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According to a Rasmussen Reports survey taken at the beginning of this week, 34 percent of likely voters think the United States should get “more directly involved” in the Libyan crisis. Supporters of military intervention might be eager to point out that this number was 12 points higher than the 22 percent who favored greater involvement two weeks earlier. A Gallup survey conducted Monday shows a plurality — 47 to 37 percent — approving of President Obama’s airstrikes in Libya. And a new CBS poll released on Tuesday finds an even higher 68 percent of Americans supporting the strikes. Considering...

Gallup’s headline is, “46% Favor, 40% Oppose Repealing Healthcare Law,” but I think they’re overlooking the bigger news. First, the idea that 14 percent of Americans have no opinion whether or not Obamacare goes into effect is pretty surprising and interesting. Note that Obama and the Democrats need this to be a driving issue for voters in 2012; put another way, only 40 percent of adults (not registered voters, not likely voters) say they want to keep Obamacare as it is. Barring some dramatic new development, the undecided are unlikely to vote against Republicans because they repealed health care. Second,...

The liberal media have been criticizing those 20% of Americans polled who believe Barack Obama is a Muslim. The President declares himself a Christian yet those 20% insist upon determining his religion based upon his father's adherence to Islam. The left would have us believe this is bigotry and intolerance. It should be noted that Canada -- that bastion of liberalism, gay marriage and universal health care -- subscribes to the very same intolerant view. And it's government policy. We're all aware by now of Edward N. Luttwak's May 12, 2008 New York Times piece - recently cited on American...

The main stream media have been in an uproar over the poll results suggesting that approximately one in five Americans believe President Obama is a Muslim. Their incredulity stems from the fact that Obama professes to be a Christian. Therefore, the respondents who believe otherwise must be a bunch of ninnyhammers. Actually, the one in five figure may be a small number. Suppose another famous claim by Obama is polled. In February he claimed to be, "an ardent believer in free markets." What percent of Americans believe that?

Adopted in 1868, the 14th Amendment defined citizenship — making it clear that former slaves and their descendents were American citizens. But part of that amendment, that everyone “born in” the US becomes a citizen, has become controversial during the immigration debate, with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and others calling for hearings on whether to repeal or revise the language. A Pew survey out this week notes that illegal immigrants who have children here (who then become insta-citizens) represent a not-insignificant portion of new births. Of the 4.3 million babies born in 2008, 340,000 were to illegal immigrants. The breakdown:...

Mayor Bloomberg's popularity rating has dropped to its lowest level in five years, in part because of his ardent defense of a proposed mosque several blocks from Ground Zero, according to a poll released yesterday. New Yorkers' approval of their third-term mayor (pictured) dipped to 49 percent, down from 56 percent in April, as 53 percent of those surveyed said they disagree with his position on the mosque, according to the Marist survey. "The mosque is not doing him any good . . . He's certainly on the wrong side of public opinion on that in the city," said pollster...

How low can President Obama's approval rating go? Pretty low, it appears. The president's approval rating reached a new all-time low, according to a national Quinnipiac survey released today. The survey finds that just 44 percent of registered voters approve of the job he has done as president -- his worst score ever -- with 48 percent disapproving. “It was a year ago, during the summer of 2009, that America’s love affair with President Barack Obama began to wane. In July of 2009, the president had a 57 to 33 percent approval rating," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the...

When tracking President Obama’s job approval on a daily basis, people sometimes get so caught up in the day-to-day fluctuations that they miss the bigger picture. To look at the longer-term trends, Rasmussen Reports compiles the numbers on a full-month basis, and the results can be seen in the graphics below. The number who Strongly Disapprove of the president’s performance inched up a point to 42% in June. At the same time, the number who Strongly Approve fell another point to 26%. Those figures generate a full month Presidential Approval Index rating of -16, down two points from the month...

President Obama's image of leadership flounders in the Gulf of Mexico. While Governor Jindal displays the true qualities of leadership, our president is stuck in Saul Alinksy gear, demonizing a foreign corporation instead of actually doing anything constructive. Disgust at Obama's genuine incompetence at this genuine ecological disaster stretches across party lines and the ideological spectrum. Barry blames Bush for everything about our dismal economy. A partisan rubber-stamp Congress has given Obama the wild and wasteful expenditures which his childish, failed, quasi-Keynesian witches' brew prophesies will spend us into prosperity. It hasn't worked. Now, oddly, congressmen facing electoral apocalypse have...

