Times poll: 43 percent say they're worse off

In 1992, Bill Clinton rode the question all the way to the White House, "Are you better off than four years ago?"

But what the results to a similar question will mean in 2008 is anyone's guess.

The latest St. Petersburg Times/Bay News 9/Miami Herald poll shows 43 percent of Florida voters say their personal economic situation is worse than it was two years ago. However, the same percent say their situation is about the same.

The statewide telephone poll of 800 registered Florida voters was conducted Sunday through Wednesday this week, with a margin of error of 3.5 percent.

Voters were more optimistic when asked what they expect of their personal economic situation in the next year: 46 percent said they expect it to stay about the same, 35 percent said it will get better. Just 14 percent expected it to get worse.

Tune into this weekend's newspapers to see more poll results. In Saturday's Times, we'll have results on statewide issues, including Gov. Charlie Crist's approval rating and what voters think about the proposed amendment to ban gay marriage in the state Constitution.

In Sunday's Times, look for poll results on the presidential race, including the matchup between John McCain and Barack Obama, and what voters think about Republican vice presidential pick Sarah Palin.

Times editor

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Comments

Florida is going to shock many and go blue to the Dems in this upcoming election. We are at record unemployment in the state. Florida is #1 in the nation with most jobs lost and has the second highest unemployment (%) in the nation.

Florida is going to shock many and go blue to the Dems in this upcoming election. We are at record unemployment in the state. Florida is #1 in the nation with most jobs lost and has the second highest unemployment (%) in the nation.

[Simon]

Cycling is ten times better than it used to be and bad areas are a lot cleaner. Everything has a ways to go, but I think he's doing a great job. Except for the subterfuge tactics.

--"The Fundamentals of this economy are strong"

--"I'll have to find out how many homes I own"

Signed
John-completely out of touch-McCain

Of course, the percentage of people doing worse in this Republican economy would be higher except for the fact that those people could not be reached, as they have already had their phones disconnected.
And are soon to be living with relatives.

Obama started running for president 2 years ago.

Well shucks, I guess we just need to cut taxes, abolish regulations and empty state buildings of all public employees.

The Invisible Hand of Jayzus will solve all our problems.

[Ellen]

It isn't the Dems. It isn't the Republicans. It isn't crooks on Wall Street. It is two generations of Americans who have grown up on soap operas, Budweiser, single-parent families and now give us a 70% high-school drop-out rate. I personally know two families of privileged, intelligent, alcoholic parents whose kids have just dropped out and one of them arrested. These folks are voting on the latest sound bite, not on principle or with any wish to sacrifice for the sake of the future. One percent of our population is in prison? How can we hope to have a healthy economy? Folks can't even read their mortgage agreement and haven't saved a dime for a rainy day.

[Tom]

Obama's economic team:

Former Treasury Secretaries
Robert Rubin and Larry Summers

Federal Reserve Chairman
Paul Volcker

Wall Street Icon
Warren Buffet

McCain's economic adviser:
Phil Gramm (R) from Texas
-architect of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that is the cause of the collapse on Wall Street.
-his wife sat on the Enron Board
-he called us a "nation of whiners"

If you want more special interest and economic collapse, vote John McCain.

[REPUBLICANS BAILOUT FOREIGNERS TOO]

The gigantic bailout being engineered by the Republican administration will include numerous foreign holders of U.S. mortgage backed securities and derivatives.

In effect the U.S. taxpayer (read middle class Americans because corporations and the
wealthy no longer pay much in taxes) will be bailing out the Chinese government, Swiss banks, and numerous sovereign wealth funds, and various Saudi princes.

Not a single security currently held by foreign entities should be purchased by the US government and no exchange of those securities into a US company's hands should be allowed.

[Tom]

Obama has an all-star, "dream team", of economic advisers.

Two former Treasury Secretaries, Chairman of the Federal Reserve and Warren Buffet.

To those undecided voters:
You cannot afford to let John McCain, who is completely out of touch, to be POTUS. Even worse, Sarah Palin could be your President also.

[Tom]

5:16, the GOP has turned our country into a Socialist nation.

Socialized Banks (Bear Sterns)
Socialized Insurance (AIG)
Proposed Socialized Auto and Airlines!

Over 800 billion dollars in taxpayer bailouts to make our nation a communist state.

Tom,

Clinton signed Gramm-Leachey. Volcker was responsible for the highest unemployment since the Great Depression. Citigroup sucessfully merged because of Gramm-Leachey - the chair of Citi? Rubin.

What's your point?

[Tom]

The Wall Street Journal is blasting John McCain

According to CNN
"If you’re a Republican running for president of the United States and the Wall Street Journal basically says you’re an incompetent buffoon, you’re in serious trouble."

