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When it comes to handling social issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage, Americans overwhelmingly trust President Obama to do a better job than Mitt Romney. According to a new AP-GfK poll, 52 percent of American adults trust Obama to do a better job handling social issues, while just 36 percent trust Romney to do a better job.
It is interesting that Obama does so well on social issues in general because the country is not nearly as supportive of his recent move to endorse marriage equality. Just 47 percent approve of Obama’s handling of same-sex marriage ,while 48 percent disapprove. Even though the poll finds that a majority of people don’t agree with Obama on marriage equality, they trust him more on social issues.
This poll further highlights the big dynamic of the race. On a host of issues, traits and personal characteristics Obama gets much higher marks than Romney. People simply like him better, have more positive opinions about him, and trust him more than Romney on most issues.
The one thing keeping this race close is that the poor state of the economy during Obama’s entire first term has left the American people with little confidence in his ability to handle the economic situation. On basically just this one issue people think Romney would be better than Obama, but given it is by far the most important issue to voters, that alone could be enough for Romney.
30 Comments
“Obama More Trusted On Social Issues.”
No shit… Really? I can’t imagine why that would be.
saying that Obama is more trusted on Social Issues than Romney is like saying Jeffrey Dalmer is more trusted than Ted Bundy to be your babysitter this weekend
Whew! Whadda relief!
Cause not a single member of the Legislative branch has my trust.
Who was it that said ” a sucker’s born every minute.” Was it Barnum or Obama?
TeeHe….I think it has a bit to do with the obvious truth that Romney cannot recall what he has said on any social issue….something about
“the tangled web we weave…”
I know, I know!
It was President Barnum Obama, right? Isn’t he the leader of the Clown Car Brigade?
He can’t recall anything he has said except for “Corporations are people, my friend”. The rest of us are just regular citizen tax payer people. The Corporate Global peoples are the best in his eyes.
What baffles me is why anyone would trust Pinocchio on anything.
I wouldn’t believe him if he told me the earth was round. Or that the sun rises in the east.
To me, social issues are unimportant when compared to my family’s standard of living. I don’t have the luxury of emphasizing social issues.
Not that Romney would be any different from Obama when it comes to my standard of living. So, I will vote for neither of them.
What KilgourTrout said.
Being strangled before being burnt at the stake, or not being strangled whilst at the stake.
You’re still going to die.
the only rousseau (sic) these amoral corporate lackeys know of is rene …
Obama is more trusted on social issues? I guess that’s what happens when you negotiate against yourself.
Off Topic—
Moyers and Company is going to be good tonight.
Good One! That or you play eleventy dimensional chess without knowing how to play.
Social issues, like the economy, war, etc?
Oh goody, Obama makes some cute noises about gay rights, let me press the “like” button.
1.) The reason that the economy is so bad can be laid directly at decisions made by the Obama administration. He had several opportunity to do things that would have helped correct a certain amount of the damage done in the last three decades. He decided to try to help the bankers conceal their criminal fraud and ignore unemployment. He decided that Trade agreements were more important than working on expanding and protecting the manufacturing policies of America. And he decided to try to make Pete Peterson’s wet dream come true….
Romney is this close because he didn’t do what he was elected to do by the voters and his small donors to kowtow to his big donors. I guess he forgot that for all their money they only constitute about a thousand real votes and fairweather ones at that.
2.) So let’s see, the social issue choice is between ranging from indifferent to ‘oooh a bargaining chip’ and pretty awful. On foreign policy and how we treat people who get in our way thing the choice is between evil and evil. On the banksters are the bestest and finance is king issue it is evil and evil. On workers and their needs it is between really bad and really really bad. Supreme Court is between both are corporate whores and will make their bosses happy but the mormon one will allow the religious right to eliminate religious freedom.
I get how people will put on a hazmat suit and vote for Obama, but years of choosing the lessor of two evils have led to a choice between the Wicked Warlock of Chicago and the Wicked Warlock of Moroni. I feel I must apologize for not having said no earlier and convincing others to do the same. Perhaps we might not have an elected elite who feel free to say ‘fuck the base’. No longer.
If Republicans continue to prevent gays & lesbians from marrying, then having a family to support would become important to many Americans.
Without Civil Rights African-Americans might still be slaves.
To talk about having a standard of living without considering the right to be free and treated as a citizen equal to all others is true stupidity.
President Obama is leading America FORWARD.
I thought about that, but what does not voting get you?
“Without Civil Rights African-Americans might still be slaves.”
Crap. Learn a little history before you reply to me. Without the Civil War African-Americans might still be slaves. Probably not, but maybe. The Civil Rights Acts came a century later. I remember. I was a kid then–for the Civil Rights Acts, that is.
Without a decent standard of living the right to be free is meaningless. Free to do what? Malcolm X understood that.
As far as “President Obama is leading America FORWARD” goes, forward to what? Forward to fascism, maybe. I’m getting nauseated talking to you. Good night. Don’t wish you luck, though, you’ve obviously had way too much in your life.
Of course he inherited the same budget surplus that his predecessor did, right? RIGHT??? Sure he did…
But can we believe a poll that uses “Obama” and “trust” in the same sentence?
