Civitas Review Online

The story this month from our Civitas Flash poll isn’t that Gov. Bev Perdue’s approval rating remains at 29 percent, it’s the percentage of voters saying they disapprove of her job as governor is on a steep rise, going from just under 50 percent to 63 percent this month.

More Democrats disapprove of her job (47 percent) than approve (44 percent).

The big change this month is people who were on the fence and had answered either Not Sure or had no opinion have moved to disapprove.  People are making up their mind on Perdue and unfortunately for her, it’s not good.

Full release, crosstabs and all the details here.

Round 2 of voting has begun in the Bad Bill of the Year tournament!

Congratulations to all of last week’s winners in their first round matchups.  Thank you to all the readers out there for casting nearly 4,000 votes in the first week of our little tournament.

And always, remember the mantra of Chicago-style politics, “Vote Early, and Vote Often”!

Over the past 32 weeks, Civitas has spotlighted one bill from the General Assembly each week as its “Bad Bill of the Week.”

Beginning Monday, you will get to decide which one of those bills will be crowned the “Bad Bill of the Year.”

We’re going to be holding an NCAA Tournament-style bracket to whittle down the 32 bad bills to the one truly worst bill of the session.

Check out the full bracket here.

Log on every Monday to cast your vote and check out the winners from the previous week.

With rumors circulating that President Barack Obama has asked New York Governor David Patterson (D) to step aside and not run in 2010 due to the belief that his low poll numbers could be a drag on the Democratic ticket, the question must be asked, if he thinks Patterson should step aside, what about our own Gov. Bev Perdue?

If you look at a pollster.com comparison of job approval numbers, Perdue’s approval rating (29%) is actually lower than Patterson’s (32%).

So what gives Mr. President?  If Perdue’s numbers are worse than Patterson’s, shouldn’t she go too?

What exactly passes for leadership in our state these days?

Apparently, taking a stand that 70% of the people of NC agree with, yet using none of your power as the top two elected officials in North Carolina to enact it.

Gov. Bev Perdue and Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton both agree with a majority of North Carolinians that illegal immigrants should not be allowed in our community colleges, yet neither tried to stop the board from approving the new policy despite the fact that one of them appoints half the board and the other serves on it.

In what can only be seen as an act of political expediency (or extreme cowardliness, if you will) neither Perdue nor Dalton lifted one finger to try and stop the enactment of a policy they are supposedly opposed to.

Did Perdue make phone calls to board members threatening them that they will not be reappointed if they didn’t vote the way she wanted?  Nope.  But she darn well made sure she was quoted correctly in the paper and on TV of her opposition to the policy.

Did Dalton make an impassioned speech at the meeting laying out the case why this was a bad idea?  Nope again.  He “was silent before the vote” according to the N&O.  He then had his aide hand out a written statement and quickly slipped out the back door

So there you have it folks, that’s what we have for leadership in our state.  No longer can she say she is “Perdue, like the chicken.”  She can now wear that name proudly.

Isn’t it funny when lefties try to think they are making a point but all it does is further reinforce the arguments against a subject?

In a blog post this morning, Chris Fitzsimon tried to make the case for light rail by pointing to an article in today’s New York Times about the “success” of light rail in Phoenix.  But in doing so, he just further reinforces that light rail is nothing but a subsidy for the rich.

Just take a look at who is and who isn’t riding the rails in Phoenix:

“Unlike the rest of the country’s public transportation systems, which are used principally by commuters, the 20 miles of light rail here stretching from central Phoenix to Mesa and Tempe is used largely by people going to restaurants, bars, ball games and cultural events downtown.

Ah, so the rail is being used by upper-middle class suburbanites to go spend their disposable incomes at ball games, museums and bars.  Not exactly meeting the whole “public transportation helps lower-income people get to work” test now is it?

We already have a variation of this in Raleigh with our bus system.  The R-Line, which circulates around the bars downtown is free, but people wanting to take the CAT bus to work have to pay $1 each way.  Sounds fair, right?

And apparently the light rail is supporting binge drinking among college students who now don’t have to worry about designating a driver.  “Pub crawls along the light rail have become a weekend staple.”  Good to see Fitzsimon thinks tax dollars should go to support this.

