Bloomberg Poll: Americans Gloomy As Many Increasingly See It On Wrong Track
A new Bloomberg poll finds that Americans are increasingly gloomy and a growing number of Americans are losing the brief boost of optimism many had after the election of President Barack Obama: the “wrong track” number is growing.
Americans have grown gloomier about both the economy and the nation’s direction over the past three months even as the U.S. shows signs of moving from recession to recovery.
Almost half the people now feel less financially secure than when President Barack Obama took office in January, a Bloomberg National Poll shows.….. The economy is the country’s top concern, with persistently high unemployment the greatest threat the public sees. Eight of 10 Americans rate joblessness a high risk to the economy in the next two years, outranking the federal budget deficit, which is cited by 7 of 10. An increase in taxes is named as a high risk by almost 6 of 10.
Fewer than 1 in 3 Americans think the economy will improve in the next six months. They are pessimistic that the government will succeed in reducing unemployment or lowering the budget deficit.
A year into Obama’s presidency, only 32 percent of poll respondents believe the country is headed in the right direction, down from 40 percent who said so in September.
That’s a danger sign for the Obama and the Demmies….as is this:
The mood among members of Obama’s own Democratic Party has shifted most dramatically: While Democrats remain the most positive, the proportion saying the country is on the right track dropped to 58 percent from 71 percent in September. Among independents, 26 percent say the country is on the right track, down from 29 percent in September.
This could be at least part of the reason why there is a big spurt of energy in the Senate to find some kind of compromise on health care reform. Apart from the very real, substantive and compelling health care reform issue, the Democrats know that they have to deliver — and deliver soon — on something given the fact that although the battered economy seems to be slowly healing, it’s healing very slowly and the job scene remains bleak.
My DD’s Jonathan Singer points to two polls and notes that part of Obama’s poll erosion is due to losing the support of some disappointed Democratic voters.
15 Responses to “Bloomberg Poll: Americans Gloomy As Many Increasingly See It On Wrong Track”
I feel like the country is going through something of a post-partum depression, or a post-marriage slump. You know, when something you've wished for and you've worked hard on finally happens, just as you'd hoped and dreamed, and while there's a great deal of satisfaction in some parts of the result, and while you know intellectually that it's a worthwhile endevor, there's something intimidating about the years of dirty diapers followed by the terrible twos and, gosh, what about the long run? Will what you're doing now mean that 15 years down the line you've made a person who can take car of hirself and be a good person? Or will ze be a little jerk?
Well who wouldn't be gloomy? I imagine the poll is more a reflection of disappointment over trends in general (that started long before 2008) than over Obama in particular – although some expectations may have been unrealistic. I wonder how those numbers would look if McCain/Palin had been elected? Romney? Huckabee? We can ony imagine…
Well, then imagine this tidbit, JSpencer…….
“Perhaps the greatest measure of Obama's declining support is that just 50% of voters now say they prefer having him as President to George W. Bush, with 44% saying they'd rather have his predecessor.”
6% more and we can deliver you a Christmas present your liberal heart could barely imagine was possible!
Yup, the country is in a crappy mood, but if you imagine that would be remedied by replacing Obama with one of the people who ignored the decline for years in favor of making an idiotic war their centerpiece then you haven't been paying attention. My point is this: The public mood goes way beyond partisanship, something so-called “conservatives” are still struggling to figure out. So who do you think could possible have better poll numbers give the present SOTU? Good luck finding a hero, there are men and women.
Sarah Palin
The Palin Presidency, the main stream media would be to busy kissing her ass and checking out her wardrobe to actually notice what policies her handlers would be pursuing, the right would be in the White house therefor Budget Deficits and other such minor issues would be just fine, especially if she had the good taste to start a war with an Oil rich state in the Middle-East. The only ones complaining would be those damn pointy headed-liberals, and who listens to those dirty stinking hippies? It would make the Bush Presidency look like a model of good governance.
Maybe the problem is that most everyone believes that they're part of the majority, when there is no such thing. At the same time, there appear to be pockets of lockstepism (word courtesy of MSF) where herds of people all strangely come to the same conclusions on a variety of issues. In the health care debate, for instance, there seem to be two main sides: the single payer group, and the tort-reform group. I wonder how many of the true believers of either group could really describe the details of their mantra (which single payer? what kind of tort reform?). Really, how did we get to the point where so many people just follow what someone else says without questioning it, and expect all others to do the same?
It's a long time until the next election.
I'll be interested to see what Republicans have to offer in the coming year to seal the deal.
Well, you're talking about an aspect of human nature now. That's a dynamic that goes back a long, long way – meaning thousands of years. Nothing new about it.
Good point. I always felt like the whole O thing had a kind of a “born in a manger” feel about it.
I think worse, because it would have been attacked as a B extension.
Hmm…I think I was going in a different direction. Unless you think Mary had post partum?
Yeah, maybe the internet just makes it easier to see the herds of zombies. I just wish there was some easier way to remove their mental condoms and so that they could see in color instead of black and white.
It's not buyer's remorse. Despite what some may still believe, the entire nation did not vote for Obama, and more importantly, worship him as the new Messiah, and swoon over him like puppy-love teenagers or be as groupies.
It's not either what nobody but the perverse want, the decline of the USA (some decades after the UK and its Empire).
It may be psychology associated with the economic slump, psychology also affected by related acts by Washington that have failed or have predictably made things worse, as well as other acts that have made Americans concerned and increasingly negative. Note not only Obama's falling numbers but that of Congress, and which is almost entirely a Democrat-created phenomenon. (It's not too late to recover.)
[...] A new Bloombergpoll finds that Americans are increasingly gloomy and a growing number of Americans are losing the brief boost of optimism many had after the election of President Barack Obama: the “wrong track” number is growing. …Read Original Story: Bloomberg Poll: Americans Gloomy As Many Increasingly See It On Wrong Track … [...]
Can we please drop the “lefties thought Obama was Jesus” thing? It's stupid. If there were a couple of bozos who thought this, quite frankly the numbers don't compare to the number of unhinged righty evangelicals who *literally* think Obama is the Anti-Christ. If there's some sort of bizarre Messianic thoughts going on about our Prez, it isn't coming from the left. So drop it.