Obama never met a CAT FOOD commission he didn’t endorse. Vote none of the above on 11/2. Fuck both your corrupt houses (squared).
You beat me to it.
… X 2
When both the only “real choices that will count” in November 2012 as sponsored by UniParty INC.Inc. and presented by the R and D “Coke tastes better than Pepsi” No — Pepsi tastes better than Coke” American politics branding shops/stooges are —
>>> Another Ronald Reagan wannabe with some Utah Religion to sell instead of having “Just Say No” Nancy Reagan’s stargazer placing the dates/fates is choice
>>> Bad #1
or
>>> Maybe Not as Bad as #1 but Way Much More Bad ( as in being a Warmonger and repeat War Criminal ) If You Are/Become One Of His Kill Drone Innocent Victims”. But vote for him anyway because American War Criminals who get photos of them smiling on sites such as this one must not be quite so bad — right? I mean maybe there is good in killing innocent humans for someone who benefits from the death dealing? Maybe? It’s so hard to know but as long as my home is not blasted to hell and/or I am not killed by Flying Monkey Drone Killers I can live with innocent humans getting the drop/chop from Barack Obama being I live in the good ‘ol USA and not Afghanistan,Pakistan or WhereEverStan. Damn I’m proud to be an American!!
>>> Bad #2
Odd thing about real monsters is sometimes they can be/are way so normal in most other ways.
Who’s more trusted on drone use?
The only comparison that is relevant is that they’re both owned by the oligarchs, and they’re both lying, opportunistic, sociopaths. These are the only type of candidates who can get elected under our corrupt political system.
The reason that the economy is so bad can be laid directly at decisions made by the Obama administration.
Of course he inherited the same budget surplus that his predecessor did, right? RIGHT??? Sure he did…
So Obama walked into a dirty room and added to the filth for over three years and he still gets a pass? Sorry, but apparently you decided to stop the clock in January of 2009 and ignore the record after. My second and third sentence after the one you quoted are: He had several opportunity to do things that would have helped correct a certain amount of the damage done in the last three decades. He decided to try to help the bankers conceal their criminal fraud and ignore unemployment.
High unemployment was at crisis levels for almost three years before he even decided to acknowledge that it was a very real problem and not maybe a possible drag on the economy. Wasting his political capital to pass Dole/Romneycare, which is probably going to be history in a few days, sure was a good idea wasn’t it? How about accepting the meme that our problem is the deficit and that federal budget is like a family budget rather then using his ability to communicate to destroy both and point out that right now is the best time to INVEST in America’s workers and its infrastructure before the Dems lost in 2010 because people didn’t see things changing in ways that made their lives better, or at least not getting worse.
The only way you can look at the decisions made by the Obama administration to deal with the economic mess and not recognize that the American people just weren’t important is to close your eyes. Every action, every choice made it clear that the financial industry is important and must be protected even if it means destroying our rather weak safety net entirely, corporations trump government, and the American worker well they have had a free ride for too long and need to learn to sacrifice everything for their betters – including retirement, standard of living, clean air and water.
To be crass and to put it in perspective – Obama never found his comfortable shoes, probably too busy looking for kneepads to help him suck banker dick better. His knees almost gave out trying to get them off after their massive mortgage fraud was discovered and home owners might win against the banks and bankers might go to jail…
The democrats have only one way to get the people’s trust, and that’s through social issues. Gay marriage doesn’t hurt the big corporations. And if anything, immigration amnesty helps the big corporations through increased competition in the workplaces, among other things. The democrats successfully got their base to care passionately about these issues, so when everything else is wrong with the country; when BP gets away with its actions in the Gulf, when we have robo-signing settlements that don’t even qualify as a slap on the wrist, etc. etc. etc., democrats can just say “b-b-but gay marriage!” or “b-b-but immigration!”
The democratic voters are falling for it, hook, line, and sinker.
That is not really fair, is it? Thurber correctly points out that he had three years, two of which he had majorities in both houses, in which to attack the fundamental problems causing our economic downturn and has spent them doing the bidding of the very Republicans who caused it.
He didn’t have to take on Geithner, Bernanke or any of the rest of his Chicago School advisors, yet he did. He didn’t have to take on Paulson’s bailout strategy, but he did. He didn’t need to run cover for the likes of Jamie Dimon, yet he did; he even plays golf with him and gives him Presidential cufflinks. He didn’t need to come up with catfood commissions underwritten by Pete Peterson, but he did.
One could go on and on in this vein; the point is that he did not do what needed to be done to fix this economy. The budget surplus could have been resurrected by ending the wars and the Bush tax cuts. Had that been a criterion, it could have been achieved by now, and I think you know it.
It is wild to me how O can spend years slapping every single constituency of the Democratic Party onto the sidelines of his big money parade until just before his second term election, throw out a few crumbs to the sectors with some money and/or votes and then voila! He is suddenly trusted on social issues. Nothing he has done cannot be instantly reversed after the election and, much like most of his promises the last time, I expect that they will be. When was the last time we heard anything about EFCA, for example? Wisconsin would have made for a good platform for that one, but apparently unions are not as important this go round as they used to be.
We have seen this play before; apparently there are more people who can be fooled all of the time than I ever expected.