But it’s rather funny that here we have a supposed progressive advocate for working class people who supports financing a light rail project here in the Triangle through a highly regressive 1/2 cent sales tax increase.  A tax increase that will be paid by low income people but used to help upper income yuppies feel good about themselves and take the train while leaving their BMW parked in waiting to take the kids to lacrosse practice that evening.  Apparently, advocating for the poor now means raising their taxes to transfer wealth to RTP workers and real estate developers.

Light rail is nothing but a subsidy for the wealthy and does nothing to relieve traffic, reduce sprawl or help poor people get to work.  Pointing out the success of the Phoenix system’s ability to transport barhoppers around town does nothing to disprove this point.

Yesterday Gov. Bev Perdue appointed Surf City Mayor A.D. “Zander” Guy to the North Carolina Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Commission.  Guy has a pretty interesting background, in case you hadn’t heard.

While currently employed as the owner of a real estate company, that wasn’t Zander’s first profession.  He used to be an insurance agent, that is until he was convicted of defrauding clients and sentenced to three years in prison.  Rumor has it he was just pocketing the insurance premium checks his clients sent in, never actually purchasing the policies.  After serving just three months of his three year sentence, his time was commuted by then Gov. Jim Martin (and later pardoned him).

Since that ugly incident in the past, Zander has built his new real estate empire.  While there is no wrongdoing that anyone can point to, it doesn’t take much of an imagination to think of the potential conflict of interests for a Mayor of a town being a real estate agent as well.  If a builder or developer wanted to make sure they got a permit, who do you think they would choose as their real estate agent?

Also intriguing is the message Perdue is sending the message loud and clear that seats on boards and commissions are for sale.  According to records from the State Board of Elections, Guy has given in excess of $222,000 in donations to Democratic candidates or the state party over the past two decades (including $25,000 to the NC Democratic Party just last year.)  Download full list of contributions here.

Between him, his wife and son, the Guy family has given $27,600 to Gov. Bev Perdue’s campaigns.

The Guy family has also donated at least $13,000 to Senate President Marc Basnight and $18,000 to embattled Sen. R.C. Soles (D-Columbus).

What may be most intriguing is Guy’s son, A.D. Guy III, works for a beer distributor in Georgia.  Hmm… ABC board, beer distributor… nah, nothing out of the ordinary there.

Perdue’s appointment of Zander Guy to the ABC board has done nothing but further the perception that politically connected insiders and big campaign donors get appointed to state boards and commissions.  Guy is already on the Banking Commission, is there no new blood out there that Perdue can find to appoint to the ABC Commission?

I know it’s all new technology, all this Facebook and Twitter stuff, and politicians and government officials are still figuring out how best to use it, but is this really necessary?

Now, you can become a “Fan” of the NC Department of Corrections on Facebook.  Why anyone would want to be a fan of the prison system is beyond my comprehension, though.

What’s next Twitter announcements from the DOC when someone escapes from prison?

Maybe the Department of Corrections should spend a little more time keeping up with parolees and a little less time creating fan pages on social networking sites.  Good to see they have their priorities straight.

President Obama’s job approval this month has turned slightly negative according to our inaugural Civitas Flash Poll.

44% of voters approve of the job he’s doing.
46% disapprove.

The worst news for Obama is that unaffiliated voters disapprove of his job by a 13 percentage point margin (35-48).  23% of members of his own party disapprove as well.

Full press release and crosstabs here.

President Obama is set to give a televised address to Congress tonight to make his case to the assembled elected officials and, more importantly, the nation for his proposed health care overhaul.

But this begs the question, is there really anyone left for him to convince this is good or bad?  Or have most people already picked one side or the other in this fight.

According to Civitas polling released yesterday, it seems there are few minds left for Obama to change.  76 percent of voters say they either strongly support (35.4%) or strongly oppose (40.6%) the President’s health care proposal.

Only 5.4 percent of voters said they had no opinion.

Thus it readily apparent that most people already chosen a side in this debate.  With intensity that strong on both sides, it’s doubtful there is anything Obama can say that will change the opinion of a large number of people.  His appeal to Congress will do very little to damper they hyper-activism on both sides.