Will Bad Walker Polls Get The Doyle Treatment?

Public Policy Polling has released the results of a favorability poll of Scott Walker. The results are certainly less than flattering as nearly half of the respondents have an unfavorable view of Walker. The Chief, the Brawler and others have already commented on the lousy Walker numbers in this poll and how they are fairly consistent with a recent right wing WPRI poll.

Such favorability polls were almost like crack for Journal Communications when they were focused on Governor Doyle. It didn't seem to matter who put the poll out or what their agenda might be, it was almost always given top tier treatment. So only days into Walker's administration where is the frenzied reporting on these pathetic numbers for Walker? The only place in all of the Journal Communications media monopoly that I can find the results of this poll is on its "Wisconsin Voter" blog.

There is no doubt that Governor Doyle's poll numbers were terrible in his last year but rarely have I read about them in the context of the millions of dollars that were spent attacking him (even though he was not on a single ballot) and without a response. The impact of the Great Bush Recession certainly took a toll on Doyle's approval ratings but if you ran millions of dollars of unanswered attack ads against anyone for a year plus chances are likely that their numbers wouldn't be pretty. But that context didn't stop the media in general or Journal Communications in particular. So will they give the same kind of treatment to every bad poll that comes out for Scott Walker?

After the attack ads on Governor Doyle were already well under way, the research and "policy mill for the state GOP" over at WPRI published a poll showing 43% favorable and 49% unfavorable. This current PPP poll of Scott Walker shows 41% favorable and 49% unfavorable while he is only a few days into his administration. He already has such high unfavorable numbers and he has not even decimated shared revenue, BadgerCare or Education yet! Will the media characterize this current poll (and the ones to come) in the same aggressive fashion that they did for Governor Doyle? We will find out the answer soon and perhaps it will give us a glimpse of the sorry state of Wisconsin's media giants.

Afterthought: In this poll Scott Walker's approval is even lower than Ron Johnson, which apparently means that if you make little to no news, you are still more popular than Walker.

Just the Numbers

Daily Kos released a Research 2000 Wisconsin Poll yesterday and right now the numbers for each potential matchup for governor look a lot like they did the last time.

• Governor Doyle 48%, Scott Walker 36%, Undecided 16%
  
• Governor Doyle 49%, Mark Neumann 35%, Undecided 16%
  

The poll also has numbers on Lt. Governor Lawton, Senator Russ Feingold, Congressman Paul Ryan and Tommy Thompson. For more visit Folkbum.