Poll: 65% think Obama will be above-average president
Associated Press
Published January 16, 2009 at 9:57 a.m.
Updated January 16, 2009 at 9:57 a.m.
NEW YORK — Barack Obama enters the White House with public expectations of his success far higher than for any president in a generation, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll.
On the eve of his Jan. 20 inauguration, 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. "We're all hanging in by the treads of our shoes, waiting for the economy to break. We need good news."
Respondents also gave the president-elect high marks for his leadership skills and empathy, particularly for the concerns of the middle class.
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.
The AP-GfK poll found widespread disapproval of Obama's predecessor, President George W. Bush.
Sixty-one percent believe Bush will go down in history as a below average or poor president, including 31 percent of Republicans. Just 32 percent of Republicans say he will be remembered as above average.
Indeed, when asked why she believed Obama was likely to succeed, Lauri Raleigh, 48, of Hanover, Pa., replied, "Because he's not Bush."
Raleigh, a teacher and mother of three, said Obama "brings a different set of values, a different viewpoint to Washington, to the White House in particular, that we haven't been there in the last eight years. His openness to other ideas, his willingness to take advice from other people is something that I think has been lacking in the presidency."
The poll found solid support for Obama's economic recovery plan, which he is crafting with congressional leaders and which is now projected to cost $825 billion. Fifty-five percent said they supported the plan, and 58 percent said they believed it would bring significant improvements to the economy.
Respondents did express concerns about the federal deficit, which is already projected to top $1 trillion even before the stimulus plan is enacted.
Still, 48 percent said it was important to stimulate the economy even if meant an increase in the deficit while 44 percent said it was more important to cut spending and trim the deficit.
Dawn Timmons, 39, a homemaker from Wallace, S.C., said she opposed Obama's stimulus plan.
"We can't afford to lose money, spending left and right," she said, noting that she found Obama "a little cocky."
She added, "We already got a lot of debt. The debt is just going to get worse if he just keeps spending money."
The poll found 69 percent approve of the way Obama has handled his transition to the presidency. That's down slightly from 73 percent last month, before Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested on federal charges of trying to barter Obama's open Senate seat for personal gain.
Still, the poll found approval of Obama's transition remained strong and remarkably broad despite the Blagojevich controversy and other, smaller snags. Fully 85 percent of Democrats approve of the transition, along with 63 percent of independents and 48 percent of Republicans.
Darlene Clark, a 51-year old homemaker from Farmington, Mich., voted for Republican John McCain in November but has little but praise for Obama now.
"He's very charismatic, got good leadership qualities," Clark said. "Obviously, he's a really smart person and I think he will try his best to do what he thinks is best for the country."
The AP-GfK poll was conducted Jan. 9-14 and involved landline and cell phone interviews with 1,001 randomly chosen adults. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
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January 16, 2009
10:03 a.m.
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DifferentPerspective writes:
I hope he prioritizes the political unrigging of the judicial system. The federal attorney and court system is a broken system. Many of the attorneys and judges, as we are finding out now, were illegally selected by asking politically charged questions in the interview process. These officials need to be removed from office.
January 16, 2009
10:03 a.m.
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T1anda writes:
More left-wing media propaganda. So obvious it is laughable.
January 16, 2009
10:14 a.m.
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RegLib writes:
Even a below-average president would be an improvement over what we've had.
January 16, 2009
10:15 a.m.
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chickenlittle1234 writes:
T1 - Propaganda? I don't think so, but take heart, the bar has been set very low by W, so it's really not a fair question.
January 16, 2009
10:21 a.m.
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leavemealone writes:
Get the media on your side & life is good!
Only 65%....that doesn't sound very good for being the messiah
January 16, 2009
10:30 a.m.
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Nosybear writes:
We tend to evaluate based on memory and we tend to weight recent events higher than more distant ones.... Based on that, I'd estimate the odds of Obama being perceived as above average as very high, even given the recent attempts to polish W's record.
We had a phrase in the Air Force for that attempt - can't use it here because the censors wouldn't like the sentence's object. Hint: Polish was the verb and the object was part of Karl Rove's nickname.
January 16, 2009
10:31 a.m.
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gregu710 writes:
"leavemealone writes:
Get the media on your side & life is good!
