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For the first time in his presidency a plurality of the American people think they are better off now than when President Obama took over. According to a new Bloomberg poll:
“It’s starting to get better,” says survey respondent Kelsey Simeon, 21, a mechanical-engineering student at California State University, Sacramento, in a follow-up interview. “Strip malls that were empty are starting to fill up. Everyone’s going out to eat more. People are spending more money on non-necessities: clothes and iPods.”
More Americans now say they are personally better off since President Barack Obama took office than worse off, the first favorable reading for the president on that question since Bloomberg began asking in December 2010.
Thirty-eight percent say they are better off while 36 percent say they’re worse off. In September, the last time that question was asked, only 27 percent said they were better off and 44 percent said worse off.
This is some good news for the Obama campaign. While there has been a fair amount of buzz today about the divergence between CBS/NYT poll showing Obama with a new low favorability rating and Gallup showing Obama with a relatively high favorable number, it is too far out from the election for such a rapidly changing number to matter.
What most people want from a leader is someone who can make their lives and the lives of their families better. If mildly improving economic conditions start getting people to view Obama as capable of delivering on that, he should be in a solid position come November.
If Romney can’t use that classic Ronald Reagan question, “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” to seriously wound Obama, it is tough to see how the rather unliked and uncharismatic Romney can get enough people to vote for him.
28 Comments
Okay, I’m convinced. This time this is the most important election in our lifetime.
Corporations and rich people are certainly better off.
And torturers can breathe a lot easier.
Can we please elect Romney? He agrees with Obama on everything, so it will be exactly the same, but at least I won’t have to argue with my liberal friends anymore. Please?
OK, it won’t be EXACTLY the same. We’ll have a more progressive congress, more progressive state legislatures, etc, etc…
I don’t know what yardstick for being “better off” is being used here.
Gas is higher than it was when Bush left office, and food is a LOT higher, with little or no chance for downward fluctuations. A good loaf of wheat bread is almost $5. Same price increases with eggs, meat, milk, etc.
My car insurance goes up a bit, every 6 months.
If you have an older vehicle that you work on yourself, as I do, then parts for it have taken big jumps in the past 3 years. A quart of generic oil at Advance Auto is about $4.
Pom-pom waving for Obama is doing americans in general, and progressives in particular, a lot more harm than anything the loons in the GOP are doing.
The crumbs are working Luuvy. The crumbs are wuuurking.
I am definitely better off. All those fucking civil liberties were weighing me down. Escape from freedom, yeah.
“…but al least I won’t have to argue with my liberal friends any more…”
Second that.
The shock of having it turn out that a lot of democrats are every bit as fact-averse as are the republicans, is profound. When I pointed out how Obama caved on providing over-the-counter access to the morning-after pill to young teenage girls (I have three granddaughters, 15, 13 and 7) to an old friend who’s a retired nurse and who also has some granddaughters, she got so pissed in the ensuing debate that she asked me to leave. I did, and I won’t go back.
It’s like this: stupid, inhuman, policies are stupid and inhuman; especially when they come from a faux democrat.
Let’s see how Kelsey responds to that question after she finishes school. You know, when the only job she can find is as a shift manager at McDonald’s.
It’s tragic tanbark….I have always said after Obama’s first yr as Prez,this guy will do more harm than any GOP Prez couild have done cuz the elitist libruls will sit twiddling their thumbs…
Anyone seen any “special comments” from Olberman on NDAA(National Defense Authorization ACT)…well we know if it was Bush,Olberman would have been exhorting us with special comment after special comment.
And now for a rousing chorus of America! Fuck Yeah!
Who needs equal protection under the law! We’ve got banks bigger than everyone else!
The psychological operations and the associated propaganda that Americans are inundated with seems to never change, only the wording and phrasing is changed for the times. The duopoly that is American politics has been pushing and pulling the same buttons and levers to include polls to influence the thinking of the so called electorate to keep believing in this failed system that has descended to outright fascism.
I agree….”better off” how????
Truest words I’ve seen on a thread today.
To avoid the Obama v. Romney question, yes, I am better off than I was four years ago. But the world is worse off. There’s been no progress made towards the problem of climate change, a President can assassinate an American citizen, and the possibility of a war with Iran is more than plausible. Oh, and our “entitlements” are still “on the table”.
But hey, I’m working and have a few bucks in the bank!
Well didn’t you read Kelsey’s comment in the article? Strip malls are filling up. People are buying iPods and eating at fucking Applebee’s again. The world is saved. America is CONSUMING!
It’s strange……the new “F” word IS fascism. I never though we’d have to be concernd about that, in OUR country. Now, I’m not so sure.
