http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_MI_0322925.pdfIt won't let me copy and paste, but here are a few highlights:
- 47% would back Bernero, 45% would back Snyder
- Of poll respondents who didn't vote, Bernero leads 37-32%
- Snyder's approval rating is 33% (with 50% disapproval)
- Collective bargaining rights are favored 59-32%; a constitutional amendment to ensure these rights would be backed by 49-37%
- Snyder's EFM power grab is opposed 50-32%
What does this tell us?
- Now that people know who Snyder is and what he stands for, they don't like him. No surprise.
- People have said that turnout was a big factor in the disastrous results. Well, this shows that it was. It also shows that with better turnout, Bernero wouldn't have had to persuade that many independents and others to vote for him in order for him to win.
- We didn't have to lose the 2010 election. The only reasons we did were because of bad turnout and the lack of funds needed to define the campaign on OUR terms, as opposed to their terms. (Hiring more paid staffers would've helped too, had we had the $$.)
That last point is important because it speaks to an issue I've noticed among many Democrats in recent months: The lack of a 'Yes We Can' attitude toward getting things done. I heard someone say as early as May 2009 that we wouldn't win the governorship. That attitude prevailed throughout the entire campaign, despite the fact that Michigan is a Democratic-leaning state. The reality is, if more people realized that we could have won... we might've won. People were happy to jump on board the campaign of Barack "Yes We Can" Obama, but who would want to volunteer for a campaign that they thought would be impossible to win? And more importantly, why did so many Democrats feed that mindset?
Another example: There was a mindset being pushed by many of the House Democrats that said, "Hey look, we're not going to win the State Senate, so support us instead." I asked a House Dem operative to elaborate on why he thought we wouldn't win the Senate, and all he could say was, "The numbers just aren't there." Turns out, the numbers WERE there. Had we kept the Senate seats we lost, we could've won back the Senate with LaGrand, Hopewell, Valentine, and Law. And with better turnout, we would have won the Senate. Instead, thanks to a fragmented campaign, the other side ended up with a 63-47 majority in the House when many people thought it impossible for Republicans to even get 56 seats. What a damn shame.
Yet another example: There is a YouTube video that was very popular among many of my Facebook friends and that was shared very widely, called "Michigan is screwed." That video was of a Rachel Maddow segment about the EFM bill. MSNBC had their own video of that segment, but the title didn't allude to us being 'screwed.' Someone I hadn't heard from in a LONG time posted the "Michigan is screwed" video on my FB wall, and before long I found the video on quite a few of my friends' FB pages.
I was even invited to an 'event' called "Michigan is F**ked." Yeah, really.
I could go on, but all I'll add is that what's going on now would not be going on if Democrats had done better in November. And Democrats would have done better if more of us had a better mindset - a mindset of doing what it takes to win, rather than a mindset of tearing down fellow Democrats and conceding an election long before it even takes place. But I mention all of this because the 2010 election has many lessons to offer us, and it is critical that these lessons be learned.
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