This is Mr. Obama’s sixth straight quarter below the 50 percent mark, however it is virtually unchanged from his 9th quarter rating of 46.7.

Obama joins a cluster of former presidents who experienced sub-50 percent, and later won re-election–Bill Clinton (49.3), Richard Nixon (49.2) and Ronald Reagan (44.4). Former President George W. Bush’s 10th quarter approval rating was an exceptional 73.6 percent.

According to Gallup, it is too early forecast what these numbers will mean for Obama during the 2012 president election, considering there’s no consistent pattern in the quarterly approval averages of previous presidents to say whether 46.8 percent pinpoints a re-election or defeat.

SOURCE

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Obama’s Approval Rating On Economy Fall Further

We’ve found a lot of brutal poll numbers for Sarah Palin so far in 2011: down in South Dakota, down in South Carolina, down in Arizona, only up by 1 point in Texas, only up by 1 point in Nebraska to name a few. But this has to be the worst- independent voters say they would support Charlie Sheen over Palin for President by a 41/36 margin. Seriously.

Read The Whole Story

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Sarah Palin is a force to be reckoned with, but the majority of Americans don’t think she’d make an effective President.

A new 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll released Monday found that despite her star status, 59% of Americans don’t think Palin would be a hit in the White House.

Even among Republicans, just 40% said the former vice presidential candidate would make an effective President.

Read more at USA Today

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A majority of Americans see no end in sight in Afghanistan, and nearly six in 10 oppose the nine-year-old war as President Barack Obama sends tens of thousands more troops to the fight, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll.

With just over 10 weeks before nationwide elections that could define the remainder of Obama’s first term, only 38 percent say they support his expanded war effort in Afghanistan – a drop from 46 percent in March. Just 19 percent expect the situation to improve during the next year, while 29 percent think it will get worse. Some 49 percent think it will remain the same.

The numbers could be ominous for the president and his Democratic Party, already feeling the heat for high unemployment, a slow economic recovery and a $1.3 trillion federal deficit. Strong dissent – 58 percent oppose the war – could depress Democratic turnout when the party desperately needs to energize its supporters for midterm congressional elections.

A majority of Americans do welcome Obama’s decision to end combat operations in Iraq. Some 68 percent approve, a number unchanged from earlier this year. The last American combat brigade began leaving Iraq on Thursday, ahead of Obama’s Aug. 31 deadline for ending the U.S. combat role there.

Seven years after that conflict began, 65 percent oppose the war in Iraq and just 31 percent favor it.

The growing frustration with the Afghanistan war was evident in Massachusetts’ 5th Congressional District, not far from Concord where Minutemen fought for a new nation in 1775. In Lawrence, whose textile mills once relied on the roaring Merrimack River, exasperation with the war in Afghanistan is evident.

“If they could resolve the issue, stabilize the government, that would be good. But we can’t do this forever and lose more lives,” said Terry Landers, 53, an electrician from North Andover.

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U.S. troops have suffered more than 1,100 deaths in Afghanistan since fighting began in October 2001, including a monthly record of 66 in July. Last fall, Obama authorized an increase in the force in Afghanistan by 30,000 to 100,000 troops – triple the level from 2008. Many in Congress are increasingly doubtful that the military effort can succeed without a tough campaign against bribery and graft that have eroded the Afghan people’s trust in their government.

Opinions in the poll – and among those interviewed – were more positive about Iraq as Obama’s deadline for the exit of U.S. combat forces approached.

“I think we really need to give them an opportunity to economically, socially grow,” said Mary Campbell, 56, a Lawrence city worker. “I think it’s more helpful if we’re not in their face all the time, so the deadline is, I think, a good thing, to see how stable they are.”

The congressional seat is held by Rep. Niki Tsongas, a Democrat who is the widow of a former senator and one of the party’s 1992 presidential contenders, Paul Tsongas. Four Republicans and one independent are seeking to oust her in November, with the primary next month.

Lawrence has lost two sons in Iraq of the more than 4,400 Americans killed since fighting began in March 2003. Obama ran for president in part on a pledge to pull out of Iraq and divert U.S. resources to Afghanistan, and that shift has been accompanied by a changing death toll in each country.

RELATED: Petraeus Remarks On Afghan War Not Affirmed By White House

The war views expressed in a Lawrence diner, in a park across from City Hall and at an Essex Street hot dog cart, were echoed by poll participants across the country.

Bea Boynton, 57, of Marysville, Pa., said she is less supportive of the wars than when Obama took office.

“I just think it’s not going well. Too many of our men and women are being killed,” she said of Afghanistan in particular.

Boynton, a registered Democrat who voted for Republican John McCain in 2008, added: “I don’t think what we initially set out to do has been done. I mean, we still don’t have (Osama) bin Laden.”

Erika Hickert, 68, a retired school teacher in Maricopa, Ariz., said she is an independent who voted for Obama in 2008 and would do so again if given the chance. She felt the same about the wars.

“I’m just tired of taking care of the world,” Hickert said. “They need to learn to take care of themselves, and war isn’t the way to teach them.”

She also doesn’t distinguish between Iraq and Afghanistan, even with the conflict winding down in one while ramping up in the other.

