Obama Campaign Starts Well

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
Home > Politics & Policy > Washington Whispers > Obama Campaign Starts Well

October 21, 2011 Print

Pollster John Zogby updates our weekly Obama Report Card with a grade on the president's performance. Zogby uses his polling, expert analysis, and interaction with major players to come up with a grade and some comments that capture how he sees the president's week ending.

John Zogby on Week: 144

"With hardly any pretense, Team Obama is in campaign mode and enjoying it. The president is on the road in winnable states promoting his jobs bill, taking swings at Republicans, and announcing initiatives like a private-public partnership to hire 25,000 war veterans. The hardest hits taken by the GOP presidential contenders are coming from each other. Team Obama had to love the slugfest debate in Las Vegas where Mitt Romney and Rick Perry bared their teeth and took bites out of each other and the whole crew chopped up Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan. Obama also got some trade agreements passed which may not help him politically, but at least Republicans will find it difficult to criticize him for steering through some free market policies."

This week's grade: C+

Last week's: C-

John Zogby is chairman of the board and chief insights officer for IBOPE Zogby International, a nonpartisan public opinion, research, and business solutions firm with experience working in more than 70 countries around the globe. IBOPE Zogby International specializes in telephone, Internet, and face-to-face survey research and analysis for corporate, political, nonprofit, and governmental clients. The firm is headquartered in Utica, N.Y. John Zogby is also the author of The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream (Random House).

Tags:2012 presidential election, John Zogby, Barack Obama, trade 2011: 2010: 2009: 2008: 2007: 2006:

Home, Architecture and Furniture

Traveling Info

Read More

Brazil starts World Cup countdown

Construction workers refurbishing the famous Maracana stadium in Rio are on strike Confidence

  President Rousseff is confident Brazil can deliver the stadiums on time Brazil has begun its countdown for the 2014 World Cup, 1,000 days before it hosts the football tournament. President Dilma Rousseff launched the event at a stadium in Belo Horizonte alongside the footballing legend Pele, who is Brazil's World Cup ambassador.
Ms Rousseff promised the new stadiums and other infrastructure required would be ready on time, despite major difficulties and delays.
The tournament will kick off on 12 June 2014.
Before then, Brazil must build or upgrade 12 stadiums.
Many of them are behind schedule and over budget.
At some, construction workers have been on strike - including the Maracana in Rio de Janeiro where the final will be played and the Mineirao ground in Belo Horizonte where President Rousseff started the countdown.
Building work on the new Itaquerao stadium in Sao Paulo - which is hoping to host the opening game - only began in May.
Brazil must also deliver huge infrastructure developments such as roads and airport terminals so that fans can move between the 12 venues spread across the huge country.
Much of that transport infrastructure is anyway badly needed to meet the demands of Brazil's booming economy and expanding middle class.
"Investing in infrastructure is a way of saying no to the international crisis affecting countries in the Eurozone and the US," Ms Rousseff said.
The 2014 World Cup will be the first in South America since Argentina hosted the tournament in 1978, and the first in Brazil since 1950.
Correspondents say most Brazilians are confident they will make a success of hosting the tournament - after all, they have already won it World Cup five times.
Rio de Janeiro is also due to host the Olympic Games in 2016.
The two tournaments are being seen as statements of Brazil's emergence as a rising global economic power of the 21st Century, much as the 2008 Beijing Olympics served as a calling card for China's confident new role on the global stage.

Read More