I was cruising through Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire and found this interesting little post.
Ranking the Senators
SurveyUSA released its latest approval ratings for all 100 U.S. Senators. Of current Republican-held seats up for re-election in 2008, five senators have approval ratings below 50%:
Sen. Wayne Allard (R-CO), 44%
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), 45%
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), 46%
Sen. John Sununu (R-NH), 47%
Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN), 48%
Of the Democratic-held seats up in 2008, just two have below 50% ratings:
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), 39%
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), 48%
Has Kerry spent too much time trying to appeal to Ohiowans? Has he forgotten us? Is it time for Kerry to voluntarily retire, or will it take a bloody primary?
Please share widely!
I think the “botched joke” has something to do with it, but as a point of comparison, Kerry has consistently polled lower than Kennedy. Taking a look back at SurveyUSA’s August poll, for example, Kennedy was at 56% approval, but Kerry only at 49%. A lot of his long-term lagging poll numbers no doubt have to do with 1) liberals still angry with his campaign/losing to Bush and 2) the fact that he says he wants to run for President again, thus losing touch with the state.
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That said, Kerry will definitely not face a legit primary challenge if he decided to run for Senate again. All of the main suitors for the Senate still have time to wait until Kennedy’s seat opens in 2012 anyway.
Saw this elsewhere, and what’s interesting is that the majority of these Senators are in essentially one-party states. I did read a charmingly naive RedState post about how this meant that Kerry was vulnerable to a Republican challenge, which struck me as funny. I’ll hold back on commenting on Kerry for now.
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Although Lautenberg and Kerry have low approval ratings, I can’t imagine either state going Republican. Sure, New Jerseyans always have a close race, but they’re pretty reliable as Democrats — Corzine and Menendez are the two most recent examples. I’d wonder if Lautenberg would retire — he’s going to be 82 in 2008 and he’s kind of an “accidental senator” (thrust in there once the NJDems realized what a burden Torricelli was in ’02). This would open up the door to someone new.
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On the GOP side, I don’t really think we have much of a shot in Texas (where the Democratic candidate barely held off an independent) or Oklahoma. What’s interesting is how vulnerable Allard, Sununu, and Coleman are, all in states that are not always Democratic have been acting that way over the last four years. I’d imagine there’s a good chance we’d get at least two of those seats, though we’re still building the Democratic bench in Colorado.
The poster might well have been naive about MA politics, but I’m not sure the point can be written off.
In 2008, if Kerry remains a weak candidate, but the Dems (out of good ol Massachusetts party loyalty) don’t oppose him in the primary, he could well be vulnerable to a strong Republican attack, thus embarassing the state party as well as jeopardizing control of the Senate. Remember, Kerry almost lost to Weld in 1996.
Do the Republicans have a Weld today? Well, certainly not per se … but I keep hearing about Harvard Pilgrim CEO Charlie Baker who sat out this Gub race for reasons of his own. Point is, Kerry might well be vulnurable, and MA Republicans would certainly see taking him out as a great way to start regaining ground.
I’m not saying that Charlie Baker would not be an attractive candidate, but the fact is that the MA GOP is in a shambles. The party is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of AMG, and the city and town committees are in ruins. Without an effective ground organization, MAGOP cannot wage an effective campaign at the local level to unseat an incumbent Democratic senator — particularly during a presidential election year, where the Dems and Dem-leaning independents are going to be coming out of the woodwork to vote against the national GOP. If I was a GOP strategist, I’d advise anyone who asks to rebuild from the ground up, with an eye towards 2012.
I think Charlie Baker would be a good candidate…for governor, not senator. Even though both seats require statewide campaigns, the governor’s seat, with its executive requirements, and more local perspective, is a better fit for Baker, who has strong experience in the executive branch of both state government and private industry, in patrticular the health insurance industry, although I’m not sure that his particular view of the health care industry suits me.