“I think of them as one big conflict,” said Hickert. “We’re militarily supporting both of them.”

RELATED: Man Arrested For Threatening Obama On White Supremacist Site

Landers, the electrician, was among those with split opinions about Afghanistan in particular.

A registered Republican who voted for McCain, Landers said he did not favor pulling out of Afghanistan despite his concern about the mounting death toll and his opposition to a long-term combat role.

“I think we need to get the government stabilized before we get out of there. I don’t know how we can do that, though,” he said.

Campbell, the city worker, is a Democrat who voted for Obama. She has a son-in-law in the Marine Reserves who has already made one tour of Iraq and is slated to head back to the Middle East next year.

“I think it’s important that, as citizen of the United States, where we live in a free country … that we help support the mission of bringing along peace,” she said.

Another poll respondent, Jeff Foust, 60, a retired public defender in Springfield, Ill., was more sanguine.

“All we can do is continue to provide some support but I think that we can’t stay in either country for a long term with large numbers of troops,” said Foust, a Democrat who voted for Obama in 2008 and said he would again. “We’ve been there long enough in both places that winning is up to the people that live there.”

The AP-GfK Poll was conducted August 11-16 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications. It involved landline and cell phone interviews with 1,007 adults nationwide, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

From HuffingtonPost.com:

During his daily press briefing on July 13, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was peppered with questions about why the president’s popularity numbers are in decline and his policy positions are so difficult to sell.

ABC News’s Jake Tapper sought reaction to the network’s newest poll showing that 51 percent of respondents would rather have Republicans running Congress. CNN’s Ed Henry wanted to know why, in that same poll, “six in 10 Americans have little or no faith in the President to make the right decisions.” CBS’s Chip Reid then pointed to his own network’s poll showing that only 13 percent of respondents thought the president’s economic programs had affected them personally.

Click here to read more

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From WashingtonPost.com:

Public confidence in President Obama has hit a new low, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll. Four months before midterm elections that will define the second half of his term, nearly six in 10 voters say they lack faith in the president to make the right decisions for the country, and a clear majority once again disapproves of how he is dealing with the economy.

Regard for Obama is still higher than it is for members of Congress, but the gap has narrowed. About seven in 10 registered voters say they lack confidence in Democratic lawmakers and a similar proportion say so of Republican lawmakers.

Click here to read more.

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From MSNBC:

WASHINGTON – White and Latino Americans are deeply divided over immigration, their allegiances to the nation’s political parties and their opinions about President Barack Obama, according to a new NBC/MSNBC/Telemundo poll.

And in the wake of Arizona’s controversial anti-illegal immigration law, the survey suggests that Republicans could get an immediate political boost, but may face a long-term problem among Latinos, the nation’s fastest-growing demographic group.

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“Are there areas where the Republicans can make short-term gains? Yes,” says Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted this poll with GOP pollster Bill McInturff.

“But the fear is that they have long-term losses.”

Breaking down the white-Latino divide
In the poll, 61 percent say they favor Arizona’s new anti-illegal immigration law, which would require local and state law enforcement officers to question people about their immigration status if they have reason to suspect a person is in the country illegally. The law would also make it a crime to lack the proper registration documents.

But there’s a divide among white and Latino respondents: 70 percent of whites support the law, versus just 31 percent of Latinos. In fact, 58 percent of Latinos say they strongly oppose it.

Click here to read more.

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CHICAGO — Bria Fleming has been through a lot in the last year, including her mother’s hospitalization and job loss and a fire in their home. It’d be enough to get most 18-year-olds down.

But the black high school student is surprisingly optimistic about the future and her chances for a better life — an attitude common among her African-American peers, according to a new nationwide survey of high school students.

RELATED: Poll: Black Americans Optimistic About Racial Progress

“I know kids who’ve been through less and maybe they can’t handle it,” said Fleming, who will head to Florida A&M University in the fall in hopes of eventually becoming a veterinarian. “But my mom always tells me, ‘Work hard, stay positive and you’ll make it.’”

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A poll released Thursday by Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., found that 70 percent of black students ages 15 to 18 thought their standard of living would be better than their parents, compared with just 36 percent of white students.

Overall, 39 percent of respondents thought they would have a higher living standard.

Those numbers and the level of optimism among black students appeared to be closely tied to their enthusiasm for President Barack Obama, making for what some called the “Obama effect.”

Asked about the president’s performance, more than two-thirds of black students rated his performance as “good” or “very good,” compared with 23 percent of white students. Overall, about a quarter of the students who were surveyed rated the president highly.

DeQuan Foster, a 15-year-old high school sophomore in Newark, N.J., agreed that having someone who looks like him leading the country has strongly influenced his belief in the future and what he can personally achieve.

“You’re always told anything is possible — but when you see it, you believe it. It makes me want to try twice as hard,” said Foster, who’s active in the theater and his local Boys & Girls Club and hopes to start his own entertainment company after college.

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It’s an attitude that mirrored the findings of a recent Harvard Institute of Politics survey of 18- to 29-year-olds, and that could have ramifications on November’s midterm elections, said John Della Volpe, the institute’s polling director.

