JONATHAN CHAIT JULY 29, 2010
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
Arnold Schwarzenegger now reviled in California even more than the hated Gray Davis:
The new survey by Public Policy Polling (D) gives Arnold an approval rating of only 19%, with a whopping 71% disapproval. By contrast, Gray Davis's personal favorable rating is a much healthier (but still awful) 32%, with an unfavorable rating of 44%. Respondents were asked: "Who would you rather have as Governor now, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Gray Davis?" The answer turned out to be Davis 44%, Schwarzenegger 38%.
I suppose you could try to explain this by constructing some elaborate theory about how Schwarzenegger has bungled the politics or veered too far from the center. Or you could conclude that economic crises make incumbents unpopular.
5 comments
If you are not in the grip of the Wehner Fallacy, you would conclude the latter.
- liberal reformer
July 29, 2010 at 2:59pm
If only the late Gary Coleman had won the recall, history would be different. I wonder what Gray Davis thinks of all this. The recall loss might have been the best thing that ever happened to him.
- propjoe
July 29, 2010 at 3:13pm
Would Governor Gary Coleman's popularity have gone up after his tragic death in office last month?
- wildboy
July 29, 2010 at 6:07pm
One ought to remember that a part of this is that Arnold has no base any more, as the wingnuts in California are as wingnutty as any in the country and the Schwartz is nothing if not an apostasy in those circles (on top of all his social lib credentials, he was definitely seen as taking the Democratic side in the budget impasse by the rank and file tea party dim wits). This is more of a hint of Specter/Crist going on. But, yea, politicians in California, not so popular.
- I Majorajam
July 29, 2010 at 6:50pm
There is a certain symmetry here, like Macbeth killing the king only to suffer the same fate.
- drheingold
July 29, 2010 at 9:46pm