Baldacci vs. Perry: Who has a weaker mandate?

[MarkWarner08]

Both have poor approval numbers and both were reelected with less than 40% of the vote. Here's the election results from both races:

Texas:
   
Republican Perry: 1,714,618         39%
    
Democrat Bell: 1,309,774              30%
    
Independent Strayhorn: 789,432    18%
    
Independent Friedman: 553,327    12%
    
Libertarian Werner: 26,726         1%


Maine:

   
Democratic Baldacci: 206,991    38%
    
Republican Woodcock: 164,861  30%
    
Independent Merrill: 117,111        21%
    
Green LaMarche: 52,150               10%
    
Libertarian NaPier: 3,460         1%


Baldacci and Perry each face a legislature that is entirely controlled by the governor's party. Each faces the pressure of creating a legacy before he becomes a lame duck. Which one do you think will have a better last term?

editor's note: I would have voted for Bell and LaMarche.

[Joe Republic]

Each faces the pressure of creating a legacy before he becomes a lame duck. Which one do you think will have a better last term?

Just to clarify; Texas does not have gubernatorial term limits.  Perry could run again in 2010 if he wanted to.

[Verily]

Hard to say. I can't imagine most of the Green-Independent voters (that's the Maine Green-Independent Party, not the Green Party) would vote for a Republican, and the same is probably true of Carol Keeton Strayhorn's supporters. Merrill was a Democrat before mounting her Independent bid, so she probably took more from Democrats, much like Strayhorn, whereas Friedman probably took about evenly from populist Democrats and populist Republicans.

Adding that up:

Baldacci:
38%
+8% from LaMarche (80% support)
+12.6% from Merrill (60% support)
=58.6% support

Perry:
39%
+6% from Friedman (50% support)
+12.6% from Strayhorn (70% support)
=57.6% support

(I give LaMarche a wider margin than Strayhorn because Strayhorn might have been tolerable to some Democrats while LaMarche, as a Green-Independent, was unlikely to have attracted sizeable Republican support.)

Of course, there's also the issue in Texas, not present in Maine, that many Friedman voters may not have bothered voting at all had he not run. Since I'm assuming Friedman took equally from everyone, though, it wouldn't make a difference.

[MarkWarner08]

Each faces the pressure of creating a legacy before he becomes a lame duck. Which one do you think will have a better last term?

Just to clarify; Texas does not have gubernatorial term limits.  Perry could run again in 2010 if he wanted to.

While Texas may not have a strict term limits policy like the one for the POTUS, it does have an "understood" limit of two terms per Governor. I think John Connelly was the lost Governor of Texas to serve more than two terms.

[HardRCafé]

The mandate is cousin to the griffin and the unicorn.  It matters only in the imagination.

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

Weren't there rumors last year of Perry having a man date?

[HardRCafé]

…

[Sam Spade]

Hard to say. I can't imagine most of the Green-Independent voters (that's the Maine Green-Independent Party, not the Green Party) would vote for a Republican, and the same is probably true of Carol Keeton Strayhorn's supporters. Merrill was a Democrat before mounting her Independent bid, so she probably took more from Democrats, much like Strayhorn, whereas Friedman probably took about evenly from populist Democrats and populist Republicans.

Adding that up:

Baldacci:
38%
+8% from LaMarche (80% support)
+12.6% from Merrill (60% support)
=58.6% support

Perry:
39%
+6% from Friedman (50% support)
+12.6% from Strayhorn (70% support)
=57.6% support

(I give LaMarche a wider margin than Strayhorn because Strayhorn might have been tolerable to some Democrats while LaMarche, as a Green-Independent, was unlikely to have attracted sizeable Republican support.)

Of course, there's also the issue in Texas, not present in Maine, that many Friedman voters may not have bothered voting at all had he not run. Since I'm assuming Friedman took equally from everyone, though, it wouldn't make a difference.

Switch Strayhorn and Friedman % to Perry around and you have the correct answer.  Friedman's strongest areas were in some hyper-Republican GOP suburbs, actually.

