Ending Business As Usual
ArchPundit
If you count changing who gets the perks from someone else’s friend to your own friends.
I don’t think most of us do.
May 2004
Bumbling into Durbin
“I was misquoted” Charles Barkely on his autobiography
“I read that thing and it kind of irritated me because I don’t speak like that,” Blagojevich said. The Blagorgeous upset about a column under his name.
But Greenberg said it was the governor’s office that solicited the magazine to allow the governor to appear in the “My Turn” column of the St. Louis-based publication.
But what I don’t get is why he brought Durbin into the deal. Is he really trying to anger every Democrat in the state?
Blagojevich questioned the sports loyalty of another Democrat, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin.
“If you hear Sen. Durbin, he’s Cubs, he’s Sox and the Cardinals,” Blagojevich said. “I’m a Cubs fan.”
No Good News for the Guv In the Poll
But the latest survey of 600 registered voters, conducted May 21-24 by Market Shares Corp. of Mt. Prospect, showed his job-approval rating falling below a majority of Illinois voters for the first time in his 16-month tenure. Only 40 percent of voters surveyed now view his performance as governor favorably, while almost as many–36 percent–disapprove.
As recently as February, a similar poll found Blagojevich with a 55 percent job approval rating while only 27 percent disapproved. A total of 18 percent had no opinion on Blagojevich’s job performance then, a figure that has risen to 25 percent now.
The graphic passes the interocular test.
Defining Kerry
This simple fact has set the strategies for the campaign. To attract on-the-fence voters, Kerry is expanding the use of biographical ads to introduce himself, while President Bush is running negative ads to try to define his opponent first.
In many ways, the presidential race mirrors the 1980 campaign when incumbent Jimmy Carter faced declining approval rates yet the public was unsure of Ronald Reagan, a candidate viewed by many on the ideological fringes of his own party. Reagan’s challenge then — to make himself more appealing to the average voter — is the same as Kerry’s today.
New Field Director for Kerry In Illinois
Daniel from Evanston from Kerry sends me a note that Avis LaVelle has been named the new Illinois Field Director Details over there.
I need to get him on the blogroll too!
Four Tops Meeting Rumored
SpringfieldDem comes through with some gossip in comments:
Word here is that, on top of the bad Trib numbers, the four tops – sans Blago — met in Frank Watson’s office yesterday informally. The result was an agreement to begin working cooperatively on a “zero-growth plus” budget with the goal of acheiving a veto proof majority on the budget by Monday. See today’s Captiol Fax (subscrip req) for more details.
The key is Jones — who has a foot planted in both camps. However, given the Trib numbers, it seems unlikely that Jones makes his stand there.
Unless The Governor pulls a serious rabbit out of his hat, he could be heading towards a seriously embarrassing defeat
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Not to beat a dead horse, but Rich Miller’s Capitol Fax is a must see recently–for those that work in politics or for firms related, subscribe. And if you are politically geeky enough to care on your own–subscribe. Daily Papers can’t get this much.
Regular Reminders
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Air America
I’m a big fan. I find the morning show with Chuck D and the others decent and I really find Franken funny.
Many expected that liberals couldn’t demagogue and to some degree that is true (Randi Rhodes is quite good at it though). Franken plays well to what younger liberals find funny and is very entertaining. And the ratings show it.
They still need to work on the business plan, but I’m betting by years end they’ll be in most major cities. Rhodes is annoying, the guy after her weird and boring, but the Chuck D, Franken and night time show with Garafola are quite entertaining for partisans.
Errr…that isn’t Good Pal
OneMan catches the first hint at how bad the Blagorgeous is doing with the public.
The Trib poll is out and it has his job approval at 40 %.
That’s down from 55 % in February. Sort of similar to some other guy’s approval ratings.
The real problem at this point is for the Party-and I mean the Democratic Party. As far as I’m concerned any Democrat in tough race who doesn’t attack him is committing suicide so fire at will. That goes for Obama too. There is nothing that he has done that deserves loyalty or for that matter, he hasn’t done anything demonstrating his commitment to Democratic values. Instead he has acted like a petulant child and unless he starts making amends, he should be challenged. I’ll chip in for air fare to bring back Vallas.
That said, he’s going to lose in the showdown. Fighting a Lege takes discipline–you have to stay on message, find three of four clear targets where they are wrong and then beat it to death. The Blagorgeous can’t do that.
1) He doesn’t have the attention span
2) Madigan and Watson’s ploy of a zero growth budget means everyone gets the same they did the year before. No cuts–no targets.
Whether he realizes it or not, The Blagorgeous has lost this fight. He needs to reorganize as Clinton did in 1994 and go to Springfield and mend fences with Democrats. After that, he needs to go to Tom Cross and then finally to Tom Watson. Or he can simply plan on being ousted in the next primary.
This also means we’ll have Senate and Presidential numbers over the weekend. Any Trib employees are welcome to send me the raw numbers. 😉 And I won’t release them until the Trib is out–I just want to start analysing. archpundit@yahoo.com.