From time to time, we share polling data with you that it is relevant to a hot topic and comes from a source we trust. We trust pollster Scott Rasmussen the most because he is the one of the most accurate pollsters in the business.

I mention this because the Washington Post released a poll yesterday that has been widely cited on Capitol Hill and gotten a lot of attention in other media outlets. The poll reportedly showed a major boost in public support for Barack Obama and healthcare reform. Here are the key findings:

• 57% of respondents approved of the president’s job performance.
• 57% support the government-run “public option” being part of the healthcare “reform” plan.
• Looking to the future, 51% of respondents plan to vote for Democrat candidates in the 2010 elections, while just 39% would back GOP candidates – a 12-point margin for the Democrats.

Well, there’s no polite way to put this, but the poll is garbage. The Post surveyed adults, one of the most inexact standards for polling. The problem with polling adults is that many of them aren’t registered to vote. They’re entitled to their opinions, but they don’t matter on Election Day. Polls of registered voters produce more conservative results than polls of adults, and polls of likely voters produce more conservative results than polls of registered voters.

Now, here’s the most absurd part of the Post poll: Just 20% of respondents were self-identified Republicans. Does anyone seriously believe that there is going to be a national election in which just one-fifth of the electorate are Republicans? Of course not. The Postwasn’t attempting to measure public opinion, it was attempting to manipulate it.

Scott Rasmussen polls likely voters (the folks who decide elections). Consider the difference:

• According to Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll, Obama’s approval rating stands at 47% favorable and 53% unfavorable among likely voters.
• On healthcare reform, just 42% of likely voters support the plan currently before Congress, while 54% oppose it.
• Looking ahead to the 2010 elections, Rasmussen finds that among likely voters, 42% support Republican candidates, while 37% support Democrats.

Obama’s Numbers Falling

Last week, we reported that President Obama’s approval rating was starting to fall after a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll recorded its lowest figure to date. Now there is more evidence that the novelty is wearing off. For some time now, the daily Rasmussen tracking poll has also detected declining support for the president, and it recorded a new low over the weekend.

In assessing President Obama’s support, pollster Scott Rasmussen has developed a unique measurement – the presidential approval index (PAI). Rasmussen calculates the PAI by subtracting the percentage of voters who strongly approve of the president from the percentage of those who strongly disapprove. It is a measure of core support or disapproval.

For the first six weeks of the Obama administration, the president enjoyed strong support with a presidential approval index consistently in the double digits, with significantly more voters strongly approving of President Obama’s performance than strongly disapproving. That’s to be expected during the so-called “honeymoon” period that all presidents generally receive from the public. But in March, Rasmussen’s polling detected a “shift in the winds.” In more than one hundred days of polling since the first week of March, Obama has earned a double-digit PAI rating just three times.

And yesterday, for the first time ever, Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll found President Obama’s approval index was in fact negative at -2, with 32% of likely voters strongly approving of his performance and 34% of likely voters strongly disapproving. Today, his PAI remains negative at -1.

And here’s more news that must concern the president: His days of blaming everything on George W. Bush are coming to an end. According to a newly released Rasmussen poll, while a majority of voters still cut the president some slack on the economy, the number of voters who blame the current economic conditions on Bush is down eight points, while the number blaming Obama is up 12 points, a 20-point swing in three weeks.

Finding His Voice

President Obama struggled this weekend to catch up with Congress and the American people in voicing his support for freedom in Iran and expressing moral outrage for the oppressive tactics of the tyrants in Tehran. Friday, the House voted 405-to-1 to condemn the regime and support the Iranian people seeking liberty. Hours later, the Senate unanimously approved a similar resolution. Senators McCain (R-AZ) and Lieberman (ID-CT) issued a joint statement Friday, which read, “By acting now, Congress sent an unmistakable message of support to the courageous Iranian people at a critical moment in their history.” By staying silent, the Obama White House had been sending a message of support to the mullahs.

Saturday, the White House released a statement from the president. Here is an excerpt:

“The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights. …If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.”

While Obama’s rhetoric is getting better, his policy toward outlaw states like Iran is way behind reality. He still thinks he can negotiate with Ahmadinejad to end his nuclear weapons program. By the way, that would be a form of “meddling” that would only serve to offer legitimacy to the Holocaust-denying dictator. Meanwhile, a North Korean ship continues on its way, while suspected of carrying contraband materials in violation of U.N. sanctions. What will Obama do?

There’s another area where Obama is hopelessly behind and Big Media won’t tell you about this. For years, the Bush Administration spent money to promote pro-democracy movements in Iran. And now, just as those efforts are beginning to bear fruit, what does the Obama Administration do? The president cut the funding for those programs in his first budget to Congress.

And if you don’t think that it matters one iota if Iran becomes a free nation or if the Islamic fanatics currently running Iran are allowed to develop nuclear weapons, consider the latest statement from Al Qaeda: “God willing, the nuclear weapons [in Pakistan] will not fall into the hands of the Americans, and the Mujahideen would take them and use them against the Americans.” If we ignore reality and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t matter, our next 9/11 won’t be 3,000 dead, but hundreds of thousands.

- Excerpt from Gary Bauer’s Daily Report (6-22-09)
Sign up for his End of Day Report here.