“Young African Americans have this serious afterglow that is not as strong with whites and Hispanics,” Della Volpe said. “And that’s despite (African American youth) having more serious economic concerns.”

The Hamilton College survey involved 818 high school sophomores, juniors and seniors from across the country who were surveyed last month. The poll, funded by the school’s Levitt Center for Public Affairs, has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.5 percentage points.

Stephen Wu, the Hamilton economist who oversaw the poll, said he was surprised by the stark difference in optimism among races and that black students’ attitudes appeared to be so tied to their view of the president.

But many students — even in Chicago, the Obama family’s home outside Washington — said they witness the divide all the time.

“It always comes back to Obama,” said Deja Bailey, a 15-year-old African American student who attends the city’s prestigious Walter Payton High School. Even her own friends can’t agree. She said one of them carries a scrapbook about the president and frequently argues with others who say he’s doing a “horrible” job.

The latter attitude also frustrates Foster, the black teen in New Jersey, who wishes his peers had more patience — and more hope.

“Everyone isn’t going to support every decision the man makes. That’s life,” he said. “It’s the same with parents. You may not agree with everything they do, but they have your best interest at heart.”

But others, such as Harry Tsang, a 19-year-old college freshman in Orlando, Fla., said they’re done being patient. Worried about the deficit and government involvement in matters such as health care, the former Obama supporter has started volunteering for Florida Republican Marco Rubio, who’s running for the U.S. Senate.

Tsang, a native of Hong Kong, acknowledges that he was once drawn to the president’s charisma and his message of change.

“It was more about him than the issues. It turns out, it’s not the way I think,” said Tsang, who also joined the Florida Federation of Teenage Republicans, which has seen its membership double to 800 students since Obama was elected.

Harnessing youthful energy was an Obama tactic that led young voters to support him by a 2-to-1 margin.

“Whoever gets that volunteer energy is likely to prevail in the midterm election,” said Paul Loeb, author of the newly updated book “Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in Challenging Times,” which looks at young people’s political engagement.

Of course, a number of Obama’s young white supporters have remained loyal.

Matthew Bischoff, a high school senior from Gilroy, Calif., still has a newspaper from the day after Obama’s election pinned to his bedroom wall, though even he’s not so sure about his level of optimism.

“If I were to wrap this answer simply, I’d have to give an unhelpful, ‘I cannot say,’” Bischoff said. “I find the future that stares me in the face as I prepare to graduate and move onto college too veiled behind change to give a solid answer.”

Bischoff, who turns 18 in September, does plan to vote in the November midterm election.

But he may be among the minority.

The Harvard Institute of Politics survey released last month found that among 18- to 29-year-olds surveyed, a third of whites and just 18 percent of Hispanics planned to vote in the midterm election.

That compares with 41 percent of African Americans who said the same.

“So I think they become an even more important cohort than they were, frankly, in 2008,” said Della Volpe, the Harvard polling director.

That’s as young voters. When it comes to their future, and their standard of living, others hope the optimism truly will equate to a better life for young African Americans.

Among them is Dr. William McDade, a surgeon and an associate dean at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine who recruits and retains minority students.

“My hope is that this optimism can turn to realism,” he said, “so that students can learn how to overcome the barriers they might encounter.”

While CNN’s recently conducted a poll found that, for the first time, a majority of Americans disapprove of the job President Obama is doing, a NewsOne/Blackplanet poll revealed that those results doesn’t reflect the feelings of the Black community. We asked “Do you approve of President Obama’s job performance?” and of nearly 2,000 respondents, 90% said “Yes.” Meanwhile CNN’s poll found that only 46% of Americans approve, while 51% disapprove. It’s clear that while Obama has worked to enact his agenda and support for him has faltered in some circles, Black Americans continue to stand steadfast behind the president. Read more about the CNN poll below:

Washington (CNN) – For the first time, a CNN poll has found that a majority of Americans disapprove of President Obama’s job performance.

According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Monday, 51 percent of respondents disapprove of Obama’s job performance and 46 percent approve of it.

Full results (pdf)

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Obama’s approval rating has dropped steadily each month since December, when it was 54 percent. His highest approval rating in a CNN poll was 76 percent in February 2009 shortly after he took office.

The new poll was conducted before the House on Sunday narrowly approved the Obama administration’s signature domestic policy proposal: health care reform.

The measure, which Obama plans to sign on Tuesday, represents the biggest expansion of federal health care guarantees since Medicare and Medicaid were enacted more than four decades ago.

Click here to read more.

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From the Huffington Post:

Do you think Barack Obama deserves to be re-elected, or not?

If you’re like most Americans, your answer is “No,” according to a poll released on Tuesday by CNN. The perception was even worse for members of Congress nationwide — but respondents still indicated they were likely to re-elect their current Representative.

With identical numbers for all Americans as well as for just registered voters, 52 percent said the President does not deserve to be re-elected, while 44 percent said that he does. Four percent had no opinion.

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Respondents indicated the lowest opinions of Congress dating back to the start of the poll in 1991.

Click here to read more.

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From CNN:

A year after the election of America’s first African-American president, blacks in the United States are expressing optimism about racial progress not seen in a quarter-century, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center.

