In the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal Survey released at the end of February, there is a vast amount of interesting information pertaining to the way most Americans' feel the country is headed. The survey can be found here (assuming I linked it right). As usual with statistics such as these, the most interesting bits of info can be found when we compare the tables within.
Question 6 asks the individuals in the sample to rate their feelings toward various public figures on a Lickert scale ranging from "Very Positive" to "Very Negative". When the sample of 100 was asked to rate Barack Obama, we see a clear, positively skewed distribution, meaning that over time (from October 2006 to February 2009) the individuals polled were found to be more favorable to Obama over time. Furthermore, the democratic party is at its highest favorability in over a year, Michelle Obama is only topped by her husband in terms of favorability, and Hilary Clinton is experiencing her highest favorability since, get this, 2004. Surprising when we consider that her favorability is higher now than it was when she was a Presidential candidate!
Needless to say, it is a great time to be a Democrat in power right now. That being said, what if we compare this to responses asking voters who they blame for the country's economic problems?
Right now 8% of respondents said that Obama was "mostly responsable" for the poor economy and 6% blame him in part. We can assume, however, that the longer the recession lasts, the more likely voters will be to blame the President's actions (or lack thereof).In a graph created by Nate Silver, an American statistician and political analyst, he translates these numbers into a more easily-readable format, comparing them with a related question asking voters when they expect the recession to end.
As can be seen by the figure to the right, Obama crosses the 50% blame threshold around the 18 month mark, meaning that in September 2010 more people will hold Obama accountable for the economy than believe he inherited the problem.
Certainly this is good news for our President, because the American public seems to have quite low expectations of the economy, and very high enthusiasm for Obama's presidency, meaning that the President has a relatively long time to make big steps toward solving America's economic crisis before we start pointing the finger of blame at him.
This does raise some questions, however. For example, how will this affect the midterm elections? The Dems could lose a fair share of House and Senate seats in 2010 if the voters are slow to notice any economic improvement. Furthermore, the question above asks when Americans will start blaming B.O., but will this remain the case after a few month of more economic hardship?
Only time will tell.
Or perhaps my next post will?
Who knows.
Until next time, blogosphere.
-Lane
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