All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

Americans are overwhelmingly dissatisfied with conditions in the United States today and isolationist sentiments are at an all time high, according to a poll released today by the Pew Research Center.

For the first time in the institute's 45 years conducting the poll, more respondents agreed (49 percent) that the United States "should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own" than disagreed (44 percent). A majority, 76 percent, believes that the country should focus more on problems at home and not concentrate as much on international issues.

Andrew Kohut, the president of the Pew Research Center, told the Associated Press in an interview that the "very bad economy" factored heavily in the growth of isolationist sentiment.

The poll also reflects a decidedly pessimistic mood among members of the public: only 25 percent reported feeling satisfied with conditions in America today, and even fewer, 15 percent, said they feel satisfied with conditions in the world.

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President Obama is expected to announce that he will send additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan during his address Tuesday night -- something just a third of the public supports.

According to the latest CBS News Poll conducted November 13-15, slightly more, 39 percent, would like to say the number of troops decreased, and 20 percent want troop levels kept the same.

As was the case with the war in Iraq, views on sending more troops are influenced by partisanship: half of Republicans support a troop increase, but just 17 percent of Democrats do. 34 percent of independents think troops should be increased.

The president will need to convince Americans that sending more troops will improve what most Americans consider to be a bad situation there. Sixty-nine percent of Americans told the CBS News Poll that things are going badly for the U.S. in Afghanistan, and just twenty-three percent -- the lowest measured by this poll -- think things are going well.

The CBS Poll -- conducted prior to the president's address about the future course of the war in Afghanistan -- found just 36 percent think additional troops will make things better in Afghanistan, and 22 percent expect more troops to make things worse. Thirty-one percent expect no difference.

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A recent CBS News Poll suggests there may be some cracks in support among a group that was instrumental in bringing Barack Obama to the White House – independents.

According to a CBS News Poll conducted November 13-16, a declining percentage of independents now approve of the way Mr. Obama is handling his overall job as president as well as some key policy areas compared to last month.

Even though more independents continue to approve (45 percent) than disapprove (40 percent) of the president's overall job performance, the percentage that approves is down 7 points from last month, and the number that disapproves is up 5 points.

In February 2009, when CBS News took its first measure of the president's job rating, 56 percent of independents approved of the job he was doing and that number soared to 65 percent as Mr. Obama marked his 100 days in office. Support for the president among independents has mostly declined since then.



The latest CBS News Poll finds that independents give Mr. Obama his lowest approval rating on his handling of Afghanistan. Just 30 percent approve of the way he is handling that conflict, down 14 points from October. In addition, 71 percent of independents think the war is going badly, up from 48 percent in September. Sixty-nine percent of Americans overall say the war in Afghanistan is going badly for the U.S.

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The latest CBS News Poll, conducted in early October, found President Obama's approval rating hasn't changed much over the past few months, but it is down from the high he reached in April, as he neared the end of his first hundred days in office.

The president's overall job approval rating was 56 percent in early October, with 34 percent disapproving, and 10 percent saying they don't know. Approval dropped twelve points since April, when 68 percent approved.



Mr. Obama has lost ground with independents and Republicans. In the October CBS News Poll, just 20 percent of Republicans approved, down from 31 percent in April. Most recently 52 percent of independents approved, down 13 points from 65 percent. 91 percent Democrats approved in April; 87 percent do so now.

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President Obama is hitting the campaign trail tonight in New Jersey to stump for the state's incumbent Democratic Governor, Jon Corzine, who is locked in a tough re-election battle.

While some have characterized this race as referendum on Mr. Obama, recent polling may indicate that the New Jersey race for governor is about… well, New Jersey.

Mr. Obama, who won the Garden State by 15 points last November, remains popular here: 62 percent approve of the job he is doing as president according to the latest New York Times Poll.

As for Corzine, he receives only a 33 percent approval rating from New Jersey residents.

Independents are a key group in almost any election and most New Jersey independents (63%) approve of the job Mr. Obama is doing as president, but only 25% of this group likes the way Governor Corzine is handling his job. And while the incumbent Governor receives a 56% approval rating among Democrats, that is 49 points lower than the approval rating Democrats in New Jersey give Mr. Obama (85%).



Will Mr. Obama's popularity translate into votes? Well, at this point, two in three New Jersey voters say the President's endorsement of Mr. Corzine will make no difference in their vote.

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While the debate in Congress over including a "public option" in health care reform legislation continues, Americans' views on a government-administered health plan are clearer: more than half support it.

