Obama Up! Perdue Down!
2009-08-05 - by
Why is the President’s popularity holding up – while Governor Perdue’s has collapsed?
Back in the old days Jim Hunt and Jesse Helms cut a broad swath through our neck of the woods; they were political heavy-weights and it’s beginning to look like Barack Obama’s cut from the same bolt of cloth. President Obama, as well as anyone in politics, can take a punch.
By comparison, the first punch knocked Governor Perdue all the way out of the ring.
Back in 1984 Jesse Helms climbed out of a pretty hole to beat Jim Hunt, and Hunt climbed out of a deep hole to make his come-back win in 1992. But neither of them was ever in a hole as deep as Perdue’s.
Clawing her way back to within hailing distance of winning re-election is going to be a job that would tax a dozen political Einsteins and, obviously, if Governor Perdue had fine tuned political antennae she wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.
Beverly Perdue was a capable State Senator serving under Marc Basnight, a solid Lieutenant Governor (still serving under Basnight), but now that she’s running the show she’s suddenly darting in a dozen different directions: First ordering spending cuts, then demanding tax increases, then saying it didn’t matter which taxes the legislature raised, then telling legislators they’d raised the wrong ones.
She’s bounced around like an errant pin-ball until her house of political cards has collapsed, and for the first time in memory the Governor of North Carolina is less popular than a visit from an IRS agent.
Which leaves Democrats in a quandary.
Because there’s an election coming up. And Marc and Tony and Joe Hackney are either going to have to drop Bev Perdue like a hot potato and get as far from her as possible before voters wreck vengeance on the Democrats in the House and Senate – or they’ve got to resuscitate her which looks all but impossible and could turn out to be like buying a ticket to the Titanic with the iceberg in sight.
Obama Up! Perdue Down!
2009-08-05/
Why is the President’s popularity holding up – while Governor Perdue’s has collapsed?
Back in the old days Jim Hunt and Jesse Helms cut a broad swath through our neck of the woods; they were political heavy-weights and it’s beginning to look like Barack Obama’s cut from the same bolt of cloth. President Obama, as well as anyone in politics, can take a punch.
By comparison, the first punch knocked Governor Perdue all the way out of the ring.
Back in 1984 Jesse Helms climbed out of a pretty hole to beat Jim Hunt, and Hunt climbed out of a deep hole to make his come-back win in 1992. But neither of them was ever in a hole as deep as Perdue’s.
Clawing her way back to within hailing distance of winning re-election is going to be a job that would tax a dozen political Einsteins and, obviously, if Governor Perdue had fine tuned political antennae she wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.
Beverly Perdue was a capable State Senator serving under Marc Basnight, a solid Lieutenant Governor (still serving under Basnight), but now that she’s running the show she’s suddenly darting in a dozen different directions: First ordering spending cuts, then demanding tax increases, then saying it didn’t matter which taxes the legislature raised, then telling legislators they’d raised the wrong ones.
She’s bounced around like an errant pin-ball until her house of political cards has collapsed, and for the first time in memory the Governor of North Carolina is less popular than a visit from an IRS agent.
Which leaves Democrats in a quandary.
Because there’s an election coming up. And Marc and Tony and Joe Hackney are either going to have to drop Bev Perdue like a hot potato and get as far from her as possible before voters wreck vengeance on the Democrats in the House and Senate – or they’ve got to resuscitate her which looks all but impossible and could turn out to be like buying a ticket to the Titanic with the iceberg in sight.