Maybe things get better as the year wears on and jobs and economic growth continue an uptick. If so, I'd suggest the results below will change in the president's favor. However, if they don't then he could be in real trouble. Not many reasons to believe in the former scenario, but there are for the latter. Such as turmoil in the middle east, who knows if Israel will decide to take out Iran's nuclear facilities. Or escalating trouble in a bunch of places, or a downturn in the EU or China. I don't see any good reason to think things are going to get any better, do you?
snippet:
Signs of an economic turnaround, improved job performance grades and the erratic state of the Republican primary field have heartened the Obama re-election campaign recently. But while the president touts an uptick in employment and paints a picture of an America on the rise, a new Democratic study cautions that the electorate isn't exactly buying it.
Indeed, the majority of voters appear to be pessimistic about the economy, the issue at the forefront of November's election. Democracy Corps, a polling firm run by prominent Democrats James Carville and Stanley Greenberg, finds 56 percent of voters want a change of economic direction. And they seem to trust Republicans more than Democrats in handling the economy by a 4 percent margin.
"The stubbornness of the Democrats disadvantage on the economy should be a lesson if they are really to prevail," the group says in a memo issued Friday. "These are still tough economic times."
The firm tested the strength of President Obama's messaging on the economy: His call for middle-class fairness and his assertion that jobs are returning. The latter seems to fall flat.
In his State of the Union address, the president spoke about 3 million jobs being created over the past 22 months. But participants in this survey reported they had not seen evidence of these jobs nor felt the effects of job creation.
They also expressed concern that the jobs created were temporary, and not ones that sustain the economy over the long term. One Democratic participant expressed that sentiment in these terms: "Just pouring sugar on the thing to create a few temporary jobs is going to get us no place." The pollsters say Obama's highlighting of progress on job creation "is potentially dangerous for Democrats."
RealClearPolitics - Obama Faces Challenge Selling Recovery
snippet:
Signs of an economic turnaround, improved job performance grades and the erratic state of the Republican primary field have heartened the Obama re-election campaign recently. But while the president touts an uptick in employment and paints a picture of an America on the rise, a new Democratic study cautions that the electorate isn't exactly buying it.
Indeed, the majority of voters appear to be pessimistic about the economy, the issue at the forefront of November's election. Democracy Corps, a polling firm run by prominent Democrats James Carville and Stanley Greenberg, finds 56 percent of voters want a change of economic direction. And they seem to trust Republicans more than Democrats in handling the economy by a 4 percent margin.
"The stubbornness of the Democrats disadvantage on the economy should be a lesson if they are really to prevail," the group says in a memo issued Friday. "These are still tough economic times."
The firm tested the strength of President Obama's messaging on the economy: His call for middle-class fairness and his assertion that jobs are returning. The latter seems to fall flat.
In his State of the Union address, the president spoke about 3 million jobs being created over the past 22 months. But participants in this survey reported they had not seen evidence of these jobs nor felt the effects of job creation.
They also expressed concern that the jobs created were temporary, and not ones that sustain the economy over the long term. One Democratic participant expressed that sentiment in these terms: "Just pouring sugar on the thing to create a few temporary jobs is going to get us no place." The pollsters say Obama's highlighting of progress on job creation "is potentially dangerous for Democrats."
RealClearPolitics - Obama Faces Challenge Selling Recovery
