"After a year, it appears the 'Obama effect' is real" said Steven Kull director Program on International Policy Attitudes (Pipa) at the University of Maryland, who helped conduct the poll.So our negatives are way up but we're still polling more or less the same as China. What about past performances? Here's the headline from the 2008 survey:
"Its influence on people's views worldwide, though, is to soften the negative aspects of the United States' image, while positive aspects are not yet coming into strong focus."
World views US 'more positively'Before Obama? The period of survey was from November 2007 through January 2008 while Bush was in the middle of a surge in Iraq and before Obama was even nominated. But alas, the poll director has an answer:
"It may be that as the US approaches a new presidential election, views of the US are being mitigated by hope that a new administration will move away from the foreign policies that have been so unpopular in the world," he said.When the 2009 came in flat the same guy explained it this way:
Steven Kull, Director of PIPA, comments: "Though BBC polls have shown that most people around the world are hopeful that Barack Obama will improve US relations with the world, it is clear that his election alone is not enough to turn the tide. People are still looking to see if there are significant changes in US policies."So.. go ahead and believe this means something if it makes your day. Obama is on record that he doesn't think too much of polls anyway...
And he's right on this one..
3 comments:
I suppose Obama hasn't ripped America quite enough yet to bring our poll numbers up to where he would like them, ha.
Debbie
Right Truth
http://www.righttruth.typepad.com
Mr. Marx offers us limitless possibilities, doesn’t he? Suppose he’s a worse than mediocre one term president —?
I feel confident that most Americans –especially those who yap the most about Democracy— fail to realize that voters have up to 12-hours every two years to decide the direction of our country. This is the way our founding fathers designed representative democracy. And because political reality is an issue of timing, politicians fully realize that Americans have limited memories. It is why Democrats and RINOs in Congress wanted to pass socialized medicine early in the year —so that by the time November rolls around, most Americans will have forgotten how angry they were.
I wish I had confidence that the American people would toss these bums out of office in November; I don’t. Not one bit of confidence.
Perhaps Obama's definition of 'one term' doesn't line up with the conventional definition? Anyway, he's correct on polls not mattering when faced with doing the right thing, although I'd put money we will see his administration using that poll soon to prop up his foreign policy disaster.
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