United Liberty

As was noted in yesterday’s GOP Presidential Power Rankings, Newt Gingrich is coming on strong as he appears to be latest anti-Romney emerge from the pack. The latest numbers in the race from Gallup only serve to emphasize that point.

Here is how the field looks right now:

• Newt Gingrich: 22%
• Mitt Romney: 21%
• Herman Cain: 16%
• Ron Paul: 9%
• Rick Perry: 8%
• Michele Bachmann: 4%
• Jon Huntsman: 1%
• Rick Santorum: 1%
• Other: 1%
• None/No opinion: 18%

As you can see in the chart Gallup provided in their report of the poll numbers, this has been anything but a normal primary as the GOP electorate — though primarily tea party influenced and more conservative voters — moved back and forth between whatever Flavor of the Month has been put before them.

Unlikely Bachmann and Perry, Cain isn’t dropping off very far; despite the recently surfaced allegations of sexual harrassment. Most Republican voters aren’t bothered by those stories. They should, however, be very concerned at how his campaign has handled them and the frequent gaffes and lack of knowledge on policy issues that would come before him in the White House.

Another reason Cain has managed to hang on is due to some distrust of Gingrich among conservatives and tea partyers, which is understandable.

With ObamaCare headed to the Supreme Court and Democrats supporting repeal of damaging tax and regulatory provisions in the law, Americans continue to sour on President Barack Obama’s key legislative accomplishment; according to a new survey from Gallup:

Given a choice, 47% of Americans favor repealing the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, while 42% want it kept in place. Views on this issue are highly partisan, with Republicans strongly in favor of repeal and the large majority of Democrats wanting the law kept in place.

The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it would review the healthcare law’s constitutionality, a case that is likely to be heard in March, with a ruling issued by next summer. Thus, the law’s ultimate fate may now be in the court’s hands, rather than in Congress’, although it will continue to be a dominant issue in the 2012 presidential campaign. Republicans and conservatives have continued to level criticism against the law since it was passed in March 2010, while President Obama has been just as vigorous in defending its objectives and future benefits.

During a recent interview with CNBC, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) should shut down the new Boeing plant in South Carolina:

This is a pretty big deal. One reason is because workers in South Carolina have decertified their union, a point noted recently by the Heritage Foundation, so this is a non-issue that Democrats and Big Labor are trying desperately to drum up:

Pelosi may or may not know that workers at the South Carolina plant in question voted resoundingly (199-68) to decertify their union two years ago. Government policies that would close the plant for being a non-union shop would simply be punishing those workers for exercising their right to determine union representation for themselves.

“The Administration is trying to foist unions on workers, whether they want them or not, whether union representation would help them or not,” Heritage’s James Sherk noted in response to Pelosi’s statement. As for the more general issue of Boeing’s suit, Sherk called it “a good way of discouraging businesses from building new factories or plants.”

If you ever wanted more fuel for the argument against Occupy Wall Street being the 99%, then look no further than Gallup.

In their polls, they’ve found that, while OWS has a slightly higher approval-disapproval mix than the Tea Party (26% support and 19% oppose for OWS, compared to 22% support and 27% oppose for the Tea Party), they also found that:

Half or more of Americans are neither supporters nor opponents of these movements. That underscores the point made by my colleague Jeff Jones in his analysis — namely that the majority of Americans are not highly caught up in these movements that occupy so much of the news media’s time.

In other words, neither the Tea Party nor the Occupy movement are representative of the American public. I think that’s a shame, for both groups, because there are so many points they both have right and need to be spread. The most crucial of these points is that “corporatism is not capitalism,” and that people need to earn their way to the top—not cheat by lobbying politicians and extracting favorable rules from regulatory agencies that put their competitors out of business.

As for why more people are against the Tea Party, while more support the Occupiers, I think it’s pretty simple. One of my friends questioned a free market supporter after a debate, as to why he “lost,” and the debater said simply: “The challenge of defending free markets and limited government is that you’re telling people there’s no Santa Claus.” On the contrary, what the Occupiers are mostly saying is “Give us more free stuff!” It’s really nothing to do with which group is right, but everything to do with human psychology.

With two Supreme Court decisions in the last few years affirming the Founding Fathers view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to gun ownership, Gallup reports that Americans opposition to gun control laws are at a record low:

A record-low 26% of Americans favor a legal ban on the possession of handguns in the United States other than by police and other authorized people. When Gallup first asked Americans this question in 1959, 60% favored banning handguns. But since 1975, the majority of Americans have opposed such a measure, with opposition around 70% in recent years.

The results are based on Gallup’s annual Crime poll, conducted Oct. 6-9. This year’s poll finds support for a variety of gun-control measures at historical lows, including the ban on handguns, which is Gallup’s longest continuing gun-control trend.

For the first time, Gallup finds greater opposition to than support for a ban on semiautomatic guns or assault rifles, 53% to 43%. In the initial asking of this question in 1996, the numbers were nearly reversed, with 57% for and 42% against an assault rifle ban. Congress passed such a ban in 1994, but the law expired when Congress did not act to renew it in 2004. Around the time the law expired, Americans were about evenly divided in their views.

