Our latest online survey of Press Democrat letter writers and other readers shows surprisingly strong support for many of the major ideas the president expressed  in his State of the Union address on Wednesday – even the development of new “safe, clean nuclear power plants.”

The president’s discussion about “opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development” also got a fair amount of support although readers were very divided over this.

When asked what they thought of the president’s statement that Congress should not “walk away” from health care reform, 78 percent agreed.  Sixty-eight percent said they “strongly agree.” Thirteen percent said they “strongly disagree.”

Seventy percent said they supported the president’s plan to freeze discretionary spending, while 26 percent were opposed, including 15 percent that were strongly opposed.

Forty-seven percent said they agreed with the president about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development. Fifty percent disagreed including 33 percent who said they “strongly disagree.”

Nineteen percent said they were “very satisfied” with President Obama’s overall job performance in his first year of office. Thirty-six percent said they were “somewhat satisfied” while 45 percent said they were dissatisfied including 27 percent who said they were “very dissatisfied.”

Surprisingly, 57 percent of readers agreed with the president’s ideas about building new nuclear energy plants. (To read more about this, see my Sunday column, “Readers react to Obama’s ‘clean nuclear power’ idea.”)

In all, nearly 300 people responded to the informal, invitation-only survey conducted on Thursday and Friday. To take the survey for yourself and see other results, click here.

–   Paul Gullixson