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POLITICS

Voters Send Mixed Signals on Obama's Leadership Style

President Obama has sent shock waves through his own party with his new tax cut agreement with congressional Republicans, but voters continue to have mixed feelings about the president's leadership style.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 28% of Likely Voters view the president's leadership as too confrontational, while 30% say he’s too cooperative. Another 31% say his leadership style is about right. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Those numbers are nearly identical to those found in October and have changed little over the past several months. Since the beginning of the year, the number of voters who view the president as being too cooperative has ranged from a low of 21% to a high of 31%. Just after Obama first took office in January 2009, just 17% said he was too cooperative.

When Obama first took office in January 2009, 60% said his leadership style was about right.

Reports of the tax deal began to emerge over the weekend, but the president didn't formally announce it until Monday. The new survey was taken Sunday and Monday evenings.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls).  Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook. 

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters nationwide was conducted on December 5-6, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

How do voters rate Obama overall as a leader? Do most Democrats think he is too cooperative with Republicans? Become a Platinum member and find out.

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