We know that Americans aren’t responding well to the state of the nation, and President Barack Obama’s approval rating is a reflection of the dissatisfaction. Gallup released the numbers for the 11th quarter of Obama’s presidency last week. The decline is certainly significant:

President Barack Obama’s 11th quarter in office was the worst of his administration, based on his quarterly average job approval ratings. His 41% approval average is down six percentage points from his 10th quarter in office, and is nearly four points below his previous low of 45% during his seventh quarter.

These results are based on Gallup Daily tracking from July 20-Oct. 19, 2011. During this time, Obama’s approval rating ranged narrowly between 38% and 43% for all but a few days of the quarter. The 38% approval ratings, registered on several occasions, are the lowest of his presidency to date.

Gallup notes that over the last 50 years (since Eisenhower) only Jimmy Carter has had a worse approval rating at this point his presidency. However, Obama isn’t that far off from Reagan’s 44.4% approval rating in October 1983. So by no means does this serve as an indicator that Obama is on the way out, although it certainly isn’t a good sign for his campaign.

Barack Obama has a serious problem, according to a new poll from Gallup, as Democrats are not all that enthusiastic about the the 2012 election:

Republican are most enthusiastic about voting in the 2012 elections than Democrats, according to a new poll released Thursday.

According to the Gallup Poll, 45 percent of Democrats say they are more excited about voting in the 2012 elections while 44 percent say they are less enthusiastic.

Those numbers are in stark contrast to the last few presidential election cycles when most Democrats said they were excited about voting. In the 2008 presidential election, for example, 79 percent of Democrats said they were more excited about voting while only 15 percent said they were less excited. In 2004 a smaller majority, 59 percent, said they were more excited while 34 percent said they were less excited.

The same poll found that 58 percent of Republican voters say they are more enthusiastic about voting this time around while 30 percent said they are less enthusiastic. The record high Republican enthusiasm to vote in the last decade was in 2004 when 69 percent of Republicans said they were more enthusiastic about voting and 18 percent registered less enthusiasm.

It’s not too shocking in some respect given the low approval numbers for Obama, not to mention that he has done a few things that haven’t sat well with his base. But you can see here the difference that four years have made:

The race for the Republican presidential nomination is beginning to get interesting as the gap in the polls between Rick Perry and Mitt Romney begins to close, according to the latest numbers from Gallup.

• Rick Perry: 31%
• Mitt Romney: 24%
• Ron Paul: 13%
• Michele Bachmann: 5%
• Newt Gingrich: 5%
• Herman Cain: 5%
• Rick Santorum: 2%
• Jon Huntsman: 1%
• Other: 4%
• No opinion: 10%

Perry did pick up two points from last the Gallup survey in the race. But Romney gained substantially, jumping from 17% to 24% in just a few weeks. While he’s still in third overall, Ron Paul is held steady. Michele Bachmann, continuing the trend irrelevance in the race, fell sharply from 10% in late August to 5%.

It’s bad news for Perry because he is beginning to fall back to earth. Moreover, Perry lost ground in a potential head-to-head matchup with President Barack Obama (he was tied last month) while Romney remained steady.

Barack Obama v. Rick Perry

• Obama: 50%
• Perry: 45%
• Other: 3%
• No opinion: 2%

Barack Obama v. Mitt Romney

Gallup released today’s snapshot of President Barack Obama’s approval ratings. As you can see, it brings more bad news as his numbers have hit another record low:

I’m telling you anything you don’t already know when I say that the economy is what is hurting Obama’s numbers. Obama is planning to unveil another jobs plan next week, but it is going to be based on the same Keynesian economic that brought us the failed 2009 stimulus and will no doubt have a tough time getting through Congress:

President Barack Obama said Monday he would unveil proposals next week aimed at spurring job growth in part through infrastructure improvements.
[…]
He said next week he would lay out a series of steps that the U.S. Congress can take immediately to put more money in the pockets of middle class families and put construction crews to work.

Japan tried stimulus after stimulus in the 1990’s and they kept having economic troubles. And now we are stuck in our own Lost Decade where the Federal Reserve and the Obama Administration keep persuing the gimmicks instead of taking our economic and regulatory problems, which are responsible for stifling growth, head on. It’s like he’s learned nothing in the last two and half years.

Polls have been flying out like crazy since Rick Perry got into the race for the Republican nomination for president. Gallup and Public Policy Polling have released numbers pairing several different Republicans against President Barack Obama. We also got our first look at post-Ames numbers out of Iowa.

Rasmussen was the first to post numbers showing that Perry had jumped ahead of Romney, but one poll isn’t definitive. But Gallup and Public Policy Polling released new national numbers yesterday in the Republican field showing that Rick Perry is, for all intents and purposes, the new frontrunner.

Here’s the poll from Gallup:

• Rick Perry: 29%
• Mitt Romney: 17%
• Ron Paul: 13%
• Michele Bachmann: 10%
• Herman Cain: 4%
• Newt Gingrich: 4%
• Rick Santorum: 3%
• Jon Huntsman: 1%
• Other: 2%
• No preference: 17%

Public Policy Polling has somewhat different results. Unlike Gallup, they show Bachmann in the top three and Paul in the middle of the pack.

• Rick Perry: 33%
• Mitt Romney: 20%
• Michele Bachmann: 16%
• Newt Gingrich: 8%
• Herman Cain: 6%
• Ron Paul: 6%
• Rick Santorum: 4%
• Jon Huntsman: 3%
• Other/Not sure: 5%

And if Palin runs: