Call It A Comeback
It’s hard to imagine a juicier bit coming out than Dick Cheney being tied to no-bid contracts to Halliburton. Remarkably, this administration provides us that juicy bit.
Congratulations! The cover story could be true, but will anyone believe it?
The President is apparently showing off the pistol Saddam was caught with.
That’s just weird.
Go read the whole thing, but Rich Miller does a job on The Blagorgeous
For over a year, political insiders have marveled at how Blagojevich could maintain relatively high approval ratings despite a complete refusal to engage in even minimal governance. Blagojevich must be another Jim Edgar, many figured. Edgar was a highly unpopular governor under the Statehouse dome, but he was a huge hit with the public.
Edgar was disliked because he didn’t come down to the floor and horsetrade. In contrast both Thompson and Ryan were beloved because they did that. Blagojevich won’t do it and that is the real problem though. Not being a good buddy with the Lege isn’t necessary. But being too slick is a problem with the public and eventually it wears thin. The press generally saw Edgar as a decent guy who was aloof at times, but a straight shooter. With G-Rod, you get the feeling they sit in press conferences and mouth the words he’s about to say.
Wrong. Blagojevich has reported spending an average of about $1,000 a day on polling since the middle of 2002, and we haven’t even seen his totals for this year yet
Wow–that’s a lot. During a campaign that makes sense, but during the year?
Taking on the Lege isn’t a bad thing, but you don’t get credit for blasting them for being cronys when your cronies are appearing everywhere.
Ouch. The good news from the Southtown Poll appeared to be that Jack! had caught up with the President and had roughly the same number of hardcore supporters in his camp. The Trib poll calls that into question.
A Harstad Strategic Research (D) poll obtained by Hotline; conducted 3/25-31 for state Sen. Barack Obama (D); surveyed 806 likely voters; margin of error +/- 3.5% (Hotline sources, 4/8). Tested: Obama and teacher/ex-investment banker Jack Ryan (R).
General Election Matchup
Obama Vote 52% Fav/Unfav 45/9% 73%ID
Ryan Vote 33% Fav/Unfav 31 /20% 84%ID
Undecided 14%
Wilson Research Strategies Released 5/04-5/05.
Obama 44%
Ryan 28%
Undecided 18%
Southtown
Released May 18th
Obama 48
Ryan 40
+/- 4.5
Sample Size 500
Automated phone call poll
95% confidence interval
Obama 52 %
Ryan 30
It’s always bad to have your opponent over 50 because it means you have to take voters away. Right now, Ryan doesn’t appear to even have his base cemented and more numbers in the article point out his problems.
Of voters who consider themselves independent, a key portion of the electorate for both candidates, nearly one in four had an unfavorable opinion of Ryan while only 29 percent had a favorable view of him. Obama led Ryan among independents 46 percent to 27 percent. Even Republicans were unsure about their candidate, with a third of GOP voters saying they have yet to form an opinion about Ryan. Only 19 percent of Democrats had not yet formed an opinion about Obama.
Ryan has a real problem if he isn’t reach his core supporters. He has to lock them up before he can hope for the median voter–who right now is saying they’ll already vote for Obama.
Worse, Ryan is running as closely allied to George Bush and, well, George Bush’s number suck less, but not by much.
Ryan can’t get on message and he is running essentially a negative campaign at this point–he doesn’t have much of a choice when his opponent is above 50 though. But negative campaigns work because they depress your opponent’s voters turnout more than yours–right now, Ryan doesn’t have the base to make that work.
Can Jack Ryan win? Sure. How likely is that? Not very to put it mildly.
To sum up, since election day, three polls put him around 1/3 of voters or slightly less. One poll puts him around 40.
And his divorce files haven’t been released yet.
Let’s Review the Previous Polls
From the Hotline Archives.
ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV
A Market Shares Corp. poll; conducted 2/11-14/04 for the Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV; surveyed 600 registered voters in Illinois; margin of error +/- 4% (release, 2/22).
General election matchups:
All
Kerry 52%
Bush 38
Undecided 10
A Mason-Dixon Polling and Research Inc. poll; conducted 3/1-3/04 for Copley; surveyed 625 registered voters in Illinois; margin of error +/- 4% (Copley, 3/14).