Only 65%....that doesn't sound very good for being the messiah"
Well, if he'd ACTUALLY claimed to be the messiah, then you'd be right, but as I recall, that was a label put on him by such luminaries as Rush Limbaugh(spit), so I'll just take it with a big dump-truck sized grain of salt, like I do with everything Rush says... By the way, I believe even if you only use lowercase letters to jokingly or falsely proclaim someone to be the "messiah" it's still an afront to God.
January 16, 2009
10:40 a.m.
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NoPCme2 writes:
The Obama delusion is more wide-spread than I thought. These people are going to have a real hard time when they realize the truth of this fraud.
January 16, 2009
10:46 a.m.
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leavemealone writes:
however, the media treats him as such.....the guy is a politician, nothing more.
January 16, 2009
11:09 a.m.
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RightDownTheMiddle writes:
Why are you people still so bitter?
And why does your team insist on always calling him the Messiah? Does it make you feel better at night when you gently cry yourself to sleep?
I suggest you quit yer crying and more importantly quit rooting for America to fail......it's un-American. And pretty lame.....
January 16, 2009
11:09 a.m.
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cowboy69 writes:
There are lots of dilussional people when it comes to Obama. He may prove to be above average the first six months and after that, his followers will do whatever it takes to paint over the bumper stickers on their cars. Maybe time to buy stock in a paint company.
January 16, 2009
11:16 a.m.
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LockNLoad writes:
This is typical "New President Honeymoon" polling results. Media is spinning it to seem like an extrodinary situation. Not hardley.
I'm fully confident that he will screw up and overplay his hand. He has already demonstrated this in his questionable cabinet appointments.
January 16, 2009
11:19 a.m.
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SheikYurBooty writes:
And 98% think he'll be better than Little Boy Bush.
January 16, 2009
11:22 a.m.
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RightDownTheMiddle writes:
You people should all get a room so you can whine and cry and hope for the demise of America together.
January 16, 2009
11:22 a.m.
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joggle writes:
I think Obama will certainly be an above average president. However, I think he will have even more challenges than what Truman faced and, like Truman, will have difficulty maintaining his popularity for all of his term.
I think the economy may improve in some respects within a year but will likely be worse in many ways with higher unemployment being almost certain a year from now. The dominoes are still falling and until they have stopped we are obviously going to continue downward. Even if this happens only 6 months from now that would only give him 6 months to get back to where we are now and then theoretically he would still have to do more to meet the expectations of 71% of the people surveyed in this poll.
Possible, but I wouldn't bet on it. That's a tall order for anyone and no economist has a perfect track record for dealing with a crisis like this. It can be argued that Keynesian economics worked during WW2 (big spending by the government) but it can also be argued that it didn't work well in the 70s so who knows what will happen this time around.
I think most people still don't fully understand the scope of our current economic crisis. To think that the great majority think it's essentially solvable within a year seems a bit nuts to me. This is far worse than anything almost all of us have ever seen and if we are 'just' where we are today a year from now I'll be happy as a lark.
January 16, 2009
11:23 a.m.
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Nobama writes:
Wow, the Obama cult phenomenon is greater than I thought. But, the love fest will end soon enough and we'll see what substantance remains. I don't want the man to fail, for the sake of our country. I think he will be mediocre, at best, only because he has surrounded himself with Clinton retreads. Once his cult followerers find out he can't part the seas and the snake oil has no lasting effect, he will be exposed for what he is. Not much! The problem is that the news media will take on a rosey aura that may last well into his first term. It just depends on how long they can keep blaming Bush of everything that's bad.
January 16, 2009
11:30 a.m.
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Beergut writes:
leavemealone: They treat like a new President, nothing more. The fact you want him to attack him before is even sworn in is your issue, not the press.
January 16, 2009
11:40 a.m.
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ghoax writes:
52% maybe, 10% of the Republicans now thinking he'll be an above average president? Anyone else smell this one? Obama may be a smooth talker, but as Ben Franklin wrote; "well done is better than well said"
When you read between the lines, its clear that we are facing the systematic destruction of our country as we knew it, by, you guessed it, liberal democrats and the rise of Marxism. The red carpet is being laid out for the socialists and the environmentalists who have an anti American, anti capitalist, anti oil and domestic energy agenda. They use the false claim of man made global warming to expand government to a size unfathomable at any time in our history.
When the masses finally figure this out...it'll be too late.
January 16, 2009
11:49 a.m.