I’m with ya’ anna. Let’s not forget to add peaceful protesters being rousted and thrown in jail, American citizen being held indefinately in prison, Gitmo still open, American government now “legally” FOR SALE, and voter’s rights being attacked in almost every state.
Stealing outright is unethical but not illegal if you are a bankster.
Oh, and the Houston Astros being forcefully moved to the National League.
Well, you have to admit, when President Obama took office, the unemployment rate was 8%. And after 3 and a half years, it’s now … 8%. Fortunately, it’s not like the Eurozone’s about to collapse and plunge us into another Depression.
Oh, wait.
Bogus b.s. hype. Agree with all of the above. Kris in TX beat me to it vis the student at Sac State: get back to us when you’re finished with your degree. Let’s see how easy it is to get a prof job, and let’s see what your salary and benefits are.
Yeah sure, the Wall St Casino is *presently* up. So what? Teachers in my neighborhoods continue to get pink slips. Our schools suck big-time. There’s hardly any services any longer for those in need, such as seniors, the disabled & the mentally ill. The roads *everywhere* I go are shithouse… in BAD need of major repair with nothing on the horizon. The levies in Sacramento could at any time, just like those in New Orleans with similar catastrophic results. Food is up. Gas is up, even though under Obama, we are drilling now more than ever. The US court system at the state & fed levels have no money, and fair & equal access to justice is *no longer* happening.
Where has BP *really* paid for the DIASTER in the Gulf of Mexico?? Why is no one telling us bupkiss about the state of the Gulf of Mex??
I’ll stop now. Spare me. “Things” are “better” now… like hell. Yeah, they’re frickin fantastic if you’re part of the 1%. If not, then not so much.
No way, no how will I ever vote for the BarackStar again for *anything.*
Agreed, I find it hard to believe so many Americans feel better off, at least economically. Gas prices aside, food prices have gone through the roof, and you seem to run into the ‘shakedown mentality’ wherever you go–extra fees for this, that, and eveything else. Wanna visit family out-of-state? Airfare is nearly double what it was 4 years ago.
Oh, and the Houston Astros being forcefully moved to the National League.
Partially correct, but don’t go by me, I follow none of it. Is it still called baseball? I in fact saw the Boys of Summer play at Ebbets Field. Remember when they left their mitts on the field. First row box seats for a Koufax-Drysdale Sunday double header at Forbes Field. But never saw baseball so good as the Championship Series of 1986, both leagues, Red Sox/Angels, Mets/Astros.
“What most people want from a leader is someone who can make their lives and the lives of their families better.”
That’s not what I’m looking for. If a leader can restore equality, justice and liberty, I can do fine for myself. If Americans wants a leader to make their lives better, they’d better elect Santa Claus.
Obama has done little for employment, a bad rightward initiative on healthcare, nothing for worker’s rights, tax fairness or campaign reform. Only challenged the most egregious voter suppression bills. Add to that his continuation and expansion of supergovernmental powers, and Obama has done the same damage that Republican have and will do.
Do I feel better than four years ago? I’m still trying to get back to how I felt before August, 1968.
Let’s hope her minor is Chinese.
Avoiding any discussion of the administration’s responsibility for it, where exactly are people able to say that they’re better off than four years ago? Seriously. I want to go there.
I have more unemployed friends than 4 years ago.
Everything is more expensive than it was 4 years ago.
Civil liberties have been impinged upon by the police state even more in the last 4 years.
Even more “very serious people” are seriously talking about bilking me out of my social security than four years ago.
I didn’t face a tax penalty for not having private, for-profit insurance four years ago.
Oh, but wait-we’re only equally as willing to let Israel (good to know that foreign state has more influence on our policy than I do) lead us around by the nose into another war as we were 4 years ago.
You get the point.
That must have been some impressively constructed series of questions.
The middle class standard of living has been declining for at least 30 years, while the wealthy have never had it better, and absolutely nothing has been done to change that. I don’t know where they come up with these polls, but they’re completely meaningless. Obama is nothing more than a huge insult to Americans with his disingenuous and false liberalism. I would like nothing better than to see him lose big. I wouldn’t care if Newt Gingrich was elected President. At least we might see the emergence of a real Democratic Party or maybe even a third party.
Lilli Ledbetter!
“At least we might see the emergence of a real Democratic party or maybe even a third party.”
That’s how I feel.
I am REAL tired of “the lesser of two evils”, especially when, in 2008, the american people gave him the tools to begin the salvage operation, and he turned around and traded them to the assholes who had nearly ruined us, for his little “bipartisan” merit badge.
I like that; I may steal it (with credit, of course).
I’m better off in one respect – I have no more illusions about the Democratic Party, and left it last March. One of the best things I ever did for myself, just embarrassed it took me that long.