Poll: Americans Now Less Anxious about Foreign Policy, But Party Matters

According to a new poll, Americans are less worried about US foreign policy and feeling better about how the world views the US. Good news, right?

However, being "less anxious" doesn't mean that a majority are confident in the direction of the US in the world.  Then there are the partisan differences:

"When the Anxiety Indicator is calculated by party, Republican worries have soared from a relatively low level of 108 in 2008 to 134 today. By contrast, Democratic anxiety -- which was 142 in 2008 -- has now fallen to relatively calm 104. Independents were at 140 in 2008 and are still fairly anxious at 128, but that's a notable decline."

 The differences hold about the general direction of the country:

 "In 2008, only 20 percent of Democrats said the country was going in the right direction, compared with 45 percent of Republicans.

Now the Democrats’ view has shifted a staggering 41 points, to 61 percent who think the country is going in the right direction, while Republicans’ rating has dropped to only one-quarter (26 percent). Independents are far less enthusiastic than Democrats are, but their "right direction" number has doubled from 16 percent to 32 percent."

Much more info on the Public Agenda home page and the high points on Laura Rozen's blog.