Published: November 05, 2008 04:01 pm      

Exit poll: Obama image undented despite attacks

Almost six out of 10 people say Barack Obama has the right judgment to be president

WASHINGTON — Alarmingly inexperienced. So liberal he’s practically a socialist. A sure-fire tax raiser. And an agent of the wrong kind of change.

Barack Obama heads to the White House his image intact after successfully deflecting those charges, made incessantly by the Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin over the campaign’s final weeks. Instead, most Americans voiced faith in his qualifications for the job, national exit polls of voters show.

Nearly six in 10 said the first-term Democratic senator from Illinois has the right judgment to be president, and half said he has sufficient experience to be an effective chief executive, the poll showed. Only four in 10 consider him too liberal.

Of those saying they were chiefly seeking change, nine in 10 voted for Obama, shrugging off McCain’s efforts to wrest that label from him. For good measure, nearly two-thirds said McCain unfairly attacked Obama during the campaign, far more than accused Obama of such tactics.

The Republicans’ charges came closest to sticking on the subject of taxes, with seven in 10 saying they expected their taxes to rise in an Obama presidency. But even there the GOP gained little edge — six in 10 said a President McCain would have boosted their taxes.

“Until you’re president, nobody has the experience,” Ulysses Pearson, 56, an Obama supporter from Cleveland, said after voting. “What I’m looking for is someone who has a more comprehensive, cohesive plan and seems to have judgment.”

The exit polls confirmed what was apparent during the fall campaign — the economy was the paramount issue facing voters and that meant advantage Obama. More than six in 10 cited the economy as the nation’s top concern, with the next closest issue — Iraq — named by just one in 10 voters. Of those citing the economy, Obama had a 9-percentage-point margin over McCain.

Underlining the economy’s impact, four in 10 said their family financial status was worse than four years ago — the highest number to report that in a presidential race since at least 1992. Seven in 10 of this group were voting for Obama.