Do these poll results shock you and what are your reactions to them?

Sounds like people are pessimistic about the direction of the country and their faith in Congress to fix it, but they're hopeful that Obama can do something about it. Seems kind of naive to me -- after all, Congress makes the laws, and the president only signs them -- but that's the way American politics works these days: Everyone focuses on the president, as if he was the only person in Washington.

The Ship of State is large and takes a while to change directions. Check back in a year. Polls are a snapshot. Some of this may be because large numbers want to legalize lynching for AIG executives.

Obama has just started. His approval rating is not surprising because he took office 2 months ago after being elected by a large majority.

Congress is a mixed bag. It's hard to read at this point. The disapproval always has to do with results. Most polls will show that people like their own representatives. So, is the anger over not giving Obama free rein or is it over not opposing his policies strongly enough? I don't know, but I think, given his approval rating, it's the former.

What it proves is that despite the fury of the right-wing blowhards on talk radio and the best efforts of the Republican leadership in Congress, President Obama has the trust of the American people to do the right thing in the face of an overwhelming number of challenges left to him by the incompetents that ran the country into the ground during the prior eight years. The recent trend in the Gallup Tracking Poll has been up. Must be frustrating to those that wish to see him 'fail'.

People are obviously concerned over the state of the nation's economy, which is why they are not happy with the 'direction' of the nation. However, if you look behind those numbers you will see that since Obama took office those believing the nation is on the right track have increased in number. The congressional numbers are harder to use because it includes Congress as a whole. But, Congressional Democrats have much, much better poll numbers than the Republican Party's members of Congress. It is not even close.

To the guy below: No, the polls certainly did not say McCain would win. That is sheer nonsense. In fact, the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll called Obama and McCain's respective percentages of the popular vote almost exactly and everyone that looked at the polling numbers knew it was going to be an Electoral College landslide.

I'd bet that most people don't really have any idea what the Congress does or how difficult a job it is. Most people aren't very bright as a rule - they look at somebody's face and say that they "like" him or "dislike" him - this is no measure of anything except perhaps level of useless stupidity.

It is the most unfortunate thing that this great country has an awful lot of poorly informed people - and it will be hard to hang onto democracy for much longer this way.

Nope. It is not shocking at all to find that most people responding to polls have no idea of what they are talking about.

People do not understand what Congress does, or how they do it, and will therefore refrain from saying that they approve of their work. As for the direction of the country...that question is so ridiculously vague that there is no hope for the results to have any meaning at all.

No it doesn't surprise me at all. Obama has had less then 100 days in office and realistically people do not expect an immediate improvement. Congress had lied to us last session about what they were going to put in the TARP. Remember that the Senate were the ones who said the 3 page TARP bill passed by the House was a blank check to Wall Street? And they were going to add oversight to protect the tax payer? And they added 137 pages of earmarks and no oversight instead? All this "Outrage" by Congress is to lead us to forget what role they played in setting us up to pay off Wall Street for financially backing their political elections.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6KRXnYgu5I

And any one who thinks McCain would have done a better job need to consider who paid for his campaigns:

Top 5 Contributors, 2003-2008

Merrill Lynch $379,695

Citigroup Inc $327,501

Morgan Stanley $272,152

Goldman Sachs $256,045

JPMorgan Chase & Co $232,957

Source(s):

opensecrets.org

i don't care what the average american thinks, because it's a proven fact that the average american is an idiot, can't find France on a world map, can't find 75 % of the united states on a U.S. map, are functionally illiterate, even worse with mathematics, and are for the most part, drug addicted, narcissistic losers with a low I.Q.

I don't understand why any public opinion poll of these idiots' thoughts on a given subject should be taken seriously or even looked at.

It's really like asking a 3 year old what he thinks about Einstein's theory of Relativity. The kid might have an opinion and a comment, but it's not going to mean a whole lot.

No doesn't surprise me. The average voters are naive and uninformed. Obama getting a pass when he is signing the bills and Bush not getting a pass when he was signing the bills. Both are responsible. Congress Sucks!

No, I am not shocked because many people are still having a hard time believing that Obama mislead them during his campaign and they still think that every time his teleprompter tells him to say something that it is the truth.

He is not running this country, his is just signing his name to anything that is put in front of him.

Its clear to all the Obama is the Leader of the People let alone our Commander and Chief.

The mess here that is Congressional Leadership is doing harm to America Not President Obama The Policies are being done by Congress.