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Rasmussen...
What They Told Us:
Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls
Saturday, February 05, 2011
The drama on the streets of Cairo has many Americans thinking about
national security and the role our country plays in the world these
days.
Most expect the unrest in Egypt to spread to other Middle Eastern
countries and think that will be bad for the United States. But a
sizable majority (70%) also believe the United States should stay out
of Egypt’s current problems.
Voters give mixed marks to President Obama’s response to the crisis in
Egypt, although the survey was taken prior to news reports that the
White House is actively involved in efforts to change the government
there. Getting the United Nations involved would just make things
worse, however, as far as many are concerned.
Closer to home, 81% of voters think it is at least somewhat likely that
the political crisis in Egypt will significantly increase the cost of
gasoline, with 46% who say it is Very Likely.
While Egypt has been ruled without free elections for 30 years by
President Hosni Mubarak, it also has been America’s – and Israel’s –
strongest ally in the Middle East, and most Americans appear to
recognize the need for a reality-based U.S. foreign policy. Sixty
percent (60%) agree that it is more important for the United States to
be allies with any country that best protects our own national security
than it is to be allies only with countries that have freely elected
governments.
Most voters (53%) believe America’s military strategy should focus on
defending the United States and its interests, but a sizable number
think the strategy should concentrate on keeping the world peaceful
instead. Either way, voters overwhelmingly see economic challenges as a
much bigger threat to the United States than challenges on the military
front.
Voters are fairly evenly divided as to whether the federal government
spends too much or too little on national defense, but most also appear
to dramatically underestimate how much is actually spent. As discussion
of cutting the defense budget grows in Congress, a plurality of voters
think the United States should remove its troops from Western Europe
and Japan, but most think we should keep our forces in South Korea.
Regardless of the cost estimates or where they’re stationed, the U.S.
military is seen as the most powerful in the world by 65% of voters.
There’s little change in the number of voters who think the United
States and its allies are winning the war on terror, but the number who
feel the terrorists are winning has fallen to its lowest level in
nearly two years.
For many Americans, the national color-coded terror alert system
adopted after the 9/11 attacks had lost much of its original meaning,
so it’s not surprising that 53% of voters agree with the Department of
Homeland Security’s decision to abandon that system in favor of more
specific warnings.
Speaking of the budget, few voters in today’s economic climate consider
themselves liberals on fiscal policy issues, but there’s a little more
divergence of opinion when it comes to social issues. Forty-seven
percent (47%) of voters describe themselves as conservative on fiscal
issues, while 42% say the same on social issues. Only seven percent
(7%) describe themselves as liberal on fiscal policy issues, but nearly
four times as many (26%) say they’re liberal when it comes to social
issues.
Most voters (58%) continue to favor repeal of the national health care
law, but now that the Republican-run House has voted to repeal and sent
it on to the Democratic-controlled Senate, confidence that the law
ultimately will be repealed has fallen to its lowest level in four
months.
More than half the states are challenging the constitutionality of the
health care law in court, many focusing on the requirement that every
American must have health insurance. More voters than ever (58%) oppose
that requirement and think states should have the right to opt out of
some or all of the health care law.
Voters remain concerned, too, that the health care law will cause some
employers to drop their health insurance coverage, and most still
question the exemptions to the law the Obama administration is granting
to some businesses.
But overall voters were a little happier last month with the job the
president is doing. His job approval ratings as measured by the
Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll improved in January,
with his monthly index at its highest level since April of last year.
The Rasmussen Consumer and Investor Indexes are up only slightly from
the first of the year, but the Discover U.S. Spending Monitor jumped to
a three-year high in January, fueled by a surge in the number of
middle-income consumers who see improvement in the U.S. economy and in
their personal finances.
Some of that money is likely to be bet this weekend by the 54% of Super
Bowl watchers who say they’ll be focusing intently on the game. Forty
percent (40%) admit they will mainly be socializing while the game is
on, but then one-out-of-three Super Bowl viewers (35%) think the
commercials are better than the action on the field anyway.
The big political game of the next 18 months – the battle for the
Republican presidential nomination in 2012 – is in the very early
stages and it’s hard to know who will emerge as serious candidates.
Most Republican Primary voters are looking for experience in both the
private sector and government in a potential presidential candidate.
Private sector experience carries a bit more weight. They are also
overwhelmingly looking for someone who shares their views as opposed to
someone who is merely electable.
Sarah Palin remains one of the most popular potential candidates, but a
sizable number of primary voters hope she doesn’t get the nomination.
However, nearly half of the likely primary voters who support Palin say
they are at least somewhat likely to vote for a third-party candidate
if she does not win the Republican nomination.
There’s more; read it at Rasmussen Reports
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