Americans expect more of next president
By NANCY BENAC

WASHINGTON (AP) - Americans have a decidedly dour view of how things are going in the United States and an outsized view of what the president can do about it.

In a year when talk of change dominates the presidential campaign, people have great expectations for the next president's ability to get things done, according to an extensive Associated Press-Yahoo News survey released Thursday.

Large majorities of voters believe the president has considerable sway on a range of big issues such as inflation, interest rates, the federal deficit, taxes and more. Fully three-quarters believe the president has at least some influence over health care costs, for example. Sixty-nine percent can see the president making gasoline prices go up or down.

They are less certain, though, about the president's ability to change how things really work in Washington: 55 percent think it is possible; 44 percent are doubtful, no matter who is elected.

Call it optimism with a cynical streak. Or cynicism with an optimistic streak.

Voters begin this election year with a grim assessment of the status quo. Roughly threefourths say the country is on the wrong track.

And so the question, as framed for them by the presidential candidates, is who is best positioned to change things - someone with Washington experience who can do, or the outsider who can change how it's done?

Americans are about evenly split on the answer, according to the poll conducted by Knowledge Networks. Fifty-two percent favor experience; 47 percent opt for an outsider.

Overall, the poll found, supporters of Democratic presidental candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton overwhelmingly favor experience over change, 78 percent to 21 percent.

Her rival Barack Obama's supporters reflect the flip side, favoring change over experience 72 percent to 28 percent.

Backers of John Edwards, who dropped out of the race on Wednesday, were about evenly split, providing no easy clues as to whose side they will take now.

Among Republicans, supporters of McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who also quit the race on Wednesday, were the ones favoring experience in the poll, and backers of Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, two former governors, wanted an outsider.

This latest AP-Yahoo News survey of more than 2,000 people is part of a series of in-depth polls tracking public attitudes as the campaign unfolds. A strong belief that the country is on the wrong track has been a consistent finding since the series started in November.

The latest poll, third in the series, found that Democrats are more likely to believe in the power of the president - whatever his or her background - to change things. Republicans and independents, for their part, are much less likely to think a president can have influence over the big issues.

Presidents themselves might have their own thoughts on how much one person can do. Richard Nixon set a 1980 deadline for ending U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Bill Clinton pledged that the era of big government was over. George W. Bush promised to pay down the national debt by $2 trillion (euro1.35 trillion). All turned out to be pipe dreams.

Overall, supporters of Clinton and Obama are about equally likely to think it is possible to change the way Washington works. Voters who backed Edwards, who campaigned passionately against the status quo and the influence of special interests, were least likely to think Washington can be changed.

The survey of 2,016 adults was conducted from Jan. 18-28, and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points. Included were interviews with 943 Democrats, for whom the margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3.2 points, and 740 Republicans, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.6 points.

The poll was conducted over the Internet by Knowledge Networks, based on reinterviews of a nationally representative sample of adults initially contacted in November. The respondents were first contacted using traditional telephone polling methods and followed with online interviews. People chosen for the study who had no Internet access were given it for free.

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AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius and Associated Press writer Christine Simmons contributed to this report.

- - - - On the Net: http://news.yahoo. com/polls.