Presumably, the goal of the Muslim outreach effort has been to soften opposition to our wars in the Middle East, but this too has failed miserably. The Pew report notes that Mr. Obama "receives overwhelmingly low ratings from publics in predominantly Muslim countries for his job performance on Iraq and Afghanistan." Approval ratings ranged from 4 percent to 22 percent, with disapproval ranging 53 percent to 84 percent. When Mr. Obama took office, he promised a regional framework strategy, "AfPak," for resolving the war in Afghanistan that supposedly was more sophisticated than that of his predecessor. With just 6 percent...

I can't put my finger on any single event that may be the cause, but in three days, Obama's approval ratings on Rasmussen's daily tracking poll have gone from 50-49, to 45-54. Among those who feel strongly either way, there has been a drop from 32-40, to 27-44. Forty-four percent ties the peak Obama has ever hit for strongly disapprove. In general, Rasmussen numbers have been more volatile since health care reform was approved.There are days in which Obama's approval numbers are much higher than the average for the prior few months, and other periods when his numbers sink to...

The vast majority of Americans don't approve of Congress, according to a poll released yesterday. Only 17 percent of those surveyed in The Wall Street Journal/NBC poll approve of Washington's legislative branch, while 77 percent disapprove. In fact, half of the Americans surveyed would vote to replace every single member of Congress if they were given a choice. The 50 percent of respondents who would start from scratch would even get rid of their own representatives, according to the poll. Forty-five percent were happy with their own representatives. The poll has a margin of error of 3.1 percent.

WASHINGTON -- Essen tially powerless to stop the Democratic health-care plan from getting rammed through Congress, the Republicans have settled on a strategy of making little fixes where they can and causing enormous discomfort for vulnerable Democrats in conservative districts. Short of simply punishing the Democrats in November, the Republicans have virtually nothing at their disposal to thwart the health-care bill. Their best hope for stopping it in Congress lies in the Senate, where they will try to alter it and make parliamentary objections to the highly odious manner in which the Democrats jam through the unpopular and wide-sweeping legislation....

"I am not going on this mission for the Emperor or for the Empire...I am going because I was ordered to." These words were spoken by one of Japan's first kamikaze pilots, Lieutenant Yukio Seki, after being compelled to volunteer for a suicide mission. Though apprehensive, the pilot maintained the insight to comprehend that "Japan's future was pale if it was forced to kill one of its best pilots." So it is in Washington, D.C. as a "divine wind" blows through the nation's capital. Although in the majority, Democrats are experiencing decreased capacity to successfully wage political war. Disregarding plummeting...

STERLING, Va. -- The state of the union here in Strip Mall America remains bleak, which could spell doom for Democrats in congressional elections later this year. But here at Glory Days Grill, President Obama, while getting a little bruised by voters watching last night's State of the Union Address, could still revel in his past glory of high oratory and soaring promises of hope and change. Glory Days is a sports bar where the bartender, Tyler Orpin, really does know everybody's name. It's also the sort of place where folks watching images on TV of the president and Michelle...

By May 2009, Americans began to lose confidence in Mr. Obama, and the god began to bleed. The numbers saying the country was on the wrong track crept back upward. Mr. Obama' public approval rating began its great decline, the most rapid of any first-year president, according to Gallup. The decline has been broad and deep; Mr. Obama has lost support nearly uniformly from men and women across all age groups and all incomes. The most striking slump occurred with the white middle class, which bears the brunt of Mr. Obama's wildly irresponsible fiscal policies. White approval dropped from 60...

With President Barack Obama set to deliver his first State of the Union address Wednesday night, many Americans are wondering which states he might visit.

As President Barack Obama begins his second year in office, the public’s priorities for the president and Congress remain much as they were one year ago, according to the folks at the Pew Research Center. Global warming, however, rates at the bottom of 21 items receiving votes.

Field Poll: 59% say California's condition has worsened on Schwarzenegger's watch 59% IN POLL SAY SITUATION'S WORSE kyamamura@sacbee.com Published Sunday, Jan. 24, 2010 This was hardly what Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger envisioned seven years ago. The movie-star governor, who took office in 2003 on a promise to "clean house" in Sacramento, remains mired at a personal-low 27 percent approval rating, according to a Field Poll released today. Even worse, only 7 percent of registered voters think Schwarzenegger will leave California government in better shape than he found it, while 59 percent believe he will leave it in worse condition, the poll...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A one-two punch of bad news suddenly has Democrats facing an election year with campaign finance rules that favor Republicans and a Senate that can block Democratic initiatives. Democrats already were bracing for House and Senate losses in November, which typically happens to a president's party after his first two years in office. But a stunning GOP Senate victory in Massachusetts, and a dramatic Supreme Court ruling on political advertising, have made the horizon look even darker for the party that scored big wins in 2006 and 2008. The week that marked President Barack Obama's first year...