Nudging Views on Race, Obama

"Obama Is Nudging Views on Race, a Survey Finds"
by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Marhorie Connelly



When you hear that an African American is running for presidency, what is the first think that you think of? There are a lot of people that when the hear that someone that is black is running for presidency, that there is something that is wrong with because there has never been anyone that is black running and plus all of the other presidents were white so having someone with a different race, was not something that you would hear or would think could happened. But the truth of the is is that this years presidential race had many first. You had a woman running, an African American, and a Hispanic running in just one election. That is something that was never heard of until the election of 2009.


When New York Times/CBS News did a poll of 973 adults over the course from Wednesday to Sunday. When doing the poll, blacks were oversampled with a total of 212 polled. There was a margin sampling error of plus/minus 3% points for everyone polled, and plus/minus 7 points for blacks. The reason for this is to see what the black community has to say about there being an African American running for presidency.


When asked about their opinion on on Bush's new policies on the interrogation tactics and if they are harsh practices, 62% said that the share Obama's opinion that the hearings were unnecessary. The way in which some of the interrogation went on, they were too hard and sometimes they were just against the law.


The article shows that when Obama first started to run for office, he had a low rate because of his race, but after 100 days in office, that has all changed. With his first 100 days in the office he had a 68% approval rate while Bush had only 56% at the same time as Obama. The poll is showing when Obama was first running and taking office, he was not popular but after only 100 days in office, that as changed. People are starting to see that it does not matter the color of your skin and all that matters is that you can get the job done right and get it done for the people in a way that helps them out.

There was about 48% that said Obama was keeping his promises that he made when he was campaigning, and there was 39% that said he was making progress om major promises that he made. These polls are showing that people are looking past the fact that he is black and are looking at what he is going to be doing for the economy. Having surveys showing how someone is doing in their job and showing that the person is making progress is showing that they are doing what they said that they are doing. This survey is showing that people can change and that they believe in the person that the have elected into office.

The other thing that the survey is saying and showing is that people are changing their minds on the fact that maybe it does not matter the color of your skin or your race and that what does matter is that you do as you say you are going to do and also that you believe that when they, the president, says that they are going to do a job, that they are going to do.

Yes, from the survey you can see that people did not believe in Obama when he first started to run for presidency, when he was elected to be the president, but after his first 100 days in the office, he does have a higher rating as well as a higher popular vote amongst those that were polled on their thought about Obama. Even some of those that did not vote for him because his race, are starting to change their opinion because of the fact that he is doing what he said he was going to do when he went into office but also because the fact that he is working hard to prove to the world that he is the right person for the job and that he is going to get the job done and not just for some of the people but for all the people because proving that he is the person that everyone wants, is what matters when it comes to the polls.

When it comes to the polls and what people think of you, having them in your favor is always the best thing to have because the polls tell you if you are doing a good job or not, but they also tell you where you need to improve yourself for those that are watching you and giving their opinions on you.