[nathanbedford]

Similarly, 53 percent of centrists said Obama has taken the right actions as president to boost the economy, compared with 38 percent who said he had taken the wrong steps.

Seventy-nine percent of centrist voters said Republicans had slowed the economy by taking wrong actions. Only 13 percent of centrists credited GOP lawmakers with policies that have helped the economy.

A few days ago I commented on the apparent anomaly seen in the results of the Rasmussen polls. Rasmussen has Romney and Obama virtually tied in the daily tracking poll for some time now with Romney enjoying the barest lead for the majority of recent times. Rasmussen also has independents in the party breakdown at 30.5%. Virtually all the polls tell us that Romney is doing better than Obama among the independents. Yet, Romney cannot seem to break away or profit from his presumed bulge among independents.

To make matters more confusing, this article uses a new term, "centrists." One can presume that these are "independence" or "undecideds" or something else. Their very peculiar idea that a Republican Congress which was absolutely impotent for two of the last 3 1/2 years is responsible for the course of the country's economic affairs is ludicrous.

In the face of such an absurdity one is tempted to say that the poll must have it wrong or, if the poll is roughly correct, the failure is not in the reality but in the Republican message machine.

Whatever the cause, I think we have to take the numbers very seriously because they might just explain why in the face of this economic wasteland Obama escapes his well earned blame and why the polling numbers seem to be stuck around 50-50.

The reality that Obama enjoyed super majorities in Congress until the voters repudiated him and 2010 seems to have no persuasive effect among these "centrists" against the naked assertion by Obama that the Republican Congress has been obstructionist. This is such a fatuous argument that one can hardly credit it. Nevertheless, according to this poll, the people who decide the election (assuming "centrists" = Independents) accept this preposterous assertion and might return Obama took office.

Obviously these "centrists" are either committed Democrats and not independents, or, if independents, they are among the most ignorant of potential voters. If it is the former, one must ask what sort of party breakdown are we talking about in this poll. If the latter, we must redouble our efforts to state the obvious in a way that is convincing and compelling.

[mazda77]

Pulse Opinion Research has been providing high-quality research services to individuals and businesses since 2003. If you have an issue you want to ask people about - from across the country to across the street – simply select your topic questions and we’ll do the rest.

Pulse Opinion Research licenses methodology developed by veteran pollster Scott Rasmussen, providing a survey platform for a host of clients, from individuals to special-interest groups. In fact, we provide the field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys. We have also collected data for presidential campaigns and top-tier political professionals from across the political spectrum. Over the period from 2003 to 2009, Pulse generated 18% of its revenue from Republican sources, 20% from Democrats and 61% from sources not affiliated with either major party.

In other words, 61% of this firms income are derived from the special interests. I can only imagine this poll was taken in the DC area for sampling to explain the screwy "centrists" classification. The Beltway crowd thinks things are going just great.