In a two-way race against Bell, Perry would have gotten about 53%-54%, imho.

The thing that will make Perry's governance a little bit more difficult is the fact that the Republican margin in the Texas House will only be 82-70 this time (the Dems won all the highly contested seats this time), making it a little harder to ram an agenda down (but only so much less, because there still are a good number of conservative DINOs there).  The Republican state Senate margin is 20-11.

But since  Lt. Gov David Dewhurst was re-elected and the Lt. Gov on Perry's side for the most part, that's about all you need to get your agenda in front of everyone else during the six months when the state legislature is in session.  I doubt there will be many problems with Perry pushing through most of the things he has in mind.

[Gustaf]

Well, it would seem to me that Perry has the marginally weaker mandate because it's an overwhelmingly Republican state and Baldacci losing support can to an extent be explained by the tradition of voting independent in Maine.

[AndrewTX]

I would say Baldacci. 
 
 Although Baldacci has more democrats in the house than Perry does republicans, I would say many conservative democrats in Texas are going to Rick out more, than liberal republicans in Maine.

 Either way, at the rate things are going, both Baldacci and Perry are going to have some pretty rough times ahead of them.
 

[Storebought]

While Baldacci and Perry both have their problems, those of the Libertarian party are much worse.

Although ME is more third-party friendly than TX, the Libertarian candidate received the same percentage of the vote in both races.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

How does a green party candidate who was arrested for drunk driving get 10% when the party cannot do that well statewide in MA?

It is a real shame Kinky lost and by so much!

Any way, I think neither has a mandate, but if forced to choose I would say Baldacci has a weaker "mandate".

[Kevinstat]

NaPier wasn't actually a Libertarian.  He wanted to run under the designation "Pissed Off Patriots," but such a designation was in violation of state law and he ran under the designation "Tax Equality Rebellion" instead.  I never heard of him being a dues member of the state or national Libertarian Party though.  Libertarians don't have official ballot status and thus there are no registered Libertarians in Maine, but there is a state party organization in Maine (with a chairman, vice chairman, treasurer, secretary, governance committee and even membership dues in the past, although membership is now apparently free; see their website if you want) and they ran a congressional candidate and several state House candidates in 2000.  They didn't field any candidates in the last election (at least not any who used that designation, although the Republican nominee in one district had run as a Libertarian in 2000 and 2002) and may not have fielded any candidates since 2002 although one Libertarian candidate for the state House was going to run in 2004 but withdrew.  As for NaPier, you can visit his campaign website and its companion site FELONS UNITED (NaPier was convicted, I believe, for pointing a loaded gun at a Police Officer he says was harrassing him, although it might have been at his home), but I don't think you'll find any mention of affiliation with the state or national Libertarian Party.

[Kevinstat]

How does a green party candidate who was arrested for drunk driving get 10% when the party cannot do that well statewide in MA?

I wondered if anyone outside Maine knew about that.  One of her arrests was during the time she was running for Governor in 1998, I believe after she had made some committment to be more responsible.  But 8 years is a long time in politics, and LaMarche seemed to work hard to present a more together image this time around and she she may have earned points for calling Baldacci's controversial Dirigo Health Program the "Dirigo disaster" (although her alternative was Single Payer).  Still, she did worse than some polls had her at I believe and worse than she expected I'm pretty sure.  I have an aunt who's a big Green and I actually met Pat LaMarche a couple/few weeks ago when I was finishing up as a Hospitality team member at the Red Robin in Augusta.  She was wearing (IMHO) a little too much makeup then, but she was quite receptive to me, a complete stranger (although she knew my aunt), introducing myself.

I remeber thinking before the election that if she was arrested for drunk driving again, during the campaign, she might well finish below 5% of the vote and lose the state's Green Independent Party the offical ballot status she gained them in 1998.  As it was, the Maine Greens did lose their only elected official in a partisan office, as state Representative John Eder was defeated for reelection by 3% after being fined $100 by the state's ethics commission for phone calls which didn't mention that they were paid for by Eder (see the Wikipedia article on Eder).

