Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett is down by more than thirty points in the latest poll out of the Keystone State. This is as it should be. Our governor is a worthless excuse for a public servant. There is no way that he is going to come back and win. His opponent, Tom Wolf, could sacrifice a goat in a demonic ritual ceremony, post it on YouTube, and still eke out a victory against Corbett.
But, I wonder, if the top race in the state is such a snoozer, how is that going to impact turnout?
Even though I live here, I have never really been able to figure out why Governor Corbett is so much more unpopular here than other Republican governors are in their states. I don’t get why Chris Christie isn’t reviled with at least the same vigor. I don’t get why John Kasich and Rick Snyder and Scott Walker and Rick Scott are not polling 30 points behind, too.
And because I can’t get my finger on the pulse of the Pennsylvania electorate, I am not sure what will happen to turnout. Are Democrats super-motivated to go to the polls, or are Republicans just demoralized? Are Democrats going to feel like the race is won before the ballots are cast and stay home and not bother voting in the congressional and state legislative elections?
How many Republicans who have abandoned the governor are going to abandon their congressman, too?
I wish I knew the answers to these questions?
Corbett, unlike the other odious GOP governors, has made draconian cuts to public education. This is not doing something that only affects a particular socio-economic group, like slashing welfare rolls, or taking away collective bargaining rights, or requiring people on public assistance to be drug tested. Hitting public education is something that people across various communities across the state can see. It affects their children, or their grandchildren, or their neighbor’s children. Or maybe their buddy who sits on the school board and suddenly has to come up with a budget with eviscerated funding from the state. In other words, it affects the kinds of people who respond to pollsters and who vote.
That’s the difference. For a long time public education was just not demonized in the same way that other public-sector jobs were. Corbett crossed a line that other Republican politicians respected. That is why everyone hates him.
That was my thought, too. I live in an area where many of the kids go to Catholic schools and private academies (Montgomery County, PA), and yet public education is taken pretty seriously. I sense a sort of “you are dead to me” reaction to the cuts in primary education.
From the few years that I lived in MontCo and based on nothing but my observations, I’d say you’re correct that public education remains important to PA suburban residents. Reminded me of CA back before Reagan and the GOP slow whittling down of both dollars for and positive attitudes towards public education.
Don’t forget there is still a part of the population, largely GOP, that blames Corbett for unceremoniously dumping Joe Paterno. And most of those people believe JoePa was innocent.
And there are others in the state who think he quietly didn’t arrest and prosecute Sandusky so Corbett wouldn’t ruin his chances of becoming governors.
No matter how Pennsylvanians feel about JoPa and PSU Corbett got it wrong.
Which is a big deal in PA
It’s this simple:
Help GOTV in your area – or STFU!
It’s your turf and if you don’t know, I find that interesting and optimistic. I believe I’m remembering correctly that the PA legislature did not extend Medicaid as part of the rollout of Obamacare (and likely depended on the federal exchange as well). The performance of those legislators is open to challenge if their opponents have the guts to go there. Anger at the legislature could make up for boredom in the governors race. It could also ripple up to Congressional races.
Yet there is zero, zip, nada data that points to that eventuality or any eventuality contrary to that.
But it’s only the day after Labor Day and a lot of voters have not become conscious that there is an election this year.
But the “you lied to me about Obamacare” rip tide is just below the surface. Someone is going to tap it or the Koch’s will use the emotion as leverage for a phony message of outright lies like they did in 2010. Watch for it.
In the case of Scott Walker, it’s because the Wisconsin Republicans have figured out how to weaponize white privilege by harnessing it to working-class resentment.
They think they won something in 2010 and when the Democrats tried to take it away in 2012 they think they won something again.
Kasich expanded Medicaid.
Snyder…I dunno….
Scott…a lot of Florida is just Alabama in another zip code, and he’s willing to spend 100 million of his own money. But, I do have faith in the Human Oil Slick that is Charlie Crist.
