|
archived: 22 - 28 Apr, 2007 Back Next UPDATED: APRIL 25, 2007 GOV. EASLEY SCORES Gov. Easley’s approval ratings have consistently stayed high, sometimes defying expectations of progressive Democrats. How has Gov. Easley maintained his standing? The Governor has a solid track record of addressing problems facing North Carolinians. TPJ readers will recall that as North Carolina was losing jobs, Gov. Easley was frequently appearing across the State at new business openings. In our estimation, Gov. Easley was communicating a simple message to citizens; a) he understood what was happening to the thousands of people who were losing employment and b) he was working to bring new employment opportunities to the State. Most recently, Gov. Easley has tackled another problem; financing college education. Many North Carolina families have to go deeply into debt to finance their children’s education. Gov. Easley’s solution: The Democrat has made creating a “seamless education system,” from pre-kindergarten through college, the hallmark of his time in office. He wants to end his tenure by making low-income students a promise found in no other state: earn a four-year degree without going into debt. “You still have to work some and keep your grades up in order to keep our commitment,” Easley said recently. “But we are trying to get more kids to go to college and graduate from college.” To do it, students would have to forgo the traditional experience of spending four years on a university campus. Instead, they would earn two years worth of college credit by spending an extra year in high school, then move into college for two years with annual grants of $4,000 - enough money to replace low-interest Stafford loans in the package of federal financial aid offered to low-income students. Lawmakers have questions about the ultimate $100 million price tag for the grants, and whether the money might be better spent elsewhere, but university financial aid officers are excited about the prospect of Easley's proposal. “We have a number of high-need students,” said Ray Solomon, the financial aid director at Winston-Salem State University, where 87 percent of the 5,800 students receive financial aid. Nearly all take out student loans. The plan, dubbed the Educational Access Rewards North Carolina Scholars Program, comes as the cost of college continues to grow. The average annual tuition reached nearly $13,400 at campuses in the University of North Carolina system this school year, according to system data. The average debt incurred by an instate student who completes four or more years in college is $14,370. While the flagship schools of UNC Chapel Hill and N.C. State University have large alumni bases to help with grants and scholarships, many other UNC system schools lack private funding to help their students stay out of debt. Easley wants to eliminate the federal loan component in financial aid packages for 25,000 community college and UNC system students whose families makes up to twice the poverty rate. For a family of four, that's $41,300. Easley's budget proposal this year also seeks the rapid expansion of a program that would allow students at all of North Carolina's 385 high schools to complete two years of college before stepping on campus. “We'll be the first state in the country that will say to all these kids that you can go to college in North Carolina debt free,” Easley said. It is excellent public policy that generates public support. With this type of leadership, one would reasonably expect that Gov. Easley will finish his administration with solid approval ratings. VOTER REGISTRATION The revelations surrounding the firing of eight US Attorneys has highlighted Republican fixation on “voter fraud.” Bush’s own commission found that the voter fraud Republicans believe Democrats commit is a myth. The Winston-Salem Journal states the case as to Republican objectives: For decades, legislators have stalled efforts to make voter registration and voting easier by issuing predictions of widespread voter fraud. If North Carolina made it easier to register and to vote, they warned, people would vote illegally and undermine the credibility of our elections. After a five-year search, the U.S. Justice Department found virtually no evidence that voter fraud exists on any significant scale in the United States — not in states that have made voting easier, not in states that have not. But the truth did not keep the Justice Department from trying to keep alive the myth that there are hordes of criminals among us who want to cast thousands of illegal votes. The politicians on a Justice Department panel that did the investigation diluted the impact of findings by experts. In the partisan battle over how votes are cast, Democrats generally favor less restrictive measures and complain about efforts to suppress the vote. Republicans, on the other hand, complain about voter fraud and try to preserve the purity of the vote with registration and ballot-casting rules that are considered restrictive by most democracies. The experts, who gave their original report to The New York Times, found that there have been 120 arrests and 86 convictions on voter-fraud charges in a three-year period. Most were Democrats, and most involved local races. Moreover, many of the convictions involved what appeared to be honest mistakes by immigrants and released felons who were not aware that they were ineligible to vote. Under any calculation, however, 120 arrests in a country of more than 300 million people is pretty minor. The obvious conclusion to make from those numbers is that there is no evidence that American elections are compromised in any serious fashion by people voting illegally. They are compromised, however, by restrictive measures that keep many people from voting or that disallow the votes of citizens and taxpayers who simply cast their ballots at the wrong box. North Carolina experienced a travesty in 2004 when vote challenges kept the superintendent of public instruction from taking her legally won office for a year. And the slim argument that the plaintiff in that case made was based on North Carolina’s unnecessarily troublesome voting laws. Already this year, a bill has begun to move that would allow registration and voting on the same day during the pre-election satellite-voting period. That’s a good bill that will help many citizens and taxpayers exercise their right to vote. Other bills should address the other impediments to voter registration and the casting of ballots at precincts. North Carolina law should encourage, not discourage, voting. The Justice Department experts found that there is no significant voter-fraud problem in this country. The real problem lies in driving people away from the polls. Indeed, Republicans have pushed their agenda to drive voters away from the polls in North Carolina, seeking legislative enactments to make registering more difficult, under the guise of ensuring voter identification. In large measure, Republican efforts are directed at suppressing blacks from voting. In our estimation, the important question for Democrats is why Republicans would want to suppress a sacred constitutional right. The answer is simple. Republicans know that if larger numbers of citizens register, Republicans lose. What should the Democratic Party response be? Vocal admonition? Public indignation? Political banter? Democrats should take the one step that Republicans fear the most. Democrats should be about registering every citizen possible and getting them to the polls. _____________________________________________ UPDATED: APRIL 22, 2007 A GRAIN OF SALT Elon University conducted a North Carolina poll of citizens (registered and non-registered voters) that produced some attention getting results. The poll was conducted Monday, April 16th through Thursday, April 19th of 2007, and included 476 adults from households in North Carolina. A sample size of 476 produces results that are within a 95 percent probability the results are within plus or minus 4.6 percent margin of error. As to Sen Dole, Elon found a 52% approval rating with a 30% disapproval rating.: Now I would like to know what you think about North Carolina s Senator, Elizabeth Dole. . . Do you [approve or disapprove] of the way Elizabeth Dole is handling her job as United State's Senator?
