Free Republic

I've always thought that history is going to be kind to President George W. Bush. While that whole "compassionate conservatism" thing and its derivative policies drive me nuts (what does that imply ... that I'm otherwise not compassionate? False, ugh!), I think his humility and good-faith efforts will eventually earn him much more widespread respect than he received when he was in office.Despite President Obama's best attempts at a no-holds-barred blame-Bush approach --- from continued economic doldrums to Fast and Furious gunwalking tactics, there seems to be no problem that President Obama didn't "inherit" --- it appears that Americans are...

French President François Hollande's popularity has fallen by two percentage points to 59 percent, a poll published on the Journal du Dimanche's website showed on Saturday. The survey by pollster Ipsos was conducted between June 14 and June 22, a few days before and after the second round on June 17 of France's parliamentary election, which gave a large victory to Hollande's Socialist Party. Hollande's prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault had an approval rating of 65 percent, unchanged on the previous. …

Dear Friend, In this video commentary, I discuss how Obama’s job approval has fallen for four years, but his personal favorability has stayed high. Not anymore. Now it’s crashing too. Tune in!

Author, Wana Duhart's case study explains Sarah Palin’s appeal among Conservatives and Republicans. The contention among the Republican candidates continues to rise as they fight to position themselves as the true front runner. Although Mitt Romney continues to hold a lead over Rick Santorum, according to Public Policy Polling, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin remains the favorite among Republican Party voters. "People, Politics, and Profits: The Ties that Bind Main Street, the Beltway, and Wall Street," an essay written by Wana L. Duhart, provides a case study that explains the emergence and appeal of Sarah Palin and why she remains...

Reid: New poll on president’s popularity is ‘meaningless’By Mike Lillis - 03/13/12 04:13 PM ET Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Tuesday dismissed a new poll finding that President Obama’s approval rating has plunged in recent weeks. The Nevada Democrat said the survey — a joint effort between The New York Times and CBS News — is “flawed” and “meaningless,” suggesting that all public polls are misleading. “This poll is so meaningless,” Reid told reporters at his weekly press briefing in the Capitol. “It is trying to give the American people an idea of what 300 million people feel by...

President Barack Obama told an audience in San Francisco Tuesday that the famous “hope” poster, popular during his 2008 campaign for president, is “kind of faded” and that it’s “not as trendy to be an Obama supporter” today as it was during his first run for the White House. “We’ve made a lot of change, but we’ve got a lot more work to do,” he told an audience during a campaign event at the W Hotel in San Francisco, California. “And I know that I’m now a little grayer. You know, and it’s not as trendy to be an Obama...

09-24) 06:25 PDT DENVER (AP) -- People like Christine Alonzo are keeping President Barack Obama afloat and giving his political team hope that he can win re-election despite high unemployment and sour attitudes about his policies and the country's future. Alonzo volunteered for Obama during the 2008 campaign. A few months after Obama's victory, she lost her job. She's still looking for work. Instead of blaming Obama for the economic crisis, she's volunteering full time to help him capture a second term. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/09/24/national/a062218D89.DTL#ixzz1Yt5KLq6S

Osama Killing Largely Unmourned By Ashfaq Yusufzai ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan, May 4, 2011 (IPS) - Three days since the death of Al-Qaeda chief and U.S. public enemy No. 1 Osama bin Laden, there are no public demonstrations to protest his killing, nor are there any other displays of anger or grief in this country of 170 million where he once enjoyed tremendous support. Instead, the aftermath of bin Laden's assassination in a 40-minute air assault by U.S. Special Forces Sunday night brought to the spotlight the dwindling popularity of bin Laden, who was once regarded as the leader of the Muslim...

Sarah Palin's favorable rating continues to drop, in a new WSJ/NBC poll. Only 25% view her positively, while 53% view her negatively.

Remember the ecstatic atmosphere of near euphoria that surrounded the election of Barack Obama? Yeah, we can’t either. But assume it for a moment. Then read this from CBS: ...

In what may be the result of one of the great political miscalculations of our time, Scott Walker’s popularity in his home state is fast going down the tubes. A Rasmussen poll out today reveals that almost 60% of likely Wisconsin voters now disapprove of their aggressive governor’s performance, with 48% strongly disapproving. While these numbers are clearly indicators of a strategy gone horribly wrong, there are some additional findings in the poll that I suspect deserve even greater attention. It turns out that the state’s public school teachers are very popular with their fellow Badgers. With 77% of those...

