O Civitas...

Civitas is trying to push a story line that while Barack Obama is popular in North Carolina, his policies aren't.

This premise is based on responses to two extremely biased questions.

One was about Obama's mortgage bailout plan:

Barack Obama’s mortgage bailout plan requires people who are paying their mortgages to also pay the mortgages of people who lost their jobs, overspent or lied about their income and now cannot afford to pay their own mortgage. Does this make you more likely or less likely to approve of the way President Barack Obama is handling his job?

Gee I guess if you frame it that way Obama's policies aren't popular. But if you mentioned the fact that as many as one in nine American homeowners might get help staying in their homes because of the program and that reducing foreclosures will help stabilize the economy you might get a somewhat different response. Their question didn't exactly tell both sides of the story.

Cherrypicking a couple of Obama's proposals and getting the data you want by asking slanted questions about them might make the right wingers feel better, but the truth is more than half of North Carolinians approve of the job Obama is doing, and folks usually don't approve of the President unless they generally like the actions he's taking in office. Quite a contrast with George W. Bush's numbers in the state throughout most of his second term.