OT:This Man Changed His Name From Jose To Joe And Immediately Got More Job Interviews
http://youtu.be/PR7SG2C7IVU
Well, Kasich isn’t 30 points behind because our candidate shit in his pants more than once and genuinely appeared to be caught flat-footed on these things for days. How he, his campaign and the state Party thought these things would ever be allowed to fly under the Kasich team’s radar is just stunning to me. The Kasich gang had all this well prepared and in their ammo clip for a long time. And all they had to do was let it seep out and wait for the reaction. They hardly had to even run a commercial about it. The media picked it up and ran full speed ahead.
I have been canvassing and phone banking for Ed Fitzgerald for a couple of months prior to these “events”. I am scheduled to co-sponsor a fundraiser for him in about three weeks, and I don’t think I will be able to contain expressing my disappointment to him. personally. He is probably going to drag down the whole statewide ticket.
Then go big to get the Secretary of State office.
Yeah, I have heard about our less than stellar candidate. So, he should be up by 10-15 points instead of 30. It’s not like Kasich is some kind of great politician.
Consider the prevailing public attitude/support, including funding, for public services, including education, and towards public employees, including teachers, and unions, both public and private, in each of those states at the time these GOP governors were elected. Add in the strength of charter school movements in those states that have served to denigrate public schools and teachers and confuse voters as to the quality of their public schools.
On a 1-10 point scale with 1 being zero support and 10 being unconditional support, Kansas was was no more than a four when Brownback took office and his efforts to dial it back to a three (on the way to a two) devastated the economy. And Charter School Movement Flounders in Kansas.
Ohio Gov Strickland came out against charter schools and was tossed out in favor of Kasich in 2010. OH voters rejected Kasich anti-public employees initiative, but haven’t soured on the guy yet. Or aren’t opposed to change that sounds modest and/or innovative and initially doesn’t appear dramatic.
Add in the relative directions of the economies of the cities, suburbs, and rural areas. The more stable the cities are, the lower the GOP advantage across all three. Negative in all three sets up a “throw the bums out” attitude. (That’s where Kansas is now.) Walker and Snyder have the advantage of big cities with terrible economies and large and white enough suburban and rural areas that range from not dying to doing okay but are also fearful enough of catching whatever ails the cities that cutting public spending (perceived as subsidies for cities) works for them.
Now for Corbett. Sandusky left enough of a black mark on Corbett that voters have looked at him more closely. Doesn’t have the advantage of scared suburban/rural populations because the cities are deteriorating. Unemployment has dropped, but state revenues aren’t similarly rebounding and that can be blamed on Corbett. For example:
Anti-frackers were already opposed to Corbett, but looks as if those not so concerned about the environmental impacts aren’t into Corbett’s low taxes for frackers.
Finally, public school teachers are fighting back in the public sphere on two tracks. First, Corbett reneged on the restoration of funding. Second, A dozen problems with charter schools.
With the terrible record of charter schools in Philadelphia (the State run school district since 2001), not surprising that PA residents, that have given their public schools high marks, are resisting charter schools.
Should add that PA doesn’t have a brain-dead Democratic Party or one that actively colludes with a GOP governor to enhance his public standing.
Kasich has successfully straddled the fence to give the illusion that he has recast himself as some sort of middle of the road moderate. His short term expansion of Medicaid gave him an aura of credibility with those who might have previously been agnostic about his politics. But the Medicaid expansion expires in 2015, and at that time any further appropriations for it must be approved by the legislature, which currently has a Republican super-majority. The legislature blocked Kasich’s attempt to allow him to unilaterally set aside money to continue funding of the expansion after the expiration
But Kasich is, for the most part, a Tea Party guy in his heart of hearts. If he is reelected in November, I fully expect him to go the route of Scott Walker in Wisconsin, and launch an all-out assault on all areas of the public sector. And there is not really a damn thing we can probably do about it.
What I expect if Kasich wins is that he becomes the GOP 2016 frontrunner. If he’s established himself well enough with the RWNJ that they accept him as one of their own (much like GWB did with the fundies before 2009), he becomes the new face of a responsible Republican for all those independents that once liked GWB but were turned off by McCain and Romney.
