Another Florida poll shows Obama underwater - and Rick Scott extremely unpopular

His critics have suggested that the main prescriptions that Obama has done to try to fix the situation- the $862 billion stimulus and last year's health care reform plan, haven't done the trick.  That seemed to be the sentiment last fall, and the Dems got their booties kicked in the process.

It's hard to say how things will change in the next year and a half, but as we report in another post this morning, the public seems to be with the President, and against the GOP when it comes to the idea of say, dismantling Medicare as we know it, and also on taxing the wealthy (such as restoring the Bush tax cuts for the rich that Obama and Congress opted to do last fall).

A majority of Sunshine State voters said they felt the country was on the wrong track (64 percent) in the new poll. Nearly half (48 percent) said they disapproved of the job Obama is doing as president, while 41 percent approved, and 11 percent were undecided. Obama won eight out of nine ballot tests against possible Republican challengers but received less than the critical 50 percent support in all but one match-up: He bested Sarah Palin 52 percent to 34 percent.

The poll shows that two-thirds of Florida Republicans have no clue about any of candidates for U.S. Senate next year, with the name of MSNBC host Joe Scarborough in second place amongst the names mentioned in the poll (Congressman Dan Webster is first with 7 percent). This is a healthy indication that for most Floridians, thinking of who they'll vote for for U.S. Senate in a year and a half is the last thing on their minds.  And remember, at this point two years ago going into 2010, Marco Rubio trailed Charlie Crist by over 30 percentage points.

Florida Republicans are gearing up to challenge incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, in 2012. However, with 67 percent of Republican voters saying they were undecided among 10 candidates listed, no clear front-runner emerged in this race. Candidates who received the most support were Congressman Daniel Webster (7 percent), television host Joe Scarborough (6 percent), and Congressman Vern Buchanan (5 percent).

Another unsurprising stat to come out of this survey is something that we think Floridians ought to get used to for the next three years - reading about another poll where Rick Scott fares poorly.  The Suffolk survey reports that 41 percent of those responding called Scott's first 100 days in office "negative and damaging," vs. 26 percent who thought it "positive and productive."

According to David Paleologos, director of the Political Research Center at Boston’s Suffolk University,

“So much for a political honeymoon; it’s taken Gov. Scott less than 100 days to begin a free fall in popularity and to generate negative perceptions about job performance and damaging the state he was elected to lead,” said Paleologos. “There has been a backlash in public opinion on both sides of the aisle in response to his aggressive and uncompromising leadership style.”

Among state issues, 88 percent surveyed did not believe the recession as over (another bad sign for Obama), despite recent gains on some indices.  On Scott's plan to reduce (the relatively already low) corporate tax rate - and reduce regulations, the public is split, with 40 percent approving and 42 percent saying that corporate taxes were too low.

As in a previous poll, everybody seems to be cool with testing both state workers and job applicants to undergo mandatory drug testing (the poll says job applicants - I thought Scott was also talking about recipients of state assistance?), with 74 percent agreeing.

But 63 percent oppose proposed cuts to K-12 education.