Opinion: New poll finds U.S. voters display keen grasp of the obvious; they expect more D.C. partisanship in 2011
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Having just spanked deaf Democrats by handing control of the House of Representatives over to those retrograde Republican folks after four years, American voters now seem even less confident the two parties will be able to work together in the next year.
Geez, what do you think first tipped them off that rebalancing the political representation on Capitol Hill would result in more disagreements heading into the presidential sweepstakes?
A new Rasmussen Poll finds a good majority of Likely Voters now feels the atmosphere will be even more partisan in Obama’s Washington, even if that seems impossible at the moment.
The new survey finds 56% feel that way, which is up seven points since just before the Nov. 2 midterm elections, when polls indicated Americans wanted change from the rancorous climate of the Obama administration’s first two years.
So, wait. If little gets done in D.C. during the next 12 months’ lead-up to the 2012 presidential campaign, whose....
...fault is it: The voters who sent the message they didn’t like two years of one-party Democratic omnipotence in the nation’s capital, the surviving Democrats who still control the Senate and White House or the people they sent there to carry out this just-hold-on-OMG-have-you-seen-the-size-of-their-spending-tab message? Nineteen percent of those surveyed this month feel politics in Washington will be more cooperative in 2011; they were, however, not asked to submit to a Breathalyzer. Fully one-in-four (25%), who apparently have been watching the Animal Planet channel since 2009, say they are unsure how politics will play out.
The results also showed that, given the Nov. 2 results, fully 71% believe it is at least somewhat likely that the next president of the United States will be a Republican. That’s up 10 points post-election and the highest since Obama became No. 44.
Forty-one percent think it’s very likely that Sarah Palin will be the next Oval Office occupant. No, just seeing if you’re paying attention; that 41% simply think the next president will very likely be some kind of Republican.
President Obama, like most presidents who study the polls closely, says he pays no attention to the polls. So, he can keep on doing that because the Rasmussen poll question did not include a date for when the next president would be a Republican -- 2012 or 2016.
-- Andrew Malcolm
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