Nielson Brothers Polling finds Governor Dennis Daugaard gets high marks from a majority of South Dakotas:
NBP finds that 23% of South Dakota voters strongly approve and another 37% somewhat approve of Governor Daugaard's job performance. Among the 40% that disapprove, 17% somewhat disapprove and 23% strongly disapprove.
Republicans are more likely to approve of the governor's performance than either Democrats or Independents. 67% of Republicans approve (33% strongly/34% somewhat) compared to 54% of Democrats (11% strongly/43% somewhat) and 53% of Independents (24% strongly/29% somewhat) [Nielson Brothers Polling press release, 2011.09.11].
These approval numbers don't appear to square with South Dakotans' impression of how things are going:
Despite relatively high approval ratings for Governor Daugaard, South Dakotans show less certainty about the state's direction. Only 27 % of respondents say South Dakota is headed in the right direction, while 31% think it is going in the wrong direction, and another 42% are undecided [NBP, 2011.09.11].
60% of South Dakotans say the governor is doing a good-enough job, but 73% can't bring themselves to say South Dakota is headed in the right direction. How can we square those numbers?
- Perhaps South Dakotans don't think the governor has much to do with the direction the state is taking.
- Perhaps South Dakotans find it easier to blame President Obama than Governor Daugaard for their problems.
- Perhaps we're just too polite to say bad things about one man's job performance.
- Perhaps a majority of South Dakotans just aren't making the connection between declining public services and infrastructure and the austerity budget from Pierre.
- Perhaps South Dakotans are generous souls who are giving Governor Daugaard a full year honeymoon. We'll be able to test that possibility after we see the governor's 2012 legislative agenda.
Let's compare our governor and legislature to the feds.
1. We have a budget. Congress does not.
2. Our governor has decided to make tough choices that are very unpopular. Congress has put their re-election campaigns ahead of the fiscal well-being of our country.
3. We have across the board cuts. The feds squander stimulus dollars on programs that fail to improve the economy.
4. The state spends what it has. The feds spend our grandchildren's money.
I really wish things were better for schools and that state employees could get yearly raises, but we are still making decisions better than anyone in Washington.
If we could rate our governor he would get a solid 5 and the legislature a 3 because they could not pass a budget until the last day. Our president would get a 2 and congress a 1. If congress was being graded by my daughter's teacher, there would be a grade missing that eventually would turn into a zero with a notation that said "Work not completed as assigned...did not come to class prepared...was disrespectful to peers and did not follow instructions."
Nation: 19.2% Right Direction, 76.2% Wrong Direction (Minus 57%)
Obama: 43.3% Approve, 50.7% Disapprove (Minus 7.4%)
Nation Differential: 49.6%
State: 27% Right Direction, 31% Wrong Direction (minus 4%)
Daugaard: 60% Approve, 40% Disapprove (plus 20%)
State Differential 24%
To answer your questions in this context:
1) "Wrong Direction" is always likely to be a leader as it has two consituencies: those who think it is too conservative and those who think it is too liberal. In the nation, we are much more polarized with larger blocks of liberals and conservatives pushing more highly divergent agendas. In South Dakota, the fight is more on the margins and less fundamental for most of the voting public.
2) This question seems to infer South Dakotans are dumb. I think they can distinguish between national issues/problems and those of the state.
3) I don't think SDan's have a problem being critical.
4) Or they are making the connection to our good condition relative to the nation to our prudent fiscal policies. The national divergent is also complicated because the "fiscal fight" has economic consequences. Generally, most Dems are not advocating agendas that would destroy the business/job situation like, at least in my opinion, the national dems are willing to do (i.e. the trouble Obama got by reigning in the EPA).
5)
"The feds squander stimulus dollars on programs that fail to improve the economy." <-- This statement parallels the City of Madison's inexplicable defense of throwing taxpayer money at the regional economic development corporation, sir.
Now, consider this. "The City of Madison squanders stimulus dollars on the LAIC, which fails to improve the economy." Similar? Opposites?
At least one of our commissioners attempts to justify the city's squandering of taxpayer monies by suggesting Madison would be worse off had it not provided such funding during the recession. I don't know. I believe the recession is on-going. Perhaps city and county taxpayers should have provided more $$ in order to further local economic development; you know.. beyond the 500+ jobs created. Imagine the Unimaginable!
I think there may be another reason for the disconnect although it's tangential to "South Dakotans don’t think the governor has much to do with the direction the state is taking."
Let's be honest; a person who weighs 400 pounds has a better chance of being diagnosed with anorexia than a South Dakota Democrat has of winning the governor's race. I may find Daugaard's budget nonsensical, but it's no worse than any other Republican budget would have been, and it's better than some of them. Besides, he has fewer members of his family on the payroll than his predecessor did.
Given these conditions, a “his policies don’t suck as bad as I feared they would but they’re still not good†could turn into either “somewhat satisfied†or “somewhat dissatisfiedâ€