Three-quarters of Americans say president-elect Barack Obama is a “strong and decisive leader,” the highest such support for an incoming president in almost 30 years, according to a CNN poll released Wednesday.
Seventy-six percent of the 1,013 adults surveyed between December 19 and December 21 described Obama as “strong and decisive,” a significant uptick from mid-March when only 59 percent of respondents said Obama was a strong leader.
CNN noted that only six in 10 Americans said US President George W. Bush was a strong leader when he took office in 2001. But Bush’s numbers rose to three in four after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
Obama’s numbers also hovered around 75 percent as a leader who “can bring the kind of change the country needs,” “can manage the government effectively,” “cares about people like you” and “is honest and trustworthy.” Those are higher marks than Bush received in 2001, CNN said.
Eight in ten respondents said Obama can get things done, inspires confidence and is tough enough to be president.
Obama’s worst score in the poll was 67 percent support as a person admired by those surveyed.
A December poll published in the USA Today newspaper found that Obama had broken US President George W. Bush’s post-9/11 ratings as the most admired man in America.
Thirty-two percent of respondents to the survey, conducted by Gallup polling, chose Obama. The newspaper reported that the only higher support in the history of the survey was Bush’s 39 percent rating in 2001, just a few months after 9/11.
Both the Gallup and CNN/Opinion Research Corporation polls had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.
AFP
