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Trib Poll: Presidential

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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).

General election matchup:

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.

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Back to the Future?

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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.

G-Rod

Illinois Budget-Legislative Session

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The following is from an anonymous reader–I think it is great analysis so pass it along in its entirety:

While there is still no official budget deal yet, there is little doubt that House Speaker Mike Madigan will emerge from the legislative session as the big winner, while Governor Blagojevich has been handed a humiliating defeat. The way Madigan appears to have done this is both simple and brilliant.

Blagojevich spent all session attacking the ?old way? General Assembly. He refused to negotiate on his budget. He demanded that Speaker Madigan and Senate President Jones pass the budget he submitted. He threatened massive cuts and layoffs, overtime session, and/or special session, to ensure he got what he wanted.

In return, Madigan has provided the Governor an important lesson in understanding how government works, and its importance in achieving political goals.

You see, overtime requires a 3/5 majority to pass a budget, and Madigan understood that an overtime session was never going to strengthen the hand of the Governor. It only strengthens the hands of the minority leaders ? neither of whom were members of the Governor?s party or his allies.

Madigan also understood that the 3/5 majority required of an overtime session also happens to be VETO PROOF.

So, while Blagojevich blustered about overtime and made demands of the General Assembly, Madigan spent the legislative session quietly reeling in the two GOP minority leaders from the House and Senate, and making them his allies.

The result has been that, since Thursday, the 3 of the 4 legislative caucuses have been working cooperatively to pass a compromise budget that will attain a 3/5 majority. The only holdout at this point in Emil Jones ? and he?s not holding out for the Governor, rather, he?s holding out for his own spending priorities.

The ?budgeteers? continue to meet through the weekend and are reportedly making good progress toward a final budget. And the Governor?s people aren?t even at the table, nor are they needed, because the budget will have enough votes to become law without the Governor?s approval.

Congratulations, Governor. You just cut yourself out of the process!

The act of crafting a budget that will become law without the Governor?s involvement is a development without precedent in the state of Illinois. It promises to be, quite literally, the most humiliating legislative session for a sitting Governor in recent history.

This might be the appropriate point to crack a joke about the first step to playing with the big boys, is actually making sure you have a seat at the table?.

Illinois Congressional Races

Renner Chicago Fundraiser

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From the Tari Renner newsletter:

On June 10, the group Democratic Leadership for the Twenty-First Century will be holding an event to benefit Renner for Congress in Chicago. The event will take place at Leona’s restaurant in Chicago. Tickets for this event are $30 or $100 to become a sponsor of the event. If you would like more information about this upcoming event please call us at (309) 829-VOTE.

I’d rank Renner second in the chance for an Illinois pick-up in the US House this election behind Bean and just ahead of Cegelis. Renner’s fundraising is doing well, but Jerry Weller is known for raising lots of cash. So help him out if you can. Click the ad to the bottom right for more info.

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