Poll: Obama and Lame-Duck Congress Popular - But Will it Quack Again?

Jan. 14, 2011 -- Americans overwhelmingly welcomed the flurry of lawmaking between the lame-duck Congress and President Obama last month -- but they're hedging their bets on whether the duck keeps quacking.

Seventy-seven percent in this ABC News/Yahoo! News poll say it was good for Obama and Congress to agree to lame-duck legislation on tax cuts, unemployment benefits, gays in the military, the START treaty and aid to 9/11 responders. That includes majorities across the spectrum -- 91 percent of Democrats, 79 percent of independents and 62 percent of Republicans.

Whether it lasts is another matter: Whatever the lame-duck session achieved, Americans divide evenly on the chances Obama and the Republicans in Congress will work together on important issues in the year ahead. Forty-eight percent are optimistic about it -- just 14 percent "strongly" so -- but about as many, 46 percent, are pessimistic about the prospects for political cooperation.

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Optimism peaks among Democrats; 60 percent see cooperation ahead. That drops to 46 percent of independents and four in 10 Republicans in this poll, produced for ABC and Yahoo! News by Langer Research Associates. The survey was conducted before the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others in Tucson, Ariz.; further polling will indicate whether that event and its aftermath impact public views of the prospects for political cooperation.

OBAMA -- The survey also marks the extent to which a president -- even when hammered in the midterms, as Obama was this fall -- commands the political stage. People who call the lame-duck legislation a good thing say by 62-31 percent, that Obama, not the Republicans in Congress, deserves more of the credit. On the other hand those who see it as a bad thing say by an almost identical margin, 61-29 percent, that Obama deserves more of the blame.

Naturally, there's partisanship here; Democrats credit Obama rather than the Republicans in Congress for the legislation by 81-14 percent; Republicans, conversely, credit their party's leaders, albeit by a somewhat tighter 68-23 percent. But in the crucial center, twice as many independents credit Obama as the Republicans in Congress, by 60 percent to 32 percent.