Poll after poll has shown the public to be supportive of the job John Lynch has done as governor.
That's made life difficult for Republican gubernatorial nominee Jim Coburn, and frustrating for GOP loyalists.
New Hampshire Public Radio's Josh Rogers has more.
According to the most recent UNH Survey Center poll….John Lynch's marks for both job approval and personal favorability top out at more than 75 percent…..Survey center director Andy Smith says he knows of no precedent for Lynch's apparent popularity.
"Speaking with people who have been in NH longer than I have who have been watching this they cannot remember any governor with approval ratings this high. I've also spoken to pollsters around the country ands they have just not seen ratings this high ever. So, I think that without doing a completely exhaustive search on this you can say that John Lynch is the most popular Governor in recent American history."
But to some pollsters it depends on how you define popular.….Dick Bennett of the American Research Group has done some internal polling for Lynch's opponent's Jim Coburn. He says it's beyond doubt that voters consider the Governor a genial man, but that doesn't make him invulnerable when it comes to the issues.
"Well, if somebody said here now, what about his performance? His support is a mile wide but an inch deep."
Perhaps unsuprisingly, that's exactly the line articulated by GOP nominee Jim Coburn. In their first candidates debate last week, Coburn was quick to criticize Lynch for failing to deliver on some of his 2004 campaign promises……..Particularly regarding education funding.
"He promised to eliminate the statewide property tax, but he hasn't. He promised to solve the education funding crisis, and frankly, not only did he not fix it, but we are in worse shape today than the day that John Lynch took office…..It's sad that when the state needs leadership the most, the only response John Lynch can muster is the weak response of dusting off his plan, a plan many experts say is more unconstitutional than the plan the courts shot down."
And the Governor's response to the Supreme Court ruling has indeed been to dust off his old plan, but with one caveat……Lynch now says he might, if need be, support a narrow constitutional change to ensure state school aid can be targeted to needy districts. But beyond that, and a promise to veto a sales or income tax, the Governor has shared few specifics. Here's Lynch the day the ruling came down.
"Last year I put forward a plan with broad bipartisan support that moved us toward ensuring a quality education for every child in NH. And I believe that that plan is a good starting point for our discussions in the coming year."
And here's what Lynch told reporters a week later.
"I've been having discussions with legislative leaders about how best to implement that plan, or a version of that plan -- and that's my style."
And two weeks later,
"And I will continue to have discussion with republicans and democrats to see about how that plan can be improved upon."
And 2 weeks after that,
"The plan that I submitted is a good starting point….for further discussions. I think we can improve upon it and will improve upon it."
While Lynch's phlegmatic approach may not scintillate, it also hasn't given his opponents the kind of contrast one would like when trying to build a campaign. And some republicans are rankled.
"The guy is presiding over an unconstitutional funding system. His plan is clearly unconstitutional according to what the latest decision is. We have a puppet Attorney General who won't say a peep about it and he gets to stand there and say, 'Oh, we're going to look at it. We're going to think about it."
That's GOP political consultant David Carney…..He says their ought to be more public outrage directed towards the corner office over school funding, but he concedes that Lynch's public persona makes that hard to muster.
"He hasn’t pissed anybody off is the way to say it --and it's a great political strategy, but he hasn’t moved the state in any direction. He's been a go along get along governor and that's been very successful politically for John Lynch."
But it's not clear there's much public hunger for what Lynch's critics tend to call more aggressive leadership…Andy Smith of the UNH Survey center notes that Lynch didn't run on an ambitious policy platform. Beyond the standard promises to resolve school funding, Lynch proposed little more than to balance the budget without new broad-based taxes, modify the state's small group health insurance rating law, and change the tone at the statehouse.
"I think his plans were rather modest and I think he's held with those plans. And with the budget we have in NH and the tax structure there's really not much that you can do."
Republican representative John Hunt of Rindge has served 20 years in Concord…..and worked with five governors………He say he agrees with those in his party who consider Lynch to be a mediocre leader, but says under the circumstances that's probably enough.
"He's a very nice guy, someone we can work with. But in some sense that personality works against him because he doesn't take those strong positions, and he doesn't really assert himself. But it's very difficult in New Hampshire to knock out a first term governor in NH unless you are a total ass like Benson was."
And at this point, few if any, are expecting voters to treat the current Governor they way they did his predecessor.
