CNN Poll: Americans less optimistic than four years ago

[NYC Liberal]

Washington (CNN) - A majority of Americans give President Barack Obama a thumbs up on the job he's doing in office, but according to a new national poll they are less optimistic about the country's future than they were four years ago when Obama won the White House for the first time.

A CNN/ORC International survey released Monday indicates that 56% of the public thinks the country will be better off four years from now, with four in ten saying it will be worse than they are now.

Fifty-two percent approve of the way Obama is handling his job as president, with 43% saying they disapprove. Obama's approval rating is virtually unchanged from his pre-election approval rating of 51%. And it's changed little this year: Since February the president's approval rating ranged between 49% and 52% in CNN polling.

"The generation gap that was evident in presidential vote still remains, but the gender gap has vanished, at least temporarily," Holland said. "President Obama's approval rating is 58% among younger Americans, but a majority of older Americans disapprove of Obama. But Obama's approval rating among men and women is exactly the same - 52% among men, 52% among women."

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/26/cnn-poll-americans-less-optimistic-than-four-years-ago/?hpt=hp_t1

[spanone]

1. are these the same cnn pollsters that said romney was going to win the election?

comedy news network

[NYtoBush-Drop Dead]

3. lol!

Maybe we could get Nate to poll it.

[1StrongBlackMan]

5. Yeah ...

Well there is that. But you should believe them this time ... after all, the American public is being fed a non-stop fiscal cliff diet.

[NYC Liberal]

7. LOL exactly what I thought.

[sadbear]

2. We have a better picture now of just how much bush fucked the country.

This shit is more serious than we thought.

[jwirr]

4. And many of us were expecting too much too fast. We now know better.

[markpkessinger]

6. This doesn't really surprise me at all...

... Four years ago, much of the country thought, or certainly hoped, we could make a fresh start. But we've all been slapped upside the head by the political reality of endless GOP attempts at obstruction and by widespread voter ignorance concerning the substance of the issues before us. So that hope has been tempered by a hard dose of reality. Yeah, and?

Actually, I get a kick out of these polls that try to measure mere affect as if it were something politically significant or real. I mean, if people feel optimistic when there isn't much reason to be terribly optimistic, is that really a good thing? Seems to me that both unfounded optimism and unfounded pessimism are unhelpful as we try to grapple with real issues.