A new Washington Post/ABC news poll has come out, and it finds President Obama still enjoying a 66% approval rating. 42% also think the country is heading in the right direction. Compare that to when Bush was in office:
Right Wrong No
direction track opinion
3/29/09 42 57 1
2/22/09 31 67 2
1/16/09 19 78 3
12/14/08 15 82 3
Obama’s numbers have almost tripled, and that has the wingnuts pissed off, like Gateway Pundit:
UPDATE: Of course… MSNBC’s poll (linked above) is hopelessly biased.
Even with an 11-point advantage among Democrats, Obama cannot convince a majority that the country is on the right track.
First things first. This poll was conducted by Washington Post and ABC news, not MSNBC. MSNBC just happed to report on it.
Also, when do you think the last time that 42% thought the country was on the right track? Well the poll tells us:
4/18/04 42 57 1
So we haven’t seen that kind of number since Bush’s first term! Damn Obama just can’t close the deal!!
The spin doesn’t stop there. Gateway Pundit took that from Ace of Spades, which said:
Even with an 11-point advantage among Democrats, Obama cannot convince a majority that the country is on the right track or that his approach to spending and the deficit is correct. Even with that huge advantage, only 27% say the economy is getting better, while 36% say it’s getting worse. There is improvement in those numbers, but nothing like what should be expected given the lopsided partisan split. The relative softness of these numbers show that Obama is having trouble convincing people of his own party that his policies are correct.
(emphasis added)
There’s a reason for the “11-point advantage”. They weight these polls off of the previous election. Would we really get a good idea of the pulse of the nation if this poll had an 11-point Republican favor? These wingnuts never complained when the poll samplings had a swing in the R column.
But that still isn’t the troubling part. We already know these wingnut bloggers are like children, you just pat them on the head and send them on their merry ole’ way. The real troubling part is how they are trying to make it sound like Obama can’t close the deal. First let’s compare the trend from the last few months:
6. Do you think the nation’s economy is getting better, getting worse or staying the same?
Getting Getting Staying No
better worse the same opinion
3/29/09 27 36 36 1
3/15/09 14 48 36 2
2/15/09 8 58 31 3
1/19/09 6 62 31 1
12/15/08 9 64 25 1
WOW! Almost 5 times the people think the economy is getting better, compared to when Bush was in office. 500% compared to that 11% Democratic advantage in the poll. Nice try on spinning that, but I’m not done yet. When was the last time Bush had the same or better number?
12/12/04 29 33 38 1
Not since 2004 did more people think the economy was getting better. That forced me to fire up Excel and graph it out:
Look how low Bush’s line was, s even following the 2004 election, when Republicans won and the poll had a Republican advantage.
No matter how hard the wingnuts dig to find bad news, they come up with a blank. All they are forced to is lying and deception. I guess that’s pretty much inline with the GOP as a whole.