The newest Gallup poll contains bad news for GOPers who plan to hold Tea Party protests throughout the country in the form of a double whammy:
1. Americans most trust President Barack Obama on the economy.
2. Independent voters — the ones needed to win elections and who have joined with Democrats in creating a coalition that gives Obama widespread support in polls — overwhelmingly trust Obama on the economy.
Over two-thirds of Americans — 71% — have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence in President Obama to do or recommend the right thing for the economy, a much higher level of confidence than is given to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, or the Democratic or Republican leaders in Congress.
These results, from a new April 6-9 Gallup Poll, show that President Obama continues to be the individual upon whom Americans are most willing to bestow their confidence when it comes to the economy.
Americans’ confidence in Obama on the economy is roughly similar to the confidence rating the public gave to President George W. Bush in April 2001, then in his initial quarter of governing, as is the case now for Obama. Obama gets slightly higher “a great deal of confidence” ratings than did Bush, while Bush received a slightly higher “fair amount” rating. In 2002 and 2003, Bush’s ratings were similar to Obama’s now. By April of 2008, his last year in office, Bush’s overall confidence ratings on the economy had dropped to just 34%. (At that time, however, his overall job approval ratings had also dropped below 30%.)
The other two tidbits that are politically significant are these:
Obama gets almost universal confidence from Democrats, two-thirds support from independents, and just over one-third confidence from Republicans.
And:
….Democrats have more faith in their leaders than Republicans do in theirs. Seventy-nine percent of Democrats say they have confidence in the Democratic leaders in Congress on the economy. Although this is lower than the confidence Democrats have in Obama, it is higher than the 57% confidence rating Republicans give the Republican leaders in Congress.
The latter number could perhaps reflect the fact that not all Republicans agree with the conservative talk radio political culture that increasingly influences the stances and statements of some Republican Congressional leaders.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.