Thirty-nine percent of African-Americans said the “situation of black people in this country” is better than it was five years ago, nearly twice the 20 percent who said the same in 2007.

The optimism is not limited to the present, but covers the future as well.

A majority of African-Americans polled, 53 percent, said that life for blacks in the future will be better than it is now. Two years ago, the number was 44 percent.

Click here to read more.

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The Racial Divide on Racism

According to NewsOne/Blackplanet polls, most Black people say the word “Negro” itself doesn’t offend them — that is, unless it’s being uttered by a white person.

In recent weeks, “Negro” has unexpectedly been granted a second life. Once the widely-accepted term to describe Black Americans, its usage fell out of vogue some 40 years ago and has since been viewed at the very least as ignorant and archaic, if not insulting to Black people.

But when the forms for the 2010 Census were released at the beginning of this year, many were surprised to see that one of the choices provided for a person’s race is “Black, African Am., or Negro.” As if that wasn’t perplexing enough, last week it was revealed that during the 2008 presidential campaign, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Barack Obama was electable in part due to the fact that he is “light-skinned” and speaks “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

So how do Black people feel about the word? In one poll, NewsOne/Blackplanet asked members, “Does the word ‘Negro’ offend you?” 70 percent said no, the word does not offend them, while only 30 percent said yes.

However, in a follow-up poll, we asked, “If a white person called you a negro, would it offend you?” and the responses almost completely switched. 67% said they would be offended, while only 33 percent said they would not.

Do these results reveal a racial double-standard, or do they reflect a natural tendency to be more sensitive to language depending on the speaker and their intent?

Tell us what you think in the comments.

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WASHINGTON – For all their differences, Americans largely agree on two things: 2009 was a lousy year for the nation, and 2010 is likely to be better. Nearly three-fourths of Americans think 2009 was a bad year for the country, which was rocked by job losses, home foreclosures and economic sickness. Forty-two percent rated it “very bad,” according to the latest AP-GfK poll.

That’s clearly worse than in 2006, the last time a similar poll was taken. The survey that year found that 58 percent of Americans felt the nation had suffered a bad year, and 39 percent considered it a good year.

RELATED: Top 5 Most Disrespectful Newsmakers Of 2009

Fewer than half as many people, 16 percent, said their family had a “very good year” in 2009 as said that in 2006.

Behind the gloominess, however, are more hopeful views that seem to reflect Americans’ traditional optimism or, perhaps, wishful thinking.

Even though most said it was a bad year for the country, three in five Americans said their own family had a good year in 2009, while about two in five called it a bad year.

Some 72 percent of Americans said they’re optimistic about what 2010 will bring for the country. Even more, four in five, are optimistic about what the year will bring for their families.

Curiously, however, nearly two-thirds think their family finances will worsen or stay about the same next year.

Mari Flanigan of South Milwaukee, Wis., is one of those who feel fairly optimistic that things will go better at a personal level in 2010 even though her financial situation might grow worse.

Flanigan, 36, is unemployed after selling a family business that faced increasing competition. “Financially, I’m scared,” she said in an interview.

Rather than seek new work, however, she is thinking of returning to school to become a social worker. “I’d rather make less money and do something I love,” Flanigan said, noting that happiness and optimism are not strictly tied to finances.

RELATED: Top 10 Most Clicked Stories Of 2009

Every corner of the country saw steep job losses this year, and the national unemployment rate stands at 10 percent. Millions of Americans saw their savings or retirement accounts shrink, and many are rethinking how long they will have to work, and where they might find income.

Marcia Andrews of Blairsville, Pa., was a high school nurse until budget cuts eliminated her job.

Andrews, 69, spent $250,000 to convert an old house into a bed-and-breakfast, but the drop in tourism forced her to put it up for sale.

“It was the wrong place and the wrong time,” said Andrews, one of those surveyed in mid-December. On top of that, she lost money in the stock market.

Despite signs that the nation is edging away from the worst aspects of a severe recession, people remain largely downbeat about the economy. Fewer than half think the economy will get better in 2010, while slightly more than half think it will worsen or stay about the same.

Just over a third think their own family’s finances will get better, while almost two-thirds think their finances will stay the same or get worse.

James Lewis, who just retired in Alton, Ill., called 2009 a “financial disaster” for America, and he fears 2010 won’t be much better.

Lewis, 62, said of the past year: “Everything done wrong. Everybody losing their 401(k). Some people losing their house, their retirement.”

He is pessimistic about 2010, pointing blame at financial institutions and government officials.

“They’ve made a mess and they’re going to have a hard time cleaning it up,” said Lewis, who calls himself a political independent. Government regulators, he said, “dropped the ball.”

Lewis said 2009 wasn’t too bad for him personally, but some members of his family “can’t find a job that pays enough to live.” He said he doesn’t have much hope — “maybe a little” — that they will find work in 2010.

Americans are not optimistic about the nation’s two wars. Thirty-one percent think the situation in Afghanistan will get better, while 67 percent think it stay the same or get worse. The results were about the same for Iraq.

Given that President Barack Obama took office in 2009 and Democrats enjoyed solid majorities in Congress, perhaps it’s not surprising that Democrats have a sunnier view of the current and coming years than do Republicans.

