Interesting results on a poll conducted a few days ago, by the polling firm Strategic Visions LLC, of Washington state voters. The highlight was its findings on Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire, who became governor in the 2004 election by the narrowest of margins — but only after several months of an eventually unsuccessful Republican lawsuit charging that ballot counting fraud, particularly in Seattle’s King County, had swung the election to Gregoire over Republican challenger Dino Rossi.
In the poll, despite a string of legislative successes in the year-plus of her tenure and a recent re-imaging campaign, Gregoire’s approval ratings remain about where they’ve been her entire term thus far: 38% of respondents approved of her job performance; 54% disapproved; and 8% were undecided. In a hypothetical 2008 rematch between Gregoire and 2004 opponent Rossi, the poll found that an astonishing 55% said they would vote for Rossi; only 35% said they would vote for Gregoire; and 10% were undecided. And most tellingly, when asked if they were confident that Washington had overcome the problems that plagued the last election (i.e., referring not to the flawless election of 2005 but to the 2004 King County recounts that swung the election to Gregoire); 16% said yes; a staggering 71% said no; and 13% were undecided.
The same poll shows Bush’s statewide numbers mostly in the 20’s, well below the national average, so the problem isn’t a poll that skews conservative.
The Republicans were essentially laughed out of court in their lawsuit, even though they picked a sympathetic county and judge, because they completely failed to substantiate any of their wild accusations of vote fraud. But for months, state Republicans mounted those accusations, credulously repeated by the state’s media, and Democrats, then and now, have done very little to refute them, relying mostly on a courtroom victory.
Result: in a state that went 53%-46% for Kerry in 2004, it’s not just Republicans who still, many months after the trial’s conclusion and well over a year after the election, believe Gregoire is illegitimate despite the court ruling. So do many independents, and — one must conclude from the “election problems” question — more than a few Democrats.
This is state-level, not national, but it’s a great example of Democrats winning the battle but losing the war because they didn’t take their case effectively to the public. They didn’t do it in Gregoire’s campaign (which was supposed to coast to a comfortable victory), they didn’t do it during the November 2004 election, they didn’t do it during the months of pre-trial and trial headlines of the election lawsuit, and despite controlling both houses of the state legislature plus the governorship, and doing a pretty good job, they’re not doing it now. And eventually — in 2008, if not sooner — if nothing changes, they’ll pay for it. New state party chair Dwight Pelz, are you listening?
So what should the Democrats have done that they didn’t? I know nothing of Washington state politics as I am a Texan trying to figure out how to remove the Republican parasites who have taken over our state like Heinlein’s Puppet Masters.
I can see the Republican system of interlocked Xtian conservatives, corrupt fiscal conservatives and business people, wealthy funders of both think tanks and news media, and the tight coordination of media.
I see the media skewing to the right because the right gives them the most grief (the blogosphere seems to have begun to counter that.)
But that is a system that is greater than the sum of it’s parts. How do Democrats (1) break up it’s effectiveness and (2) build a counter system?
What should the Washington Democrats be doing that they aren’t?
This is a very troubling story that has national implications.
There are two parts to the story:
First, #2. She is outstanding. She blows my mind. She’s a doer. She’s an activist and gets things started. I e-mailed Geov last night that she’s in our little local paper all the time because she’s working on so many highly constructive proposals that have a direct effect on our lives. And her husband, as “First Man,” has undertaken many great projects.
#1) There are some myths that Democrats hold onto about her campaign. Their favorite excuse is that she lost an easy victory because her people ran a lousy campaign.
What they overlook is their own tepid, resentful attitude towards her campaign, and their own lack of help for her. They had wanted other primary candidates to succeed and, when those Dems’ candidates lost (and rather badly), they were sore and and stood aside the rest of the race.
So, what should have been a victory turned into a hideous fight, with accusations of LIBERAL King County executives having all kinds of embarrassing problems with their vote counts. A new study just came out that shows King County has a lot of bad practices.
The Republicans seized on this, playing up that King County/Seattle is a liberal hotbed. Of course, what htey failed to point out is that every single county in every state in the U.S. has its election count problems, and its employees who are “lifers” and goof-offs who just don’t care.
The Democrats had a hard time combating the obvious counting problems and the “liberal label of King County. And a lot of people who’d voted for Dino Rossi are extremely embittered. They will remain embittered.
There’s their core group: You know the type. They’re the kind of people who stay angry no matter what. I hope there’s a rational group of Rossi voters who can get over their anger, and realize that Gregoire is doing a great job.
Thanks for the explanation.