Baker is a very able person and belongs in ANY administration. But doesn’t come off as a strong candidate/campaigner. Sort of like an Andrew Natsios. Both very smart guys you want working for you but not real great candidates and Baker needs to be good at that before anything else.
The fact that the state GOP is in a shambles is not a new situation. It gets cearer each year with each time they lose seats, but it’s not new. And as recently as 2002, it was still strong enough to win them the governor’s office. I wouldn’t be too cocky about Kerry’s race. His unpopularity is high now because of his “botched joke,” but I know many progressive folks who haven’t liked him much for a long time. And that’s fewer foot-soldiers and door-knockers.
Weld was the favorite of the most of talk show hosts. Imus was and exception as was Jerry Williams – (Williams was good at seeing through snake- charmers). Weld was the favorite of the TV news and got 100% coverage in the newpapers. Kerry was derided as the “senator from Nicaragua”, slept with too many women, and it was rumored that he had “Jewish blood”. When the agreed to the debates the Kerry that the media was trying to hide emerged. People saw that he isn’t a monster and in the end it wasn’t even close. Kerry has had consistent high liberal ratings and I would absolutely not count him out just because of persistent negative press. I vote for him to stay in the senate because I admittedly am swayed by the persistent negative press right now, otherwise I would have voted for president in this poll.
“Naive” is not a synonym for “doesn’t think what I think.”
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Weld made a race of it in 1996 mainly because people knew him as governor and liked him. He had an organization and an image to built on — he wasn’t an unknown quantity. Secondly, he ran at a time when Republicans were a lot more palatable in Massachusetts, mainly because they hadn’t had the opportunity to really start screwing things up.
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Things are different now — being a Republican is the kiss of death in New England, and as you say the Republicans don’t have a Weld today. Thus, any candidate is already way behind because all voters know about him/her is that they’re a Republican — not a good thing to be in Mass.! They could run the CEO of a company that survived thanks to a Democratic AG, or some nobody. Neither one was an organization worthy ofthe word. Great choices.
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Fact is, Kerry’s approval rating is lower because he pooched the 2004 election. Plus, respondants are comparing these senators to other politicians they know at some level. And Kerry is in a state distinguished by Ted K, Deval Patrick, Barney Frank, and Tom Menino for starters — all wildly popular. Put him in Jersey, he’d probably be the most popular politician they got. So in the end, I don’t think Kerry is “vulnurable”.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at with your first line. (I was using “naive” to refer to the Redstate poster you described in the same way, and sharing my view that his point may not have been so off. A view you obviously don’t fully share, which is fine, but I don’t know why that leads you to discussing the meaning of the word.)
U.S Attorney Mike Sullivan
Kerry’s negatives have their roots in two places. One is the result of the bungled joke just before the election, and the media’s complicity running with the Republicans’ politically driven response to it, and the second is the fact that the local newspapers, including the Globe, love to use any opportunity to denigrate him.
I have a negative impression of Kerry mainly because of his dishonesty and shamelessness in the 2004 primary season, and I know I’m far from the only one. Lotsa folks who backed Clark or especially Dean still have grudges. Doesn’t mean that I’ll vote for a Republican in two years.
If I look at the tracking graph, then I notice that Kerry has only once dipped below 50% before the latest poll and his disapproval has never before climbed above 44%.
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Most recent results are like this:
ApproveDisapprove49%44%51%44%55%40%48%50%
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The spike in disapproval is very recent. It could, for example, just be temporary Democratic annoyance with him. I share a feeling of bad taste about the 2004 primaries and the missteps of the 2004 campaign. Your and my discomfort with Senator Kerry was probably already backed into the 44% disapproval he had before the latest poll.
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I share Pablo’s irritation with Kerry’s attempts to appeal to what Pablo refers to as “Ohiowa”.