White House Insiders Feel Shellshocked, And Already Think It's Over For Obama Joe Weisenthal Oct. 13, 2010, 10:32 AM The talk of the town for the next few days will be this big piece by Peter Baker in the NYT on President Obama. The piece paints a picture of a despondent administration: Yet even if the White House saw it coming, this is an administration that feels shellshocked. Many officials worry, they say, that the best days of the Obama presidency are behind them. They talk about whether it is time to move on. While not in the 30s, Obama’s...

Americans between ages 18 and 29 are significantly more likely to be satisfied with the overall state of the country than those who are 65 and older, according to the latest Society for Human Resource Management/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll, conducted with the Pew Research Center. While fully 72 percent of voters 65 and over saying they are dissatisfied with the direction of the country, only 39 percent of those under 30 share that dissatisfaction. Fifty-nine percent of respondents between 18 and 29 said they believed the federal government would make progress in solving the nation's crucial problems over the...

Barack Obama’s fading popularity could cost him the next U.S. presidential election, according to a poll today. Most Americans would vote for any Republican politician over their current leader, the independent survey shows. With the U.S. mid-term elections fast approaching in November, Mr Obama’s popularity ratings make grim reading for Democrats hoping to cling to power on Capitol Hill. His job approval rating has dropped to 44 per cent, his worst ever score, in Connecticut's Quinnipiac University poll.

Will Austerity Be The Catalyst For War? Tyler Durden on 07/02/2010 As always SocGen's Dylan Grice comes out with some tremendous insights in his latest weekly piece "Double dips, siren calls and inflationary bias of policy." While the gist of the piece is presenting a comprehensive overview of the traditional and cognitive biases toward inflationary policies and away from hard, unpopular, deflationary/austere measures, Dylan provides a chilling anecdote involving the 1980s conflict between the UK and Argentina, in which it was precisely war that pulled an extremely unpopular government, that of Maggie Thatcher, out of the gutter of public opinion,...

WASHINGTON — US President Barack Obama gets a more favorable rating in western Europe and Asia than at home, but his standing in the Muslim world is slipping, a global poll showed Thursday. The Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project found that overall opinion of Obama remains broadly positive in most non-Muslim nations. The survey of 24,000 people in 22 nations conducted April 7 to May 8 showed a largely favorable view of the United States for a second year, in sharp contrast to perceptions of America under former president George W. Bush. When asked whether the US president would...

New book out on stands in Japan which took many by surprise: Title: "Obama Shitsugen De Manabu America" (オバマ失言で学ぶアメリカ), by Marie Nishimori (KK Bestsellers (2010/5/15) ISBN-10: 4584132372 ISBN-13: 978-4584132371 Subtitle: "Top 101 Gaffes of Barack Obama" Background: As in many countries overseas, Japan went absolutely crazy two years ago at the prospect of a "President" Obama. Once he won, a whole cottage industry came alive, selling (hawking) CDs and texts of speech upon speech by He Who Must Be Worshipped, The Messiah, teaching Japanese everything from "the spirit of Change and Hope possible in Great America", to "correct English pronunciation...

CBS News doing a poll... How's Obama doing? Grade him NOW!

Only 9 percent of Israeli Jews believe that President Obama is pro-Israel, according to a poll taken by Smith Research on behalf of the Jerusalem Post. 48 percent said that the Obama favors the Palestinian side, while 30 percent said his administration is neutral. The remaining 13 percent expressed no opinion. The 9 percent number is up from 4 percent last August, but the difference is only slighly outside the margin of error. Moreover, the poll was taken before Prime Minister Netanyahu's chily reception at the White House on Sunday. President Bush was considered pro-Israel by 88 percent of Israeli...

In a January 20, 2010 editorial, the Editor in Chief of U.S. News & World Report, Mortimer Zuckerman, had this to say: “Obama’s ability to connect with voters is what launched him. But what has surprised me is how he has failed to connect with the voters since he’s been in office. He’s had so much overexposure. You have to be selective. He was doing five Sunday shows. How many press conferences? And now people stop listening to him... He’s lost his audience. He has not rallied public opinion. He has plunged in the polls more than any other public...