From Limbaugh's Lips To America's Ears: Americans Say Obama Will Fail

Rush Limbaugh's hopes have become America's expectations:

Washington (CNN) - President Barack Obama enters the new year with a growing number of Americans pessimistic about his policies and a growing number rooting for him to fail, according to a new national poll...

"Twelve months ago a majority of the public said that they thought Obama's policies would succeed; now that number has dropped to 44 percent, with a plurality predicting that his policies will likely fail."

Americans are also glad that the Dems' monopoly on power has been busted, but their expectations for the GOP's performance is low:

...while a majority of the public says Republican control of the House of Representatives is good for the country, only one in four say the GOP will do a better job running things than the Democrats did when they controlled the chamber.

Good. Keep the expectations low and the leashes short.

Discussion: Memeorandum

X-posted

Updates:

Raw numbers on the failure question:

In general, do you think it is more likely that Obama's policies will succeed or more likely that his policies will fail?

Succeed 44%

Fail 47%

In general, do you hope that Barack Obama's policies will succeed or do you hope that his policies will fail?

Succeed 61%

Fail 27%

More bad news for progs: Americans have more confidence in Republicans in Congress than in Obama or the Democrats. In fact, Republicans crush the Democrats...

Thinking about the major issues facing the country today, who do you have the most confidence in -- Barack Obama, or the Republicans in Congress, or the Democrats in Congress?

Obama 35%

Republicans in Congress 40%

Democrats in Congress 15%

Some "glass half empty" analysis from an astute commenter at Gateway Pundit:

So… 35% of the people are mentally ill? That’s really sad.

Add the 35% to the 15% who think the Pelosi/Reid Congress is just ducky, and this country is in serious trouble.

Caveats:

1. CNN reports that a growing number of Americans are "rooting" for Obama to fail, but in their poll they ask respondents whether they hope Obama's policies fail, not whether Mr. Obama fails:

In general, do you hope that Barack Obama's policies will succeed or do you hope that his policies will fail?

2. This poll does not reflect the views of the voters:

Interviews with 1,008 adult Americans conducted by telephone by Opinion Research Corporation on December 17-19, 2010. The margin of sampling error for results based on the total sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Remember... polls of the general adult population generally give results that are more sympathetic to Democrats (in contrast to polls that only include Americans who vote).

3. Demographic data on the poll sample are conspicuously absent.

Full poll results.