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Kerry can be irritating, but Lieberman is almost always irritating and just does not stop being irritating. Remember that Kerry campaigned actively for Lamont and worked harder for Lamont than any other Senator. Let that be balm for Kerry’s irritating ways.
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That said I think it is much more important to defeat Sununu and Coleman. Coleman is truly vile and pushing him out of the Senate would benefit humanity. Perhaps the Republicans, unaided by the possibly Mehlman-supported phone jammers, will be unable to keep Sununu as a Senator in ever bluer New Hampshire. That, too, would be good and is more worthy of our attention.
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Finally, if you want a long-term project (like defeating Kerry in a primary), I have a better one: Figure out how the heck to get Maine to end its love affair with not one but two Republican senators.
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Or, if possible, figure out how the heck to get either or both of those moderate Senators to end their love affair with the Republican Party.
…I thought maybe it had to do with him voting to let the President get us into a optional war–which is why I did not support him in the Presidental Primary.
I did not support Kerry in the primary because of that vote, but Kerry was consistent here. He did not flip — though he did flop.
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If we had a competent President, a war powers resolution would been a useful tool to wage diplomacy. Saddam was resisting inspection. I don’t know why, but he was. Bush and the Rethuglicans were emphasizing that a vote for war powers was a vote for peace. They were emphasizing the competent-president scenario. They jumped up and down saying that war would be a last resort.
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But they were lying all along.
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And they were not competent.
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Some of us knew that. We did not fall for the shell game. In an excess of bipartisanship, Kerry did. He voted for a resolution which a President Al Gore would have used to very good effect.
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Republicans have campaigned by trying to mislead us about this history. No one voting for war powers thought they were saying, “Yes! Invade Iraq.” It was not even sold that way.
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Should we Democrats nominate Hilary Clinton, we are going to have to work to set the record right on this one.
First the question…is Hillary your # 1 choice, or did you write the last sentence based on her being the front runner? (I’m still looking for someone who has Hillary as their # 1 choice solely on merit.)
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In terms of the resolution vote. It seems you and I agree that Kennedy took the correct route, and your explanation was a well articulated reason Kerry gave for his yes vote–that it was to be used a leverage against Saddam.
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I don’t buy that. Remember Bush–unlike his father in 1990–used the resolution as a political club to beat the Dems as being soft on terrorism and many capitulated. Kerry being one of them. Bush Sr. first went to the UN for approval and then waited until after the mid term elections–thereby taking politics out of such an important vote–to ask Congress to support a war.
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Bush Jr., with Rove’s advice, did the exact opposite. Forced Congress to vote on the issue before the election and then lamely went to the UN afterward, my real point is that Kerry and many Democrats voted in favor of the resolution because of politics and not to send some message to Saddam–that reason was cover. Kerry was planning to run for President and advisors told him that he had to vote for the war to be electable in ’04. (Kerry has never been asked, to my knowledge, why he voted no to go to war in 1990 and yes in 2002.)
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I grudgingly have to agree with the Repubs who contend that Kerry voted yes on the resolution and then voted no on the funding bill in ’04 (you know the bill he first voted for but then voted against) for political reasons. Kerry voted for the war to appear as tough as Bush in
02 and against funding as a reaction to Dean's surge in the primaries in03.<
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Nope, in 1972 Kerry was a real profile in courage. But not today.
(I guess I misspelled “Hillary”)
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Would I vote for Hillary Clinton in the primary? Certainly not and I don’t know anyone else who will. Katha Pollit’s recent column on Ms. Clinton is the closest anyone has come to giving a reason to vote for her and Ms. Pollit won’t be doing so either. Against Giuliani or McCain, I would work very hard for Hillary Clinton. FYI: I voted for Dean in the primary, contributed money to his effort, and was happy I did. Dean has been a leader on Iraq by articulating truths before they become consensus.
