Sunday, April 08, 2007

Recent Polling in Context

Over at Media Nation, Dan Kennedy has beat me to a comparision of Mitt Romney and Deval Patrick's poll numbers at similar points in their terms. Much has been made of the recent Globe and State House News polls, and I think Kennedy has put them in the proper perspective by matching Romney's numbers from 2003 to Patrick's this year. Here's his summary:

At roughly the same point in their governorships, they were in a similar position with respect to public perceptions. Patrick is better liked. Although a higher percentage of respondents approved of Romney's job performance, a higher percentage disapproved, too. Apparently more people are watching and waiting with Patrick.

Each governor dug himself into something of a whole rather quickly. As we know, Romney never dug himself out — and, after a while, he stopped trying, as he decided to run for president by making fun of Massachusetts rather than govern.
I don't have too much to add about the polling, though I think it's safe to say that the results are better than they could be, but certainly worse than the administration wants. It's also funny to me to see Republicans now claim Governor Patrick's favorability rating (which is still relatively high) is meaningless when they were clinging to Governor Romney's relatively high favorability rating just over a year ago when they claimed that Romney would be overwhelmingly reelected.

Update: Afertig over at BMG makes a similiar point and presents a 2003 review of Mitt Romney's first 100 days from the Boston Phoenix.