Kerry 47%
Bush 39
Nader 2
Undecided 12
Research 2000
A Research 2000 poll; conducted 3/1-3/04 for WEEK-TV and the Bloomington Pantagraph; surveyed 600 likely voters in Illinois; margin of error +/- 4% (release, 3/5).
General election matchup:
All
Kerry 54%
Bush 36
Nader 1
Undecided 9
Harstad for Obama
Kerry 51
Bush 37
Southtown Poll
Kerry 46
Bush 41
Nader 8
Kerry 48
Bush 43
And from Sunday’s Trib….
Kerry 54%
Bush 38
with Nader (assuming he qualifies)
Kerry 53
Bush 37
Nader 4
Approval/Disapproval
37 52
Hard to imagine any worse numbers for an incumbent. For those wacky conservatives at the Leader, you ought to be encouraging the President to stay away except for fundraising–the Presidential election in Illinois is over. Hell even the Blagorgeous has at least more favorables than negatives.
Bush has broken 40 in one poll so far. Now, he’ll break forty in the General, but that is a very poor sign for an incumbent–of course, having below a 50% approval rating is bad for an incumbent and he has a 52% DISAPPROVAL rating.
http://peoriapundit.com/weblog.php
He’s migrating and it being funky. But the above should get you to him.
OneMan has the details on one of the funds Blagorgeous wants to tap to close the budget gap. My guess this is dead with the Four Tops deal being worked out–some tapping of funds, but dramatically less. But it is disturbing how little the Guv pays attention to the details.
Errr…Okay, I admit, Light Guv Quinn could be worse.
Ligue really is the perfect example of the ridiculous “He dissed me culture” that emphasizes some sort of perceived view of respect having absolutely nothing to do with dignity.
Chris Rhodes brings up a subject near and dear to my heart in discussing environmental concern and the major political parties. He argues that environmental issues should be more consensus oriented instead of R vs. D.
Amen, but let me give a bit of history to environmental issues. It isn’t until the late 1960s when environmental issues even show up as an issue in public opinion polling. Before then it wasn’t even asked (I have the exact years in lecture notes and may post a brief graph later). Originally environmental policy was largely a bipartisan concern with consertative Southern Dems and some rural Republicans fighting significant changes in regulation. And if you look at the scores normed for different years, Republicans and Democrats had similar scores for many years. As Reagan gained influence those scores diverged (paper by Bill Lowry I can send to anyone who is really interested is available).
I think part of this is the reallignment of the south and the northeast. In Illinois the tensions have not become as great though there are some signs Republicans are pulling back on some issues.
One issue they aren’t pulling back on is wetlands regulation. Despite the Reader’s ‘environmental’ columnists claims, Dan Rutherford (R-Pontiac and future statewide candidate) isn’t worried about the regulations as much as he felt they regs should apply in Cook County. I tend to agree with Rutherford, though there may be a case for excluding Cook that I don’t fully understand.
But during the 1990s Jim Edgar was decent on most environmental issues. The exceptions being power plant emissions which all Midwest Governors are bad on and hog farm regulation. His Department of Ag head had a brother working for the biggest hog farm owner in Illinois and there were some inconsistencies in that case. I doubt it would be much different with any of the Dems who might have been in his place given rural Dems aren’t much different on those issues.
The key difference between parties should be how to reach good environmental outcomes in Chris’ hopeful world. Republicans traditionally have pushed for market incentive based programs such as effluent fees and permit trading.
Democrats have pushed for command and control regulations such as best available technology which mandates the kind of environmental technology that should be in place.
I tend to be favorable to market incentives. Properly constructed they give business the incentive to be cleaner and reduce costs by reducing pollution and do it in a way that is most efficient. Using best available technology is sometimes needed when talking about especially toxic chemicals or something of that sort and has its place.
I don’t have the same confidence that Chris does that there will be less room over time between the parties because often when effluent charges are mentioned now, many Republicans (not Leader Cross or other moderates in the Illinois Republican caucus) argue now that they are simply taxes. And this leads to Democrats pushing for BAT often to satisfy environmental advocates who are leary of any market friendly solution and little in the way of progress.
But I hope I’m wrong.
That said, many kudos to the Bush administrations implementation of the new diesel rules. It was a good move.
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