Only 10 percent of Republicans said 2009 was a good year, compared to about one-third of Democrats and independents. A whopping 87 percent of Democrats are optimistic about what 2010 will bring for the country, compared with 53 percent of Republicans and 73 percent of independents.

People’s views of their personal circumstances divide along partisan lines, too.

Only one in five Republicans think their family’s finances will improve in 2010. Nearly half of Democrats and 40 percent of independents hold that view.

Steve Bishop, 59, of Middletown, Calif., said he’s pleased the government is trying to overhaul the nation’s health care system.

“At least we’re addressing the problem finally, and it could be fine-tuned as we go on in later years,” said Bishop, a Democrat and retired U.S. Forest Service manager.

For the nation, Bishop said, 2009 “was definitely better than 2008 because we’re seeing the recovery of the economy.” For him personally, he said, the year “was O.K.”

He said his daughter went through furloughs, and his son-in-law lost some work in his construction job.

“But everyone still has a job, they still have health care, so in that sense it was probably good compared to other people,” he said.

H. June Clark, a Republican retiree in Fort Wayne, Ind., had similar family experiences but is more downbeat than Bishop. And she has a warning for all politicians.

A daughter and her husband, both teachers, were laid off for part of 2009, said Clark, 82, who once worked as a server at a country club. Some family members are still out of work, she said.

She and her husband lost several thousand dollars in the stock market, Clark said. “But luckily we are retired and we own our home,” she said. “It wasn’t a desperate year.”

Clark thinks the nation is headed toward socialism, and she wants a wholesale change in elected officials, no matter their party affiliation.

The AP-GfK Poll was conducted Dec. 10-14 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Media and involved landline and cell phone interviews of 1,001 adults nationwide. It has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.

From CNN:

Washington — African-Americans are extremely supportive of President Obama, but their enthusiasm appears to have dramatically dropped from earlier this year, according to a new national poll.

RELATED: Poll: Obama’s Approval Rating Falls Below 50 Percent

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey, released Tuesday, also indicates that Obama’s presidency appears to have made blacks more optimistic about race relations, but less than one in five believe the new president has ushered in a new era of race relations in the country.

More than nine in 10 blacks questioned in the poll approve of the job Obama’s doing in the White House, far higher than 42 percent of whites who approve of his performance as president.

RELATED: Poll: More Americans View First Lady Favorably Than 10 Months Ago

But when asked how they personally feel about Obama’s presidency, only 42 percent of black respondents say they’re thrilled, with nearly half of those questioned saying they are happy but not thrilled.

Click here to read more.

From MSNBC:

WASHINGTON – For much of his first year in office, President Barack Obama has largely defied political gravity in the midst of skyrocketing unemployment, an ambitious legislative agenda and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

His approval rating remained above 50 percent, a plurality viewed his party positively, and even the number believing the country was on the right track — despite the bad news — temporarily spiked during his first few months on the job.

But now nearing the end of his first year in office, the economy, the wars and the legislative skirmishes finally have taken a toll on the president and his party, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

Click here to read more.

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From CNN:

Washington – Michelle Obama’s stock is on the rise as more Americans approve of how she is handling her role as first lady now than they did 10 months ago, according to a new Marist College Poll.

The survey shows that 57 percent of registered voters approve of Obama’s performance as first lady, up 7 points from a Marist poll conducted in March. Twenty-four percent said it has been fair, while 10 percent thought she is doing a poor job.

But Obama is not viewed as a transformative first lady. Only 37 percent said she has changed the role for the better, while 46 responded she has done nothing to change it. Another 10 percent said Obama has changed it for the worse, while 7 percent were unsure.

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From the Washington Times:

Recent polls show a sharp contrast between black and white voters’ approval of D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s job performance, with the majority of blacks disapproving, suggesting that racial tensions remain beneath the District’s liberal veneer.

Local political observers say that Mr. Fenty’s style and approach to governance, and his priorities on cultural issues, play less well with black residents, who traditionally see city government as helping them and view Mr. Fenty as a failure on those grounds.

“I think black people look at government as the entity that intervenes on behalf of those who have frequently been disadvantaged,” said Howard University associate professor Greg Carr, who chairs the school’s Afro-American Studies department. “To them, [Mr. Fenty] represents the elites, those who already have power.”

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WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama still has the public approval of a majority of Americans, but he finds himself governing an increasingly pessimistic country.

This comes at a time when he is trying to revive a struggling economy, weighing more troops for the 8-year-old Afghanistan war, muscling a health care reform overhaul through Congress and hoping to push through other ambitious measures like legislation focused on climate change.

The latest Associated Press-GfK poll shows that Americans grew slightly more dispirited on a range of matters over the past month, continuing the slippage that has occurred since Obama took office.

People were more pessimistic about the direction of the country than in October. They disapproved of Obama’s handling of the economy a bit more than before. And, perhaps most striking for the commander in chief, more people have lost confidence in Obama on Iraq and Afghanistan over the last month. Overall, there’s a malaise about the state of the nation.

“It’s in pretty bad shape,” said truck driver Floyd Hacker of Granby, Missouri, a Democrat who voted for Obama. “He sounded like somebody who could make things happen. I still think he can.”

