Wow. I guess I hit a nerve. Or maybe I just asked the right -- or wrong -- question. Either way, reader reaction to my question about President Barack Obama's impact on the construction industry was, in several ways, overwhelming.

Again, in that blog post I basically did nothing more than ask readers to answer the question -- "What do you think of President Barack Obama's impact on the construction industry?" -- and encouraged them to vote in a corresponding one-click web poll. The idea was that the reader responses would be the most interesting part of the post.

And the reader comments were indeed the stars of the show. While a handful of folks left some comments that were too brief to be called "thoughtful," the majority of reader comments were deeply felt and thoughtful explanations of their positions. Of course, some -- on both sides -- were stated more eloquently than others, and there were definitely a few that were more reactionary than enlightening. But overall I think that, together, the comments reveal some real industry perspective that otherwise hasn't really been reported.

Poll Results I'll post more of my own personal reaction to your responses shortly, but I wanted to go ahead and share the results of the web poll. Again, more than 500 people voted.

So here are the results: Roughly 49% said President Obama is having an "extremely negative" impact on the industry. The next-highest percentage, 23%, said he is having "little to no impact." Also, 8% voted that his impact was "slightly negative." In short, approximately 80% of respondents felt the president is having either a negative effect on the industry, or is having no impact either way.

Roughly 12% of respondents said Obama's industry impact was "slightly positive," and 8% responded with an "extremely positive."

You can see all of the results, including the most popular vote on a state-by-state basis, here.

As I said, I'll post my own personal reaction to your responses shortly. It sounds like we should continue this conversation, so I'll do my part.

For now, what do you think of these results? Are you surprised? Pleased? Angered? Please don't hesitate to let me hear your comments.

Twitter