While Russia was the first country to challenge President-elect Obama with a threat to deploy new missiles facing Europe, most U.S. voters expect terrorists or Iran to provide the new president’s first international test in office.
Barack Obama has noted, carefully and correctly, that we have only one president at a time. Yet on at least one issue he has taken the lead and nudged the man who will soon be his predecessor in a direction that he might not have taken without prompting.
President-elect Barack Obama continues to bask in the afterglow of a big and historic election, despite an equally historic post-election slump in the stock market.
Given America’s current economic problems and its foreign policy entanglements, voters overwhelmingly want to see bipartisanship at play in Washington, D.C.
Changing the way government works may have been the winning message on Election Day, but three out of four Republicans (75%) are worried that Barack Obama will change things too much as president. Half of unaffiliated voters (49%) share that concern, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Sixty-eight percent (68%) of U.S. voters support offshore oil drilling as a way to keep gas prices down, but only 44% are confident that President-elect Barack Obama agrees with them.
I saw it on election night, as I scrolled through the exit poll that somehow made its way online (at least at cbsnews.com) even before the polls closed in Ohio.
President George W. Bush came out fighting for free markets with a strong and stirring defense of American capitalism on the eve of the G-20 World Economic Conference. Stocks soared 550 points Thursday as Bush’s luncheon speech was played live on all the major cable networks. It was as though Mr. Bush was trying to leave an economic-primer to his successor-elect Barack Obama. Markets cheered because it’s the best thing they’ve heard in many weeks.
Despite an historic post-election drop in the stock market, Americans seem a bit more optimistic about the future since Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States last week.
Voter confidence in the War on Terror has reached its highest level ever, with 60% now saying the United States and its allies are winning, according to the first Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey on the issue since Election Day.
Sizable pluralities of Americans are opposed to taxpayer-backed bailouts of the Big Three automakers, with 73% now worried the U.S. government will run out of money with all the demands being made on the federal treasury in the current economic crisis.
Ever since California voters recalled Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in 2003 and replaced him with Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sacramento has been passing gimmicky state budgets that did not raise taxes, but also kicked structural deficit spending into the next year.
While the ultimate occupants of three United States Senate seats are yet to be determined in Alaska, Georgia and Minnesota, chances seem small that Democrats will increase their new majority to 60 seats -- the supermajority that ensures against a successful filibuster. So the same Republicans who once complained about the use of that legislative weapon by the opposition now brandish it in warning to President-elect Barack Obama.
Every day since Nov. 4, the scope of Democrat Barack Obama's victory has grown more impressive. His electoral vote total of 364 is the highest for any presidential winner since Bill Clinton's reelection in 1996.
I'm delighted that Barack Obama has been elected president and that foreigners are delighted, too. But I never viewed eliciting delight from non-Americans a reason for choosing a president, including one of color.
Bond’s back, and, as far as 45% of Americans are concerned, it’s a welcome return.
Despite Wall Street’s highly publicized problems, a majority of U.S. voters (54%) still think it is a good idea for most Americans to invest in stocks, bonds and mutual funds.
Forty-five percent of voters (45%) say Barack Obama will govern as a partisan Democrat, while 40% say he will govern on a bipartisan basis, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Rasmussen Reports has another opportunity for you to show off you prediction skills and demonstrate your understanding of public opinion.
For years I've been dining out on the story of the 1988 vice presidential debate, where Lloyd Bentsen literally cleaned Dan Quayle's clock -- "You're no Jack Kennedy" -- resulting in a huge increase in his own approval ratings and virtually no bump at all for the Dukakis-Bentsen ticket.
