Governor O’Malley is fudging the truth on his campaign site and fund-raising appeals claiming Governing Magazine named him “Governor of the Year.” The magazine didn’t name him governor of the year. It named him one of eight “Public Officials of the Year” for 2009. But then again we already know O’Malley likes to fudge things, then—naturally—blame others for his problems.
O’Malley’s flexible standards of truth aside, the laughable part of Governing Magazine’s selection of O’Malley for State Stat and “specifically for his work on measuring government performance.” Of course, as we’ve noted, in reality State Stat falls far short of O’Malley’s used-car salesman promise to provide Marylanders with “open, transparent, and timely information and data on state government agencies.” In fact, O’Malley’s administration is refusing to implement the state’s transparency law.
Call me crazy, but touting a failure on your own website isn’t the best campaign strategy.
I’m not sure what kind of Douchewellian™ alchemy goes into that formulation, but it’s kind of like promising to lower electricity rates, then doing everything in your power to raise them.
Poll: Anyone But O’Malley in 2010
Clarus has very interesting polling results on Governor O’Malley’s job performance.
The most telling was finding was this:
“39 percent of voters polled say they want to see Gov. O’Malley re-elected, but 48 percent say they would like for someone new to win.”
True the poll also indicated that O’Malley would best Bob Ehrlich by seven percentage points (47-40) in a rematch. However O’Malley won in 2006 with 53% of the vote, and is running 6% below that level. Also telling is that O’Malley trails Ehrlich among independents 48-34.
According to Clarus, “Governor O’Malley is now below 50 percent across-the-board in the triple crown of re-election poll metrics: trial heat, generic re-elect, and job approval.” Furthermore, O’Malley tested below 40% on seven of the eleven issues tested holding down state taxes, bringing new jobs to Maryland, managing the state budget, bringing people together to solve problems, putting Maryland’s interest above partisan politics, keeping in touch with average citizens, and protecting consumers against high electric utility rates.
This just makes Governing magazine look even more silly and out of touch for naming O’Malley as one of it’s 2009 Public Officials of the Year.
Governing touts O’Malley as a “data driven” “numbers guy” and lauds the State Stat program. However, if you look beyond the veil of the Abbruzzese spin shop, you’ll find that State Stat is anything but transparent. Nor has O’Malley even bothered to fulfill his duty to uphold the transparency law passed by the General Assembly. One would figure the vaunted State Stat program would help O’Malley’s administration figure out why it’s losing tens of millions of dollars in subsidized loans to businesses no longer operating, and won’t release names of recipients.
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