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The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll (9/7/09)
Sep 7th


Monday, September 07, 2009
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 28% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-one percent (41%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -13 (see trends). Sixty percent (60%) now believe the President is at least as ethical as most politicians.
The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Updates also available on Twitter and Facebook.
One of the fun things about being in the polling business is that people often like to blame the messenger when they don’t like the news. One of the more creative efforts to diss the messenger was made on NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Fallon, The Roots and special guest Sean “Diddy” Combs complained about the Presidential Approval Index as they “slow jammed” the news.
Scott Rasmussen has recently had three analysis columns published in the Wall Street Journal. The most recent was on health care. Earlier columns were on the President’s approval ratings and how Obama won the White House by campaigning like Ronald Reagan. If you’d like Scott Rasmussen to speak at your meeting, retreat, or conference, contact Premiere Speakers Bureau. You can also learn about Scott’s favorite place on earth or his time working with hockey legend Gordie Howe.
Check out our weekly review of key polls to see “What They Told Us.” Topics include voter frustration with incumbents, health care reform, deficits, Afghanistan, and more. Also, visit our home page for the latest polling on a variety of topics. If it’s in the news, it’s in our polls.
It is important to remember that the Rasmussen Reports job approval ratings are based upon a sample of likely voters. Some other firms base their approval ratings on samples of all adults. President Obama’s numbers are always several points higher in a poll of adults rather than likely voters. That’s because some of the President’s most enthusiastic supporters, such as young adults, are less likely to turn out to vote. Other factors are also important to consider when comparing Job Approval ratings from different polling firms.
A Fordham University professor rated the national pollsters on their record in Election 2008. We also have provided a summary of our results for your review. In 2008, Obama won 53%-46% and our final poll showed Obama winning 52% to 46%. While we were pleased with the final result, Rasmussen Reports was especially pleased that our data was the least volatile of all the tracking polls. Our daily tracking showed Obama with a stable and solid lead with more than 50% of the vote every single day for the last six weeks of the campaign.
In 2004 George W. Bush received 50.7% of the vote while John Kerry earned 48.3%. Rasmussen Reports was the only firm to project both candidates’ totals within half a percentage point by projecting that Bush would win 50.2% to 48.5%. (see our 2004 results).
Daily tracking results are collected via telephone surveys of 500 likely voters per night and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. The margin of sampling error—for the full sample of 1,500 Likely Voters–is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Results are also compiled on a full-week basis and crosstabs for full-week results are available for Premium Members.
Like all polling firms, Rasmussen Reports weights its data to reflect the population at large (see methodology). Among other targets, Rasmussen Reports weights data by political party affiliation using a dynamic weighting process. While partisan affiliation is generally quite stable over time, there are a fair number of people who waver between allegiance to a particular party or independent status. Over the past four years, the number of Democrats in the country has increased while the number of Republicans has decreased.
Our baseline targets are established based upon separate survey interviews with a sample of adults nationwide completed during the preceding three months (a total of 45,000 interviews) and targets are updated monthly. Currently, the baseline targets for the adult population are 37.7% Democrats, 32.7% Republicans, and 29.6% unaffiliated. Likely voter samples typically show a slightly smaller advantage for the Democrats.
A review of last week’s key polls is posted each Saturday morning. Other stats on Obama are updated daily on the Rasmussen Reports Obama By the Numbers page. We also invite you to review other recent demographic highlights from the tracking polls.
Read More: Rasmussen
Glenn Beck up, left down and Van Jones defiant
Sep 7th

By BEN SMITH & NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON
The resignation early Sunday of “green jobs” adviser Van Jones says as much about the Obama White House as it does about Jones – marking the latest sacrifice to the political gods after a long summer of compromises and surrenders highlighted the limits of White House power.
The departure – nominally the choice of a still-defiant Jones, who said he feared distracting from important business – confirmed Obama’s choice of pragmatism over confrontation and a belief that controversies sometimes are better solved by capitulation, a view that infuriates Obama’s allies on the left.
It confirmed that the real opposition party to Obama right now is the conservative grassroots that draws its energy from Fox News, talk radio and the Drudge Report, and often leaves Republican elected officials scrambling to catch up.
And it was a fresh reminder that the White House’s vetting process didn’t fall down only on high-profile nominees like Tom Daschle. It barely touched the lower reaches of the administration – a White House official conceded Sunday that Jones’ past statements weren’t as thoroughly scrubbed due to his relatively low rank. Jones’ selection also was propelled by powerful patrons, who included the first lady and the vice president.
In his statement, Jones was defiant. “On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me,” he said. “They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide.”
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs cast the move the same way.
“What Van Jones decided was that the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual,” Gibbs said, agreeing with the show’s host, George Stephanopoulos that Obama “doesn’t endorse” Jones’s remarks on race and politics, his apparent flirtation with the “9/11 Truth” movement, and his advocacy for the convicted murderer Mumia Abu-Jamal.
The logic of the departure was clear: A hope of keeping the national conversation where Obama wanted it this week ahead of his health reform speech to a joint session of Congress Wednesday.
“Between Cambridge cops; whether administration officials are or are not for the public option; right wing mobbing at town halls; and the back to school welcome contretemps, the White House has been forced to play defense and loose-ball control over [the summer],” said the former Clinton White House aide Chris Lehane, who noted that a “very important week” could have been consumed by “ a discussion related to an obscure staffer who no one has ever really heard of.”
Read more: politico.com
One Czar Gone, 30 Left to Go
Sep 7th