That will give OH a reprieve from their ignorant votes, and there’s something they can do to extend that.
I have to agree with you. He has just the right combination of political skills to end up near or at the front of the pack. And he is certainly a hell of a lot smarter than GWB could have ever hoped to be.
Shortly after he was elected, I participated in a panel discussion with Kasich about mental health issues in the state. I have to say, at the time I can away pretty impressed with him when it came to his views on community mental health and how he wanted to re-empower communities to deal with what had been an overwhelming issue for many years. He was very knowledgeable and displayed true concern for the issue. He actually has had a lot better record on that issue than I had expected. This encounter made me cautiously optimistic about his administration. But my optimism quickly evaporated with his stripping of collective bargaining rights for public employees, which was later repealed by voters in a statewide referendum. But still, his efforts on mental health do not in any way offset his abysmal record on so many other issues, such as education and his assault on public employees.
Would be interesting to know if Kasich’s ability to express empathy for community mental health is personal or reprising an old GOP trope. The newly elected Governor Reagan signed signed the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act and advocated for cutbacks on state run large mental institutions and favored community based facilities. Liberals were too naive not to recognize that those community facilities wouldn’t be funded and the street and jails would replace the mental health hospital beds.
After writing the above, realized that I’ve never seen Kasich in a debate. So, broke for a few minutes and watched a Kasich and Deval Patrick (with the horrible David Gregory as ‘moderator’) appearance from 2012. Patrick, who IMHO has more charisma and is a better speaker than Obama, came up short against Kasich. Oh my, Kasich is much better than I feared. If the DEM Party elites had more brains than bucks, they should begun hammering Kasich when he went after OH public employees unions when he was down one and never let up until he was defeated in his re-election bid. As it is, he’ll chew up and spit out Clinton in debates and I haven’t seen another Democrat that would be capable of taking him on.
He didn’t say it at the time, but it certainly appeared to be personal. And I have heard subsequently from others at that discussion that he has a family member who suffered from mental illness, though it is not widely known. So in hindsight, that would explain why he seemed to be on top his game when it came to knowing the struggles with mental illness and the resources that are required to combat it. Once a family has been through the agony of the illness and the meat grinder that is our mental health system, you really are forever changed in some regard. He did seem very genuine and connected with many of us in that room. You quickly forgot he was the Governor and he became just another individual in a sort of family support group discussion that many of us are very familiar with.
As for the debate, what you saw is certainly part and parcel why Kasich will likely be a major force in national GOP politics in the near future. Most are only familiar with him as a former face on FOX. But he has a lot of substance and political skill. He has largely recovered from the black eye of his early disaster with collective bargaining in the state. He has certainly stuck his thumb in the eye of the Ohio Democratic Party.
Don’t forget that Kasich used to sit in for BillO the Clown on Faux Noise. So of course the nutters will fall in line.
The nutters always fall in line after the GOP nomination is decided. If Kasich has even a portion of them before primary season, they’ll have that process wrapped up by SC.
I would imagine that Kasich made a number of extremist rants during his Fox News work. Given the demands of the Fox audience, hard to imagine otherwise. A Kasich Presidential campaign would probably be easier to damage badly by running his particularly radical on-air rants against Federal programs.
I’m talking about ads which would run against Kasich during the general election campaign, of course. I agree that the nuttier anti-government rants would be a net plus for Kasich during the primary.
Corbett’s problems are 1) he’s not a good politician, and 2) he thought he had some kind of mandate so he could do everything that he wanted to do all at once: cut education funding, privatize wine & spirit shops, privatize the lottery, privatize the turnpike, refuse medicare, increase fracking, etc… and that the people would be lock-step with him.
As it turns out, the people were not supportive of any of his ideas. Perhaps if he had tried to implement them more carefully and more slowly then there wouldn’t have been as visceral a reaction to his terrible policies.