[Tom]

I blame Clinton also. It's not a partisan discussion. But Clinton is not in this election.

McCain is running for president and the architect of his economic plan is Phil Gramm.

Even the Wall Street Journal (WSJ)points out how out of touch an clueless McCain is. If the WSJ is pointing this out about a Republican, candidate you know that candidate has got to be awful.

--If you’re a Republican running for president of the United States and the Wall Street Journal basically says you’re an incompetent buffoon, you’re in serious trouble.

Specifically the paper pointed to comments McCain made yesterday about SEC Chair Christopher Cox.

McCain pointed the finger at Cox and said if he were president, he’d fire him for “betraying the public’s trust.”

The Wall Street Journal called that assault “both false and deeply unfair.”

The Journal also said, “In a crisis voters want steady, calm leadership… not easy, misleading answers that will do nothing to help.”

Thanks for stating the obvious. Of course, 43% of the voters also think Elvis is alive and living on Mars.

[Dr_Dug]

Tom doesn't have a point...he's not sharp enough!
I just want to know why Obama Bin Biden has been collecting a Senate paycheck without doing the job for over 18 months.
And...since its his job...why aren't there any Senate hearings on the bailouts? Must be hard to talk the walk then walk away....

[Dr_Dug]

WallStreet bashing McCain...big deal. McCain wants to put a stop to big companies stealing from the Taxpayers. Obama..meanwhile....sleeps with Wallstreet everyday.** Just check his advisior list and contributions! Enough said...

On or about October 5th, Biden will excuse himself from the ticket, citing
health problems, and he will be replaced by Hillary. This is timed to occur
after the VP debate on 10/2.

There have been talks all weekend about how to proceed with this info.
Generally, the feeling is that we should all go ahead and get it out there
to as many blog sites and personal email lists as is possible. I have
already seen a few short blurbs about this - the 'health problem' cited in
those articles was aneurysm. Probably many of you have heard the same
rumblings.

However, at this point, with this inside info from the DNC, it looks like
this Obama strategy will be a go. Therefore, it seems that the best
strategy is to get out in front of this Obama maneuver, spell it out in
detail, and thereby expose it for the grand manipulation that it is.

So, let's start mixing this one up and cut the Obamites off at the pass -
send this info out to as many people as you can - post about it on websites
and blogs - etc.

[Tom]

Looks like Obama was right about the surge also. A new study is coming out today that the decrease in sectarian violence had more to do with "ethnic cleansing". More specifically, the Sunnis were driven out of neighborhoods.

"Essentially, our interpretation is that violence has declined in Baghdad because of intercommunal violence that reached a climax as the surge was beginning," said Agnew, who studies ethnic conflict.

Read it for yourself

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080919/sc_nm/iraq_lights_dc

Obama has been right on every issue about Iraq.

[Tom]

Dr_Dug, you insinuation that Barack Obama (Obama Bin Biden) is a terrorist is insulting. You sound like every other fear mongering, radical, right winger on this blog.

Keep your head in the sand while the GOP makes our country a communist state.

[REPUBLICANS LIE ALL THE TIME]

John McCain doesn't seem to know who he is. His recent populist rhetoric defies his long standing record and current policy proposals. This disconnect is becoming increasingly evident as the economic crisis intensifies and voters take a closer look at the candidates.

It's clear, that real change will not come about by allowing another four years of failed Republican policies to dominate the landscape, no matter how hard McCain tries to convince voters of such.

Barack Obama is the only candidate offering the "Change We Need."

McCain's Scapegoat

Wall Street Journal
Friday, September 19, 2008

John McCain has made it clear this week he doesn't understand what's happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does. But on Thursday, he took his populist riffing up a notch and found his scapegoat for financial panic -- Christopher Cox, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

To give readers a flavor of Mr. McCain untethered, we'll quote at length: "Mismanagement and greed became the operating standard while regulators were asleep at the switch. The primary regulator of Wall Street, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) kept in place trading rules that let speculators and hedge funds turn our markets into a casino. They allowed naked short selling -- which simply means that you can sell stock without ever owning it. They eliminated last year the uptick rule that has protected investors for 70 years. Speculators pounded the shares of even good companies into the ground.

"The chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment of the President and has betrayed the public's trust. If I were President today, I would fire him."

Wow. "Betrayed the public's trust." Was Mr. Cox dishonest? No. He merely changed some minor rules, and didn't change others, on short-selling. String him up! Mr. McCain clearly wants to distance himself from the Bush Administration. But this assault on Mr. Cox is both false and deeply unfair. It's also un-Presidential.

Take "naked" shorting, in which an investor sells a stock short -- betting that it will fall in price -- without first borrowing the shares he is selling from an investor who owns them. The SEC has never condoned the practice, and since 2005 it has clamped down on short selling in any stock that shows evidence of naked shorting. The SEC further tightened its rules against naked shorting just hours before Mr. McCain excoriated Mr. Cox for doing nothing.

