Delaware Liberal Tracking Poll — Sen. Tom Carper (Round 2)
Last month, our senior Senator had a 61% approval rating and a 36% disapproval rating. Now he is underwater with 45% approval rating and a 51% disapproval rating. That seems more like reality.
Do you approve of disapprove of the job performance of Senator Tom Carper?
Strongly Approve — 31% (44%)
Disapprove — 28% (19%)
Strongly Disapprove — 23% (17%)
Approve — 14% (17%)
Undecided / Unsure / Meh — 4% (3%)Total Votes: 107 Started: March 21, 2012
Up today, Karen Weldin Stewart.
Beyond his goddamn awful Republican voting record, and his sneering contempt for Democratic values, the thing I dislike the most about Carper is his habit of getting on a stage with Wilmington’s African American pastors about a month before an election and acting like he is Ralph fucking Abernathy.
I can’t image what he is thinking when he does that. Probably, “What a bunch of idiots.”
“What a bunch of idiots.”
LOL!!!
Please don’t use african americans as pawns in your war on Carper. Carper has always been very accessable to the community, even in non-election years. I may not agree with his entire agenda, but he’s never denied clergy or community organizations an oportunty to discuss our positions or issues; and since his days as governor, he’s always followed through when he said he would. If you know of a black pastor who says something different, please tell him or her to come forward and we can organize an oportunity to meet with the Senator, he’s just a phone call away.
I know Senator Carper. However, I don’t know you. I’d really appreciate it if you did not act as though you are the guy on Delaware Liberal who speaks for the blacks. Have a nice day Jason.
Thanks for the back story Lone Black Guy. Now I guess I’ll feel a little less queasy when he does his Ralph Abernathy shtick.
I wouldn’t presume to speak for African Americans, but just to reiterate: Carper helped torpedo public option health care, gave banks every tool they asked for to help bring on the housing crash and the Great Recession, and now is flirting with massive cuts in social services. I don’t need to be black to point out how damaging that is.
Carper is very accessible to plenty of Delaware’s communities — he’s fairly ubiquitous if you are out and about. Certainly not just with clergy who are no more representative of the African American community in Delaware than Jason here is. The only big criticism of him here is his failure to hold town hall meetings except via phone.
Carper does a pretty good job of being seen, being sort of available and in constituent service. What he doesn’t do a good job at is going back to DC to actually vote for the interests of the people he is out shaking hands with and talking with. It is this that we criticize him most for.
Your issues with him are understandable. I just want to be sure that people are highlighting real concerns rather than manufacturing fake ones.
He’s a very well liked politician in this state and if you attempt to make him out to be a boogie man rather than a guy you disagree with, people will not respond very well.
Has anyone reached out to his staff about holding a town hall for liberals? I’d think they’d be open to that. Or maybe not….
constantly.
LBG, there is a difference between an uncontested politician and a well liked politician. It’s not like this state is ever gonna vote for a republican again. Carper is safe. His conduct during the health care debate is unforgivable. we have a weak law that is on the chopping block with the right wing activist SCOTUS now ENTIRELY because of Ben Nelson, Mary Landrew, Tom Carper, and Blanche Lincoln. of those 4 DINOs, Carper will be the only one with a job in 2012 (right?… i think… someone correct me) And that is only because the DEM party herein Delaware protects its own… even against higher quality candidates that would be ultimately better at the job.
I like Tom Carper the guy. see him at the gym occasionally, he always remembers my name and my parents and asks about them.. we met almost 15 years ago for like an hour at an event…. He’s a genuinely nice guy. He needs to retire.
He held a live town hall with about 400 postal employees one day before the hares corner public hearing. For about 2hrs we asked him whatever we wanted. That took some stones. lol
He went to bat for my job. And he’s still taking hits for it. I’ll probably be voting for the guy. But I get where you folks are coming from.
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012203220351&nclick_check=1
“Carper does a pretty good job of being seen, being sort of available and in constituent service.”
On the contrary, I hear constant complaints about his lack of interest in constituent concerns.
Ben is right, he is a nice guy in the sense of being something of a mensch. But he frequently fails to understand that the special interest people who have his ear aren’t regular folks — they’re pushing an agenda, and he buys into it almost every time.
Whether he votes right-of-center to defuse any potential GOP opposition or because he really believes those are the right positions, it has the same effect — we might as well have elected a Republican.
He torpedoed the public option? Sorry for the inconvenient truth here, but Tom Carper didn’t defeat the public option. The public option had no chance of passing. Zero. Zilch. It wasn’t Tom Carper’s fault. President Obama didn’t even champion the public option, because it was a pipe dream.
“President Obama didn’t even champion the public option, because it was a pipe dream.”
There’s nothing more pathetic than a Carper apologist. Who are you, JTF, one of the Freels?
Not apologizing, trust me – more than enough stuff to criticize the guy about – but to place the failure of the public option of the guy’s head isn’t exactly what i could call fair or accurate.
Here’s an interesting interview Ezra Klein did with Senator Carper during the Public Option Debate
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/10/the_public_option_compromises_1.html
He calls himself “agnostic” when it comes to the public option and says that even if he was in favor of it, it wouldn’t have gotten Republican support.
If you go back and read the sentence, it says, “helped” torpedo the public option. It wasn’t placed on his head alone.
I recall Carper trying to play both sides against the middle on that issue, offering himself as an “agnostic” about the public option so that he could play peacemaker. That might make sense for a guy in a swing state, such as Delaware was when Carper was first elected governor.
We don’t live in that state anymore. If the public option had had more senators in favor of it no matter what, it might have survived the legislative process. Probably not, but we’re never going to find out by continuing to elect him.
Carper was on the committee of conservadems who morbidly played out the clock on the health care legislation and public option until Ted Kennedy died, which brought Democratic control to 59 instead of 60. Before then, all we needed to do was get Lieberman’s vote – Carper’s BFF.
It would have been a sign of everlasting class if, out of respect, a Republican Senator had voted Kennedy’s position to become the 60th vote on the House HCR bill with public option.
Primary him already.
Obama wasn’t exactly stumpin for the public option during the ACA debate.
Or how about since we Dems have control of both the leg. & exec branches, we launch a statewide public option?
Yeah really. I’m with sussexanon. Either primary him or don’t. We’ve been beating the drum for a primary for years. At this point(March of 2012)its getting old. If the party won’t do it, buck the party and one of you run.
If not, move on to the next one. But for a State thats supposedly so liberal….. we’re not seeing too many credible liberal DEMOCRATS lining up to run against this guy. In fact they’re in his pocket as well; Carper makes all those donations trickle down throughout the entire machine, libs included. You think he only raised $2mil in 6 years? HAHAHA… Its probably more than double that. Most going to the state party and down to local candidates…. even our lib friends.
So who are we really mad at?
“Young Dem” my ass. The one thing we don’t need is Republicans coming here pretending to be Democrats.
You think he only raised $2mil in 6 years? HAHAHA… Its probably more than double that. Most going to the state party and down to local candidates
Unless they were running against Mike Castle. Which is how Dems ended up with the candidates they did to oppose Castle.
A Primary could force Carper to the left on a number of important issues. However, I don’t know too many people who would be willing to put in 60 hours/week for the next 6 months in order to lose an election.