCain" don't appear to have any reason other than I would assume, that he is the Republican candidate. There were also those who had reasons but then referred back to the rumors and repeated the charges of Marxist, Socialist, etc. etc.

What has heartened me is I am convinced we are all AMERICANS first and we all love our country. I alwo believe that "we the people" will come together after this horrible election and raise our voices until ALL politicians listen to us. That is my HOPE.

I know some certain people were voting over and over for McCain. Well where are all the Palin lovers now? Eating crow?

3 different criteria based on verifiable facts were used: Convicted public officials, conviction per million residents per year and reporter scores. Illinois failed to make even the top 5, coming in at 7, 22 and 10 respectively.

(a) aggressively lay out their agenda, which includes backing of security recommendations of the Sept. 11 Commission, a pay-as-you-go budgeting plan to end deficit spending and for deeper restrictions on lobbying activities.

(b) Wait and allow the republicans party finish demonstrating their failures, i.e., rising gas prices, war policies, etc.

I was reading the article below and thought I'd ask the liberals for their point of view.

DAVID SWANSON is a co-founder of After Downing Street, a writer and activist, and the Washington Director of Democrats.com. He is a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, and serves on the Executive Council of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, TNG-CWA. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including Press Secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign, Media Coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as Communications Coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Swanson obtained a Master's degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia in 1997.

After four years of war in Iraq, the journalists reporting from that country give their coverage a mixed but generally positive assessment, but they believe they have done a better job of covering the American military and the insurgency than they have the lives of ordinary Iraqis. And they do not believe the coverage of Iraq over time has been too negative. If anything, many believe the situation over the course of the war has been worse than the American public has perceived, according to a new survey of journalists covering the war from Iraq.

Above all, the journalists�most of them veteran war correspondents�describe conditions in Iraq as the most perilous they have ever encountered, and this above everything else is influencing the reporting. A majority of journalists surveyed (57%) report that at least one of their Iraqi staff had been killed or kidnapped in the last year alone�and many more are continually threatened. �Seven staffers killed since 2003, including three last July,� one bureau chief wrote with chilling brevity. �At least three have been kidnapped. All were freed.�

A majority of journalists surveyed say most of the country is too dangerous to visit. Nine out of ten say that about at least half of Baghdad itself. Wherever they go, traveling with armed guards and chase vehicles is the norm for more than seven out of ten surveyed.

Even the basics of getting the story are remarkably difficult. Outside of the heavily-fortified Green Zone, most U.S. journalists must rely on local staff to do the necessary face-to-face reporting. Yet nearly nine out of ten journalists say their local staff cannot carry any equipment�not even a notebook�that might identify them as working for the western media for fear of being killed. Some local staffers do not even tell their own families.

Most journalists also have a positive view of the U.S. military�s embedding program for reporters. While they acknowledge the limited perspective it provides, they believe it offers access to information they could not otherwise get.

And most journalists, eight out of ten, feel that, over time, conditions for telling the story of Iraq have gotten worse, not better.

The survey, conducted by the Project for Excellence in Journalism from September 28 through November 7, was developed to get a sense of the conditions journalists have faced in trying to cover the war over the last couple of years. It was not designed to poll their sense of the situation in Iraq at this one or any other particular moment in time, or to offer a referendum on the success of the surge. It will be followed, later this year, with a content analysis of coverage on the ground from Iraq.

The survey included responses from 111 journalists who have worked or are currently working in Iraq. The vast majority, 90 of them, were in Iraq when they took the survey or have worked there in 2007, and most have spent at least seven months in the country cumulatively since the war began.

The journalists are from 29 different news organizations (all of them U.S. based except for one) that have had staff in Iraq�including newspapers, wire services, magazines, radio, and network and cable TV. This represents, by best estimates, every news organization in the U.S. save one that has had a correspondent in Iraq for at least one month since January 2006.¹

Nearly everyone surveyed also responded to open-ended questions � often at length � offering a vivid and sobering portrait of trying to report an extraordinarily difficult story under terrifying conditions.

�The dangers can�t be overstated,� one print journalist wrote. �It�s been an ambush � two staff killed, one wounded � various firefights, and our �home� has been rocked and mortared (by accident, I�m pretty sure). It�s not fun; it�s not safe, but I go back because it needs to be told.�

Whatever the problems, a magazine reporter offered, �The press�.have carried out the classic journalistic mission of bearing witness.�

�Welcome to the new world of journalism, boys and girls. This is where we lost our innocence. Security teams, body armor and armored cars will forever now be pushed in between journalism and stories,� one bureau chief declared.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism, which is non-partisan and non-political, is one of eight projects that make up the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C., a �fact tank� funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Princeton Survey Research was contracted to host and administer the online survey.

Here is the link for the full results: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-08-30-palin-poll_N.htm

Essentially she has given McCain a bit of a boost, but no more boost than Biden gave Obama. I found the polling of Democrat women/HRC supporters to be amusing, considering what I think the McCain was hoping to accomplish:

Among Democratic women � including those who may be disappointed that New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton did not win the Democratic nomination � 9% say Palin makes them more likely to support McCain, 15% less likely.