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leavemealone writes:
Beergut writes:
"They treat "Obama" like a new President, nothing more."
Wow...you should really get out more.
The media treats Obama like a King.
I say he is a falsehood!
January 16, 2009
11:55 a.m.
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joggle writes:
"I say he is a falsehood!"
So?
January 16, 2009
12:03 p.m.
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Cartman writes:
A lawer/politician being better than average? That's like saying Michael J Fox is taller than average.
January 16, 2009
12:13 p.m.
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rcop writes:
The fact that someone is polling people about a president-elect is laughable. Moreso because no one really knows anything about him. He has denied every obvious association he has had with anarchists, racists, and other low lying vermin. And not to mention being raised politically in the cesspool of corruption known as Chicago.
This is so obviously a propaganda fluff piece - more liberal innoculation of their golden boy against the deep ties he has to dubious and undesireable mentors.
January 16, 2009
12:14 p.m.
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joggle writes:
Cartman: Then you give way too little credit to the power of the presidency. They certainly have the power to have an enormous effect on the country (and world) for better or worse.
During the Cuban missile crises we could have easily entered a nuclear war with Russia under a different president.
WWII could have gone quite differently under a lesser president.
Would you not say Lincoln was a 'better than average' politician?
And the list goes on. To think every president is as good as any other president is ridiculous. Some are better and others are worse just like any other profession.
January 16, 2009
12:19 p.m.
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dilligaf writes:
Being above average after Bush is like rating a rain shower after a hurricane.
January 16, 2009
12:21 p.m.
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joggle writes:
rcop: "And not to mention being raised politically in the cesspool of corruption known as Chicago."
Whereas Palin was raised politically in the cesspool of corruption known as Alaska. That logic goes both ways if you choose to use it.
"He has denied every obvious association he has had with anarchists, racists, and other low lying vermin."
That would imply that you actually listen to everything he says (otherwise he may have not denied it when you weren't listening). Somehow I get the impression that you probably have heard very little of what he said directly and are relying on others for your information.
In addition, various polls are always carried out about incoming presidents going back decades. Why is it suddenly a laughable thing to do in his case?
It's also not liberal bias to report on the results of a poll. I'm sure there were reports about Bush 43, 41, Clinton, etc just before they were inaugurated as well.
January 16, 2009
12:21 p.m.
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Willy writes:
Joggle - I believe you are right that the economy has not hit bottom yet.
Very high expectations for Obama - I saw him again this morning on CNN. From his appearance it seems he is realizing the weight of those expectations.
Interesting you compare him to Truman. Truman was completely unprepared to be President because Roosevelt excluded him from all important issues so he had no background in them.
January 16, 2009
12:47 p.m.
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mrwiizrd writes:
count me among the other 35%, while I'm extremely pleased he plans to shut down gitmo, everything I've heard him say about his economic "recovery plans" has me absolutely terrified.
January 16, 2009
1:26 p.m.
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INC writes:
leavemealone,
So glad you refer to Obama as a messiah. As most of us are Optimistic realists. Although we think of Him Highly we are not as laughably deluded as you are. (diittohead) and simply hope he is 10 times more competent than W.
January 16, 2009
2:36 p.m.
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jay writes:
yes people...it is going to get worse before it gets better...no matter who takes office.
welcome to The Legacy.
January 16, 2009
3:09 p.m.
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Shaupeen writes:
What would "10 times more competent than W." look like?
The ability to use real, actual words when speaking?
Knowing basic geography?
Feel free to join in...
January 16, 2009
3:16 p.m.
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HankReardon writes:
I'll say it again:
I find it historically fitting that Barack Obama's inauguration takes place the day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Nice!
January 16, 2009
3:21 p.m.
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HankReardon writes:
leavemealone = The Pariah
Consider yourself leftalone.
January 16, 2009
3:34 p.m.
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leavemealone writes:
HankReardon writes:
"leavemealone = The Pariah"
Hey HankReardon,
I will gladly accept that from you lemmings!
Now if the government would leave US alone!
January 16, 2009
4:30 p.m.
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280Pagoda writes:
What does it hurt to give him the benefit of the doubt.
If we have ever needed great leadership - this time certainly qualifies.
Here's a toast - hoping beyond hope - that in four years we will be saying - "Yes, he can"
January 16, 2009
7:20 p.m.
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LS writes:
No time like the future.