Ohh my ohhh my...lookee here at them polls...
This article was on the front page HUGE Headline on cnn.com
This article was on the front page HUGE Headline on cnn.com
Looks like every single bullet point I've hammered on today is exactly why folks are beginning to take a "different" look at the McCain campaign...http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/22/cnn.poll/index.html
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- By a two-to-one ratio, Americans blame Republicans over Democrats for the financial crisis that has swept across the country the past few weeks, a new national poll suggests.
That may be a contributing factor to an apparent increase for Sen. Barack Obama over Sen. John McCain in the race for the White House.
In a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey out Monday afternoon, 47 percent of registered voters questioned say Republicans are more responsible for the problems currently facing financial institutions and the stock market, with 24 percent saying Democrats are more responsible. One in five of those polled blame both parties equally, and 8 percent say neither party is to blame. The poll also indicates that more Americans think Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, would do a better job handling an economic crisis than McCain, the Republican presidential nominee.
Forty-nine percent of those questioned say Obama, D-Illinois, would display good judgment in an economic crisis, six points higher than McCain, R-Arizona. And Obama has a 10-point lead over McCain when it comes to who would better handle the economy overall.
These numbers seem to be affecting the battle for the presidency. Fifty-one percent of registered voters are backing Obama, five points ahead of McCain, who is at 46 percent. McCain and Obama were tied at 48 percent apiece in the previous CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey conducted September 5-7.
Obama's advantage, while growing, is still within the poll's sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Where did Obama make his gains?
"In two core McCain constituencies: men, who now narrowly favor Obama, and seniors, who have also flipped from McCain to Obama," said Bill Schneider, a CNN senior political analyst. When including people most likely to vote, the results are pretty much the same. Among likely voters, Obama has a four-point lead, 51 percent to 47 percent.
"The economy has always been considered John McCain's Achilles heel, and the CNN Poll of Polls started to show an Obama edge in the middle of last week -- just as the financial crisis began to hit home for many Americans," said Keating Holland, CNN's polling director.
A couple of other factors in the survey appear to contribute to Obama's slight rise and McCain's slight drop in the polls. Fifty-three percent of those questioned say McCain, if elected, will mostly carry out the policies of President Bush, who remains extremely unpopular with most Americans. Bush's disapproval is up three points from the previous CNN/Opinion Research poll.
The survey also indicates Obama's recaptured the "change" factor. Just after the Republican convention, Obama's lead had shrunk to eight points when voters were asked which candidate would be more likely to bring change. His lead is up to 14 points in the new poll.
The margin of error on that question was plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
Another factor could be McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Thirty-five percent of those questioned have an unfavorable opinion of her, up 8 points from a previous survey. And two-thirds believe she and her husband should testify in the Alaska investigation into the firing of a state official.
"Change has always been Obama's strong suit, but McCain and Palin clearly made inroads into that issue during the GOP convention," Holland said. "Palin, in particular, was seen as an agent of change when she made her first appearance on the national stage. That may be changing now."
The poll also sheds more light on how Americans feel about the financial crisis. Twenty-two percent are frightened by the crisis, with two-thirds concerned. Eleven percent say they are not worried. Most Americans think that the programs to deal with the financial crisis currently being worked on by Congress and the Bush administration will be unfair to U.S. taxpayers, but they think those programs will help the economy.
Six in 10 think the federal government should step in and address the financial crisis, and 37 percent say the government should stay out. But when it comes to last week's bailouts, support slips to 55 percent, and given the concerns about how future programs will affect taxpayers, it's conceivable that public support for the plans that Congress and the administration are working on could be even lower.
The survey comes out just four days before McCain and Obama face off in the first of three presidential debates. Will the debates make a difference? Probably, since the poll finds that 14 percent of Americans say they haven't made up their minds yet.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted Friday through Sunday. One thousand and twenty Americans, including 909 registered voters and 697 likely voters, were questioned by telephone.
