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Six in 10 Americans Want Obama's Policies to Succeed, but Many Doubt They Will

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Six out of 10 Americans hope that President Obama's policies will succeed -- a percentage that has dropped measurably from last year -- but the public is roughly split when it comes to whether they think those policies will in fact be successful, according to a CNN/Opinion Research poll conducted Dec. 17-20.
Sixty-one percent want Obama's program to succeed while 27 percent hope his policies fail. Nine percent have mixed feelings and 3 percent have no opinion. Last December, 71 percent hoped Obama's policies would succeed compared to 22 percent who wanted them to fail. In March 2009, 86 percent wanted those policies to succeed and 11 percent hoped they would fail. The remainder had mixed opinions.
When it comes to what Americans believe will happen (putting aside whether or not they want Obama's policies to succeed), 47 percent predict failure while 44 percent say they will succeed. Six percent have mixed opinions and 2 percent are undecided.
CNN polling director Keating Holland called the 61 percent who are in Obama's corner "a fairly robust number" but singled out as significant the size of the drop-off in the number of those hoping for his success as well as the fact that a plurality predicts his policies will likely fail.
(A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll conducted Dec. 9-13 said 64 percent were only somewhat confident or not at all confident that Obama had the right set of goals and policies to be president, while 36 percent were quite or extremely confident.)
The CNN poll said that one factor working in Obama's favor is that whether Americans approve of the job he is doing or not, 73 percent approve of the president as a person.
Fifty-one percent of those surveyed said it was good for the country that the GOP had taken control of the House while 42 percent said it was bad, with 4 percent answering "neither" and 2 percent undecided.
However, when it comes to whether the public thinks the Republicans will do a better job of running the House, 52 percent said it will make no difference while 26 percent said they'd do a better job and 22 percent predicted they'd do a worse job.
Congressional Democrats appear to have become a non-factor in the minds of Americans on the question of who would do the best job dealing with the issues facing the country.
Forty percent believed the Republicans would do the best job, 35 percent put their confidence in Obama and only 15 percent in the Democrats on Capitol Hill. Two percent answered "all equally" and 7 percent said none of them would.
The CNN result on who would handle best the country's issues was a little different than the same result in a Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted Dec. 9-12, which found 43 percent saying they trusted Obama more than the Republicans to "do a better job coping with the main problems the nation faces over the next few years," while 38 percent put their faith in the Republicans. Twelve percent trusted neither, 2 percent said they trusted both and 4 percent were undecided. The margin of error was 3.5 points.
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bobc519

Pres. Obama seems to be one of the most vilified presidents the USA has ever had. My question is WHY??? What has he done wrong other than being the WRONG color? (Funny how he got into office in any event!!)

Lets just let the man do his job without bashing him with brick bats. If the general public now seems to hate him so much then impeach him! Otherwise, just shut up!

January 04 2011 at 12:43 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
evecomment

uuhhmm news flash...in the second term of the bush administration, everything fell apart. Bush's $80 billion deal to fund an ongoing war priceless. Government officials had their own jet service, each official had their own jet service c'mon. Banks were crying, any major company aided by the government was crying foul so the obama's vacation is like eating at mcdonald's, lets get it right people.

January 04 2011 at 9:25 AM Report abuse -3 rate up rate down Reply
Mary

The poll is highly suspect considering the recent November elections, not to mention the mood sweeping the country. I would be interested in the design of the poll. Wording can be easily manipulated to skew the data collected, and by some of the other results, I question the design.

January 04 2011 at 12:13 AM Report abuse +2 rate up rate down Reply
nama holston

Consider the source of the polls taken! It's not what I read about Obama support and his agenda.

January 03 2011 at 12:07 PM Report abuse +5 rate up rate down Reply
jhnmashem

watson1858:24 PM Dec 30, 2010(11) vote this comment up (14) vote this comment down snrar, you are listening to the wrong people. You are hearinbg only the Republican talking points. The people did not speak. The theives, that are stealing those things that we are entitled to, ran a better campaign. First they stole the money from our 401Ks. Now they want to deny us the SSI, Medicare and Medicaid that we have paid into. They are not giving up any of the tax money that pays their salary. Some of them did not have a job before getting elected on a platform that denies employment insurance payments. Wake up snrar. The President did not do these things. It is the right wing politicians
.....................
another loser from the entitlement crowd has spoken
get it right homey the Constitution only entitles you to life ,liberty,and the pursuit of happiness nothing more nothing less

January 03 2011 at 8:52 AM Report abuse +1 rate up rate down Reply
carl

pfpf040408 Succeeded in doing what?

January 02 2011 at 7:06 PM Report abuse +2 rate up rate down Reply
dc walker

..six in ten aren't paying close attention...

January 02 2011 at 12:03 PM Report abuse +8 rate up rate down Reply
Linda

I would like to know exactly who these polls are polling. Are they AMERICANS or law breakers aka illegals. I know of no one that wants the Health Care Bill, the Dream Act, the war in Afganistan etc. So who is exactly being polled?

January 01 2011 at 11:58 PM Report abuse +5 rate up rate down Reply
bullwrinklepups

What I am hoping for next year is that Obama and Michelle wil reimburse the AMerican People for all his many vactations (1.5 million and counting for hawaii, millions upon millions for Micheles trip to Ital - If Bush did this you all would be crucifying him and burning down his home, at least bush went to his own ranch). Lets see, that 1.5 million dollars of our tax money could have bailed out 30 americans with a 50,000 mortgage, could have provided food for over 100,000 americans in trouble this year. Lets hope this new congress stops the presidents vacations.. at least !!! lol

December 31 2010 at 8:40 PM Report abuse +4 rate up rate down Reply
namasmama

Despite this poll, or others, guaranteed the next 2 years will be one where the republicans will, as promised by McConnel, be quite hostile towards the president and what he as accomplished for the American people. The republicans will threaten defeat and dismissal with every opportunity they can. I only hope the American people can remember and refer to our history and how the republicans tried to defeat Social Security in the 1930's and Medicare in the 1960's. I also hope that Americans will start to piece together that (generally speaking) history has shown republicans are not on the side of the poor and middle class in their own country!!!

December 31 2010 at 10:04 AM Report abuse -2 rate up rate down Reply

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