Day53 Thursday 10/21/10

ran 2.6 miles

• Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Approval poll suggests that 28% of American voters strongly approve of the president’s performance in the White House and 42% strongly disapprove, giving Barack Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –14, compared to –18 on this day last week.

• Overall, 47% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of Obama’s performance and 52% at least somewhat disapprove.

• Among American voters, 65% prefer a government with fewer services and lower taxes and only 25% take the opposite view and favor a government with more services and higher taxes.

• Rasmussen Reports FedEx Fact of the week: 47% of consumers say their personal finances are getting worse.

• Today’s “Election 2010 Balance of Power” summary remains the same as last week, predicting 48 Democratic senate seats, 47 Republican senate seats, and five states continue to be toss-ups: California, Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, and Washington (all currently held by Democrats).

• Today’s “Gubernatorial Scorecard” predicts 28 Republican states, 13 Democratic states, and 9 toss-up states: Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

On the November 2 ballot, as we vote for our leaders, there will also be a total of 10 constitutional amendments to vote for or against. This link describes them in understandable terms. The one at the top of the list, just to show how quickly we tend to forget things, deals with the public uproar from two years ago when lawmakers attempted to give themselves exorbitant raises to their salaries. This amendment would require any approved salary increase for state elected officials to take effect only once their term is over, disabling them from wielding the power to give themselves raises during their own terms. If you only vote for one of these amendments make it this one. The way these amendments are written once the curtain closes behind you are nearly untranslatable. The lawyer-speak diction these brief amendment descriptions are written in is legal because, as a citizen and voter, it is your responsibility to look over them on a broader scale before walking into your voter’s booth.

These ten amendments are worth looking over for approval. If passed they will become part of our Constitution and that is something worth studying up on.

1,939.2 miles to go.