According to a new CNN/ORC International poll, 60 percent of Americans say they have a family member or close friend who is gay or lesbian.

Mississippi will be the least densely populated state following the Rapture, if the latest Gallup poll is any indication.

Provo-Orem, Utah is the nation's most optimistic metropolitan area, according to the results of a Gallup poll released earlier this week. This could explain why Provo-Orem, Utah just doesn't "get" your cynical, Big City humor.

So far, at least, it seems like Texas Gov. Rick Perry made a fine last-minute decision to enter the presidential race. From our side, we applaud his magical ability to produce daily blog material. And for him, he's already leading every national poll! Now the question is whether he'll completely flop and go down in American political history as a grand failure, no big deal.

Have you, too, heard Jon Stewart and every other hand-wringer complaining about how the media "ignores" Ron Paul, the politician who's been covered extensively for four or five years despite being a cranky old man representing a narrow ideological strand of libertarian thought?

President Obama's approval rating in Gallup's three-day rolling average has fallen to 40%, an all-time low for him. The American public can stomach many things, but interrupting The Bachelorette is not one of them.

According to a wellbeing surveys taken by Gallup in 2010, the U.S. is the 12th-happiest country in the world. Take that, Costa Rica and Austria!

What does it take to be the happiest man in America? "Friendship," you might say. "Trust." Ha!. The real secret to happiness being a tall, married, business-owning Asian-American Jewish man living in Hawaii. Like Alvin Wong!

As Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) continues to push for a bill that would eliminate collective bargaining rights for almost all of the state's employees, a Gallup/USA Today poll taken amid the standoff finds that most Americans would oppose a similar measure in their own state.

Why are Republicans having such a hard time finding a decent presidential candidate to crush all the others? It shouldn't be that hard. You only need one, and it's a country of 309 million people. The sitting president is vulnerable, too. That's an incentive to pluck some generic governor who doesn't say insane things all the time! And yet we still have this weak GOP field, where so many candidates have major flaws and aren't really loved by anyone, especially their mothers.

The President and Hillary Clinton topped Gallup's "most admired" man and woman polls this year, as they do every damn year.

Congress' 13% approval rating is the lowest ever recorded by Gallup.

Barack Obama's approval ratings have been trending higher since election day, when the country repudiated him. What gives, America?

There's no chance that Hillary Clinton will challenge Barack Obama in a 2012 primary. None! Stop thinking this. But Gallup has polled it anyway, and finds Obama leading her 52% to 37%. It's bad news for a certain Chicago dentist.

Pundits started reading Democrats their last rites last week after Gallup's generic-ballot poll showed voters preferring Republicans by ten percentage points, a record. But in the same poll this week, the parties are... tied? Get your story straight, America.

A new Gallup poll shows that 49 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds have a "great deal" of confidence in newspapers, compared to just 16 percent of 30- to 49-year-olds. This is because they have never read a newspaper.

Bill Clinton is finally loved! By 61% of "national adults," at least, according to a new Gallup favorability poll. Meanwhile, 52% think favorably of Barack Obama, which is pretty good for someone currently managing America's broke, apocalyptic hellscape. [Image: AP]

Al Gore's favorability (some people still monitor this!) has hit its lowest rating in more than a decade, following revelations about him diddlin' that masseuse. We can now safely assume that man-made climate change does not exist. [via]

At some point in the last 30 years, left-of-center organizations eschewed the term "liberal" for the fancier-sounding "progressive," after the right wing had somehow turned "liberal" into a pejorative. Unfortunately for liberals, no one knows what the fuck "progressive" means.

Jennifer Senior wrote a massive cover piece on the Obama communications machine for this week's issue of New York that is, to put it mildly, a nauseatingly fawning tribute to the communications genius of our president and his advisers.