* I’ll be discussing my latest Sun-Times column on Jerry Agar’s WLS AM show at 10:35 this morning. You can listen at this link if you’re not near a radio.
* The column is about the governor’s awful poll numbers and some of the media coverage he’s been getting…
So, it turns out that Gov. Blagojevich’s “secret plan” to “solve” the CTA’s budget crisis was never a real plan at all and doesn’t solve the problem.
But you probably knew that the moment the TV and radio news shows breathlessly trumpeted the governor’s pronouncement this week.
The people of this state have caught on to the governor’s games. Blagojevich is thoroughly unpopular with Illinois voters. Poll after poll since midsummer has shown his job approval rating to be somewhere in the neighborhood of nothingness.
Just 23 percent of voters said they approve of the way Blagojevich is handling his job, a recent Illinois Wesleyan University poll found. A different survey, from the respected Rasmussen Reports, found that only a tiny fraction of the population — just 5 percent — rate the governor’s job performance as “excellent.”
It’s to the point where Blagojevich probably wishes he could move “up” to Richard Nixon’s ratings. And he’s very close to George Ryan’s job approval ratings as the soon-to-be prison inmate was leaving office under a cloud of federal investigations.
* A few crosstabs…
Only 29 percent of voters in overwhelmingly Democratic Cook County said they approved of Blagojevich’s job performance, according to the Wesleyan poll. By contrast, 67 percent of Cook voters gave the thumbs up to U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and 67 percent said they will vote for a Democrat for U.S. Congress. The governor’s doing better with county voters than President Bush, but statewide the two are locked in a dead heat.
Not a single demographic in Illinois, whether it’s race, party affiliation, gender, ideology, income or region, gives the governor a majority or even a plurality of support. Only 38 percent of Democrats say they approve of his job performance, but 41 percent disapprove. Thirty-two percent of liberals approve and 54 percent disapprove. Thirty-eight percent of nonwhite minorities approve and 40 percent disapprove, according to Wesleyan.
Rasmussen found this month that 63 percent of African Americans, 75 percent of Democrats and liberals, 77 percent of Cook County voters, 83 percent of women and 85 percent of independents rated Blagojevich’s job performance as fair or poor. If his “friends” think that way, you can imagine how his political enemies rate him. It ain’t pretty.
Go read the whole thing before commenting, please.
* More transit and session stuff, compiled by Paul…
* Huntley: What transit funding crisis looks like to man in seat
* Metra fares may jump 30% by 2010
* Metra warns fares will have to rise
* Metra budget proposal would raise fares
* Phil Kadner: The Larry formula of taxation
* Change of Subject: The low down on Illinois’ ‘low taxes’
* Illinois school funding at risk
* Senate inaction means loss of Rockford area grants
* Editorial: Website helps, but true ethics reform needed in Illinois
LIVE session coverage...
- Sounds from the ground - Friday, Oct 26, 07 @ 9:17 am:
Secret plan means we have no plan.
- Anon - Friday, Oct 26, 07 @ 9:25 am:
I thought this was going to be a Journey post, or possibly the Cubs.
- Ghost - Friday, Oct 26, 07 @ 9:33 am:
I agree with your column Rich. The most fascinating point of this recent exchange was the Gov’s claiming there was this great deal and madigan was the only holdout. As the details materialize, or more accurately fail to, it makes Madigan lokk like the only sane one of the group for not having agreed to a substanceless plan. All the Gov did was drag Jones and the repub leadership down even further into his insanity, while boosting the appearance that madigan is the only sane leader.
- Mort - Friday, Oct 26, 07 @ 9:37 am:
“So, it turns out that Gov. Blagojevich’s “secret plan” to “solve” the CTA’s budget crisis was never a real plan at all and doesn’t solve the problem.
But you probably knew that the moment the TV and radio news shows breathlessly trumpeted the governor’s pronouncement this week.
The people of this state have caught on to the governor’s games.”
IF THE PUBLIC HAS CAUGHT ON TO THE GOVERNOR’S GAMES, WHY HASN’T THE CHICAGO MEDIA? Seems that most of the chicago electronic media will believe anything on a piece of paper or proclamation and never, ever, digs below the surface to get beyond the BS. And since most voters get their news from TV (shame on them), then this charade we call the Blagojevich administration will continue unchecked.
- Mystery Proclamation - Friday, Oct 26, 07 @ 10:43 am:
Here’s a question? Why has Rod Blagojevich gotten such free ride from the media since he’s held public office?
