Reply #22: Glum Mood Bodes Ill for GOP [View All]

[UpInArms]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120121663246015023.html?mod=mktw

Just when it seemed Americans couldn't get any gloomier about the country's direction, they have. That finding, from the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, could leave Republicans the gloomiest of all, as prospects for their party darken further in a presidential-election year.

Amid a weakened economy and market turmoil, President Bush's stock has slid again as he prepares to deliver his final State of the Union address next week, underscoring the burden he could pose for his party's presidential nominee in the race to November's election.

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The Journal/NBC poll was conducted Sunday through Tuesday, as global stock-market swoons raised fears of a financial crash, and the Federal Reserve intervened with an emergency cut in its short-term interest-rate target. As for the political backdrop, the 1,008 adults were interviewed after news of Saturday's Nevada party caucuses, which Sen. Clinton and Republican Mitt Romney won, and South Carolina's Republican primary, where Sen. McCain led. The poll has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.

The poll results confirm that the economy is the top campaign issue for 2008, replacing last year's focus on the Iraq war and terrorism. Nearly half of those polled -- 46% -- say "job creation and economic growth" is their first or second choice for the federal government's top priority. That is 15 percentage points higher than just a month ago, in the previous Journal/NBC poll. A similar double-digit margin now separates the economic issue from Americans' next choices for the country's top priorities -- the Iraq war and health care.

Nearly two-thirds of respondents, 64%, believe the country will be in a recession in the year ahead -- up eight percentage points from last month's poll -- and 70% see harder times ahead for their families. Among Republicans, 52% now expect a recession; 76% of self-identified Democrats do. Independents -- the swing voters who could tip the election -- are also pessimistic, with 61% expecting a downturn.

To the long-standard polling question that best gauges the public's mood, nearly seven in 10 say the country is on the wrong track; 19% say it is headed in the right direction. That is just short of the record low in the 18-year history of the Journal/NBC polling partnership -- 14% -- in the summer before Democrat Bill Clinton ousted President Bush's father and ended Republicans' 12-year lease on the White House.

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