This is from ONN, Ohio News Network, an outlet that leans so far Right I once actually took the time to email them and complain back before I gave up on contacting media outlets altogether. It’s such a classic example of even-steven, both-sides-do-it, scaredy-cat reporting that it made me laugh out loud:
From the president to the governor, some Ohioans are having voter remorse over their 2010 ballot. Longtime Ohio State political science professor Paul Beck said the economy is causing voters to second-guess their elected officials. “Right now, there are people who voted for Barack Obama who are saying I wouldn’t do that again, I’ve been disappointed in some ways. So it’s not uncommon,” said Beck.
They’re incapable, apparently, of writing a simple factual statement on the Ohio Governor’s low poll numbers without inserting the all-important bipartisan context, and leading with Barack Obama. This article isn’t about Barack Obama, despite that cowardly, craven intro. It’s about former Fox News personality John Kasich:
A new Columbus Dispatch poll finds central Ohio voters would prefer former governor Ted Strickland to Gov. John Kasich by 14 points, 49 to 35 percent. What’s most ominous for Kasich is that Independents want a do-over election, reported ONN’s Jim Heath.
“The fact that Independents are swinging away from Kasich by a margin of 3 to 1 should be very troubling,” said Beck.
Voters like Neil Allison say incumbents like Strickland often get blamed for economic conditions beyond their control. “I’m not sure the last governor did a good job either, but I think people were just fed up with what was already in there and decided to go a different way,” said Allison. Allison said Kasich has made a huge mistake with Senate Bill 5. He said most Independents do not approve of the way Kasich has championed the controversial collective bargaining law. “What he did for the firefighters and police, those are people we need. When you try to turn it around and make those people have less pay, that’s a problem right there,” he said.
Beck said Kasich’s take no prisoners style, combined with a very different personality than Strickland, and has contributed to his low poll numbers. “I think Strickland would have said these are cuts I don’t want to make, we just got to do it, everyone has to sacrifice. Kasich’s style has been to attack,” said Beck.
Reading that, I’m now wondering about a political theory I have heard. Kasich is a belligerent, insulting, arrogant jerk but he’s also DECISIVE and brooks no compromise. He’s the sort of manly-man leader media and pundits adore. So why aren’t regular people in Ohio buying it? If I’m reading “personality” right, Ohioans simply don’t like this former Murdoch employee and his directives and marching orders and insults, where he’s running people over with his bus and such. How can that be? He’s wrong, about everything, but he’s strong. What gives?
Joel
ONN, coincidentally, also stands for “Onion News Network”.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
He was elected by a desperate plurality (as you know) that was just looking for something, anything that might be better than the status quo. Ohio media gave him a total free pass (as you also know). And now it turns out, most Ohio people have figured out he’s an arrogant asshole. Which many of us knew, and considered in the voting booth, but not enough of us.
None of which is news to you, kay, but I had to say it. He’s a creep. I’d like him to leave.
cleek
does he pound the beefy pulpit?
Roger Moore
People love strong, decisive leaders who make good decisions and force them through against all resistance. They don’t like strong, decisive leaders who make lousy decisions that they hate and push them through against all resistance- especially when some of that resistance is coming from the people who voted them into office. Amazing how that works.
Kay
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Nony Nony (commenter) says Kasich hates us, which is true, of course.
Come on. You know he thinks we’re all lazy, unproductive slobs. He says it, in so many words. :)
Not a match made in heaven, this political shot-gun marriage.
El Cid
@Joel: I was waiting for this opportunity:
Kay
@Roger Moore:
Ah, it’s policy, is what you’re saying. But that isn’t what the political scientist says. He says Strickland’s approach would have been better. More conciliatory.
True, too. He would have said that. He did say that, when he cut the budget.
Shinobi
@Joel: I was very confused when this link took me to an actual report.
Spaghetti Lee
He’s the sort of manly-man leader media and pundits adore. So why aren’t regular people in Ohio buying it?
My theory: Kasich is a media creature, meaning that other media creatures are going to cotton to him. He’s too arrogant and stupid to actually get out of his bubble and find out what actual Ohioans care about, and they’ve noticed. Dude only won 51-49 or so, so any ‘popularity’ he had in the first place was superficial and tenuous, and he was going to slip down the charts pretty quickly no matter what, because the economy’s bad and because he’s a huge jagoff.
Exurban Mom
The major difference is that Strickland would have allowed the unions a seat at the table, and worked with them to form legislation that accomplished the budget cuts needed without unduly harming collective bargaining rights.
