Editor's note: This is another in a series of monthly "Freedom Index" polls conducted exclusively for WND by the public-opinion research and media consulting company Wenzel Strategies.
Maybe it's the coming election, maybe it's the football season, or maybe it's developing alarm (or hope) over what will happen in November. But the results of the September WND Freedom Index Poll show Democrats and Republicans heading in the opposite directions.
"Asked if they felt that, under the Obama administration, America has seen an increase or decrease in personal freedom, 31 percent said they believe freedoms have increased, up from 27 percent a month ago," said Fritz Wenzel of Wenzel Strategies.
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"The percentage of those who said they have seen a significant decrease in freedoms under Obama dropped from 54 percent to 47 percent this month. The increasingly optimistic view about freedom this month was almost exclusively the result of optimism among Democrats, 64 percent of whom said they have seen an increase in freedoms this month, compared to 47 percent who said the same thing last month."
The September WND Freedom Index poll was conducted Aug. 13-14 with an automated technology calling a random sampling of listed telephone numbers nationwide. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.65 percentage points.
The index is based on a 100-point scale based on poll respondent answers to 10 questions which sample different aspects of freedom in America, including freedom of speech, association, worship, assembly, and more. An index rating of 50 is dead level even, with ratings above that point signaling positive feelings about freedom in America, and ratings below that point signaling negative feelings.
"As Labor Day passes and warriors on both sides of the aisle gird their loins for battle, hopes for the future have apparently buoyed the WorldNetDaily.com Freedom Index for September 2010," said the Wenzel report.
"The polling data show that Democrats are once again feeling their oats, and Republicans are stiffening their spines to put the finishing touches on what has been a remarkable story of political rebirth," the report said.
The report said the ranking jumped two points from last month and now stands at 49.3.
"With no hope of improvement to be found in the foundering national economy, the prospects for confirmation or renewal (depending on your party affiliation) in the November elections are all that can reasonably be seen as moderately boosting the moods of Americans," the report said.
The report said Americans recently have seen peaceful mass gatherings on the National Mall, and they are "feeling substantially freer" to gather with whomever they wish without fear of retribution or penalty.
The latest edition also found a steady level of concern about "government intrusion into the lives of everyday citizens using such things as red light cameras, electronic health records, and other technology."
Democrats are less likely than Republicans or independents to be bothered by this, it said.
"Democrats appear to be more defensive on questions of freedom, insisting that most of America's freedoms remain intact, while Republicans remain highly suspicious that they are losing freedoms at an alarming pace. It is this disparity in how people view their government based on their political persuasion that guarantees contentious elections for many years to come," Wenzel's report said.
The first WND Freedom Index revealed an index of 57.6 for June 2009. The index then plunged last winter when Obama was pushing for the federal takeover of health-care decisions, and it has yet to recover.
The July index was 46.5, second lowest only to the December 2009 index of 46.4 at the peak of Obama's health-care push.