Politics
Obama Cooling Off, Heading South in Florida
Around the State
President Barack Obama | Credit: Pete SouzaA Quinnipiac University poll unveiled Thursday, on the president's birthday, finds that Barack Obama is upside down in Florida -- and losing ground and momentum in the Sunshine State.
While a poll released by Quinnipiac in late May found 51 percent of Floridians approving his performance compared to 43 percent who did not, the new one finds 51 percent now disapproving of him, as opposed to 44 who approve.
"President Barack Obama's numbers in the key swing state of Florida have gone south in the last two months,” said Peter Brown, the assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “The debt ceiling deal is not making any difference in that decline and any bounce he got from the bin Laden operation is long since gone.”
Fifty percent of those surveyed said that Obama does not deserve another term in the White House, while 42 percent think he should be re-elected. Once again, compared to the May poll, Obama took a step back in the Sunshine State. In May, 47 percent thought Obama should win another term in 2012 and 46 percent opposed it.
Brown notes that Obama is losing ground among independent voters in Florida. “The president's drop-off is huge among independent voters who now disapprove almost 2-1.”
While independent voters had been split on Obama back in May, in the new poll only 33 percent of them approve of the president’s performance, while 61 percent disapprove.
Despite these numbers, the president tied former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, the leading Republican candidate in the race, with both men garnering 44 percent of the vote in a poll taken Aug. 1 and 2. In a survey done before a deal was reached on the federal debt ceiling, taken July 27 through July 31, Obama beat Romney 46 percent to 41 percent.
The president retained a solid lead over the other candidates after the debt ceiling deal was reached. Obama beat Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who has yet to enter the race, 44 percent to 39 percent. The president led U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann by 12 points, taking 50 percent to her 38 percent. Obama crushed former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who has not officially entered the race, beating her by 19 points.
Romney, who came in second in the Sunshine State in the 2008 primary, leads the field of Republican hopefuls with 23 percent. Perry places second with 13 percent, while Palin and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas tie for third with 9 percent. Businessman Herman Cain is in fourth with 8 percent. Bachmann’s recent surge in national and some state polls has not been reflected in Florida, where she records 6 percent.
"Governor Rick Perry's stock is rising even before he announces whether he'll run," said Brown. "U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann, who had been surging in other states, is stalled."
The rest of the field lags behind. Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich took 4 percent, followed by former Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota with 3 percent. Despite basing his campaign in Orlando, Jon Huntsman, the former governor of Utah and ambassador to China, took only 1 percent in the Sunshine State, tying him with former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. U.S. Rep. Thad McCotter of Michigan took less than 1 percent.
The poll found that Florida voters back the debt ceiling deal, with 50 percent approving it and 37 percent opposing it. Only 2 percent back it strongly, while 18 percent say they're angry about it. Thirty-six percent of those surveyed say Obama acted in their best interest in the deal; 32 percent said that about U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, while 12 percent felt that about Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Comments (2)
ALEC didn't just come into town, the Citizens in Madison Wi knows about ALEC, but need to read more about what comming down the pipe-line for ordinary Americans'.
The 85 Republicans Freshman Senators and Governors knows what to do the Republicans is backing them all the way. The Senators and Presidental Candidates were told not to vote one way or another for the Debt Ceiling. Mike Kibbe the President for Freedomwork were on MSN and Chris Matthews ask if he vote for the Debt Ceiling if it were going into Default, Kibbe said No, Chris as why, Kibbe said we have enough money to pay our Bills and named a figure, Chris ask, how do you know that, Kibbe never answer, but the look on his face said that the Freshman was passing information on the one of Koch's President Mike Kibbe.
These people are trying to Hi-Jack America.
ALEC stands for the American Legislative Executive Council, but what it really
stands for is corporate conservatives corrupting democracy. As I wrote awhile
back, ALEC creates turnkey legislation which is then disseminated to elected
officials who are also members via their very secretive organization after it
has been approved by corporate members. Only, we really never knew who those
corporate members were or who the lawmakers were, either.
According to The Nation, was ALEC, not lame Democrats, who killed the public
option.
Reviewing ALEC’s healthcare-related bills and resolutions from the past few
years makes it clear that insurers realized early on that the best way to block
the profit-threatening provisions of any federal reform would be to attack them
at the state level through ALEC. With Democrats in control of both houses of
Congress and the White House in 2009, insurers assumed some kind of healthcare
reform was inevitable, so they adopted a strategy to shape rather than stop
reform. Its top five goals became:
.
Like any good force of destruction, ALEC works in many fronts at once. Kill
healthcare over here, kill unions over there. Shock and awe, baby. While we were
in a shocked daze, they were working clandestinely to kill all of the values we
hold dear as a representative democracy.
ALEC: Think Scott Walker’s anti-collective bargaining bill.
In These Times writes of ALEC, “An exhaustive analysis of thousands of pages of
documents obtained through public records requests from six states, as well as
tax filings, lobby reports, legislative drafts and court records, reveal that
these suddenly popular anti-public employee bills, while taking different forms
from state to state, were indeed disseminated as “model legislation” by ALEC.
Not coincidentally, bills similar to those in Florida and Wisconsin have been
introduced in Arizona, California, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Maine,
Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New
Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and
Vermont.”
Naturally the Koch brothers are involved in ALEC and you know by now when you
sniff a Koch, a Palin, Bachmann or Walker is not far behind. The puppets are
“Copyright, ALEC”, just as the “model” legislation is marked before it’s sent
out to the folks you pay to represent you in DC and at home, in your state
government.
The ALEC puppet, brought to you by the GOP, because nothing says democracy like
a for sale sign on your back and a corporate logo where your heart is supposed
to beat.
Beware the ALEC puppet. They just keep making more of them. We expose one and
out comes another soulless monster, with a plastic smile and an empty resume,
full of “common sense conservative values.”