Recent CBS News Polls have shown that a majority of Americans consistently supports a public option – defined as a government-administered health insurance plan something like the Medicare coverage that people 65 and older receive that would compete with private health insurance plans.

And although support has dropped ten points since June, 62 percent favored it in an early October CBS News Poll, while just half as many, 31 percent, opposed it.



Recent polls conducted by other media and polling organizations also find a majority in support of a public option.

While each pollster asks the question slightly differently, levels of support are now similar. A ABC News/Washington Post poll released today found 57 percent supported the government creating "a new health insurance plan to compete with private health insurance plans." That's up from 55 percent in their previous poll last month.

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A CBS News Poll conducted in early October found just under half of Americans said they were likely to get vaccinated against the H1N1 flu, including only 28 percent who said they were very likely to do so. Other recent polls show similar results: for example, just 52 percent of respondents in an AP/GfK poll also conducted in early October said they were likely to be vaccinated.

In fact, those findings aren't much different than reaction to past flu outbreaks.

The last serious outbreak of the H1N1 virus in this country occurred in 1976. Then, the U.S. government undertook a public health campaign urging people to get the vaccine, and many millions of Americans did so. But questions arose about possible serious and potentially life-threatening side effects from the vaccine, and the vaccination program was cancelled in December.

In August 1976, 53 percent of Americans interviewed in a Gallup poll said they planned to get the swine flu inoculation shots when they became available -- slightly higher, but not much different, than today. Seventeen percent said they would not get the vaccine, and 30 percent weren't sure.

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As the United States marks eight years of military engagement in Afghanistan, a majority of Americans think that war is going badly for the U.S. and they are divided on whether the United States is doing the right thing by being involved there now.

This is a reversal from October 2001, when the U.S. began military action in Afghanistan. With the country still reeling from the September 11th attacks, support for military action in Afghanistan was high and broad. Ninety percent of Americans approved of it, including solid majorities of both Democrats and Republicans.


CBSNews.com Special Report: Afghanistan



But eight years later the country is split on U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, according to a CBS News/New York Times Poll conduced September 19-23. Forty-seven percent say the U.S. is doing the right thing by fighting there, but 42 percent think the U.S. should not be involved. And there is a partisan divide now; most Republicans say the U.S. is doing the right thing, while most Democrats disagree. Independents are divided.

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When President Obama delivered his speech on health care to a joint session of Congress in early September, he talked of the need for health care reform as a moral obligation. He quoted a letter written by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy: "What we face is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country."

The latest CBS News/New York Times Poll, conducted September 19-23, finds that Americans divide on whether or not the federal government has a moral responsibility to guarantee health care for everyone: 47 percent say the government does, while 48 percent believe it does not.

CBSNews.com Special Report: Health Care

Most age groups split on this question, with the exception of those age 65 and over. While seniors are eligible for Medicare -- a health program administered by the government – 55 percent of them do not think the government has a moral responsibility to guarantee health coverage for all Americans. Seniors also give Mr. Obama his lowest ratings on health care of any age group. Just 38 percent of them approve.

In terms of gender, half of women consider providing health care to everyone to be a moral responsibility, while 53 percent of men oppose that view.

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It has been a year since the failure of Lehman Brothers and the subsequent financial and banking crisis on Wall Street that brought the U.S. economy to the brink of collapse; while for months Americans have ranked the economy as the most important problem the country faces, opinions about measures to address the economic instability resulting from last fall's events have found mixed support at best.

In polls conducted last fall, both the general principle of providing government assistance to financial institutions and the specific legislation Congress passed last fall met with lukewarm public support.

A CBS News/New York Times poll conducted September 21-24, 2008, in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, found just 42 percent of Americans approved of the government providing money to Wall Street, and more, 46 percent, disapproved. Those sentiments transcended partisanship: just 43 percent of Republicans, 41 percent of Democrats and 4 percent of independents approved. By October, just 36 percent approved of this approach, and 52 percent disapproved.

Views have not changed much since then. In March 2009, a CBS News Poll found 41 percent approved -- and more, 50 percent, disapproved -- of the government providing money to banks and other financial institutions to try to "help fix the country's economic problems."

Why such lukewarm support for these plans, which were presented as helping the U.S. economy avoid the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression?

One answer could be the blame Americans placed on the banks themselves for the financial troubles they were experiencing. The September 2008 poll found that 46 percent of the public thought that bad management by the banks was to blame for those problems, and just 27 percent thought that a lack of government supervision was to blame. Another 17 percent thought both were at fault. By March, fully 75 percent of Americans felt that the banks' problems were caused by management decisions, and only 17 percent thought they were the result of conditions beyond the banks' control.

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