Here’s one for your no-accounting-for-taste files: 3 percent of respondents to a Rasmussen Reports survey this week said 2008 was “one of the best years ever.”
Another 5 percent said 2008 was “excellent,” while 19 percent deemed it “good.” Thirty-three percent said it was “fair,” and 38 percent rated it “poor.” The other 1 percent weren’t sure.
Meanwhile, a pre-New Year’s Eve poll by Zogby International (conducted for the Times Square Alliance and Countdown Entertainment) found 32 percent of respondents saying 2008 was better for them personally than 2007 had been.
The moral for marketers: Despite the din of wailing and gnashing of teeth about 2008, you can’t take it for granted that your potential customers all experienced it as a dismal year.
The Rasmussen polling found a partisan split in people’s assessments of 2008, but not skewing in the direction the electoral news might lead you to expect. Despite their party’s loss of the White House and its second straight drubbing in congressional races, 39 percent of Republicans said 2008 was excellent, good or among the best ever. Just 20 percent of Democrats said the same. This is in sync with much past research that indicates Republicans are more upbeat as a matter of course than Democrats are.
Looking ahead, nearly four in 10 of Rasmussen’s respondents offered an upbeat forecast for 2009, with 24 percent expecting it to be good, 8 percent excellent and 5 percent among the best ever. Then again, people don’t have a terribly good track record when it comes to making such predictions. In the previous year’s version of this poll, 68 percent predicted that 2008 would be a good, excellent or best-ever year — i.e., more than twice the number who still felt that way when 2008 came too a close.
