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Memo to Connecticut Democrats (ONLY); All others should skip this post

May 07

jonpeltoEducation Reform, Malloy, State Politics Democrats, Education Reform, Malloy, State Politics 43 Comments

[Now that it is just us Democrats here; let’s take a moment to talk politics].

There were seven new Democratic Governors elected in the United States in 2010.  Today, when it comes to measuring each governor’s support from members of their own party;

One new Democratic governor’s job performance rating among Democrats is +80 percent

Two new Democratic governors are about +65 percent

Two new Democratic governors about are about +55 percent

One new Democratic governor one is at +45 percent

And then, according to the last Quinnipiac poll, one new Democratic governor is at a breathtakingly low +19 percent.

That is right – there is a Democratic governor whose support among his own party is only a positive 19 percent.  Less than one-quarter of the support the most popular new Democratic governor has….and that lowest in the nation governor is Dannel Malloy.

The “Education Reform” Debate:

Governor Malloy and the proponents of his “education reform” bill often claim that Connecticut’s legislators should pass Malloy’s version of Senate Bill #24 because “the voters support education reform” and “every other state is doing it.”

In his state of the state speech, Malloy talked about these reforms being adopted in 35 other states.  ConnCAN’s CEO, Patrick Riccards, likes to say that “Connecticut’s reform bill is mild compared to that in other states.”

As we now know, both statements are false.

But more importantly, we are taught early in life that just because “everyone else is doing it” doesn’t mean we should and as Democrats, we believe that public policy should be driven by doing the right thing rather than what is politically expedient according to public opinion polls. (Although, truth be told, it isn’t even accurate to claim that Connecticut voters “support” these education reforms.  They support having better schools but are mixed on some of the individual proposals.)

In any case, while we don’t believe in governance by polling, we Democrats do recognize the importance of representing our constituents, especially those who took the time to go to the polls to cast their votes for our candidates.  After all, that is why America is called a ”representative democracy.”

In Connecticut, Democrats win when we have strong support from our political base and do fairly well among unaffiliated voters.  Since Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than a 2-1 margin at the statewide level, when Democrats receive overwhelming support from Democratic voters, our candidates can actually win with a minority of unaffiliated voters.  Of course at the congressional and legislative level, in order to be successful, candidates must get a big Democratic vote and the majority of unaffiliated voters in order to be victorious.

The gubernatorial election of 2010 was a perfect example.  Dan Malloy won that election with just 49 percent of the popular vote.  According to the last Quinnipiac Poll, released just hours before the election, 88 percent of Democrats intended to vote for Dan Malloy, 9 percent of Democrats intended to vote for Tom Foley and only 3 percent were undecided or said that they would vote for someone else.

That 88 percent, along with a minority of unaffiliated voters, gave the Democrats control of the governor’s office after 20 years.

Now here we are – eighteen months later.

One of the most traditional ways to understand voter attitudes is to measure an elected official’s “job-performance” rating.  While job performance is not a perfectly predictor of how people will vote in the future, it is a fairly good indicator of the overall level of support among various sub-constituencies such as party affiliation.

Last week, Quinnipiac University released a new poll revealing that 37 percent of all Connecticut voters’ approved of the way Governor Malloy is handling his job, 44 percent disapprove of his job performance and 19 percent are undecided or neither approve or disapprove of the way he is conducting his job as governor.

Quite frankly, it is far too early to worry too much about the overall numbers; besides, we know that the key measure is where Democrats stand, since in the end, a strong Democratic base is the fundamental building block to a successful election.

To date, Governor Malloy’s strategy has often been to confront and attack key constituencies within his own party.  Last year Governor Malloy proposed record budget cuts, including cuts to services that are traditionally supported by Democrats.  He also entered into a long and confrontational battle with our state employees.

This year, under the guise of “education reform,” Malloy has proposed the most anti-teacher, anti-union “education reform” bill of any Democratic governor in the nation.

In the forty years since public employees won the right to collectively bargain, no Connecticut governor; Democrat, Republican or Independent has ever proposed that collective bargaining be banned for a group of public employees.  But that is exactly what Governor Malloy has done.

The Governor’s job performance rating is a measurement of the impact his confrontational approach has had with key constituencies within the Democratic Party.

The following chart indicates how Connecticut Democratic voters rate Governor Malloy’s job performance.  In politics we use a statistic that measures the rate of approval compared to the rate of disapproval – we call that the overall positive or negative rating of an individual (i.e. +/-). The higher the positive rating the better the candidate or elected officials is doing.

Except for a bounce in March 2012, what is particularly noteworthy is Governor Malloy’s job performance rating, among Democrats, has been trending dramatically downward since the day he took office.

Malloy versus other new Democratic Governors;

In addition, what has been happening with Governor Malloy becomes even more pronounced when one looks at where Malloy stands against the other new Democratic governors around the nation. (There were seven new Democratic governors in the Class of 2011).  All data here are from recent, independent public opinion surveys.

Shocking is rather an understatement.

In Minnesota, Governor Dayton just vetoed an “education reform” bill that was being pushed by 50CAN, the national outgrowth of ConnCAN and formed by the same people who founded Achievement First.  Even before vetoing that bill, Dayton’s support among Minnesota Democrats was +80 percent compared to Malloy’s + 19 percent among Democrats.

Again, as noted above, we Democrats do not lead by poll results but we also have a fundamental duty to look at whether we are successfully representing the people who put us in office.

It is time to have an honest discussion about what happens when a governor spends his time confronting and alienating some of the most basic elements of our party.

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