Editorial
The Oklahoman
IT’S been several years since legislative Republicans in either the state House or Senate have had an actual agenda. That lack of vision and leadership is starting to catch up with them.
A recent survey by SoonerPoll.com finds that nearly 36 percent of Oklahomans give President Obama a favorable rating. Only 34 percent of voters had a favorable opinion of the Republican-dominated Legislature. In short, the Legislature has managed to get lower approval ratings than Obama in one of the reddest states in the country. The results are even worse when comparing the share of voters who have a “very favorable” opinion of Obama (18 percent) and of the Legislature (2.7 percent).
Notably, respondents gave solid marks to U.S. Sens. Jim Inhofe and James Lankford (both received 49 percent approval), so the results weren’t created by an anti-Republican skew to the poll.
While some groups would argue the above results are tied to school funding issues, SoonerPoll’s survey suggests otherwise. Just 35.3 percent of respondents declared education issues “like teacher pay, state standards and increased spending to schools” to be the most important issues, while 48.1 percent declared that fiscal or economic issues “like lower taxes, government spending and job creation” were most important.
We’ve noted before that legislative Republicans have appeared complacent in recent years, attempting to coast on past accomplishments and campaigning mostly on anti-Obama rhetoric rather than a true, constructive conservative agenda. This poll is an indication that Republicans are paying a price for that passive approach to governing.
