A new CNN poll conducted right after President Barack Obama’s speech tonight suggests two things (1)the speech was not a flop and (2) the speech was hardly a game-changer:
A majority of Americans who watched President Barack Obama’s prime time address to the nation said they favor the approach to Syria that the president spelled out in his speech, according to an instant poll.
But a CNN/ORC International survey of speech watchers conducted immediately after the conclusion of Obama’s Tuesday address also indicates that those who tuned into the address were split on whether the president made the case for military action against Syria.
According to the poll, 61% say they support the president’s position on Syria, with 37% saying they oppose his response to the Syrian government’s alleged use of chemical weapons against its own citizens.
And more:
The poll indicates that nearly two-thirds of those who watched the speech think that the situation in Syria is likely to be resolved through diplomatic efforts, with 35% disagreeing.
The methodology:
The sample of speech-watchers in the poll was 37% Democrats, 20% Republicans, and 43% independents. CNN’s best estimate of the number of Democrats in the voting-age population as a whole indicates that the sample is about seven percentage points more Democratic than the general public.
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.