- Shambala - Friday, Oct 26, 07 @ 11:30 am:
Hey Rich! When’s the next bus ride with the governor? Is so, what’s the purpose?
- Nort'sider - Friday, Oct 26, 07 @ 12:28 pm:
Our “leaders” fiddle while the REGIONAL transit system burns. Our REGION’s road system is the second most congested in the country, and oil nears or tops $90 a barrel.
SB 572 is the only viable option, Gov. 16 Percent. You don’t want the 0.25 percent bump in the RTA sales tax to be a “back door tax hike” on working families? Just what the hell do you think fare hikes and service cuts will do to the working families about whom you purport to care? Do you really think Downstaters will subsidize our transit system through gas taxes when the six counties could have done so through a regional sales tax?
And how about you, Mayor Daley? Do you really think we registered voters in the city will forget how you’ve stood by impotent and meek as the CTA is forced to commit service suicide? Do you really think the U.S. and International Olympic Committees will overlook how you and the state’s “leaders” ignored the crisis and allowed it to become exponentially worse?
I’d like to think that voters next year, 2010 and 2011, we will do to you what you’re doing to us, but we’ve given ourselves the government we deserve.
- Gregor - Friday, Oct 26, 07 @ 12:45 pm:
I hear Rod also has a secret plan to end the war in Viet…. um, I man, Iraq. Seriously, the guy more and more resembles Nixon with better hair but less acumen.
- Watch "Network" lately? - Friday, Oct 26, 07 @ 12:52 pm:
The Chicago tubes made mega millions off of running Rod’s political spots. I think it strains credulity that this does not have a dampening effect on what the News divisions put out. Also, I happen to think that TV media is the laziest of all media. They base their daily coverage on the morning paper, then leverage off those reporter’s work to create a quick gloss of the story that’s thin on detail or analysis. They only try to cover things that are spoon-fed to them like press briefings and made-up events and predigested and spun releases. And even if it’s an important story, if they can’t visually illustrate it easily and economically, they just skip it. So little wonder the city folks don’t know any better. Takes something cataclysmic like a perp walk of a governor to get people asking questions.
- Captain America - Friday, Oct 26, 07 @ 1:05 pm:
At least people have caught on to the lies and distortions of our gubernatorial huckster and con-man-in-chief. No one belives anything he has to say anymore.I hope they shove the Hamos Plan down his throat. Cross and Jones better wake up soon.
As far as I can tell, we will be governed by a legislative quartet for the next several years because the governor has become completely delegitimized and irrelevant as a result of his erratic governing style the last 6-7 months. I don’t know how his staffers can survive/tolerate the current state of affairs. They can’t be as deluded as the Governor is about his performance.Morale must be really terrible.
When his reign fainlly ends, we can paraphrase Gerald Ford and declare that our “nightmare is over.” Unitl then I think we are in for some rough times.
- VanillaMan - Friday, Oct 26, 07 @ 1:08 pm:
You are correct Rich. This horse is still dead, but it seem the jockey has really nice hair and believes that their win will come in the 19th inning - and a “win is a win”!
So this is where we are at today. NOW WHAT?
Three more years!?
If this guy just disappeared, and the Office was left vacant, we would all be much better off, wouldn’t we?
- Old IDOTer - Friday, Oct 26, 07 @ 3:53 pm:
Captain America - Morale must be really terrible.
Morale sucks at my state agency and I’ve heard it sucks at most other state agencies. The day Blagojevich is no longer affiliated with the State of Illinois is when Illinois can sigh with relief.
VanillaMan-
If Blagojevich disappeared no one would notice, his own would be celebrating for days.
- finally... - Friday, Oct 26, 07 @ 4:47 pm:
The rockford register star had front page coverage of the local entities that lost funding. If gov goofy thinks that it’s only State workers he’s ticking off; he’s dumber than I thought. The general public is finally getting to see what he has wrought for his own aggrandizement and ego.
- The Mad Hatter - Friday, Oct 26, 07 @ 4:49 pm:
Hear Ye! Hear Ye! His Royal Majesty King Rodney I has decreed that there will be no increases in tributes the downtrodden citizens are forced to pay to his regime. However, he has no problem if their Majesties Richard II and Toddler the Irkl raise all and every tax they see in their Kingdoms, as those citizens have not yet paid their fair tributes. His Royal Majesty King Rodney I further decrees that anyone protesting these decrees shall have their heads removed on the guillotine. That is all.