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"Edwards Scores Higher than Cheney, Poll Finds"
"PHILADELPHIA -- As Vice President Dick Cheney and U.S. Sen. John Edwards prepare to debate tonight in Cleveland, the American public generally, and political independents in particular, have a more positive view of Edwards than of Cheney, according to the latest survey conducted by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center. About as many registered voters had a favorable view of Cheney as had an unfavorable one. With the data's margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points, the 37% favorable, 42% unfavorable margin was not statistically significant. For Edwards, it was 38% favorable and 31% unfavorable. The polling of 1,515 registered voters was conducted from Sept. 29 through Oct. 3. Among independents, 32% viewed Cheney favorably and 50% viewed him unfavorably. For Edwards, 39% viewed him favorably and 27% unfavorably.With the debate of vice presidential candidates covering both foreign and domestic issues, the Annenberg polling also shows solid majorities of the public believing troops must stay in Iraq until a stable government is established and believing that the government's actions since Sept. 11th have made the country safer. But pluralities said the Bush Administration's economic policies have made the economy worse, that the war in Iraq was not worth it, and that the money spent on the war would have been better used on domestic needs.When Edwards was chosen as John Kerry's running mate July 6, more than half the public had neither a positive or negative opinion of him. Thirty-one percent viewed him favorably and 17% unfavorably. Now only a third of the public has no opinion, but his negatives have risen more than his positives have. His negatives increased in most population groups. Among independents, for example, only 8% had an unfavorable opinion when he was named and now 27% do. For Cheney, his balance has shifted from narrowly positive in the overall sample -- at 39% favorable and 35% unfavorable in July -- to narrowly negative. Among independents, the 40% who viewed him unfavorably in July has now reached 50%. The findings on the broader issues were generally in the range of where they have been for most of the campaign, except for the question of keeping troops in Iraq "until a stable government is established," which has 65% support, perhaps because Bush and Kerry have also clearly advocated that position. As recently as late August, only 53% said the troops should be kept until a stable government was in place. In the latest polling 31% said they wanted to bring the troops home as soon as possible, compared to 42% in the earlier data. With homeland security one of the campaign's major themes, the poll offered the Bush-Cheney ticket the encouraging news that 72% of the registered voters said the country had been made safer by government action since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Just 16% said it was less safe. But the view on the economy was clearly negative, with 44% saying the policies of the administration had made the economy worse and just 32% saying those policies had made the economy better Narrower pluralities said the war had not been worth it, and that the money it cost should have been used for domestic priorities. Fifty percent said the war had not been worth it, and 46% said it had. Fifty percent said the money should have been used for domestic needs, while 44% said spending it on the war was the right decision. Visit the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania at www.AnnenbergPublicPolicyCenter.org"