Public Policy Polling fielded a poll in which PPP surveyed 556 “likely general election voters” on April 11. They contend the poll has a margin of error of ± 4.1%. According to PPP, Sen. Dole’s approval rating is a full 9% less than Elon College found and Sen. Dole’s disapproval rating is a full 10% higher in PPP’s poll.
Do you approve or disapprove of the way
Approve
................. .43% The disparity between the two polls cannot be easily reconciled. Both polls were taken within the same general time frame. While Elon surveyed all citizens and PPP surveyed “likely general election voters,” that fact raises perplexing questions. As a general rule, Democrats score a few points higher among all citizens than “registered voters” and even a bit lower among “likely voters.” Elon University pegs Bush’s current approval/disapproval ratings in North Carolina at their lowest level yet; 61.4% disapprove and 35.8% approve. Now I would like to know what you think about the President of the United States. . . Do you [approve or disapprove] of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as President?
Elon’s published this chart putting the current numbers into historical perspective:
We question Elon’s findings. First, Elon’s findings generally track TPJ’s monthly average of all polls nationally. The overwhelming numbers of North Carolina polls to date have tracked Bush’s approval rating somewhat higher than the national averages. PPP’s April poll conforms closer to the historical patterns for Bush in North Carolina:
Do you approve or disapprove of the way
Approve ................. .40% The object lesson here is to take polls and simplistic conclusions from those polls, with a grain of salt. First, both Elon and PPP do not poll every month, which would give a larger data base from which to track movement. Second, Elon did not release the detailed demographics from its latest poll, making it impossible to draw conclusions as to any imbalances in their survey sample. The questions raised do not mean that the Elon poll is wrong or that PPP’s poll is right. Either could be “right” or “wrong” or something in between. However, Elon concludes from its polling that Sen. Dole is “sitting pretty:” Poll director Hunter Bacot said that while the numbers leave Dole "sitting pretty," he was surprised the state's senior senator didn't have support around the 60 percent level. "She hasn't sustained or maintained any visibility in the state for a while, so that could have an effect," Bacot said. "And you have to wonder what effect the president has on those numbers." At the same time PPP’s view is substantially different in tone: “The key here is that Dole is below the 50% as an incumbent. That makes her vulnerable.” Of course, Democrats have not yet fielded a primary candidate; a fact, if it remains unaltered, means that Democrats have squandered a rare opportunity to pick up a Republican held Senate seat. Rank and file Democrats should be about creating the voter registration effort and turn out the vote campaign on the ground that would encourage a leading Democrat to make the bid. GOOD NEWS – FOR A CHANGE Good news for a change. Democrats bested Republicans in voter registration statewide by a net of 884 registrations. These are the major points. Since 2004, this is one of the few months in which Democrats have mustered a positive net increase in voter registration larger than Republican increases. Second, carefully note that Democrats outperformed Republicans in 36 counties. Typically, Democratic gains have been limited to fewer than 25 counties and increases concentrated in metropolitan areas. The 36 counties in March 2007 are broader based. TPJ believes that the March figures represent that the State Democratic Party call for each county to conduct voter registration is having some success. Of course, one month does not a trend make and the small gains in March may not hold. But, it is a sign of progress. We note a good deal of activity in Rep. Heath Schuler’s 11th Congressional District. The 11th District alone accounts for 276 of the 884 net registrations that Democrats gained. Rep. Schuler and local Democrats obviously realize that Republicans will target Rep. Schuler. They are laying the early ground game that can and will keep the District in the Democratic Party column.
The question remains whether more local Party organizations will join in the effort. Can Democrats expand their performance to 50 counties by July or August? TPJ will continue to monitor the numbers. Note: in using the chart immediately below, numbers in blue are generally favorable to Democrats and numbers in red are generally favorable for Republicans. In the “net” column, far right, a blue number means that Democrats had a net gain in registration over Republicans by that number. A red number with a minus sign means Republicans Democrats had a net loss to Republicans in that county by the number given.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
