Bush speech received favorably overall according to CNN

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Overall, President Bush's State of the Union was received favorably by a sample of speech watchers interviewed by CNN and Opinion Research Corporation immediately after his 50-minute address to a joint session of Congress.
But the poll showed that Bush registered his lowest "very positive" post-State of the Union reaction of his presidency. Bush reached a high water mark of a 60% "very positive" response immediately following his 2005 speech. In 2006, 48% of speech watchers described his address as "very positive."
As for Tuesday night's speech, only 20% of those polled had a "negative" reaction to Bush's speech, while 41% walked away with a "very positive" feeling about the speech and 37% had a "somewhat positive" reaction.
A bare majority of Americans who watched the speech said they were confident that the U.S. would achieve its goals in Iraq; 46% were not confident. Compare that to the 2004 State of the Union, less than a year after the start of the Iraq war, when 71% of people who watched that speech expressed confidence about Iraq.
On the issue of bipartisanship, 53% of speech watchers said Bush's remarks were more likely to lead to cooperation between Democrats and the White House, while 43% did not think the address would help bridge the political differences.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll interviewed 370 adult Americans -- 32% Republican, 31% Democrat and 36% Independent -- who watched Bush's speech.
Full poll results: http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/01/23/top3.pdf

-- CNN Polling Director Keating Holland and CNN Political Editor Mark Preston

Source: CNN.com - CNN Political Ticker

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