That’s been my problem with a lot of the highly enthusiastic supporters of some “magic” liberal candidate. They tend to have the idea that their candidate is the “silver bullet” that will solve all the problems of America, and what follows is that they get a “my way or the highway” attitude. When their candidate gets beaten they go home and sulk, coming out only to complain that their great magic candidate and set of solutions would have been so much better than the person who beat him or her.
It’s a cult of personality rather than support of a set of ideas and an organization that works to get those ideas enacted into law and government. There is no real identity for the Party itself.
I’m a Texan with military experience who lived in New Orleans for a little over two years, and there was one thing about Louisiana that drove me nuts. Everyone there thinks that to get anything from government you had to know someone, or know someone who knows someone. That’s to get anything done, even things like getting a drivers license or going to an emergency room. Government systems are considered useless, a mere fiction.
I know how to contact someone to get something done, but I also expect government to do many routine things simply as part of “The System.” The government itself is an organization that has its own identity, and these personality cultists ignore that or consider that to be part of what they oppose.
The whole damned Democratic Party acts like a bunch of magic individuals who are here to solve the problems – like Joe Biden and Joe Liebermann.
I really don’t know what to do about it. The Republicans don’t do that. That’s what is all these recent spate of books downplaying the Bush administration are all about. They are preparing for the new leader in 2008, and it is an organization process.
I’m not sure what can be done about it, except to lose some more elections because of it. I think that Dean gets it, and is trying to build the party. Many of the complaints about him are coming from Democrats who don’t get it. I hope Gregoire is working with key Democrats to get their support before the next election. I’m not sure polls can catch this dynamic.
I don’t dispute the current numbers, but as a Washintonian Democrat I am not particularly worried. The Republicans in this state are still white hot about accurate vote counts, as they should be. I don’t believe there was deliberate fraud here, but then most Republicans don’t believe there was deliberate fraud in Florida in 2000 or Ohio in 2004, while I am prepared to spend hours arguing there was. Major elections decided by 3 digit margins are going to generate controversy.
But Gregoire is flying under the radar and producing results. She has the luxury of a $1.4 billion surplus and a Democratic legislature that is disciplined enought to set most of that aside into reserves while still directing millions towards education. There is a sense that after a legislature that had one house deadlocked, that adults are back in charge.
In this Washington results count. And while Gary Locke had an image as a peppy cheerleader with an amazing life-story he never established himself as a competent executive. Which was odd since his initial appeal was as a budget policy wonk from his days as head of the Budget Committee in the State Senate.
I am not active in local Democratic politics but I have good friends and co-workers who are, and at pretty high levels, and I am not sensing any disturbance in the Force. Once again I don’t dispute the numbers in the poll but a whole bunch of that is Republican sour grapes over the last election combined with Gregoire’s not pushing herself forth. She is not doing PR because near as I can see she doesn’t need to. At least not yet.
What part of the state do you live in? What kind of people do you hang with?
Everywhere I go on the Olympic Peninsula, and down to Bremerton/Silverdale, on to Tacoma, I see a huge group of hardcore angry people who think Dino Rossi got screwed by Seattle liberals.
It is entrenched, fierce anger. It has not dissipated.
It’s like we Dems still feel about Gore in 2000. We’ll never “get over it” nor should we.
‘course, here the tables are turned so we think the GOP should get over it. They won’t. For starters, the GOP has HATED King County voters forever…. because King Coutny’s liberal voters have the most clout, can change the outcome of initiatives and state elected offices. Combine that with REAL problems in the counts and recounts, and you’ve got an incendiary situation.
There is a new thing out.
It’s called “Marketing.” And part of Marketing is this thing called “Public Relations.” And part of Public Relations is the FACT there is only a small amount of time to affect people’s perception on an issue. Once that perception is made it is very difficult to impossible to change it.
Gregoire may have already blown it but a through, solid, continuous PR campaign run by PEOPLE WHO KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (hint: not some dumbass Democratic Party consultant) could at least start to affect the perception in preparation for 2008.
They won’t do it, of course.
Thank you for making my response to the first comment mostly redundant.
What do Dems need to do? What they never do: tell their story. Susan is right: Gregoire is doing a tremendous job. And outside the political literati, very few people realize it. Take a cue from the Bushies: treat every political action like a potential campaign asset, and play up your successes for all they’re worth. Always.
The hard-core Republican anger over the 2004 election will never subside, it’s true, but that’s not what worries me about this poll. What worries me here is that independents and some Democrats have the same attitudes, and that needs to be challenged — both the idea that Rossi somehow got more votes in 2004 (the more accurate the counts were, the better Gregoire did) and the thus-far-untold news that on the basis of her performance so far she deserves a second term, regardless of what one thinks of how she gained office. It might be too late to address the first point, but it’s never too early to begin hammering on the second one.