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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tonto who wrote (89116)	8/12/2010 11:14:38 AM
From: TideGlider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224748

Most Voters Say Obama, Congressional Democrats More Liberal Than They Are Thursday, August 12, 2010 Email to a Friend ShareThis.Advertisement Most voters in the country now believe President Obama and the average Democrat in Congress are more liberal, politically speaking, than they are. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% of Likely U.S. Voters say the president is more liberal than they are, and 56% say the same of the average Democratic member of Congress. Twelve percent (12%) of voters say the president is more conservative than they are, and 13% think the same of the average Democrat in Congress. Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, notes that “It is remarkable how similar the response is to both the president and his party in Congress. While many in official Washington highlight the differences between the two, voters see a broadly consistent agenda.” Just 26% of voters think Obama shares the same political views they have. Twenty-three percent (23%) believe that of Democrats in Congress. The good news for Democrats is that only 26% also think the average Republican in Congress has about the same views politically as they do. When it comes to the average GOP congressman, 42% of voters believe the GOP representatives are more conservative than they are while 24% say the GOP office holders are more liberal. What’s in a political label? Forty percent (40%) of voters view being described politically as a conservative as a positive description, while 16% see it as a negative. By comparison, 14% say being described as a political liberal is a positive, but 39% see it as a negative description. These findings comes at the same time that 57% of voters believe the Democratic congressional agenda is extreme, while a plurality (45%) describes the Republican agenda as mainstream. (Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook. The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters U.S. Voters was conducted on August 9-10, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology. Among Democrats, a plurality (45%) now say the president is about the same ideologically as they are, and a similar number (43%) feel the same about the average Democratic congressman. Roughly one-out-of-four Democrats think Obama and the party’s average congressional representative is more liberal than they are, but just as many rate both of them as more conservative. Sixty-one percent (61%) of Democratic voters think their representatives in Congress have done a good job of representing Democratic values over the past several years. Forty-seven percent (47%) of Republican voters believe the average GOP member of Congress is more liberal than they are. This helps explain why an overwhelming number of Republicans believe GOP congressmen have been out of touch with the party’s base for several years. Just nine percent (9%) say the average Republican in Congress is more conservative than they are, and 38% say their views are about the same. Last September, 51% of voters described the Democratic-controlled Congress as too liberal, while 22% felt it was too conservative. Just 14% said the ideological balance in Congress was about right. Voters have consistently for months expressed their unhappiness over the national health care bill, the bailouts of the auto and financial industries and the continuing sluggishness of the economy despite last year’s $787-billion economic stimulus plan. These initiatives and others like them by Congress and the president have helped drive the federal deficit to projected record levels for years to come. As is frequently the case, the views of the Political Class and Mainstream voters don’t’ gibe. Seventy percent (70%) of Mainstream voters say the president is more liberal than they are, and 68% feel that way about the average Democrat in Congress. Among Political Class voters, however, 57% say their views are about the same as the president’s, and even more (62%) say they share the same views as the average congressional Democrat. When it comes to the average Republican in Congress, 92% of the Political Class say he or she is more conservative than they are. Mainstream voters are more conflicted: 34% say more conservative, 30% more liberal and 30% about the same. As most members of Congress head home to make the case for their reelection, just 16% of voters rate the overall performance of Congress as good or excellent, although that’s the highest it’s been since last September. Fifty-six percent (56%) say Congress is doing a poor job. Voters strongly believe that most members of Congress are for sale, and over half think it’s at least somewhat likely that their own representative has been bought with cash or a campaign contribution. LINK Most voters continue to believe it would be better for the country if the majority of Congress is thrown out this November. Most also believe it is at least somewhat likely that Republicans will win control of both houses of Congress in the upcoming elections, and nearly half say there will a noticeable change in the lives of Americans if this happens. Republicans continue to lead Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot and are trusted more by voters on most key issues. Voters are evenly divided, however, over the notion that a group of people randomly selected from the phone book could do a better job than the current Congress.