The Hill quoted Nicole McCleskey in an article about the rising popularity of Republican Congressional candidates in Western states due to recent heavy government spending.

“Western voters are quite independent, and they are looking for greater balance in government. There’s a rather serious concern over policy direction in the Obama administration,” said Nicole McCleskey, a Western polling expert with the GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies.

“There’s an approach to government that is not a hallmark of Western states’ ideologies, that government should not play a terribly active role in our lives,” McCleskey added. “I think Western voters bristle at the notion that government knows best.”

LA Times mentions the Wall Street Journal poll to reinforce the idea that Americans are starting to become more skeptical of the current administration’s policies.

Most Americans also said the president has taken on a wide array of issues because he faces so many problems, according to the Journal-NBC poll, with just 37% saying he has taken on too many issues.

The surveys suggest concern about the direction that some of Obama’s policies could be taking the nation.

Nearly seven in 10 surveyed by pollsters Peter Hart and Bill McInturff for the Journal and NBC voiced concern about federal intervention in the economy, including the president’s decision to take a majority stake in the ownership of General Motors Corp.

NBC Dallas Fort-Worth quoted Bill and Peter Hart in a similar article about the public’s concern with the growing deficit.

And looking ahead to the items Obama wants to tackle — like reforming health care and curbing greenhouse gases — Hart observes that the bar has been raised.

“There is no more smooth sailing for the administration. They are going to have to navigate in pretty choppy waters.”

McInturff agrees, although he adds that the president’s continued personal popularity gives him “the latitude to ask for major action and major change.”