FOX News Poll: Would the Founding Fathers Be Happy?

It’s not easy to find something Americans can largely agree on these days, but as the Fourth of July holiday approaches a new poll finds at least a few things: 1) the nation’s Founders would be unhappy with the country today; 2) “God Bless America” is a favorite patriotic tune; and 3) the Pledge of Allegiance is a good way to start the school day.

Remarkably, just 15 percent of American voters think the Founders would be proud if they could see the country today. Almost four in five American voters -- 78 percent -- think the Founders wouldn’t be proud of the country they helped launched 234 years ago.

There is some variation along partisan lines, as 22 percent of Democrats believe the Founders would be proud of America in 2010, while only 8 percent of Republicans feel the same way.

Nonetheless, Americans like to sing their country’s praises when they can. Given a choice of four popular patriotic songs, the largest number of American voters (41 percent) picks “God Bless America” as their favorite.

Democrats and Republicans agree on the top choice (42 percent and 46 percent, respectively). Moreover, Democrats (28 percent) and Republicans (31 percent) also agree on their second choice -- “The Star Spangled Banner.”

The partisan divide re-emerges, however, on the third choice. Democrats opt for “America the Beautiful” (18 percent) while Republicans go with “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” (7 percent).

Independents also trend toward the top two song choices, but are more likely to say they like all the songs equally (12 percent).

There is also a considerable amount of unanimity among voters of every political stripe on students starting the school day with the Pledge of Allegiance.

Overall support for reciting the pledge stands at 87 percent, and Republicans (96 percent) and independents (83 percent) and Democrats (82 percent) all express high degrees of support.

Opinion Dynamics Corp. conducted the national telephone poll for Fox News among 900 registered voters from June 29 to June 30. For the total sample, the poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Click here to see the raw data.

Ernie Paicopolos is a Principal at Opinion Dynamics Corporation