Carter Wrenn posted on July 15, 2009 13:53
Governor Perdue’s is having the political equivalent of a meltdown;—yesterday a liberal pollster wrote that she is now more unpopular than any Governor he’s polled in the country. Her job approval is lower than Congress’s; in six months her popularity’s fallen further than President Bush’s did in seven years. The meltdown is so complete she’s sailed off the political map into unchartered waters.
The roots of the Governor’s troubles run back to the last election: Unlike Governor Hunt or Mike Easley, during her campaign Governor Perdue embraced the national Democratic ticket. As a result, post-election she inherited President Obama’s liberal ideology – but without inheriting his personal popularity. She took office as the first left of center governor in state history – then ran head on into the budget crisis.
Her first solution was to cut just about every program in sight from education to health care – which made half the state mad. Next she reversed directions and decided to tax everything in sight – which made the other half the state mad.
Finally, changing course again, she promised to give the taxes back in a couple of years – which was such a transparent political promise it made both sides mad at the same time.
On top of that, while she was proposing to furlough teachers or raise taxes the Governor was spending $170,000 to send Department of Commerce executives to Paris for an air show, $25 million to build a fishing pier at Nags Head and $38,000 to buy 1100 crab pots – which made no sense to anyone.
In six months she accomplished a kind of trifecta: First, she made the Democrats mad, then she made the Republicans mad, then she made everyone mad at once. Given a choice between several unpopular positions – she endorsed them all.
Beyond that I’m beginning to wonder if there’s not something visceral about Governor Perdue that makes voters uncomfortable. The other night when she was being interviewed about her tax increase in the middle of a sentence her lilting mountain twang dropped right out of her voice and vanished – for a minute it was like listening to a monotone. Then she perked up – when she promised she’d give the taxes back in a couple of years – and got back on stride. But, then, a reporter asked, Well, why should anyone believe that – you made the same promise six years ago and broke it? For a moment the Governor stared at the reporter like a deer in the headlights, then her voice wafted into a sort of girlish, coquettish lilt, she smiled sweetly and chirruped, ‘Cause I’m Governor.
Having an unpopular Governor is not such a bad thing: Unpopular Governor’s can’t do much and since most of the mischief in politics is caused by over-active politicians there’s no real cause for concern.
But something odd is happening here and – odder still – it is only happening to Beverly Perdue. Today – according to a Democratic pollster – her job approval ratings have collapsed with Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Moderates and Conservatives. The only group still favorable to her is Liberals which is not, politically, the place to be in North Carolina.