Pew has a neat presentation of the newest version of their “impressions” poll. You know, the one where they ask people what words they would use to describe a person. For Obama, the top three words these days are ‘intelligent,’ ‘good,’ and ‘socialist.’ It’s the trifecta, really.
But the really interesting thing is comparing results since last September. ‘Socialist’ is up 14 points (from 6 to 20). ‘Inexperienced’ is down FORTY-TWO points. Conversely, ‘change’ is down 26 points. ‘Trying’ now makes the top 10, while ‘charismatic’ has been knocked out.
Turns out that the economy collapsing and 100 days of being president rather significantly changes what people think is important in his character. Shocking, I know.
The sample size on this is quite small, and it doesn’t really mean a whole lot. But as a snapshot of the zeitgeist it’s somewhat interesting.