Posted on 01/22/2007 10:23:17 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Washington, D.C. (AHN) - On the eve of President Bush's State of the Union address, most Americans are unhappy with the president's conduct of the Iraq war and a significant majority are concerned that the nation is headed in the wrong direction, according to two separate opinion polls.
An AP-AOL poll released Monday finds that 66 percent of Americans believe the country is going the wrong way, while a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Sunday shows flagging confidence in Bush's ability to manage the Iraq conflict. That survey found that when it came to handling the war, Americans trusted Democrats in Congress more than the president by a margin of 60 percent to 33 percent.
As Bush prepares to present his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, the Washington Post-ABC News poll seems to underscore a presidency swamped by surging public doubts about the merits of American involvement in Iraq.
The AP-AOL poll suggests that Americans have not entirely dismissed the president, nor are they prepared to give the Democrats a free ride. That survey found that 60 percent have no confidence that the Democrats can set aside their partisan agenda in order to work with Bush for the good of the country. The poll also found that a majority of Americans still rank the president high on personal qualities such as strength, decisiveness and likability but paradoxically, only a minority - 44 percent - considers Bush honest.
Although the president is expected to use part of his address to try and bolster support for his new war strategy, according to an AP report, Bush will devote the lion's share of his speech to issues on which he might find compromise with the Democrats, including health care and energy. However, just two weeks after announcing that he would send an additional 21,000 troops to Iraq in an effort to curb sectarian and insurgent violence, the polls suggest that the war is the leading concern of most Americans and has become a drag on the nation's overall confidence.
In mid-January 2002, a year before the U.S. led invasion of Iraq, an AP poll found that 68 percent of Americans felt the nation was on the right course. In the years since the invasion that number has virtually flipped-flopped, producing the 66 percent "wrong direction" result found in the current poll. And while the president may hope to use his speech to inspire fresh confidence in the Iraq mission, the Washington Post-ABC poll shows strong bi-partisan opposition to his plan to send additional troops, 59 percent of all Americans, including more than a quarter of Republicans, favoring Congressional intervention to stop the president's plan.
The Post-ABC News poll was conducted Jan. 16-19 among a random sample of 1,000 adults. The margin of error was plus-or-minus 3 percentage points.
The AP-AOL poll contacted 1,005 adults and was conducted Jan. 16-18 by Ipsos, an international polling firm. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Both polls were conducted by phone.
Give us Barabbas!
When a pollster asks the right track wrong track question to a GW Bush Christian like myself,the answer is no,the country is headed in the wrong direction.You have your abortions and gay marriage talk.You have Democrats running free :) etc etc.
So I think many like myself that LOVE AND SUPPORT the President answer that the country is headed in the wrong direction.JMHO
add atleast 10 points in the Presidents favor to any poll out there.
What do you expect when you have a President who is verbally challenged and couldnt talk his way out of a paper sack. The guy is a communications failure.
AOL-AP, world-renowned for their sleazy business practices and lack of ethics, headlines the article, "Do You Think President Bush is Honest?," thereby casting aspersions on his honesty, and prejudicing the reading of the article.
They would like us to think that it is just another careless oversight by some bumbling junior editorial assistant -- rather than the deliberate rage and frustration of a frustrated middle-aged wannabe going nowhere in todays news industry.
It's like shit calling everything else "stink."
Why don't these people do it right and just take out all their years of bitterness and resentment by "going postal" at all the proper targets (their fellow co-workers and bosses) who have been abusing them all their lives.
Then we can have something newsworthy to read about.
....and all the libs eat this up....lets Bush bash some more....I'm sure there's more out there to blame Bush for....
All the libs are gearing up to put Heir Klinton into office....
Ignore all of the obligatory, agenda-driven push polls that the MSM will manufacture in advance of Tuesday's SOTU speech.
[Newsweek is 'out of the box' first. Their predictably biased poll in debunked by patrick ruffini here: http://www.patrickruffini.com/2007/01/20/reweighting-newsweeks-08-poll ]
Below, you will find results from the only poll that counts, THE BATTLEGROUND POLL 2007:
PRESIDENT BUSH
42% JA rating
45% Favorability rating
[FYI: For survey respondents, job approval and favorability ratings have become synonymous!]
61% LIKABILITY RATING
[FYI: The Battleground Poll remains the only poll that consistently tracks a president's 'likability rating'. All MSM pollsters produced likability ratings until their boy Clinton became president and couldn't get his LR above 40%!]
BattleGround Poll: Republican Strategic Analysis
By Ed Goeas
"Continuing a trend seen throughout his Presidency, the (President's) personal approval rating remains high at sixty-one (61%) of likely voters approving of him personally, a sign that the President has an opening to at some point move his image and JA rating net positive. On this measure 93% of Republicans and 56% of Independents approve of him. The President continues to have a considerable amount of personal good will not only with his base Republican voters, but also with those key Independent voters."
Lots of great information/analysis at
http://www.tarrance.com/Republican-Analysis.pdf
Polls, schmolls. I have yet to be called for one of these. Anyone else???
The polls in the 2006 election were spot on, if anything they were tilted TOWARDs the GOP.....are you saying Bush's approval rating isnt 35% or that nearly 70% of americans do not think the country is on the wrong track?
This is what the relentless big lie campaign has done. Bush is a straight shooter. Every word that he said about Iraq reflected the consensus intelligence estimates both here and abroad. Every bit of that assessment was shared by the dems at the time, even those who opposed the decision to invade Iraq. But all that has been flushed down the memory hole while "Bush lied" runs amuck.
You have to wonder where the samples were taken and at what time of day. What kind of questions did they ask. Remember when it comes to statistical figures you can make them say anything you wish...It's all pure B.S.
i understand the flaws in polling, but fact is the polls which many here called fake and inaccurate in the 2006 election cycle were in fact accurate
I never questioned the margins on voting polls but I do on opinion polls. Compare these numbers to the same spot during the Clinton Presidency...His numbers where much higher.
I was thinking exactly the same thing. Never been polled once. I only can wish these pollsters would call me.
"The polls in the 2006 election were spot on, if anything they were tilted TOWARDs the GOP . . . "
WRONG!!!
FINAL MIDTERM PREDICTIONS FROM THE MSM 'BIGGIES':
CNN: +20 Democrats
AP/Ipsos Reid: +19 Democrats
CBS/NYTimes: +18 Democrats
Newsweek: +16 Democrats
Time: +15 Democrats
NBC/WSJ: +15 Democrats
FoxNews/OpinionDynamics: +13
[FYI: In an outcome that underscores the fundamental flaws inherent in their polling methodologies, MSM pollsters (deliberately?) misjudged the election results by 5 - 12 points in favor of the Democrats!!]
http://realclearpolitics.com/polls/archive/?poll_id=14#data
ACTUAL ELECTION OUTCOME:
House of Representatives
233 (54%) Democrats
202 (46%) Republicans
Differential: 8 points vs the 13-20 points predicted by the MSM pollsters! [. . . and MOST of the new Democrat seats were won by fewer than 1-2% of the vote, hardly a landslide.]
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