It is truly amazing to look at some of the polls about the debt ceiling negotiations that are being discussed in the media. No matter what position one favors, it is easy to find a poll that supports that view. Most of you have probably seen the poll that "reveals" that the public will blame the GOP by a margin of 3 to 2 if there is no deal. Then there are the polls that say that a majority of the public wants any deal to include tax increases. Then there is yesterday's Rasmussen poll which found that 55% of the public oppose any tax hikes in the deal. Another Rasmussen poll also found that 58% of voters disapprove of the performance of Obama and the Obamacrats in these negotiations while 52% disapprove of the performance of the GOP.
The truth is that there are polls, more polls and still more polls. Depending on how the questions are worded and asked, the results vary. Depending on whether or not a screen for likely voters is used, the results vary. To me, probably the best indicator of how the negotiations are going for Obama is to look at the trend in his approval ratings on Real Clear Politics which takes all the polls and averages them together. Over the last two months, those approving of Obama have declined by about 6% and those disapproving have increased by a like number. Right now, it is 49% disapprove and 45.9% approve. While this is not just dependent on the debt negotiations, they still are the largest event shaping perceptions in the last month or so, so this ought to be a proxy for the public view as to how things are going.
The real truth is that Obama has come to learn the hard way that you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.
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