Just try to figure out Kerry’s motives! Talk about inscrutable. This is mainly because Kerry never communicates his values. So one has no visibility into how he thinks and no idea whether he is doing something out of conviction or out of crass political calculation. In the eighties, I felt he was trying too hard not to be called a Liberal. Contrast Deval Patrick: he explicitly derives positions from his values so he is just saturated with authenticity. Kerry never does this. Result: he seems wonkish or calculating.
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You write:
Why, though, should I believe Republican mind-reading about Kerry? Or conventional wisdom’s mind-reading of Kerry? Nor can I tell from where I sit that his campaign advisors told him how to vote, as you suggest. How do you even know that? Mr Skeffington, please put on your Pundit Protection Suit! Novakula might get you!
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The spot the Repubs put us in 2002 was tough: one really had to say Bush was incompetent or disingenuous. That required tremendous political courage. Possibly, Kerry lacks such political courage, or possibly Kerry did what Kerry said he did: he voted for war powers believing the President would act as he vociferously promised he would — but didn’t. Kerry maintained that position throughout the campaign never budging from it. Dumb perhaps. Politically stupid perhaps. Noble though in a Don Quixote sort of way.
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So I think Kerry was wrong but not duplicitous. Why not take that position — much more helpful to the Democratic brand and (in my opinion) true — that Kerry misjudged this but he wasn’t being venal?
…with your first point: Kerry never communicates his values. And because of that, we all paint our own picture of what we think of him. You choose to believe his explainations at face value. I do not and did not just accept Republican talking points, but like a lot of other Democrats, I could not accept his reasoning. This is particularly true prior to his resolution vote, when he did question the rush into war and urge restraint–then one day he just announced support for the resolution.
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And on the primary campaign trail, his lack of sincere deepth (or the inability to convey sincere deepth) resulted a new campaign solgan a week. No, I did not need to drink the kool aid Bob Novak was handing out to think that Kerry’s motives were political, they seemed to change with the wind.
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Now I’ll admit I could be wrong and he was not following the advice of the week from his bus full of consultants. Maybe it was and is all sincere. But as you point out, we’ll never know becuase Kerry never communicates values. So, whose fault is it that some folks (me and many other Dems) question his values?
I agree that Kerry is a poor communicator. I think he won the primaries because he communicates gravitas. Wonkiness can win Democratic primaries, too. I happily concede that his campaign gives the appearance of having the Slogan of the Week.
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“Whose fault?” you ask. Let me look into the Blame Bucket and see what comes up.
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First up, John Kerry. John Kerry, will you please learn to communicate your values so we know how you’re thinking and can believe you? Don’t make Frank and me guess. We’re tired of this. You’re been our Senator since 1983 and we still don’t know where you stand. As a politican, you’re paid to communicate. Please do your job.
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Second up, us. I think a lot of us progressives have grown unhelpfully impatient with Kerry. Believing he is sincere isn’t inconsistent with the facts. Believing he is insincere — even if also consistent with the facts — is politically harmful. For example, do we think his support for Ned Lamont or his cosponsoring an Iraq resolution with Feingold was cynical calculation? Doesn’t our pushing that belief help along the general Republican talking point that Democrats “have no ideas” and are just saying stuff for partisan advantage? Even if you and I never read Novak, we are in a climate where conservative columnists have a lot of sway. So we should exercise doubt and caution when we find ourselves falling in line with their views. I am open to being wrong here. I just object to our accepting a cynical interpretation of Kerry too quickly.
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Third up, Pablo. Pablo should have run against him in the 200 primary last cycle and won. I’m sure he won’t make that mistake twice.
That’s a pretty good point.
My best understanding of the information that has come out in the past three years is that Hussein was, essentially, trying to hide the fact that he didn’t have biological or chemical weapons or an active nuclear weapons program — because the implied threat of such weapons kept Iran at bay and, he hoped, would likewise deter the US from attacking.
if a progressive democrat attempts to take John Kerry on in the primary, I’ll work for the progressive.