Still, Hacker said, he questions the president’s approach to the economy, what the U.S. is trying to accomplish in Afghanistan and Obama’s focus on health care, adding, “He can’t handle everything at one time.”

Public attitudes like that are troubling for a president trying to accomplish an ambitious agenda at home while fighting wars abroad, as well as for a Democratic Party heading into a critical election year. It will have to stave off losses that a new president typically experiences in his first midterm elections. A third of the Senate, all of the House and most governors’ offices will be on the ballot.

The findings underscore just how quickly the political environment can change, a lesson for out-of-power Republicans who are buzzing with energy after booting Democrats from rule in Virginia and New Jersey governors’ races last week.

It was just over a year ago that Obama won the White House in an electoral landslide and Democrats padded their congressional majorities. The country was riding high with optimism by just about all measures when Obama took office in January.

Hope and change were in vogue back then. But change didn’t happen overnight, as the rhetoric of campaigning crashed headlong into the realities of governing. And hope slipped in a country that always has clung to it.

Now, Obama’s approval rating stands at 54 percent, roughly the same as in October but very different from the enthusiastic 74 percent in January just before he took office. And some 56 percent of people say the country is heading in the wrong direction, an uptick from 51 percent last month and 49 percent in Obama’s first month as president.

The economy is by far the most important issue on Americans’ minds. Unemployment hit 10.2 percent last month even though the administration has promoted glimmers of improvement and many economists say the recession is over.

Those jobless figures help explain why as many people said the economy got worse in the past month as said it got better — and it’s not many people who thought it got better, just 22 percent. Most say the economy stayed the same, and just 46 percent approve of how Obama is handling the economy, compared with 50 percent last month.

“He did good on getting Wall Street up and running. But I’m not going,” said independent Jay Huffaker, 33, of Knoxville, Tennessee, a construction worker who has been unemployed for a year and a half. The country is in terrible shape, he said, adding, “It seems like it’s getting worse and worse and worse and worse.”

The nation also has grown more lukewarm on Obama and the wars as he tries to wind down the one in Iraq and considers ramping up the one in Afghanistan.

Compared with October, 45 percent of people now disapprove of Obama’s handling of Iraq, up from 37 percent; while 48 percent now disapprove of his handling of Afghanistan, up from 41 percent. A majority of Americans oppose both wars. And more than half — 54 percent — now oppose sending more troops to Afghanistan, an increase from 50 percent last month.

“We either need to do something to win the wars, or just come home,” said Republican Heather Johannessen, a stay-at-home mom in the suburbs of Minneapolis-St. Paul, who thinks the U.S. is in a holding pattern in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

On health care, about half of the country approves of how Obama is doing on his signature domestic issue — virtually unchanged from October. In a major victory for Obama, the House passed a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. medical system over the weekend. But the fate of the measure is uncertain in the Senate, where moderate Democrats who are necessary for passage are balking at the cost and various provisions.

Only a third of the country approves of how Congress is doing.

The AP-GfK Poll was conducted Nov. 5-9 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Media. It involved landline and cell phone interviews with 1,006 adults nationwide and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

RELATED STORIES

AP Poll Says Obama Has Country in Right Direction

Obama Assassination Poll Creator Is A Kid

One year ago today, on November 4, 2008, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States. While his victory was undoubtedly a momentous and historic event for the entire nation, Black people took particular pride in this singularly visible symbol of racial progress.

In recognition of the anniversary of Obama’s election, NewsOne invites you to both relive the excitement and consider its meaning. Take a look at our coverage from last November – links are below – and tell us in the comments: A year after Obama was elected, what do you think this historic moment really meant for our community?

A NEW AMERICAN FAMILY…

DEMOCRATS TAKE BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS

FINAL ELECTORAL TALLY: 364-174

OBAMA ACCEPTANCE SPEECH

MCCAIN CONCEDES, HIS SUPPORTERS JEER OBAMA

ANALYSIS: A NATION CHANGED, A NATION UNCHANGED

JESSE JACKSON WITH TEARS IN HIS EYES…

OBAMA WINS FORMER “RED” STATES: NEVADA, VIRGINIA, INDIANA

GALLERIES:

AFRICAN-AMERICAN FIRSTS, BEST OF BARACK, BEST OF MICHELLE

OPINION:

PATEL: A New Dawn Breaks

WEILER: Obama Victorious, McCain Gracious

KITWANA: Election Reflections From Great Minds

BLACKPLANET BLOGGERS: Astounding Black Youth Turnout

RICKETTS: Are We Ready For a Black President?

From CNN

An average of five national polls conducted in July indicates that President Obama’s approval rating has slipped to under 60 percent.

Fifty-seven percent of Americans surveyed approve of the job Obama’s doing as president, according to a CNN Poll of Polls compiled and released Friday, with 36 percent disapproving.

In early June, Obama’s average approval rating was 62 percent. It dropped a point to 61 percent in mid-June and stayed at that level through the rest of the month.

“Recent polls indicate that Obama’s lowest ratings — and biggest losses — come on the public’s perception of how he is handling the economy,” said Keating Holland, CNN polling director.

