Newsflash: Poll Shows Rhode Island Voters Don’t Like Other Guys’ Politicians
With all due respect, the poll results put out by the Hassenfeld Institute at Bryant University are unsurprising and really don’t tell us anything new. Sure, it looks bleak (or hopeful for those wishing that some sort of political sea-change would happen in the Ocean State); 82% of RI registered voters say state leaders aren’t any good. They got this number by combining the “Just Fair” and “Poor” results from this question:
Q3. How would you rate the effectiveness of the State’s elected leaders? Would you say they are excellent, good, just fair or poor?
Excellent – 2%
Good – 14%
Just Fair – 39%
Poor – 43%
Not Sure – 2%
But then there is the next question:
Q4. How would you rate the effectiveness of locally elected officials in your community? Would you say they are excellent, good, just fair or poor?
Excellent – 5%
Good – 40%
Just Fair – 39%
Poor – 15%
Not Sure – 1%
In other words, registered voters rate “their guys” quite a bit better, giving them a 45% “positive” rating vs. 16% “positive” for “state leaders”. The interesting thing to me is that the swing was in the “poor” to “good” in favor of the local officials. The “Just Fair” rating stayed the same, which shows me that the “Just Fair” category used in all of these polls is “just about useless” in divining anything. It’s the milquetoast, middle-of-the road answer and to use it as part of an overall “negative” tabulation doesn’t quite fit to me.
And the wording of Q4 is vague: what exactly is a “locally elected official”? I heard Gary Sasse of the Hassenfeld Institute on the radio and he seemed to imply the poll-makers meant mayors, city council, school committee members and the like. But I think another reasonable interpretation that could have been made by the poll-takers was any elected official from their community, including state legislators, i.e. “their guys.”
So it’s the same ol’, same ol’: “All of those corrupt politicians running the state were elected by other people!”, they say. “I didn’t vote for them (well, at least not directly…. -ed.), so it isn’t my fault.”