Instead, we have a governor who calls police officers “idiot” in public fora, who takes prefab legislation from ALEC and tries to ram it down the throats of Ohioans, even as thousands of them demonstrate in the capital streets.
That’s a big difference.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
Actually, that’s what the voter they quote was saying:
So the political scientist says it’s a question of style and the voter says it’s a question of policy. I think the mass protests on the street were also saying it was a question of policy. I know which one I trust.
artem1s
the people who funded King John’s election knew exactly what they were paying for. They have no issues with him except maybe he hasn’t been brutal enough. This has been the most obvious scorched earth administration I can ever remember.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Kay: Question: Would Strikland saying “everyone has to sacrifice” meant “everyone whose not rich”? Because I suspect the rub is that Ohioans are finding out that that’s exactly what Kasich means, after they elected him.
kay
@Spaghetti Lee:
Good theory. He’s also comfortable on Morning Joe, which makes him a soul-dead ghoul. Anyone sitting there with those people should be anguished and conflicted and wondering where their life went so very wrong. If they’re not, if they’re cheery and shooting the shit, it’s a problem.
Napoleon
Kasich is even running campaign style ads at this point as if he is running in the fall, that is how far his numbers have fallen. I do not recall ever seeing any other politician do that.
Poopyman
By and large, the general population isn’t full of the craven toadies that populate the press. My own theory is that that personality type overwhelmingly finds “journalism” to be their life’s calling, and the most craven rise through the ranks, probably because their managers are not only craven press toadies, but so toady that they’ve become managerial, if you can imagine it.
Culture of Truth
Wait, does that mean Obama regrets who he voted for in 2010, or that Obama secretly ran for another office that year?
kay
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Strickland meant everyone, so cuts across the board. Which is what he did. No one doubted the state had money problems. It does.
It was trumping up a fiscal emergency to gut collective bargaining that was the lie. Kasich is passing out hundreds of millions in tax breaks and subsidies to for-profit entities. If there’s a fiscal emergency, no seems to have told the governor.
kay
@Culture of Truth:
I know. It’s hysterical. They must have a stock paragraph they use.
Spaghetti Lee
@Culture of Truth:
It also seems to imply that Obama is an Ohioan. Or maybe…Obama is Ted Strickland in disguise! Or Ted Strickland is Obama in disguise. Man, this journalism stuff is hard.
Culture of Truth
Besides, I thought Obama was from Kenya, not Ohio. I need to see the birth certificate on this.
Southern Beale
Kay, that’s so funny you should bring up the topic of personality types because I swear to God about 5 minutes ago someone e-mailed me this study, from 2008 (link to WSJ story on the Cambridge study ….)
Ohio’s rankings were as follows:
Extraversion: 25
Agreeableness: 27
Conscientiousness: 38
Neuroticism: 9
Openness: 24
Note the lower the number, the higher the ranking. Ohio ranks higher on neuroticism and lower on conscientiousness.
Now, I have a hard time taking seriously any study which ranked Utah the least neurotic state in the union, but there might be something here of interest. More on the study here.
Culture of Truth
ONN is OFF
kay
@Roger Moore:
Good point. I’m still not convinced this theory is all it’s cracked up to be. I guess we’d need strong and RIGHT to test it. Ted Strickland, was, I think, a “strong person” by any normal human being, decent, non-pundit measure, but he was all about the fairness :)
kay
@Southern Beale:
I have no idea what this is. It means “neurotic”?
Southern Beale
@kay:
Yes that’s what I gather. Ohio ranked high on the neuroticism scale. Y’all are neurotic. Own it.
:-)
I don’t know their parameters for determining these things, mind you. I haven’t had a chance to look at it very thoroughly yet.
cat48
Hi Kay, Did you see Ed’s Show when he was in OH last week abt SB 5 & the prez’s Jobs bill? The crowds he had still seemed supportive of the prez which sorta shocked me; b/c you know according to my TV, “his polls/support is collapsing,etc., etc.!” Maybe Gov Strickland can endorse him again next yr since people miss him now. :)
Linda Featheringill
@kay: #25
“Neuroticism” is a political movement devoted to the prevention of cruelty to totally neurotic, self-righteous jerks. They wanted to name their program PCTNSRJ but decided that Neuroticism was a catchy name and so went with that instead.
:-)
Spaghetti Lee
@Southern Beale:
Utah named among the least neurotic, most extroverted, AND most agreeable? Gee, wonder where this particular sociologist hails from.