Lautenberg ran as a favor, a last minute fill in as you may recall, in the same way that Mondale tried to get the Minnesota seat. It’s no surprise that his numbers are low. He’s probably not into it.
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Kerry, on the other hand, has one of the most unbelievably narcisstic personalities in the state. Has anyone out there ever met him? Does he get out there to meet people? Does he convey the impression that he cares about anyone else but himself? That’s why he’s in trouble. Fortunately for him, there’s no one who can beat him on the R side.
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Who could try: Kerry Healy – Not; Charlie Baker – would you vote for a guy who would deep-six Medicare and privatize social security and, who deep down, is as self righteous as Kerry?
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The dumbest think Kerry could do would be to run for president.
and we talked to him about a number of issues. I liked his defiant attitude, and wish he had shown that in 2002.
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As far as the campaign cash stuff is concerned, I didn’t do a fact-check on his contentions. But … he did kick in an extra $500,000 to Dem congressional candidates a few days after RevDeb and I talked to him, and the Dems won. So at least he’s responsive. FWIW.
Those impressions about his personality are complete media fabrications that get repeated because they stick even though they are not true.
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One complaint about that I think has some merit is that he is awkward around the media. I went up to Manchester to hold signs in New Hampshire primary season in 2004. He walked away from an interview with a reporter from Ohio to get my companion (an elderly man with visible disabilities) a “Firefighters for Kerry” tee shirt and the reporter was P.O’d big time.
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I think he is a different person in small settings-where he did a lot to help Dem’s despite the joke flap.
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This youtube is from an early GOTV get together:
http://www.youtube.c…
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I voted in this poll that I wanted him to stay on as Senator. I am flip-flopping now that I think about it. He will raise the level of the presidential debates and I do hope he runs for president if there is better than a ghost of a chance.
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Kerry was sorta responsive.
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IIRC, he kicked in only after an internet campaign (whose name and URL escapes me at the moment) shamed him into it.
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I think Kerry’s negs have more to do with people being pissed that he botched 2004 and insists on getting a do-over in 2008. He can try, but really all he’s going to accomplish is triggering a huge food fight for his senate seat and I don’t look forward to that. I sincerely doubt that he has the support to make it out of the primary. He had his chance. People moved on. He should be smart and hold onto his senate seat because that’s the only race he has a real shot of winning at this point.
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Dimes to donuts, if Kerry announced he was NOT going to run for Pres 2008, his numbers will go back up.
“I think Kerry’s negs have more to do with people being pissed that he botched 2004 and insists on getting a do-over in 2008.”
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I think he’s a long shot at best in 2008.
DearJohn or something, right?
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I wasn’t thrilled that he took at long as he did to agree, but at least he responded with a nice chunk of change. That’s more than we can say for a certain MA-05 congressman who would be a leading contender to replace him, running unopposed. Who was sitting on, what as it… $5M, $8M?
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Sure, Kerry woulda have been better off giving more money and staying home – at least in retrospect – but he did do a lot this cycle.
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This reminds me of something they say about NJ… the only thing that they hate more than their scandal-ridden Democrats are Republicans.
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If you asked me if I approved of Kerry right now, I would be torn. Although I do mostly approve of what he’s done in the Senate.
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But regardless of approval, I have a very hard time seeing Mass elect a Republican to a 51-49 Senate… especially with the state of the Mass GOP.
Just seems as if his career is over. It would be great if he would retire and open an opportunity for some movement in our congressional delegation. His running for President again feels embarassing. We need new blood, not an old retread, who seems to have a defect of constantly ending up with a foot in his mouth.
Either Sen. KErry will re-run for Seantor or run for Pres. I tend to think he might rerun for the Senate. He starts out with a warchest then of between $8 and $13 million dollars in leftover money that he can convert back to a Senate run.
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That is a formidable advantage that almost no one else in the State can match.
I tried to paste in, but the formatting is a mess. Crappy analysis here.