Poll Shows Public Sign of Life Understanding the Issues. They're Getting it?

I'm a little leery of reading to much into the following poll, I've been fooled before, but this could mean that people are catching on to how we got into the Great Depression and how hard it might be to get out of it.

According to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

Americans blame former President George W. Bush, Wall Street and Congress much more than they do Mr. Obama for the nation’s economic problems and the budget deficit, the poll found.

They back allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military and repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

For all the erosion in support for Mr. Obama, Americans say he better understands their needs and problems and has made more of an effort to be bipartisan than Congressional Republicans, the poll found.

“It feels like an attempt to sabotage the majority and to regain control of power rather than working on a compromise,” John Smith, a Republican from S.C., said of his party after participating in the poll.

By a two-to-one ratio, Americans support an end to tax cuts for the wealthy
18 percent of respondents said they considered themselves supporters of the tea party movement

The poll found that 51 percent of Americans now view the Democratic Party unfavorably. At the same time, 57 percent have an unfavorable view of the Republican Party.

And 70 percent of those polled said they thought it was going to take two years or longer for the effects of the recession that technically ended last year to fade away.

Half of respondents said the Senate should change the filibuster rules that Republicans have used to block Mr. Obama’s agenda.

Bonnie Ewasiuk, 60, of Woodbridge, Va. said “I’m a Republican so I don’t like to go
against the party, but Obama has reached out and had meetings and I don’t think the Republicans are going to be responsive. All you see from them is negativity.”

60 percent said the president understood their problems, compared with 42 percent who said the same thing about Congressional Democrats and 35 percent for Congressional Republicans.