Is Obama's approval rating really at 54 percent?

The American Thinker ^ | November 12, 2009 | Monte Kuligowski

[Scanian]

A new poll by AP-GfK has Obama’s approval rating at 54 percent. I reported a few weeks back on how the poll might be engineered to favor Obama. Today, I have some shocking news as to how the AP-GfK poll was framed when Bush was president.

With regard to the new Obama poll, the question immediately preceding Obama’s approval question reads as follows:

When you think about how things are going in your life in general, would you say you are very happy, somewhat happy, neither happy nor unhappy, somewhat unhappy, or very unhappy?

The results from that question: “Total Happy,” 79 percent. The “Total Unhappy” is only 15 percent.

I wanted to know if that question preceded the approval question for George W. Bush in previous AP-GfK polls. The Associated Press and GfK didn’t enter into partnership until September of 2008, but I was able to find two AP-GfK poll results involving Bush from 2008.

[Kansas58]

No!

[Sacajaweau]

He could be the worst man on earth....and they'd still vote for him. It's called ignorant. The problem is...these voting folks will do it again, too.

Our forefathers warned of this.

WE NEED THE SENATE AND HOUSE!!

[FlyingFish]

when Bush was president, the preceding question was...

When you think about how things are going in your life under the hapless, fascist Bush regime, would you say you are very unhappy, or totally unhappy?

[ReleaseTheHounds]

Interesting analysis by American Thinker...

The fact that Democrats-to-Republicans are sampled at a rate of 1.39-to-1 should be the first tip-off. But the sequence of question certainly influences the response. And why did they switch things around from their method during the Bush Administration? Good question. I’ll trust Rasmussen.

[Loyal Buckeye]

A short history of AP:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/is-the-ap-good-for-america/

[Scanian]

Rasmussen proved himself to be the most accurate a year ago and I haven’t seen anything to suggest that he isn’t still the most trustworthy pollster.

He may not give the libs the numbers they want but that is just “tough toenails.”

[ConservaTexan]

No mention of the Bradley effect, which artificially inflates a minority candidates poll numbers.

Spineless whites think stating disapproval towards a liberal, fascist minority makes them racist. So they lie and give answers considered "acceptable" based on race.

Ironically, that itself is racist.

[newfreep]

-10 on Friday the 13th