G-Rod

Not What I Said, What I Meant…

OneMan will appreciate this one from the Capitol Fax:

BROKEN PROMISES (excerpt) Back when Rod Blagojevich was campaigning for governor, he went on record to slam attempts to tap into the Illinois Fire Prevention Fund as “unconscionable.” The dedicated fund skim bill he now supports would all but empty out the Fire Prevention Fund. He wants to skim $20 million, but the fund only has about $22 million in the bank.

But, hey, that was the campaign, this is now. Last week, the governor explained that when he pledged during the campaign never to balance the budget on the backs of workers, he was referring to workers in general, not state workers.

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

Simply bad:

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.

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.

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.

Schoenburg Tees Off

Bernard Schoenburg is known for writing columns in excruciating details about local politics including the inworkings of Sangamon County politics. In many ways he’s a pretty technical writer giving everyone the details and summarizing where different people are on an issue or in some race. Good stuff generally and while not the kind of thing to grab the attention of even all political junkies that kind of stuff really allows people to figure out what is going on. Every once in a while he drops a bomb and today is one of them:

Some people think Gov. ROD BLAGOJEVICH is bluffing when he talks about laying off thousands more state workers, or when stories suggest he’s making plans for how government might function if the budget morass isn’t settled by the beginning of the new fiscal year on July 1.

But having watched this governor since he became a serious candidate for the 2002 election, and having been to many of his Springfield appearances – when he takes the time to come to the capital city – I wouldn’t be surprised at anything he does.

Go read the rest because it is probably one of the single best descriptions of how Blagojevich governs. He doesn’t know too damn much about state operations and he assumes everyone else is lazy.

The problem is, it simply isn’t true. There are problematic state workers and agencies, but when you interview or observe many of them doing their job, they are for the most part incredibly conscientious people who do the best within the budgets and legal framework the elected officials give them. Much of the whining about inefficiencies can be found to have started in law or how money is allocated. In fact, one could argue that is much the case with the problems in the State Board of Education. I can make a good argument for reform of the institution, but that doesn’t mean the people doing it are horrible. Usually they are doing the job they were hired to do.

Blagojevich doesn’t see it that way though, he thinks they are humps. Those humps are people who educate your children, protect your environment, and build your roads and they deserve respect.

Goring Blagorgeous

The Daily Herald does a piece on The Blagorgeous’ bit on pandering over sports teams. Obviously some of this is in humor and taking it too seriously would be dumb.

But it strikes me that such silly stories tend to start to add up to what happened to Al Gore. Gore was too programmed and in trying to meet everyone’s expectations, he pandered. Blagorgeous has the same tendencies and silly stories tend to stick after a while. If this continues, it’ll be a real problem. This is part of the problem of annoying the press.