The rules announced Wednesday will increase penalties and close loopholes that exempted broker-dealers from the rules against naked shorting. They also make it clear that deliberately selling short a stock whose shares cannot be borrowed is fraud under the Securities Exchange Act. That's all to the good, we suppose; fraud is fraud. But regular short selling is not fraud. It adds valuable information to the market about what investors believe to be the price direction of a stock. Demonizing short-sellers as a band of criminals, or barring short-selling outright in financial stocks, as regulators in the U.K. did Thursday, removes information from the market.

Then there's Mr. McCain's tirade against the "uptick rule," a Depression-era chestnut that investors could only short stock after a rise in that stock's price. The SEC staff studied the effect of the uptick rule on prices for years, in a controlled experiment involving thousands of stocks. It found the rule had no effect. Other studies, including those that examined the uptick rule's effect on stocks disclosing bad news, also found that it "protected" no one. The SEC's permanent staff has long supported repeal and the SEC's commissioners voted to do so unanimously in June 2007.

While he was at it, Mr. McCain added the wholly unsupported assertion that "speculators pounded the shares of even good companies into the ground." It wasn't very long ago that he blamed speculators on the long side for sky-high oil prices. Then oil prices fell. Now Mr. McCain wants voters to believe speculators are responsible for driving mismanaged financial companies to ruin. The irony is that this critique puts Mr. McCain in the same camp as some of the Wall Street CEOs who have led their firms so poorly. They also want someone (else) to blame.

In case Mr. McCain is interested, overall short interest in financial companies actually declined by 20% between July and the end of August. That's right: Far from driving this crisis, shorts were net buyers of financial stocks this summer, as they must buy stocks back to close their positions and realize their gains (or losses).

In a crisis, voters want steady, calm leadership, not easy, misleading answers that will do nothing to help. Mr. McCain is sounding like a candidate searching for a political foil rather than a genuine solution. He'll never beat Mr. Obama by running as an angry populist like Al Gore, circa 2000.

[REPUBLICANS TURN TO SOCIALISM]

Welcome news comrades! We the People are now We the Owners. The People's Insurance Company, formerly known as AIG, was saved for the time being from the forces of capitalism by the new Union of Republican Socialists, formerly known as the GOP.

In a move aimed at averting a new global economic shock, the US Federal Reserve agreed an unprecedented 85-billion-dollar rescue loan for American International Group. The deal, sealed late Tuesday, saved AIG from collapse and gave the US government a 79.9 percent stake in the insurance behemoth.

Now that the People own a major insurance company, it's fair to ask how the People's Insurance Company, AIG, along with the People's Mortgage Companies, Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae, and the People's Investment Banks, will benefit the People who Own them.

Can we expect lower premiums, equity sharing, and corporate perks for our hundreds of billions of dollars? Should we start checking our mailbox for dividend checks? Who gets paid first, claimants, bondholders, stockholders, or we the new taxpayer owners? We the Owners, want to know, and the Union of Socialist Republicans better damn well tell us, fast.

[Dr_Dug]

Why did the Democraps stop reform of Fannie/Freddie two years ago? Oh yea...they said there was no problem with it! And why is Congress called a "Do Nothing Congress"? Because the Democraps control it.
And where is John Edwards?

[Dr_Dug]

Just saw Obama on T.V. endorse the Bailout!!
Guess he's for it now....until it's time to flip!

[Lee]

So 43% of voters are worse off than 2 years ago when Democrats took over Congress and somehow this still becomes the Republicans fault. Something is really weird here...

[Tom]

Nice language Dr_Dug. It's time for you to take your medication. You've haven't said anything of value other than call Obama a terrorist and I'm an Assclown.

The last time I checked, the Wall Street Journal is a respectable publication.

You've got a lot of bent up anger young man. Maybe you should go see a physician for that.

Btw, the word "your" is for possession. Like "Your intelligence is far inferior than mine. And "you're" is for "you are" Like, "You are an ignorant right wing, angry, buffoon"

Get it?

[Tom]

Btw, Dr_Dug, Rick Davis is a lobbyist for Fannie Mae and he is McCain's campaign manager.

Why do you keep trying me?

It stings doesn't it?

[nolimits3333]

Who would you choose for President?

The guy who was head of the Harvard Law Review, or the guy who can't remember how many houses he owns?

[Dr_Dug]

Tom...expain to me Obamas' plan for the economy.
Then explain why he hates women and working people.
Then expail why Obama has Fannie/Freddie people working for him; and has taken thousands from them.