After the humiliating resignation of “Green Jobs Czar” Van Jones over the weekend, a defiant President Obama named yet another czar for manufacturing policy at a Labor Day picnic on Monday.
Ron Bloom, who was a member of his auto industry task force, was named as senior counselor for manufacturing policy. Bloom was in Cincinnati Monday with Obama for an afternoon announcement at an AFL-CIO Labor Day event.
The Obama czars are generating controversy because, unlike other official government positions, these individual “advisers” do not have to face congressional scrutiny. They are merely named by the president and start work with huge authority over federal departments and policy but no congressional oversight. And unlike many appointees, they have the ear of the president to do his bidding.
Republicans had been calling for Jones to resign and raising concerns about all the czars Obama has appointed –which by some accounts amount to more than 30. Among the most powerful czars are John Holdren, the White House “science czar,” who has espoused controversial theories on climate change and overpopulation; Cass Sunstein, “regulatory czar,” who has sought to ban hunting; and Mark Lloyd, “diversity czar,” who has sought to stymie conservative voices in the media by strictly regulating the public airwaves.
It was some of these individuals that Glenn Beck referenced in his statement Sunday after the midnight resignation of Van Jones. Beck was the leading voice in exposing many of that czar’s more controversial statements and positions.
“The American people stood up and demanded answers,” Beck wrote in a statement. “Instead of providing them, the Administration had Jones resign under cover of darkness. I continue to be amazed by the power of everyday Americans to initiate change in our government through honest questioning, and judging by the other radicals in the administration, I expect that questioning to continue for the foreseeable future.”
Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman for the Bush administration, told Fox News that presidents like to appoint czars because it can be hard to get political appointees confirmed by an increasingly partisan Congress.
“They have skirted around that process so there is no accountability for the czars,” she said Monday. “Nobody has to go up and testify in front of Congress. They don’t have to go through the process.”
House Republican Mike Pence wants to see background checks on all Obama-appointed ‘czars,’ along with some congressional oversight. Until then, he wants to see suspension of further “czar” appointments.
Pence was the most vocal lawmaker in calling for the resignation of Van Jones after Jones was associated with the 9/11 “truther” movement: a conspiracy fringe that blamed the Bush administration for the World Trade Center attacks.
“I’m suggesting that the administration should suspend immediately any future czar appointments while both the constitutionality of this practice is examined and while the background and qualifications of individuals who’ve been appointed as czars is carefully examined,” Pence said.
The latest czar, Bloom, was a member of his auto industry task force, as senior counselor for manufacturing policy. Bloom planned to travel to Cincinnati with Obama for an afternoon announcement at the AFL-CIO event.
Bloom has already sidestepped congressional approval. He was senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as part of the auto industry task force since February. Bloom, a Harvard Business School graduate, previously advised the United Steelworkers union and worked as an investment banker, according to Fox News.
Bloom will work with the National Economic Council to lead policy development and planning for Obama’s work to revitalize U.S. manufacturing, the White House said.
Perino told Fox she doesn’t object to the White House focusing on revitalizing the battered manufacturing industry.
“The National Economic Council, which is part of the White House with a seat right inside the West Wing, that’s what their job is supposed to be,” she said. “I’m not clear as to why they have to add all these additional layers.”
Newsmax Washington Correspondent Ronald Kessler believes that Obama’s lack of management experience is starting to catch up with him.
“You’re seeing a White House in disarray,” Kessler told Fox, citing the contentious debate over health care reform and the decision to close the Guantanamo Bay prison without finding a place to send the detainees. “He is not exactly a model CEO.”
For a White House trying to fight through health care reform, and encourage bipartisan cooperation in the face of unabashed GOP obstruction and baseless personal attacks, the latest overblown controversy had terrible timing.
As Press Secretary Robert Gibbs explained, “What Van Jones decided was that the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual. The president thanks Van Jones for his service in the first eight months.”
Perino said she was “curious how he (Jones) made it that far into the administration when a Google search could have told you he believed that the Bush administration had allowed 9/11 to happen. It’d be like the Bush White House having a former Klansman or Holocaust denier in the West Wing.”
Read Original Article at : NewsMax.com




