Civitas Review Online

We did job approval ratings last month on the these three newly elected positions, so this month we decided to do favorable/unfavorable ratings to see if we get much of a difference.  We may alternate back and forth in the coming months to see if voters separate their feelings for a person with their job performance.

Nevertheless, on to the numbers:

We asked, "I am now going to read you a list of names. After I read each
name, please tell me if you have heard of that person, and then if you
have, please tell me if you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of
that person."

Barack Obama:
Very Favorable – 42%
Somewhat Favorable – 22%
Somewhat Unfavorable – 13%
Very Unfavorable – 11%
No Opinion – 12%

A net favorable rating for Obama of 64% is fairly strong especially given the contentiousness beginning to develop in regards to his budget and spending.  We were in the field before the teleprompter gaffes occurred, but his numbers are still fairly high.
Interestingly, of the 130 African-Americans that were in our survey, not a single one gave Obama a very or somewhat unfavorable rating.  Only 4 said they had no opinion.

Bev Perdue
Very Favorable – 22%
Somewhat Favorable – 36%
Somewhat Unfavorable – 12%
Very Unfavorable – 8%
No Opinion – 20%
Not Aware – 3%

Net favorable ratings of 58%, unfavorable of 20% gives Gov. Perdue a good working margin to go into tough budget negotiations.  We were in the field as her budget was coming out, so this may reflect some of her budget proposals, but more than likely most of the analysis of her budget was done after our survey.

Kay Hagan
Very Favorable – 17%
Somewhat Favorable – 30%
Somewhat Unfavorable – 12%
Very Unfavorable – 10%
No Opinion – 25%
Not Aware – 6%

Hagan, unlike her two other high ranking Democrats, has favorables under 50%, coming in at a net 47%.  Some of this is from the fairly high "No Opinion" category which reinforces the thought that people weren't exactly voting FOR her last November as much as they were voting AGAINST Elizabeth Dole and/or the Republicans.
Hagan also may be feeling the force of the anti-card check movement that is pressuring her very hard to stand with our state's businesses and against radical unionization for our state.
Either way, not as good as numbers as a freshman Senator thought to still be in a honeymoon period should have.

Full release and all the crosstabs are here.

I'll do you one better, Francis.

The Hair Braider Licensure Act (H291).

Is there really a reason that government needs to be involved in this?  $10 a year so the government can know who is braiding hair?  Really?

Seems to be a lot of discussion today (Dome 1, 2, 3, 4 and G'boro N&R) on Elon's poll results on the marriage amendment.  A lot of the discussion centers on the varying poll results between Elon's poll and ours.  I would argue there are differences in the wordings of the questions that do not make the questions the same.  We polled what would be asked according to legislation on a referendum on the subject.  Elon did not.  Slight differences, but they matter.

If you read the text of H 361, the referendum that would be placed before the voters states:

Our poll question asked:  Do you support or oppose a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman?

Elon asked:  Do you support or oppose a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage?

Elon polled a question that is not at all what is stated in the referendum.  It's a difference of semantics, but one that could yield differing results.

Apparently, President Obama's policies are going to put the nation deep into debt:

I really don't think anything else needs to be said.

John Ham over at Right Angles posts a video that everyone needs to see.  It presents a timeline of Bush Administration officials calling for more oversight into Fannie and Freddie and the consequences of letting the entities run amok.  With a special guest appearance by Rep. Frank saying… well, I don't want to spoil it for you.  Just watch:

The outright distortions of fact and truth from those on the left wishing to raise taxes to build inefficient and costly light rail in the Triangle seem to have no end.

Karen Rindge, who heads up a so-called progressive organization WakeUp Wake County, says that raising the sales tax on all residents in Wake, Durham and Orange counties in support of building the $2.2 billion rail system is fair because "everyone is going to use the system."

Huh?  Everyone? 

Even the most optimistic projections from the Triangle Transit Authority (TTA) say that the trains will only carry 30,000 daily riders by the year 2030 (when the population of the Triangle is projected to be around 2,000,000).  So how in the world is that "everyone"?