[Dr_Dug]

nolimits3333..McCain doesn't own them...his wife does...idiot.
And for Obama and Harvard...affirmitive action doesn't qualify for much...unless you understand he didn't earn it.
And why does Obama Bin Biden have sooooooo many people from Freddie/Fannie working for him..?

[Dr_Dug]

Tom...your easy... It's Obama who has people from Wallstreet working for him,including Fannie/Freddie. And by the way...I hear the Democrap controlled Congress has a lower approval rating than Bush; a "Do Nothing Congress!"
Also....recently the sons of a democrap(s) have been caught transporting illegals accross the border and hacking Gov. Palins email account.(Federal Crime)
And how is the Darling of the Democrapic party..John Edwards doing?
Stings..doesn't it...AssClown.
By the way...whats with the rage...tied of getting caught! Heh

[Ron]

The Democrats control both houses in Washington and the registered Dem's still blame Bush.
Just wait until Obama gives all those billions of tax dollars to the UN's Global fund.

OR---does that mean 57% are better off??

[Dr_Dug]

Yep....the the people on Wallstreet.
The CEO of Lehman Bros made $34 million last year..and slightly more this year. Meanwhile....well..you know the story...

[Jason H]

Palin made Miss South Carolina look smart today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvUsdmqGYV8&eurl=http://beltwayblips.com/video/palin_s_nonsensical_answer_on_domestic_energy/

http://solvinglight.com/blog/sarah-and-oprah/

[Realist]

I am so sick of hearing that the democratic congress was the do nothing congress. You see the republicans have a filibuster proof minority in the senate, (it takes 60 votes to end the filibuster) and most democratic bills never made it through. The republicans are great at pr, block all legislation and call the other side do nothings. Its genius really. Too bad the republicans didnt get rid of the filibuster when they had the chance. The democrats did get through an increased minimum wage and a gi bill. Equal pay for equal work and alternate energy along with other progressive bills were blocked.

[Banker john]

Our country is bankrupt. Our state is in deep financial crisis. My county is closing parks and laying off teachers of all people. I am definitely worse off than a few years ago. I cant afford health insurance. All of this was accomplished in only 8 years of Bush mismanagement. Anyone who votes for the senile guy who wants to continue this mess needs to have their head examined.

Amen to that, 9:21... Amen to that!

The most amazing thing about all this is the Republicans who b-tch and b-tch about taxes, until they need them to bail their miserable A S S E S out of their greedy errors.

Freaking classic Republican hypocrisy!

Bush belongs in jail for what he’s done to this once great nation… and Chaney should be in the cell to his left, and McCain in the cell to his right for exploiting this treason for his political gain. Misery loves company.

McCain/Palin 08 “Campaign First; Country Last”

[Susan Asher]

Let me share some info with you that I have gotten from excellent sources within the DNC:

On or about October 5th, Biden will excuse bhimself from the ticket, citing health problems, and he will be replaced by Hillary. This is timed to occur after the VP debate on 10/2.

There have been talks all weekend about how to proceed with this info. generally, the feeling is that we should all go ahead = and get it out there to as many blog sites and personal email lists as is possible I have already seen a few short blurbs about this - the "health problem" cited in those articles was aneurysm. Probably many of you have heard the same rumblings.

However, at this point, with this inside info from the DNC, it looks like this Obama strategy will be a go. Therefore, it seems that the best strategy is to get out in front of this Obama maneuver, spell it out in detail, and thereby expose it for the grand manipulation that it is

So, let's start mixing this one up and cut the Obamites off at the pass - send this info out to as many people as you can post about it on websites and blogs

[Karl Rove]

Ah Susan, if that is your name, Ive read your post several times and no one is buying it. Thr right wing blogs sure come up with lame madeup stories. Biden will not be replaced, he was a governing choice, not a political one. Unlike Mccain, Obama chose someone who could do a credible job as president even though he is not a great campaigner. Oh about the aneurysm, He almost died from one like 20 years ago. That is old news. The aneurysm isnt growing back, he had it surgically removed. Tell them to insert stroke into the fake story as the medical reason ...keep spreading those right wing lies. Its very useful.

The Seattle Times Editorial Board today made Barack Obama their choice for President of the United States in a refreshingly well thought out and written Endorsement.

"Obama should be the next president of the United States because he is the most qualified change agent. Obama is a little young, but also brilliant. If he sometimes seems brainy and professorial, that's OK. We need the leader of the free world to think things through, carefully. We have seen the sorry results of shooting from the hip."

that means that more than half say they are not worse off. Half full people! Half full!

I really don't blame Bush for my financial issues. I am the one who chose to go into debt on credit cards...which means that I will not spend money on Christmas gifts, but I am the one who did it not Bush.

Congress hasn't passed anything in the last two years.

[Nice Misleading Headline]

Times Poll: 57% Say There NOT Worse Off