"Why is 'Obstructed' Obama the Beneficiary of Good Economic News?"

Here is an interesting question. John Daly at Bernie Goldberg's website asks how Obama seems to have the media playing a "heads I win, tails I win" game. If things don't go well, it is because Congress is obstructing what he has done. If things go well, it is because of his policies. My answer? There is a third option: no new harmful Stimuluses have been pasted. All that said, the annual rate of GDP growth during 2011 never got above 1.7 percent in any quarter and during the first quarter the GDP annualized growth rate was only 0.4%. Note that 85% of the Stimulus had been spent by June 2011.

From the left-wing Daily Kos:

Last week, Suffolk University asked an excellent question about Florida voters' opinions as to whether Republicans are deliberately harming economic recovery efforts for partisan gain. The results were very interesting: Almost half (49%) of Floridians said yes, the GOP was cynically hampering attempts to "to jumpstart the economy" in order to thwart Barack Obama's re-election chances.

In response to Suffolk's poll, multiple commentators suggested that this question be asked nationally, so that's exactly what we did.

Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos & SEIU. 11/3-6. Registered voters. MoE ±3.1% (no trendlines):

Q: Do you think the Republicans are intentionally stalling efforts to jumpstart the economy to insure that Barack Obama is not reelected or not?
Yes: 50
No: 41
Unsure: 10