Holland adds: “And the latest CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll shows a double-digit drop in the number of Americans who think that the president has a clear plan for solving the country’s problems. The public may not be as willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt after six months on the job as they did when he first took office.”

So how does Obama compare to his most recent predecessors six months into a first term?

Former President George W. Bush also drew a 57 percent approval rating six months into his presidency, in July 2001. Bill Clinton stood at 48 percent in July 1993. Two-thirds of Americans polled approved of George H.W. Bush’s job as president in July 1989, and six out of 10 gave Ronald Reagan the thumbs-up in July 1981.

Click here to read more.

From CNN

As Colin Powell fires back against Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh in the latest skirmish in the battle over the future of the Republican Party, a new national poll indicates that Americans have a much more favorable opinion of Powell than Cheney or Limbaugh.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey, released Monday, suggests that 70 percent have a favorable opinion of Powell, who was Secretary of State during President George W. Bush’s first term, and who served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Persian Gulf War.

Only 30 percent of those polled have a favorable view of Limbaugh, the popular conservative radio talk show host, with 53 percent saying they hold an unfavorable opinion.

In poll numbers released Thursday, 37 percent say they have a favorable opinion of Dick Cheney, with 55 percent indicating they hold an unfavorable view of the former vice president.

Read the Whole Story

FiveThirtyEight.com, a leading poll aggregator that weighs and averages polls based on past performance, has information that says that early voting is going to be a game changer. Full story after the jump…

Early voting polling information on FiveThirtyEight.com here.

LEADING SITE PREDICTS OBAMA LANDSLIDE, 2:25 pm

FiveThirtyEight.com has predicted that Obama will win today’s election in an electoral vote landslide.

The site predicts the following outcome:

349 Obama -189 McCain

Obama win of popular vote by a margin of 6.1%

For the full post, click here.

Ten Reasons Why You Should Ignore Exit Polls

Click here to read post.

Early Exit Polls Favor Barack Obama

Lines stretched around buildings and crossed city blocks as people waited to cast ballots in the historic presidential race between Barack Obama and John McCain. Touchscreen voting machines malfunctioned in some precincts, yet voting Tuesday appeared to go smoothly overall. The biggest trouble was big crowds. But folks seemed to take it in stride.

“People are happy and smiling,” Sen. Benjamin Cardin said as he voted at a Maryland school. “People are very anxious to be voting. They really think they are part of history, and they are.”

In the East, electronic machine glitches forced some New Jersey voters to cast paper ballots. In New York, eager voters started lining up before dawn, prompting erroneous reports that some precincts weren’t opening on time.

In the West, Californians also faced long lines, but voting went smoothly. In Orange County, south of Los Angeles, about 400 people were on hand to treat problems with the county’s all-electronic voting system, said Brett Rowley of the registrar’s office.

“We’ve got paper ballots as a backup,” he said.

Heavy rain plunged a handful of Los Angeles polling places into the dark, forcing some to move voting booths outside until electricity was restored. Voting didn’t stop.

Election officials predicted turnout rates as high as 80 percent in California, the country’s most populous state and the highest holder of electoral votes. In Virginia, State Board of Elections executive secretary Nancy Rodrigues said she expected 75 percent of the state’s registered voters to cast ballots by Tuesday night.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell urged voters to “hang in there” as state and country officials braced for a huge turnout in that hotly contested state. More than 160 people were lined up when the polls opened at First Presbyterian Church in Allentown. “I could stay an hour and a half at the front end or three hours at the back end,” joked Ronald Marshall, a black Democrat.

Hundreds converged on polling precincts in Missouri, another crucial battleground state. Norma Storms, a 78-year-old resident of Raytown, said her driveway was filled with cars left by voters who couldn’t get into nearby parking lots.

“I have never seen anything like this in all my born days,” she said. “I am just astounded.”

In some places the wait was longer than two hours.

“Well, I think I feel somehow strong and energized to stand here even without food and water,” said Alexandria, Va., resident Ahmed Bowling, facing a very long line. “What matters is to cast my vote.”

Some voting advocates worried that — tolerant voters or no — the nation’s myriad election systems could stagger later in the day, when people getting off work hit the polls.

“We have a system that wasn’t ready for huge turnout,” said Tova Wang of government watchdog group Common Cause. “People have to wait for hours. Some people can do that. Some people can’t. This is not the way to run a democracy.”

Ohio, which experienced extreme voting delays in the last hours of the 2004 election, had some jammed paper problems in Franklin County. “We’re taking care of things like that,” said elections spokesman Ben Piscitelli. “But there’s nothing major or systemic.”

Perhaps the most bizarre barrier to voting was a truck that hit a utility pole in St. Paul, Minn.’s Merriam Park neighborhood. The accident knocked power out for about 90 minutes to two polling locations. Joe Mansky, Ramsey County’s elections manager, said voting continued at those sites.

Election judges said the ballots were kept secure at one of the locations until the power was restored and the ballots could be run through an electronic machine, while a backup generator kicked in at the other site.

Late Monday, McCain’s campaign sued the Virginia electoral board, trying to force the state to count late-arriving military ballots from overseas. No hearing has been set.