MKSinSA
What Ohio knuckleheads voted for Barack Obama in 2010 anyway?? And why didn’t the “reporters” question why they did?
honus
@Spaghetti Lee: excellent use of the word jagoff in a sentence. You win honorary Pittsburgh citizenship and a Clemente shirt.
Tony J
“Look, man. I don’t make the rules. They give me the file and say “Sell this”, I market it the best way I can, and I make money. But if I’m selling shit, that shit is going to stink. It’s in its nature.”
28 Percent
I like the part where they’re regretting their 2010 presidential ballots. Awesome.
It’s really quite simple, but it is a both parties did it. Both parties were embracing neo-classical economics (or was somebody listening to K-Thug when I wasn’t looking?) When the shit hit the slip-n-slide, voters did what voters do, actually what any sane person does: they registered their dissatisfaction with failing policies and abandoned a failing strategy to try something else. What they’re learning now is that their only alternative to the failing DLC neo-classicist economics is the failing-faster Republican neo-classicism-on-rails.
Reading the Suskind and so far my reaction is “who is this terrific Obama person and how did we get his faint shadowy doppleganger as president?”
Thoughtcrime
@Southern Beale:
Must be because of this guy:
http://blogs.citypages.com/dressingroom/harveypekaramericansplendor.jpg
Loneoak
I suspect that some portion of the low pollnumbers is just residual disappointment over the OSU football scandals.
Go Blue!
honus
@kay: “Strong” in pundit speak has no relationship to actual physical strength or courage. It means talking big and wearing flannel shirts, pretending to cut brush or firewood when you’ve lived an entirely privileged life and never done any real labor, stuff like that.
Phylllis
@El Cid: Hahaha…..wait. I live in the South Carolina ravaged part of South Carolina. Sigh.
Culture of Truth
Also I learned from Toby Harnden that the Left is unhappy with Obama and is going to primary the President because he is too far left. Or something.
Southern Beale
@Thoughtcrime:
Oh damn. Yeah he was pretty neurotic all right!
honus
@Southern Beale: Is “neuroticism” even a word? Does it have something to do with Traci Lords being from Steubenville?
Southern Beale
So was George W. Bush. Yeah the Tweety types like that manly-man stuff but I’m not sure anyone else does. But we don’t matter.
Anyone notice the complete and utter blackout on news from Occupy Wall Street, by the way?
Frankensteinbeck
@cleek:
Ewww. BRAIN BLEACH PLZ.
Southern Beale
Jonah Goldberg is dumber than a rock.
“Obviously, we should tax rocks. If every rock paid just $10 in taxes, deficit would be gone. That’s not anti-rock, that’s math.”
Thoughtcrime
O/T, but…
…Ready for some good news?
Elizabeth Warren has already taken a lead over Scott Brown:
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_MA_0920424.pdf
Roger Moore
@28 Percent:
I think you must have missed the part where a ~$800 billion stimulus was President Obama’s number one priority after the inauguration. It was easy to miss, since nobody was talking about it.
Southern Beale
@honus:
The study was British. You know how they are with the language.
Poopyman
@Southern Beale:
Yes, which is in no way surprising. OTOH, any coverage would make it out to be either ridiculous or criminal. Possibly both.
Culture of Truth
@Southern Beale: we need smarter conservatives to have utter contempt for
KG
Media types are, ultimately, story tellers… they want a good story to tell. Strong characters and conflict make for good stories, so they like “tough guys” and “strong politicians that don’t compromise” because that creates conflict and gives them a story to tell.
Now, in reality, that’s a bad thing when it comes to politics in a democratic/representative system. Politics, as they say, is the art of the possible. It requires compromise, it requires the ability to work with others and not just say “my way or the highway.” But, of course, that doesn’t make for a good story – or at least the media types don’t believe it makes for a good story (most likely it makes for a story they don’t know how to tell).
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Southern Beale:
The should write American, like the good Lord intended.
28 Percent
@Roger Moore: W did a stimulus bill, too. And the reason I “missed that part” was that it wasn’t so much a stimulus as it was a tourniquet – what percentage of it was gifts to the states so that they wouldn’t have to fire teachers and police officers? And, of course, being a tourniquet, it was a singularly stupid political compromise (for which I blame the Blue Dogs, not Obama). The public perception of the stimulus has been to count the money gone and see that unemployment has continued to climb: it’s actually being used by Republicans to argue to the futsolderen that Keynesian stimulus exacerbates recessions and that Democrats can’t be trusted to handle the economy (the mind boggles, the soul reels…)
Very few people who haven’t seen a bleed-out can truly appreciate the value of a tourniquet.
