Posted on 01/16/2009 2:07:04 PM PST by Baladas
NEW YORK (AP) Americans believe Barack Obama is on track to succeed and are optimistic he can help revive the struggling economy, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll.
Public expectations for his performance in office far exceed those for any president in a generation.
On the eve of his inauguration Tuesday, the poll found that 65 percent of those surveyed believe Obama will be an "above average" president or better, including 28 percent who think he will be "outstanding."
According to previous pre-inauguration polls, just 47 percent believed George W. Bush would be an "above average" or "outstanding" president when he entered his first term, 56 percent thought Bill Clinton would be "above average" or better and 38 percent thought George H.W. Bush would be. The earlier pre-inaugural numbers all came from the Gallup Poll, except for Clinton's, which came from the ABC News/Washington Post poll.
With the U.S. facing the gravest economic crisis since the Great Depression, the poll found broad optimism that Obama could help turn things around. Seventy-one percent of those polled said the economy will likely improve during the first year of his presidency; 65 percent said unemployment will go down; 72 percent said the stock market would be on the rise; and 63 percent said their personal economic situation would improve.
"He cannot not succeed. He has to succeed because the world really depends on him right now," said Richard Kern, 51, who works in a home remodeling business in Bernalillo, N.M.
Even Ronald Reagan, who won a landslide victory over President Jimmy Carter in 1980 during another period of economic uncertainty, was viewed more skeptically than Obama before his inauguration. At the time, 51 percent said Reagan would be a good or great president, according to the Gallup Poll.
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Now you know the value of this poll.
The naive fools who voted for this nitwit are going to get the biggest letdown you have ever seen. It is going to be entertaining to observe.
Wow! How stupid are they?
I don’t recall being contacted by this poll.
I’d much rather live with my pessimistic (i.e. realistic) world view and continue to prepare for much worse times, knowing they are indeed coming, than to live in the fairyland that most of the voters occupy within the broken and rusted windmills of their walnut-sized minds.
Well...all I can stay is...the American people are stupid.
Sure: Anybody who seriously hopes for 0bama to do anything good must be high.
They probably polled the unions. They’re the only winners in this whole mess. Five years ago, the unions were dieing a slow death. Then the Obama people started the SEIU to unionize the illegals and VIOLA! A new age of unionism.
America...you’re in for one heckuva hangover.
It is a candid admission that our media controls perceptions of reality..
Democrats will be great Presdients. Republicans will not.
What really angers me is how many Republican traitors are willing to dismiss President Bush as below average.
There are lots of people like that here and that is precisely what is destroying the Conservative movement in this country.
Until WE get a backbone to stand up to this Media propaganda machine and stand up for our own, we will get crushed time and time again.
Dudes, step away from it!
“He cannot not succeed. He has to succeed because the world really depends on him right now,”
Evidence the expectations approach the supernatural.
But there will be tons of propaganda. The MSM will always have reports of the economy “doing better than expected” because they have economists predicting worse than Obams can do. Likewise the poor and homeless will vanish from stories so people will start to feel better. And there will be endless polls biased towards feeling good.
“How could 69 millions Americans be so stupid?”
Here folks we have a situation where a record percentage of Americans are putting their trust in quite possibly the biggest economics ignoramus ever elected. God help us all.
“Public expectations for his performance in office far exceed those for any president in a generation.”
Lol, I find this hilarious! If Obama flops, as I believe he will, the letdown will be tremendous. The media will run interference for him, but they can only do so much. No person can live up to the kind of hype surrounding Obama. High expectations, followed by dashed hopes could mean an opening for a conservative in four years. Of course, I don’t wish ill for our nation. I know quite a few good people with families who are really suffering now who have lost jobs.
I am always struck by this woman’s last name whenever I read one of her articles. Her name seems to descibe her writings to a T.
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