Flap's Blog – FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog

Maybe, according to the latest PPP Poll.

Job Approval Vs. Disapproval:

Senator Bill Nelson: 38% Vs. 34%

38% of voters approve of the job Nelson’s doing to 34% who disapprove. Those numbers sound uninspiring but the main reason for them is that only 55% of Democrats approve of the job he’s doing, where you’d usually expect someone to be in the 70-80% range within their own party. Nelson gets 74-80% of the Democratic vote against each of the Republicans we tested him against so this is a classic case where his base might not love him, but they’re still going to vote for him.

While Nelson doesn’t generate much enthusiasm from within his own party, he’s also not much of a turn off to Republicans. An unusually high 21% of them approve of the job he’s doing and he gets as much as 19% of the GOP vote in the head to heads against named Republicans.

Most of the time people focus on politicians’ approval number when analyzing their reelection chances and if you do that in Nelson’s case 38% doesn’t look so hot. I think it might be more instructive here though to look at Nelson’s disapproval number- is someone who only 34% of voters are unhappy with really going to get tossed out of office? Seems doubtful- certainly didn’t happen to any Senators or Governors last year.

Yes, but Nelson is still not viewed very favorably for an incumbent and that is a good sign for the GOP.

A bad sign for the Republicans though is that the candidates that poll the best against Nelson are not going to run.

Connie Mack IV, who announced he wouldn’t seek the office after we’d already started the poll, trailed Nelson by 13 points at 47-34. Another incredibly long shot candidate, MSNBC host and former Congressman Joe Scarborough, trails by 13 points as well at 45-32. Among the more plausible candidates former Senator George LeMieux does best but still trails by 15 points at 48-33. Mike Haridopolos and Adam Hasner trail by 16 points at 50-34 and 48-32 respectively, and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales does the worst with a 19 point deficit at 47-28.

Head to Head:

• 50% Nelson (D), 34% Haridopolis (R)
• 48% Nelson (D), 32% Hasner (R)
• 48% Nelson (D), 33% LeMieux (R)
• 47% Nelson (D), 34% Mack (R)
• 45% Nelson (D), 32% Scarborough (R)
• 47% Nelson (D), 28% Wales (R)

Favorable Vs UnFavorable:

• Mike Haridopolis: 9 / 23
• Adam Hasner: 6 / 17
• George LeMieux: 8 / 22
• Connie Mack IV: 21 / 23
• Joe Scarborough: 15 / 20
• Jimmy Wales: 3 / 14

The GOP wants a pick-up in Florida. They just have to decide on a candidate and run him hard. Certainly, Nelson’s lack of favorability at this point smells like vulnerability but the NRSC and the Florida GOP have to understand that they will have to work hard to throw Nelson and hence Harry Reid out of office/majority.

These are my links for March 30th from 07:57 to 08:01:

• Flap’s Links and Comments for March 30th on 06:32 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Flap’s Links and Comments for March 30th on 06:32 #tcot #catcot
• Obama Fundraiser Steve Westly – ABC News – Did Obama Administration Play Favorites With Energy Loans? Green Firms Financed By Obama Fundraiser Steve Westl…

Laying down the gauntlet, they are – says Yoda.

Just as GOP leaders prepare a “Government Shutdown Prevention Act” as a way to pressure Senate Democrats into passing long-term spending bill, a group of freshman members have sent a strongly worded letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) announcing that they will “rally on the Senate steps every day until you pass a long-term Continuing Resolution.” The letter was authored by Rep. Rick Crawford (R., Ark.) and has so far been signed by 30 members of the freshman class.

“Make no mistake,” the letter admonishes Reid. “Any government shutdown is the result of your lack of leadership.”

“Mr. Reid, it’s time to pass a bill,” they conclude, before signing off in telling fashion: “Bound together and determined.”

The full text of the letter is here.

These are my links for March 30th from 06:32 to 07:37:

• Did Obama Administration Play Favorites With Energy Loans? Green Firms Financed By Obama Fundraiser Steve Westly Score Millions in Federal Loans – When the White House announced the federal government would loan $465 million to Tesla, a California start-up company with plans to develop an all-electric sedan, President Obama called it an "historic opportunity to ensure that the next generation of fuel-efficient cars and trucks are made in America."

  The loan also represented a lucrative opportunity for Steve Westly, a major investor in the car company who had raised more than $500,000 for the president's campaign.

  In 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy lent more than half a billion dollars to companies backed by Westly's California venture capital firm. In 2010, the White House tapped Westly for a seat on a special energy advisory panel that gives him regular access to Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Westly boasts on his website that his firm is "uniquely positioned" to take advantage of the Obama administration's interest in green energy.

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  Read it all

  More CRONY capitalism from the Obama Administration

• Black And Blue 2: Blacks Flee Blue States in Droves – Americans ultimately have to accept the reality that you can’t eliminate poverty by hiring professionals with postgraduate degrees and six figure incomes to sit in downtown offices and engineer policy solutions to urban ills. Poverty in a society like ours is a human problem and it is solved one human being at a time, usually through person to person contact: above all the parent but also the teacher, the preacher, the mentor, the entrepreneur who helps the lost and the overcome find solid ground on which to stand and build a life.

  As Blacks flee the citadels of blue thought, and as the paladins of blue like Bob Herbert move toward retirement, the problems of the inner cities and the underclass are still very much with us. Top down solutions and bureaucratic interventions have at best a limited utility in this new environment; it is time for a national re-think and a national re-engagement on the problems of race, poverty and class.

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  Read it all

According to the latest Gallup Poll.

Americans have grown increasingly less likely to view President Obama as a strong and decisive leader since he took office. Roughly half now believe this aptly describes, him compared with 60% a year ago and 73% in April 2009.

And, only 36% say Obama has a clear plan for solving America’s problems.

So, what does this mean?

Throughout this year in office, President Obama’s ratings on several dimensions, including job approval and most personal characteristics, trended downward, but have since more or less stabilized. One notable exception to that general pattern is perception of the president as a strong and decisive leader, which has continued to drop, and now only a slim majority of Americans rate him positively in this regard.

Given the timing of the two most recent ratings on Obama as a strong and decisive leader (March 2010 and 2011), it is not clear how much the recent events in the Middle East have contributed to this perception. Obama’s overall job approval rating in Gallup Daily tracking has fluctuated since mid-March, roughly coinciding with the military campaign in Libya. For the week of March 21-27, though, Obama averaged 45% approval and 47% disapproval, his worst since December.

Moreover, Obama’s ratings for handling the situations in Libya and Egypt have not been stellar but also not poor. In any case, much of the 2011 news coverage has focused on major international events and President Obama’s response to these events has been a key element of that coverage.

Politically, it means the President is vulnerable – if the Republicans can get their act together and nominate a strong leader = hello Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels or New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.