Jack Colwell, writing for the South Bend Tribune, has an interesting political round up. On the list:
Gov. Daniels’ brief flirtation with popularity seems to have faded. He got up to about 48% on the strength of 70% approval in Indianapolis after the new Honda plant announcement. He’s dropped back down to 39% approval with a 57% approval in Indianapolis and 28% in northern Indiana. This puts him in 47th place over all among the 50 governors. He’s ahead of the recently convicted Bob Taft (R-Ohio), the nepotistic Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) who named his daughter as Senator, and the just barely not indicted Ernie Fletcher (R-Kentucky).
As I have stated before Governor Daniels is the worst Governor I have seen in my lifetime!He has made mess after mess especially with the time issue.I have never heard a good word from anyone about him in southwest Indiana from Democrats or Republicans.I wish he was running this year.
The regional popularity differences are really remarkable. I’m sure there have always been variations on how the governors are liked from region to region, but I’d be curious to know if Daniels’ wide popularity swings between Indianapolis, and basically everywhere else are at all typical.
Chocola is filling the airwaves with ads, trying desperately to raise Donnelly’s negatives and obscure his ties to various lobbys. However, one commercial, touting Chocola’s work on behalf of senior issues, was paid for by a nursing home lobby group. In today’s political atmosphere with Republican lobby scandals and recent reports on poor performance by nursing homes nationwide, can this really be considered a plus for Chocola?
Another claims that Donnelly opposed Indiana ethanol programs (although he has yet to have a vote on the issue and would not oppose ethanol if given the chance) and would, instead, stake Indiana’s future to foreign oil such as that supplied by Saudi Arabia. Under whose watch has America’s dependence on foreign oil and national debt (a great deal of which is “owned” by Saudi Arabia) grown? Chocola’s. End of story. This attack is straight from the Karl Rove school of running on your opponent’s weakness. Chocola is a lackey of big oil, so he runs an ad accusing Donnelly of the same charge instead.
Hoosiers are not buying it.
D’oh! I meant to say the Karl Rove school of running on your CANDIDATE’S weakness, not your opponent’s! Not a Freudian slip, I assure you!
Yes it has caused a big controversy here in Kentucky regarding the deal that was made between Attorney General Greg Stumbo (a Democrat thinking about running for governor in Kentucky next year) and Governor Ernie Fletcher. It’s interesting that both Senator Mitch McConnell and Representative Anne Northup’s (both Republicans) offices maintained a “no comment” during the investigation. There are many in Kentucky who believe that the investigation should have been allowed to run its full course. A judge here in Kentucky didn’t drop the charges before the deal was made to basically let Fletcher off the hook, but said any trial regarding the Fletcher Administration’s hiring practices would have to be postponed until Fletcher leaves office. Also Attorney General Stumbo is free to run for governor next year, something he couldn’t have done next year if he was still prosecuting Fletcher. Most people in Kentucky now believe Stumbo has put himself in a difficult position next year by letting Fletcher off so easily. The other big news story here in Kentucky today is the plane crash at the Lexington airport yesterday morning. Apparently the Comair flight bound for a nonstop flight to Atlanta yesterday morning got on the wrong runway at the Lexington airport. According to all the news reports there is only 1 survivor with 49 dead.
Daniels could be a much more popular governor if he went to school on Ronald Reagan. Many people, especially in the northern third of the state, gave him a chance after voting Democrat for years. Daniels blew it, and it has as much to do with style as substance.
Daniels campaigned as a common guy, but governs as the CEO he is accustomed to being. Had he learned how to take advantage of the media to go to the people with ideas and proposals, instead of performing cram-downs, he might have created Daniels Democrats. Alas. Communication is everything.