Despite the N&O’s assertion that Perdue is “winning over critics” the percentage of voters giving her a favorable opinion remains near her all time low. In fact, the percentage of voters giving her a favorable rating is down 5 percentage points this month. All that has changed with this poll is some of the unfavorables have moved to “no opinion.” That’s not exactly winning them over.
Judge for yourself:
Support for Obamacare continues to struggle in North Carolina according to our latest poll with only 40% supporting and 48% in opposition.
We’ve had the public opposed to the bill by an 8-10 point margin since September and it doesn’t seem much has changed despite all the rhetoric and debate on both sides.
The breakdown by party is pretty remarkable but almost as expected. Democrats support it (59-29), Republicans oppose it (13-77) and unaffiliateds are split evenly (41-42).
What stands out is the intensity gap between Republican opposition and Democratic support. 61 percent of Republicans “Strongly oppose” the measure, but only 39 percent of Democrats “Strongly support” it.
There is also a tremendous racial divide on the bill. Whites oppose it 27-58, while blacks overwhelmingly support it 85-10.
We also polled whether coverage for abortion should be provided in the health care bill and as can be imagined, the public isn’t for that at all. Only 24% support with 69% opposed.
Full press release and all the crosstabs and details here.
The News and Observer on Friday exposed the Raleigh City Council for holding a $10,000 welcoming suaree for themselves at the beginning of the new council terms.
While many members expressed shock and regret for splashing that kind of cash on themselves, it seems from their comments that they really only had a problem with it because of the economy — that if things were going well, this type of expense would be just fine.
Raleigh Mayor Chalres Meeker is quoted as saying, “That’s more than it should be, particularly in this economy” (emphasis mine).
Council member Mary-Ann Baldwin added: “”Something like that probably sends the wrong message in these economic times“” (emphasis mine).
So what both of these big spenders agree on, is that this type of government spending is wrong, but only because of the economy. If times were good, they’d have no problem with feting themselves on hibachi beef and champagne at taxpayers’ expense.
After all, they were holding the reception in a $225 million taxpayer financed shrine to Downtown Raleigh.
Apologies to Greensboro blogger Guarino for borrowing his title in describing Hagan’s actions (or rather inaction) on the nomination of a new US Attorney for the Eastern District of NC, but Burr’s announcement on Friday that he would not block Thomas Walker’s nomination is an even bigger misstep.
According to poll results we released on Friday, 76 percent of North Carolina voters think current US Attorney George Holding should be allowed to complete his investigations into former Gov. Mike Easley and former US Senator John Edwards before being replaced.
It begs the question, why would Burr come out and take the position of not blocking the replacement US Attorney? He has very little, if any, risk in doing so. Keeping Holding on the job is supported across political parties and strongly by unaffiliated voters. If anything, Burr runs the risk of alienating his base voters through this announcement more than he risks any backlash from the left.
Burr could very easily take the position that he will support Walker’s nomination, but only after the current investigations are complete. Widely supported, politically safe. Instead, he’s chosen the most unpopular path possible. And many wonder why his poll numbers aren’t any better.
As Francis pointed out earlier, Gov. Bev Perdue seems to be bending the truth when it comes to her stance on the gas tax. During her announcement on of a controversial funding mechanism to finish I-485 she told reporters that she would not “ever” raise the gas tax.
Apparently she meant qualify that and say ever again.
In addition to signing legislation this summer that in effect raised the gas tax by 2 cents per gallon, Perdue voted three times during her stint in the General Assembly to raise the gas tax.
In fact, she was a co-sponsor of the legislation in 1989 that created the Highway Trust Fund which raised the gas tax by 5.25 cents per gallon.
Then again in 1991 she voted for HB 1222 which temporarily raised the gas tax by half cent per gallon. When that half cent was set to expire in 1995, she voted for SB 943 which made the increase permanent.
When it comes to taxes Perdue seems to promise one thing and do another. Remember back on October 23 of last year when candidate Perdue said: “I don’t believe that you can raise taxes in an economy with folks struggling the way they are” and then signed into law a $1.1 billion tax increase this summer.
Now she’s saying she wouldn’t ever raise the gas tax just 6 months after signing into law a gas tax increase.
Unbelievable.
20 lawmakers have sent a letter to Attorney General Roy Cooper and Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin asking for an investigation into Blue Cross and Blue Shield’s (BCBS) postcard campaign to get people to contact Sen. Kay Hagan to oppose the public option.
Apparently these 20 feel BCBS’s actions are at the least “bad public policy” and could be potential violations of the law. But just how bad do they think it is? Bad enough to say, return the contributions that some of them have accepted from BCBS?
6 of the 20 lawmakers have accepted PAC checks from Blue Cross over the last two election cycles:
Sen. Stan Bingham – $750 on two occasions – $1500 total
Rep. Marian McLawhorn – $750 and $500 – $1250 total
Rep. Ray Rapp – $750
Rep. Edith Warren – $500
Rep. Rick Glazier – $500
Rep. Marvin Lucas – $500
If BCBS is so nefariously engaged in potential violations of the law, it would seem that these six legislators would return the money BCBS sent them.
