22 Comments - DownLeft - Wednesday, Mar 23, 05 @ 2:23 pm: I have to question whether George Bush has gotten more popular in Illinois since November. I wonder if they oversampled Republicans. Wouldn’t it be normal for her to poll how Blagojevich does against other Republicans? Was that not part of the poll, or did she decide to withold those results? - Pat Collins - Wednesday, Mar 23, 05 @ 3:08 pm: Some things not mentioned: 1) Tough races. GRod has had two recently, (if you count winning the primary in ‘96 as recent). JBT has not. Edge here goes to GRod. Even if many of those who helped him last time are not happy now. 2) I doubt Bush doing well/ill affects the race in any way at all. It’s not like JBT is particularly close to Bush. 3) JBT might still make up with conservatives. I am not sure I see how, but she’s clever. I don’t see enthusiastic support, but who is hot to trot for Grod these days? She could surely seal a primary win, especially if the NRA comes through. She’s had a shotgun team for a while now. 4)JBT has been playing political footsie with Rush for some years now. Can that get her 35% in his district? That would be huge if it happened. 5) The “we’re taken for granted” syndrome. Could Jackson Jr. join the “Rush” to JBT? 6) I really don’t think the average Joe/Jane knows about the mess the state is in. I sure don’t hear it at the grocery store, park district, etc. With a good campaign, lots of Ads GRod could turn some numbers around. 7) Money - I am convinced “more” doesn’t mean a win. You need enought to get your message out, and some to counter attack ads. A particularly clever/timely ad is worth more than 5 times normal ones. Remember the “pool shot” commerical that helped Dawn Clark Netsch win the primary? I guess JBT can get enough to count. Whether she uses it well is another question. - Rich Miller - Wednesday, Mar 23, 05 @ 3:49 pm: It’s usually the case that when people don’t like the poll results, they criticize the poll. The poll is pretty clean, downleft. - ArchPundit - Wednesday, Mar 23, 05 @ 5:36 pm: The thing is that Bush’s national numbers are in general downward then level with a mild fluctuations since November, so why would Illinois be the outlier? And the question may be on the date of the poll. There was a slight boost in February after the Iraqi elections. The other thing is the margin of error exists and it the Bush numbers may be slightly lower. Rich saw the raw results so he could have determined if the partisan breakdown was skewed. But let’s say that there was a slight oversample–this is actually good news for Topinka who’s first fight is for the nomination and if the base is that open to her, that helps her quite a bit. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, Mar 23, 05 @ 5:57 pm: True dat, Rich. Besides, George Bush has surely become more popular since November, he no longer has an opponent. Okay, Mr. Miller, you want to know what this poll means? Based on these numbers, the biggest issue for the Governor is that only 14% of voters strongly approve of the job he’s doing. Not much of a base, and a big problem. Here’s my analysis of why and what he can do to fix it. People strongly support you when they think that you’re doing a good job on their #1 issue. Rod’s problem is that, of all of the issues that he focuses on, very few represent people’s top concerns. The exception is prescription drugs, which might explain why he does so well among older women. He’s also spent some time on FamilyCare and child care, top issues especially among women, which might help explain the gap between him and Judy generally. The problem with the other broadly popular issues like income taxes, video games, ethics reform they’ve focused on so much is that they just don’t rate at the top of people’s list of everyday concerns. On other issues that do rate at the top, like death penalty reform or education reform, the Governor has bobbled the ball. My advice to the Governor: get back to kitchen table issues like prescription drugs that are people’s top concerns and do have a real impact on their everyday lives. Think about issues like credit card debt, student loans, school funding reform, underinsurance. Look for solutions that work, are bold, and you can deliver on. Then, think about niche issues that may not have broad appeal but address the top concerns of constituencies. Parents of children with special needs. Veterans. Asthmatics. Women business owners. Conservationists. These constituencies are often ignored, but you can build a well-fortified and unassailable coalition of support if you appeal to their top concerns. Hope someone out there’s listening. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, Mar 23, 05 @ 6:04 pm: I should add that Rod’s dismal base (14%) of strong supporters is especially bad when you consider that 38% of those sampled strongly disapprove of Bush. Rod needs all the anti-Bush folks strongly in his camp, and that’s where I would focus my efforts first. - Bobblehead Bob - Wednesday, Mar 23, 05 @ 6:55 pm: These numbers are shocking, actually. I remember a year — maybe more — reading that Rod was bragging that he was the most popular governor in the nation. Um, no. What happens when this year’s session goes into overtime again? - DownLeft - Wednesday, Mar 23, 05 @ 7:14 pm: A poll showing that Blajojevich is unpopular won’t make me cry in my milk. Since I haven’t seen the poll I can only speculate about the Bush number, which does seems odd. Obviously, you’ve looked at a lot of polls Rich, so I’ll take your word for it. - Anonymous - Wednesday, Mar 23, 05 @ 7:39 pm: How did President Bush get more popular since November? Did the folks who took the time to go to the polls in November all of the sudden decide that they had made a mistake? Or did the poll cover people who didn’t vote in November? Whatever the reason for the questionable numbers in this poll, I don’t believe, really matters at this point except that it may make a whole lot of Republicans decide that they want to run for Governor and spend lots of money attacking each other. - Rodreport - Wednesday, Mar 23, 05 @ 11:28 pm: Off thread here but I just watched a 8 min interview with Rich Miller that is streamed on the Illinois Channel (our version of c-span) So if anyone wants to see it check http://www.illinoischannel.org/Network%20E.htm - Anonymous - Wednesday, Mar 23, 05 @ 11:35 pm: thanks for the link. - Anonymous - Wednesday, Mar 23, 05 @ 11:58 pm: You have to just love the past two Questions of the Day. Great discussion was brought to the table. Very enjoyable. Keep it up Mr. M. One thing I have noticed in many of the posts, and find odd, is that many people are positing on what GRod needs to do to beat JBT and win the Governorship again. Not how difficult it is for a semi-competent, partially functional incumbent to lose a race. To me that shows how weak GRod is and what a poor job he has done up to this point. Unless his poor polling is due to the vulturous media picking on him and his choice of appointments, or lack of . - reddbyrd - Thursday, Mar 24, 05 @ 7:08 am: Bush popularity seems unlikely since the stock market is back to a downward glide, War, and, oh yeah, I paid $2.16 for a gallon of gas! Let’s get real folks. The Blagoof’s botox image is sliding badly. The real public has not caught on. Will they? The answer is open until we see if the GOPers do a Cyote Ugly at the Fair and start chewing on each others limbs. Sorry that is not a nice image for the breakfast bloggers. However implosion means a Blagoof walkover. Something less could mean a real campaign. And, oh yeah, what phase of the Ryan trial will be in? - Anonymous - Thursday, Mar 24, 05 @ 7:12 am: One of the reasons Governor Blagojevich finds himself in political trouble is the fact that Rod is preoccupied with the White House. The sooner Gov. Blagojevich realizes that he isn’t going to be President of the United States, the better off all of us in Illinois will be. At this point, the odds on favortite to win the Democrastic nomination for President is Senator Clinton. If Mrs. Clinton pulcks a vice-president from Illinois, it will be Obama, not Blagojevich. However, being from Illinois herself, neither man is likely to recieve the call, as she’ll likely look to the West or South. Hopefully, Governor Blagojevich will wake-up and smell the coffee. If he does, Rod still has a chance to become a become a productive governor — which is the fastest route to the White House anyway! Time as always will tell! - Anonymous - Thursday, Mar 24, 05 @ 12:58 pm: Tell Kimme to chill … she was the one who “leaked” all this stuff and showed the entire poll to Lynn Sweet. It’s hard to see all of these numbers pointing to judy baar becoming governor. A brusing primary will hurt and already the chicago papers are calling her a hypocrite on taking money from contractors. Do i smell an attack ad against judy? - Drew Hibbard - Thursday, Mar 24, 05 @ 1:10 pm: Blagojevich doing moderately well in the Cook suburbs is pretty important, but I can’t get over all the regionalistic things at play there. I know people downstate just absolutely hate it that Roddy B. doesn’t live in the governor’s mansion and definitely feel neglected, whereas the majority of people from the Chicago area really don’t care that he doesn’t do much business in the rest of the state and don’t give it a second thought. That alone is something big that will play into people’s minds in 2006. - Anonymous - Thursday, Mar 24, 05 @ 1:23 pm: Responding to reddbyrd, I would like to add a few things. The stock market isn’t in a downward slide, its actually pretty damn healthy - considering. The NASDAQ is above 2000, something we haven’t seen since the tech collapse and the Dow is holding up very well in spite of the high cost of crude oil. But hey, get used to the price of oil and gasoline. It’s a commodity with limited supplies and suppliers. It is going to stay high from now on. At least $50 a barrel. I’m am not a fan of Bush but it seems that his blundering attempt to vindicate his Daddy has unleased a movement towards more democracies in the Middle East. Even Blago couldn’t screw up that good. Go figure. As for the public finding out about GRod himself, just wait until the campaigning really starts. His misadventures will be drilled home by every candidate. Be patient, good things come to those who wait. BTW. Blago is to vacuous and focused on becoming president to change his messages and methods. Remember, he thinks he is beloved, and his advisors can’t seem to or want to change that attitude. - Anonymous - Thursday, Mar 24, 05 @ 11:55 pm: Is there any democrats out there that would be brave enough to take on blogo? He has a lot of money, but the party leaders are having a little trouble with him. He’s pushing for people to run against daley, getting in fights with madigan, hynes, white, etc. If you had someone that could play at all in the south(because blago can’t), and someone that could pick up the black areas… - Anonymous - Friday, Mar 25, 05 @ 1:02 am: did anybody read thursdays sun times story about jbt taking money from banks that she deposits our tax dollars in? what a hypocrite! this is just the start. she talks a big game, but lets see how she reacts when the light shines on her. im not saying that she did anything wrong — thats for the voters to decide. im saying that its pathetic to stand in front of the press and say the governor is unethical for raising money form venddors who do business with the state while she is doing just that. even worse, she is just putting that money in those banks — there isnt even an attempt to competatively bid where that money goes. talk about pay to play — she has it made there. its going to get much worse for our beloved treasurer. theres a saying about people who live in glass houses. she should look that one up. shes in trouble already. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Friday, Mar 25, 05 @ 12:32 pm: Luddite: 1. Any of a group of British workers who between 1811 and 1816 rioted and destroyed laborsaving textile machinery in the belief that such machinery would diminish employment. Leaderite: 1. Any of a group of Illinois conservatives who in the present day destroys moderate Republican candidates in the belief that such candidates threatened the ’soul’ of the Party. See ‘Roeser’, ‘Proft’. Hey, maybe Keyes will run for Governor? - Yellow Dog Democrat - Friday, Mar 25, 05 @ 12:40 pm: This post has been removed by the author. - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 1, 05 @ 6:14 pm: Is the 33rd Ward and Dick Mell going to circulate petitions for Judy Bar Topinka? Is Dominic Longo and the Coalition for Better Governmnet going to circulate petitions for Judy Bar Topinka? Is Frank Avila going to be Judy Bar Topinka’s lawyer? Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.