McCain, the Republican candidate and a POW during the Vietnam War, asked a federal judge to order state election officials to count absentee ballots mailed from abroad that arrive as late as Nov. 14.

Lawsuits have become common fodder in election battles. The 2000 recount meltdown in Florida was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court.

What is uncommon about Tuesday’s contest is the sheer number of voters expected to descend on more than 7,000 election jurisdictions across the country. Voter registration numbers are up 7.3 percent from the last presidential election.

“Barack Obama is on the verge of a victory, perhaps a decisive victory, in the race for the White House. The national polls have all consolidated into a range of roughly Obama +7.”

Click here to read full post.

270
This, of course, is the number of electoral votes needed to win the presidency. With 24 hours to go, Obama holds a solid lead in the national tracking polls and what appears to be a near-lock on the Electoral College. Senator McCain is pouring vast resources into a last-minute play for Pennsylvania because it is the only Kerry state that McCain feels he can pick off this year. Without it, his odds of winning are very long.
The math is daunting for McCain: Kerry won 252 electoral votes in the close 2004 presidential race. At least three states that went for Bush in 2004 appear to be solidly in the Obama column: Colorado (with nine electoral votes), Iowa (7) and New Mexico (5).

Add those three states to Kerry’s 252, and Obama is already at 273, regardless of what happens in Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri, Indiana or any other swing state. Hence, it’s of vital importance to McCain to put Pennsylvania’s 21 electoral votes into play. Polls there close at eight, though the race will probably be too close to call for some time, but that will be one of the key races to watch all evening.

7:00 pm to 7:30 pm
The earliest poll closings of significance will be in Indiana, Virginia and Georgia at 7:00 pm EST and Ohio and North Carolina at 7:30. All five states voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 and all five are competitive this year.

The most likely Obama pick-up in this normally Republican group of states is Virginia, where Obama has maintained a lead in the polls for most of the last month. An Obama win in any one of these would put a nearly mortal lock on an Electoral College victory. If Obama wins any two of these five states, he achieves an Electoral College majority even in the unlikely event he loses Pennsylvania.
Ohio’s 20 electoral votes are the biggest prize in this group and Obama has held a lead there for the past few weeks. However, whereas John McCain must win Ohio to have any realistic shot at the White House, Obama can relatively easily chart a course to 270 even without the Buckeye State.

0
This is the number of African Americans who would be in the United States Senate if Obama were to become President, since he’d have to give up his seat. Jesse Jackson, Jr. is on the short list of likely replacements for Obama (Democratic governor Rod Blagojevich makes the pick).

One Million
This is the approximate number of references to the so-called “Bradley effect” during this election cycle. This phenomenon is named after former Los Angeles Mayor and failed California Gubernatorial candidate Tom Bradley, an African American. The effect asserts that Black candidates are likely to do worse than their poll numbers suggest, because a substantial number of white voters lie to pollsters when they say they will vote for the Black candidate. Bradley appeared to have a big lead in the polls against George Deukmejian, but lost the 1982 election. Similarly, Doug Wilder, who became the first African American governor in the United States, barely eked his 1989 victory in Virginia, despite polls showing him with a substantial lead.

The evidence suggests that, since the 1990s, no such effect has existed in high-profile elections involving one Black and one White candidate. In fact, Obama clearly out-performed the polls in numerous (though not all) primary states against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

From www.ColorOfChange.com:

5 Ways to Protect Your Vote

If there’s one thing we see every election, it’s that Republicans will try to manipulate the rules any way they can to prevent some people from voting. Don’t be discouraged–be prepared. If we’re armed with the right information, we can beat most of these dirty tricks.

1. Be Prepared, and Conquer the Lines. We can’t let long lines stop anyone from voting. There are several ways you can reduce lines and make sure they don’t prevent you or anyone else from voting:

* Vote early if you can. You can find early voting times and locations at govote.org.
* Double-check your polling location before you go to vote. You can look it up at govote.org.
* Have a Plan & Have Fun. Have a plan in case there are lines. Bring some food, drinks, friends, books, games, a chair — anything that will prevent you and other voters from walking away. Have fun while you wait and encourage your friends and neighbors to stay in line so their vote is counted.
* Don’t give up–don’t walk away without voting.

2. Two numbers you should have in your phone. Put these numbers in your phone so you’re prepared to report problems and help other voters find their polling place:

* 866-OUR-VOTE is a hotline that’s been set up to collect information about problems on election day–lawyers and election protection advocates are ready to respond. It’s the best way to make sure someone addresses any problems you see.
* The number for your local election board–in case you need to tell someone where they can vote. Enter you zip code at govote.org, then look for “Contact [your county] election officials” on the right.

3. Beware of lies, misinformation and dirty tricks; spread the truth.
Republican operatives are spreading plain lies to frighten new voters. In Philadelphia, anonymous flyers in Black neighborhoods have falsely claimed that voters with unpaid traffic tickets or outstanding warrants will be arrested at the polls. If you hear a scary rumor, it’s probably a lie. Call your local election officials to check it out–and make sure your friends and neighbors know the truth.

Click here for the last 2 very IMPORTANT tips on how to protect your vote!

Watch the video here.