cnn poll

A new CNN poll shows the favorability rating of the Tea Party in decline:

The approval rating for the 2-year-old movement fell to 32 percent in a CNN/Opinion Research corporation poll released Wednesday, the lowest it’s been since CNN first polled on the tea party in January 2010

That’s compared to a 46% approval for Democrats and 44% approval for Republicans. Perhaps this gives us more insight to the recent decline:

The biggest drop in the tea party movement’s favorability came among people who make less than $50,000 a year. In October, 30 percent in that income group said they had unfavorable views of the tea party. Now, 45 percent say the same.

While many try and pull the wool over our eyes, people are realizing that the Tea Party is anything but a grassroots movement. It’s a corporate backed social experiment to lure people into supporting big earner tax giveaways.

The real shame is that we desperately need a 3rd party in this country, not an offshoot of the Republican Party. A movement like the Tea Party could have the potential to take off, if it is truly about the people. Get something like that going, something that will refuse the influence of big business and money, and you will have a movement that people can really get behind.

This tidbit from a new CNN poll shows that Obama actually has more support down south than the very Republican George Bush did:

Fifty-seven percent say Obama has been a better president than George W. Bush; only a third say Bush’s track record was better.

“Compared to Obama, Bush does fairly well among southerners and rural voters. But even in those categories, a majority still says Obama has done a better job than Bush,” says Holland.

That should make the Beck type people out there stop and pause for a second. A black “liberal” is rated higher than a white “conservative” in the south.

(h/t Plumline)

A new CNN poll shows Americans blame Republicans 2-1 over Democrats for our current financial crisis. Is America finally waking up and realizing that Republicans are the worst choice for running our government?

This was one of the best debates so far. I think all the candidates did good. It could have gone without the fight between Clinton and Obama, but Edwards became the star out of that. He shined tonight and showed what we need in a President.

One thing I have a problem with is this from Bii Schneider on CNN:

John Edwards just referenced a CNN poll that showed him the most competitive against John McCain in a general election match up, and he also highlights that in an ad running here. But there's a problem — that poll is a month-and-a-half old.

In the most recent CNN poll, Obama and Clinton both tie McCain. Edwards was not matched up in that poll. It's fair for Edwards to bring up the poll, but it's misleading to say he is the only competitive Democrat.

The problem with Bills analysis of Edwards claim lies right in his reasoning - Edwards wasn't included in their last poll. Perhaps the media should start including all the candidates more instead of the ones they want.

We heard that Osama attacked us because "they hate us for our freedoms". Now a real President would have gone out and done what he could to protect those freedoms and flaunt them in the face of our attackers. Instead Bush exposed a pussified America and used it to shred our civil liberties. Now we hear the Americans think this is ok:

A furor over the trade-off between civil liberties and security in the fight against terrorism is raging in the U.S. Congress, think tanks and the media, but the heated debate leaves much of America cold.

In Washington, attention was focused on Senate confirmation hearings of Gen. Michael Hayden, the nominee for CIA chief who ran a domestic spying program, and on a report last week that the government gathered phone records of millions of Americans.

But the debate was unlikely to change many minds in a country where opinion polls show more than half of the people believe that sacrificing some rights is a necessary price to pay for safety after the September 11 attacks.

"People look at it through the lens of 9/11 and understand that we haven't been attacked since then and that there are reasons for that other than just good luck," said Mac Thrower, editorial page editor at The Paducah Sun in Kentucky.

"I think for that reason there's pretty strong support for what the president is doing in that area, not a great deal of concern about a threat to civil liberties," he said.

A CNN poll released on Thursday showed 54 percent of Americans support gathering phone records to find terrorists. A few days earlier, a Washington Post/ABC News poll showed 51 percent approve of the way Bush was protecting their privacy.

The post speech analysis seemed to all come to one conclusion last night -
Bush was trying to unite the country. So did Americans come to the some
conclusion?

According to the latest SUSA
poll, Bush failed on that attempt but not by much. 44% of those polled feels
he will divide the country more while 40% feel he will unite the country. 16%
wasn't sure.

Only 53% of the respondents felt that Bush focused on the issues most
important to them as compared to 41% who felt he didn't. This number is actually
kind of shocking. Iraq has been the number one issue and he spent 1/2 of his
speech on the subject. I got a feeling people are getting smarter and can see
through his rhetoric a lot easier now.

Another very interesting part of the poll focused on Bush telling the truth
about Iraq. 36% felt Bush was telling the whole truth while 37% thought he was
shading the truth. Those numbers are close but here is the alarming number. 23%
feel Bush is intentionally misleading when it comes to the situation in Iraq.
Basically that means 60% feel he is lying.

The final numbers on the poll conducted last night should send alarms through
the White House. 53% feel Bush is out of touch with the American people as
compared to 42% who feel he is in touch.

According to a new
Gallup/CNN
poll, Bush had the lowest level of positive response to his speech since he
has been in office.