Bonus Observation – BCBS has given $11,000 to Roy Cooper’s campaign committee since 2003.
The winner of the inaugural Bad Bill of the Year tournament is — SB 848.
This bill would allow illegal immigrants access to community colleges and the university system, sponsored by Sen. Charlie Albertson (D-Duplin).
It cruised to victory over the other finalist, HB 120 — public financing of municipal elections — by a 63%-37% margin.
See the entire bracket here. Read the press release on the results here.
It appears that there are some within the NC GOP that want to go back to the days of excluding unaffiliated voters from the party’s primary elections. This would be a bad idea for a number of reasons.
1. The numbers of voters registering as unaffiliated is exploding. Just in the past month, new unaffiliated voter registrations were 3.5x that of Republicans and Democrats combined.
2. As Republican registration has plateaued, there is a growing need to for it to appeal to unaffiliated voters to win elections. If unaffiliated voters are excluded from the primary process it allows the Democrats to begin building a relationship and appealing to those voters earlier. If the Democratic primary is open to unaffiliated voters, Democrats will pursue those votes and unaffiliateds could begin to form a comfort level in voting for Democratic candidates, a relationship that Republicans would not have. Thus, Republicans would have more ground to make up with unaffiliated voters when they really need them — in Novembers.
Just look at the numbers — only 31.75% of voters are registered Republican. Republicans must get 18.25% of the vote from somewhere else. The most logical place being unaffiliated voters.
3. They don’t change election outcomes. McCain didn’t win NC the NC primary because of unaffiliateds — neither did McCrory win the gubernatorial primary because of them. The unaffiliateds that would choose to vote in Republican primaries aren’t all that different ideologically from Republicans. In a poll we conducted in April 2008, before the primary election, we asked unaffiliated voters if they would be choosing to participate in the Republican or Democratic primary. Those that chose the Republican primary were just as conservative ideologically as registered Republicans.
4. A significant portion of the growth of unaffiliated voters over the past two years are disaffected Republicans fed up with their party. These are people the Republican party need to bring back into the fold, not push further away.
5. Roughly 40% of unaffiliated voters consider themselves conservative, according to our polling. Those are going to be the voters who choose to participate in the Republican primary, and the ones that would be excluded under the proposal.
6. Unaffiliateds represent a very small portion of the primary vote. In the 2004, 2006, and 2008 primaries unaffiliateds comprised somewhere between 8-12% of the voters in the Republican primary. Fact is, unaffiliateds generally don’t turn out to vote in primaries. While there may be more unaffiliated voters overall, they are still less likely that a registered R or D to vote in a primary.
I’m all for electing people to office that will uphold conservative values, but alienating a very large (and growing) segment of voters is not the way to win elections. Excluding unaffiliateds may actually be a way to for Republicans to ensure they are a minority party in North Carolina for the foreseeable future.
In August, we were all told by the leadership of the General Assembly that $1.1 billion in tax increases were necessary in order to stave off massive, destructive cuts to “critical” state services.
Apparently we were lied to.
According to the Gov. Perdue’s budget director, the state has about $600 million socked away for a potential budget shortfall this year.
Perusse’s office estimates it will have $469 million from unused funds and holdbacks of up to 5 percent from state agencies ordered by Gov. Beverly Perdue to ensure there’s money to pay bills. There’s another $150 million in the rainy-day reserve fund.
So a little over half of the tax increase wasn’t even necessary! Apparently there was an extra 5% padded into the budget that Perdue could “holdback.” So why wasn’t that money just cut in the budget, making $469 million in tax increases unneeded?
Because raising taxes wasn’t about balancing the budget — it was about finding the manna needed to continue the General Assembly’s appetite for increased spending.
There’s that, and there’s also the argument that they raised taxes more than needed this year (2009) so they could avoid tax increases in an election year next year. Nah, the General Assembly wouldn’t place it’s own political survival over the best interests of the people of North Carolina now would they?
That’s the only sound you will hear coming out of the left-wingers today as another NC based business decides to expand its operations in our neighbor to the south.
According to the AP:
A research firm that develops advanced textiles for the automotive, aeronautics and defense industries says it will open a new facility in South Carolina, creating 120 new jobs.
The state Department of Commerce announced Monday that Fletcher, N.C.-based Materials Innovation Technologies will bring a new facility to Florence County. The company specializes in processes for reclaiming and molding carbon fibers – a strong, light and flexible material.
Will those on the left who were so quick to highlight one company’s expansion in NC last week have anything to say today? I doubt it. The fact remains over the long term NC’s tax structure is unfavorable to economic growth. Gov. Perdue and the Dept. of Commerce bribing, er, paying off, er, buying a press release using incentives to encourage a company to do something it was already going to do is never going to be a good example.
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