Monday, March 23, 2015

Fifty-Seven Percent of Americans Want Presidential Candidate Who'll 'Change Obama's Policies...'

Oh God yes.

At CNN, "Election 2016: The perfect candidate":
A new CNN/ORC poll finds most Americans say they would like a candidate who's a seasoned political leader, someone with an executive background, and someone who's willing to change Barack Obama's policies.

Rather than assessing the traits of individual candidates, the poll asked respondents to think about their perfect candidate and choose between two statements relating to several different traits often found in presidential candidates.

Would the perfect successor to Obama be someone with ideological purity or someone who had a great chance at winning? Someone who has had economic success or someone who's never been wealthy? Someone who relies on their religious views to guide policy or someone who believes religion should have no place in government?

Three statements generated wide-reaching support. Fifty-nine percent of Americans say they'd like a candidate who has been in the public eye as a political leader for many years over one who's new to the political scene. Further, 59% say they prefer a candidate with executive experience over one who's worked as a legislator, and 57% say their perfect Obama successor would change most of the policies enacted by Obama's administration.

A long history in the political limelight is appealing to a broad swath of Americans, with majorities across age, race and education lines saying they prefer someone who's been in the public eye as a political leader for many years.

There is a partisan tinge to the results of this question, however, with Democrats -- who will choose from a field whose leading contender has decades in the public eye -- more apt to prefer a seasoned leader (77%) than Republicans (51%). On the GOP side, 46% say they would rather see someone who is new to the political scene take the White House in 2016, and their party's field includes several contenders who fit that bill.

Overall, 57% say their perfect Obama successor would change most of the policies of the Obama administration, while 41% prefer that the next president continue most of his policies. Republicans are near unanimous in their search for a change in most of Obama's policies: 94% want that. Among Democrats, 22% are looking for changes while 77% would prefer Obama's policies to remain in place...
More.

That 22 percent of Democrats who want changes to Obama's policies are looking for an even more "fundamental transformation" than we've been seeing this last six years, hence the groundswell of support for an anti-capitalist Liz Warren candidacy. See, for example, Legal Insurrection, "Game Changer: Boston Globe urges Elizabeth Warren to challenge Hillary."

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