The Maine Green Independent Party will now have official ballot status through 2010 and will not have to collect signatures to get their party's Presidential/Vice Presidential ticket on the ballot like they had to for LaMarche this year (that was their excuse for only fielding 12 candidates for the Legislature - two of whom withdrew too late to be replaced, one before the primary and one after), but they have most likely lost a lot of momentum (although they did elect a couple city council members in Portland for the first time this year, but those are technically non-partisan offices and one of their school committee members there was defeated for reelection) and if they don't win any seats in the legislature or other partisan office in 2008 they may have a hard time holding onto enough support to keep their official ballot status in 2010.

[jimrtex]

Each faces the pressure of creating a legacy before he becomes a lame duck. Which one do you think will have a better last term?

Just to clarify; Texas does not have gubernatorial term limits.  Perry could run again in 2010 if he wanted to.

While Texas may not have a strict term limits policy like the one for the POTUS, it does have an "understood" limit of two terms per Governor. I think John Connelly was the lost Governor of Texas to serve more than two terms.

I don't know that there is such an understanding.  Since the office became a 4-year term, most governors lost in their first re-election attempt.  Bush was the first to be re-elected.

[minionofmidas]

How did Eder manage to win 65% that one time? Was there something wrong with the Dem candidate that the Wiki doesn't mention?

[Verily]

How does a green party candidate who was arrested for drunk driving get 10% when the party cannot do that well statewide in MA?

It is a real shame Kinky lost and by so much!

Any way, I think neither has a mandate, but if forced to choose I would say Baldacci has a weaker "mandate".

Maine has a strong Independent streak, and the Green Independent Party is well established. (They've won sizeable shares of the vote in every gubernatorial election since the early 90s.)

How did Eder manage to win 65% that one time? Was there something wrong with the Dem candidate that the Wiki doesn't mention?

The state Democrats had tried to gerrymander Eder out of his seat by separating his residence from his base of support. He moved back into the district where his support base was and was reelected in a landslide because the people were really pissed at the Democrats.

[minionofmidas]

How does a green party candidate who was arrested for drunk driving get 10% when the party cannot do that well statewide in MA?

It is a real shame Kinky lost and by so much!

Any way, I think neither has a mandate, but if forced to choose I would say Baldacci has a weaker "mandate".

Maine has a strong Independent streak, and the Green Independent Party is well established. (They've won sizeable shares of the vote in every gubernatorial election since the early 90s.)

How did Eder manage to win 65% that one time? Was there something wrong with the Dem candidate that the Wiki doesn't mention?

The state Democrats had tried to gerrymander Eder out of his seat by separating his residence from his base of support. He moved back into the district where his support base was and was reelected in a landslide because the people were really pissed at the Democrats.

No - that was 2 years later, when he took 51% to the Dems' 41% and the Republicans' 8%.

[Kevinstat]

How did Eder manage to win 65% that one time? Was there something wrong with the Dem candidate that the Wiki doesn't mention?

Well, Portland political satirist Al Diamon described his personality as "abrasive with obnoxious overtones" (see http://www.portlandphoenix.com/archive/features/02/09/27/Diamon.html ).  I also read that Eder got the most votes in an endorsement meeting of the local Maine Lesbian Gay Political Alliance, which Garrity had previously chaired, as Eder supporters who were members of the group flocked to the meeting.  Still, a co-endorsement was given, which I remember Al Diamon saying was because leadership thought Garrity's work with the group justified a co-endorsement.  But that could possibly have backfired.  The Greens were very focused on the Eder-Garrity race, as it was apparently one of only two races where the party thought it had a decent shot of winning.  In the other race, in western Cumberland and southern Oxford counties no less, the Green Independent nominee finished second in the four-way race (2.3% ahead of the Democratic nominee), but his 22.2% was well behind the Republican's 49.7% and the party hasn't fielded a candidate (for partisan office, at least) in a race besides Governor or President covering those towns since.