What Last Week's Political Trends Tell us

The polling done by the reputable Rasmussen polling organization and other organizations has come up with some interesting trends last week. These include the following:

* The highly favorable vs. highly unfavorable support for President Obama is on the upswing. overall 55% of voters at least somewhat approve of the president's performance in office vs. 44% who at least somewhat disapprove. Some other polling organization have the approval rating of the president even higher yet.

* Texas Governor Rick Perry is far out of the mainstream with most of the voters in his state where only a mere 18% would vote to secede from the Union. This and other issues are contributing to a highly divided electorate about giving Perry a third term as Governor. Mainstream conservative Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson now polls better than Perry and could potentially upset him is she chooses to run for governor.

* Other recent polling finds the number of Americans who now believe that America is on the right track continues to rebound. Some polls have this number up in the high forties right now, compared to just 14% who felt that America was on the right track as the lowest number in January right before President Obama took office.

* In an editorial by conservative columnist, Debra J Saunders, she was highly critical of the Tea Party movement, reflecting that "the exercise struck me as as more than a little out of touch with the political realities of President Barack Obama's America". When mainstream conservatives such as Saunders hold little regard for the Tea Party movement, then that is pretty reasonable indicator that this is merely a political fringe exercise by a small cult of political extremists and not any mainstream conservative or Republican issue by far. And the damning support for the Tea Party movement by Texas Governor Rick Perry as well as his misguided call for a Texas to secede from the Union raises some serious questions of some neo-Old Confederates abusing this Tea Party movement as an umbrella for a racially motivated reaction against the first elected African American president by a disingenuous fringe. The fact of the matter is that President Obama has support with most Americans and his recently proven ability to advance foreign relations with Cuba as well as to be on speaking terms with all nations, including hostile one's such as Iran and Venezuela are proving success for turning the page on foreign policy. This administration continues to talk tough when nations such as North Korea launch missiles on one hand, but also works to be at least on speaking terms with all other nations if they behave in a responsible manner. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela may be a serious problem for the United States at the same time that Venezuela has a great deal of trade with the U.S. such as through those CitGo Gas stations and the oil export business.

* Some old Bush Administration figures hoped to create a political issue out of the Obama Administration making public some documents on the abusive interrogations of political prisoners techniques, last week. However their complaints were largely ignored as some of these techniques such as water boarding were well known long before this report was made public. The public knew that abusive interrogation practices of political prisoners took place during the Bush administration, so these practices seemed to garner little public sympathy by supporters of such practices. Likely, much of the public is in agreement with President Obama that such practices are below the ethics standards for a great nation like the United States.

* Unemployment and some serious economic trends tend to lag far behind the upward performance of Wall Street which has gained 25% in value recently. All of this fuels a debate among economists whether this recession has actually bottomed out quite yet, or whether the stock market continues to run 6 to 8 months ahead of the actual economic conditions, as it often historically trends to do.