JGabriel
Kay @ Top:
I think, maybe, the Mad Dad / Delusionally Overconfident Ex-Husband type so popular with right-wing authoritarians, doesn’t play well among women and people of Gen-X age (the eldest of us are mid-40s now) and younger.
.
jibeaux
@Southern Beale:
Conservatives’ relationship to satirical humor is, well, it’s damn ugly is what it is. Satirical humor should get a restraining order.
Citizen_X
@honus: Does Traci Lords’ eroticism cancel out Harvey Pekar’s neuroticism?
aimai
Maybe someone else said it upthread but I think voters often like characteristics in other people’s governors or candidates that they don’t like in their own. There’s a ton of “Yeah, lets you and him fight!” with the coverage of Christie, for example. Just like people love to bash other people’s teachers and unions and firefighters but get a bit teary eyed when they think of their own. People seem to be incapable of figuring out that the fascist dictator who “gets things done” in the abstract would be a pretty horrendous person to have in your own family, as your neighbor, or as your actual Governor. I also think that people have a hard time grasping the connections between distant political figures and themselves.
aimai
Calouste
@Southern Beale:
Not in the US media of course, but the Guardian have it. They are going to start a US operation, and it won’t be a moment too soon.
Spaghetti Lee
I think we’re overlooking the obvious here. If my state had the Browns, the Indians, the Bengals, and the Reds, I’d be neurotic too. Put ’em together, they have 1 championship since 1976.
boss bitch
They are disappointed in Kasich because he has gone after everyone rather than the people who deserve it.
Violet
@Southern Beale:
I’ve been off the grid for five days and was in an airport yesterday catching a flight home. I saw about five minutes of TV while waiting at the gate and it was coverage of the Wall St. thing. I didn’t know what it was and the sound wasn’t available on the TV, but it was the very first “news” I saw or heard upon my return. I think the station was CNN.
What was it all about? They showed people in suits outside buildings.
Jenny
@Thoughtcrime: but, but, but… Jane Hamsher says Warren would make a terrible Senator.
Matt
Polls are one thing – but they won’t mean shit until the GOP base pulls their collective heads outta their Buy-Bull and actually does something about it. They’ve STARTED to realize this (especially in the counties where it’s either work for the state, sell meth, or be hella poor) but I suspect we’ll see Kasich in an awful lot of rural stops to try to prevent this…
shep
Only about a third of electorate likes partisanship for it’s own sake. And they’re all already voting Republican. The rest, base Democrats and Independent swings, are almost the exact opposite, almost pathologically non-partisan. It explains a lot, actually.
Jebediah
@28 Percent:
Well, I have never seen one, and I am perfectly OK with going the rest of my life that way, and just taking your word on the tourniquet thing.
Lojasmo
@28 Percent:
A bleed out is best controlled by manual compression on a proximal major artery. Tourniquets are crap. Sorry.
/cath lab & ER nurse.
Mnemosyne
@Lojasmo:
IIRC, these days they only use a tourniquet if the limb is already gone or is so damaged that an amputation will be required, because once you twist that sucker on, the part of the limb on the wrong end ain’t gonna survive.
But I’m not a nurse or doctor, just someone who watched “ER” a lot. :-)
NonyNony
Well kay remember that they were buying it for a while. He was doing mostly fine until he decided to go after the cops and the firefighters. At least as fine as a guy who won by a razor thin margin and wanted to act like it was a landslide would ever be able to do.
I think the key here is that while there is a certain kind of voter who likes their elected officials to be belligerent assholes, they want them to be belligerent assholes who aim their assholery at the “right” people. And among “independent” voters in Ohio it appears that the “right” people do not actually include police and firefighters. Funny how that works.
Also, and something that shows up less in news stories but I know there are rumbles about it in the ‘burbs – Kasich’s education funding severely dicked over state funding for the suburban schools in a way that has never been seen before by suburbanites. As that started to sink in, I think a lot of the traditional, suburbanite, Republican-leaning voters suddenly realized that when Kasich was talking about the “evil teachers unions” he didn’t just mean the teacher’s unions in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincy – he meant ALL of the teacher’s unions and all of the schools in the state – even their school that is a great school and not a failure like “those urban schools”. A lot of suburbanite parents are finding out that with the cuts in state funding their “good schools” are getting screwed too – and that wasn’t something they signed up for.