At most, trains will initially take 3% of the cars off the roads, which will quickly be made up by an increasing population, negating the benefits in just a couple of years.

So how does "everyone" use it?

This distortion of reality is nothing new for groups like WakeUp Wake who want to tax everyone and control where people can live and prosper.  The group is nothing more than a bunch of central planners who think that they know best how to run other people's lives.

Let's reject this coming boondoggle of light rail in the Triangle.  If these people were serious about public transportation, they'd be encouraging increased bus usage, which is both less expensive and able to be flexible to changing population patterns.

They want trains because they want to control where people live, where they work and how they travel.  No tax is too great, no price is too high. 

In a stunning new development, it appears that companies can build data centers without massive handouts from the government.  I know many of you will be shocked by this, especially those in Caldwell County who saw their property taxes increase by 31%.

But really, it's happening!

SAS plans to build $70M data center.

And they are doing it without asking Wake County to waive its property tax for the next 25 years.  Or the State of NC to give tax breaks or cash to help out.

If SAS can build a data center without corporate welfare, why can't Google?

Looks like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is running into a bit of a quandary in its attempts to reduce its staff by 75.  According to the WaPo:

"It's completely hypocritical," said staff union President Malcolm
Harris. "This is the union that's been at the forefront of progressive
issues, around ensuring that working people and working families are
taken care of, but when it comes to the people that work for SEIU, they
haven't set the same standards."

Looks like SEIU is engaging in many of the same practices that they often criticize employers for doing.

So SEIU is basically jerking people around in order to avoid dealing with them as union members.

Anyone find this as hysterical as I do?

It's good to see resident progressive Chris Fitzsimon come full-circle and now realize that big business CEOs are worthy individuals and most knowlegable in creating jobs.  No more "greedy, lying, worker-rights destorying CEO" rhetoric from Fitzsimon.  Nope, he is now taking them at their word when it comes to the business climate in North Carolina.

On his blog, Fitzsimon points to today's article in Chief Executive Magazine which released a survey of CEOs across the nation ranking North Carolina as the 2nd best business climate in the nation.

Fitzsimon chooses to highlight the CEO's ranking of North Carolina tax and regulation structure as being friendly to business.  Somehow he thinks this is an indictment of the free-market system and those of us who stand for it.

However, Fitzsimon misses the point, as usual.  What exactly does he think these CEOs are talking about when they say regulation?

Let's try and help him out.

What do the states ranked in the top 5 have in common:
Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee

Ok, for a little help, I'll give you the bottom 5 ranked states for comparison:
California, New York, Michigan, New Jersey, Massachusetts

So what "regulation" could these CEOs be referring to when comparing these 10 states?
Hmm… maybe labor policy?

The top 5 are all right-to-work states.  The bottom five — forced unionization.

So if Fitzsimon is now trusting CEOs to best manage our economy, does this mean he will swear off the anti-business rhetoric he normally pens?  If he truly believes that "the CEOs who run manage corporations every day" know better than "think-tanks" what's best for North Carolina businesses, I welcome him to the fight to keep North Carolina from becoming more heavily unionized.  I'm glad to see he now agrees that it is best to just leave it up to CEOs to decide the best business practice and not have undue influence from labor unions.

It's good to see that we now have allies on the left that see the crippling effects that labor unions have on the economy and job creation in North Carolina.  I look forward to working with Chris to support our corporate CEOs in keeping North Carolina a right-to-work state for many years to come.

From the "They Don't Have Anything Better to Do?" files…

And no, I'm seriously not making this up.

Rep. Jim Crawford has introduced H683, a bill declaring "The second Saturday in September is designated as North Carolina Hot Sauce Day."

Don't get me wrong, I love Texas Pete on my chicken filet biscuit from Bo's as much as the next guy, but do we really need a whole day to celebrate it?

At a cost of $250,000 per week, members of the General Assembly apparently think this is of vital importance of their attention.  Forget the budget deficit, fixing the probation system or trying to revitalize our economy.  Let's honor hot sauce!