Kasich decided to attack his own voting base – suburbanites, firefighters and cops. Why? Who the hell knows – I personally think it’s because he hates Ohio and Ohioans and his goal is to sell as much of the state as he can to his cronies, burn the rest of it, and get back to a high-paying gig on Fox News as soon as he can. But that’s the real reason for his low poll numbers – the solid, white, moderately conservative, suburbanite, working and middle class voters woke up to realize he hates THEM as much as he hates “those people” in Cleveland and Cincy and Columbus. And they don’t appreciate it.
Linda
Maybe regular people aren’t George Constanza, who has man-crushes on cool guys. I’m not sure that life is like high school, but I’m pretty such the press is.
As for attacking his own base, well, what’s left? If you are funneling money to the wealthy, you have to pull it from a bigger and bigger pool. In the 80s, the middle class really believed that if you kicked those welfare queens off the rolls, everybody else could have a pony. Little did they know that it would soon be their turn to shovel shit.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@NonyNony: I think you are exactly correct in tour assessment. He’s firebombing his base, and I also suspect it’s for exactly the reasons you mention – to enrich his cronies with state assets and go back to Fox.
King John won by a plurality yet he pronounces and acts as if it had been a landslide. I want him to go away.
Mike
You guys don’t understand Ohio. It is a state that is hospitable to Republicans, but not teabagger Republicans. People like Voinovich and such were able to run the state with ease, because they didn’t act like assholes. Voinovich raised taxes more than two times as governor and even proposed a universal healthcare system for the state. That’s why he and his GOP friends had such an easy time in the state for so long.
Kasich has a lot of problems going for him in the state. First, he’s an obnoxious asshole. That doesn’t go over well in Ohio. People in Ohio aren’t as nice as many of the other great lakes states, but they want their leaders to be decent people. They expect their leaders to act with class. Second, Kasich decided to go after a lot of his voters. The GOP does very well when they stick to bashing minorities and poor people, but Kasich made massive cuts in funding for republican heavy school districts–some of them the best in the state. That killed his support with indies, who always lean conservative. His base isn’t very happy with him, either. A lot of them are union and live in those districts that used to be fed well by a GOP dominated Columbus. But, Kasich is a true believer. He has no problem cutting his base from under him. And then, of course, is the little bit of him handing billions of tax dollars to his cronies while cutting out everyone else. It’s not a recipe for political success in Ohio or anywhere for that matter.
Mike
@NonyNony: I should have read your post before I wrote mine. As you can see, I totally concur. The vitriol coming these suburban REPUBLICAN voters towards the governor is truly an amazing sight. This is the base of the party, and Kasich whacked them! It would be like president Obama going after Medicare… oh wait… well, that explains his lousy poll numbers, too…
Mike
BTW, I forgot to mention that I’m glad his approval numbers still stink. After his little, “I want to compromise” stunt last month, I was worried that he may have gained some traction.
Oh, wait… looking at that poll, it says that CENTRAL Ohio voters disapprove of him strongly. That’s a big deal, since that region is much less blue than many other parts of the state. Outside of Columbus it’s like Wakeshua County in WI (well, not that bad, but bad).
JenJen
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): What hip hop said, really. As a proud Buckeye, that’s exactly the way I see it on the ground. I can’t even get my full-on-teabagger acquaintances to defend Kasich anymore. Buyers’ Remorse x10. You could primary Kasich and I’d wager he’d lose. “Well, I liked him on Fox but I didn’t know he was coming after ME.”
ETA: I live in Cincinnati, the portion of the state that traditionally fucks up the entire program for liberals, so that’s really saying something.
JenJen
@Mike: I enjoyed and agreed with your entire post, but just had to highlight this:
Agree that we expect our leaders to be decent, and that’s one of the main reasons why Buckeyes are turned off by Kasich and his antics, but that first part is so damned true. Even when I travel to f’n MICHIGAN I’m always amazed at how nice everyone is. I’ve always thought that we Ohioans didn’t really deserve to be lumped in with the reputation the kind, friendly, welcoming upper Midwesterners have earned. I can’t put my finger on it, but I’ll bet many fellow Buckeyes agree and can perhaps explain it.
Barry
@Poopyman: “By and large, the general population isn’t full of the craven toadies that populate the press. ”
I imagine that few journalists make senior editor if they show any tendency to p*ss off important people, on fundamental matters (like screwing over the vast majority to enrich the elite minority).