One Term Tom? Maybe Not!
Politically Uncorrected
By G. Terry Madonna & Michael L. Young
The news hasn¹t been good.
Indeed it¹s been downright ominous. Tom Corbett¹s political stock has taken
a nosedive. Elected in a near landslide just five months ago, the voters now
have gone sour on Pennsylvania¹s new governor. Corbett gets an anemic 34
percent approval rating in the latest Public Policy Polling report. Worse
yet, voters are having a serious case of buyer¹s remorse, with most saying
they wouldn¹t vote for Corbett again if given the chance.
Clearly Tom Corbett has not made a good first impression on the voters.
Wildly popular, he is not.
So is it time to start writing Corbett off as a fallen star, a failed
politician, and a spent force?
Probably not! That¹s because first impressions of new governors are usually
not lasting impressions for most Pennsylvania voters. In fact, Corbett seems
to be playing out a familiar script in his first year in office. With few
exceptions, Pennsylvania governors in recent history have had a rocky first
year in office, always fail to impress the voters that first year, and are
always reelected three years later.
That¹s right! Strangely enough, it doesn¹t seem to matter how poorly a new
governor does in his first year of office. That first year simply doesn¹t
forecast how successful he will be throughout the remainder of his term(s).
Not only does the initial year in office not matter, but the evidence
suggests a new governor may do better long term if he has a bumpy first
year.
Since 1970, all but one modern governor has had a turbulent initial year in
office‹a year so tempestuous each of them was labeled a one termer early on.
Yet each of them was also reelected comfortably. The only governor to have a
tight reelection campaign, Dick Thornburgh, was also the only governor to
have a solid first year.
Corbett¹s most recent predecessor, Ed Rendell, illustrates the pattern. An
activist governor, the first from Philadelphia in a century, Rendell
constantly ran into conflict from a Republican legislature opposing his
initiatives and a go-slow political culture resisting much of his agenda.
By the end of his first year, allusions to ³one-term Ed² were regularly
heard across capitol corridors. Yet Rendell easily won a second term and
went on to transform state economic development and education policy.
Rendell¹s predecessor, Tom Ridge, had a similar ride. Ridge pursued an
unpopular school choice agenda and supported a legislative pay hike while
subsequently denying health care coverage for 250,000 working poor. His poll
numbers sank, and ³one-term Tom² seemed sunk with them. Ridge too, however,
was easily reelected to a second term and left office with a 60 percent
approval rating.
Ridge¹s predecessor Bob Casey fared much the same. State Republicans blocked
confirmation of some of Casey¹s key appointments, stymied his legislative
agenda, and in general made his first year a genuine baptism by fire. It
wasn¹t hard at all to find political types willing to bet that Casey was a
one termer. Yet Casey too was handily reelected to a second term.
But no one had a rougher first year than Milton Shapp in 1971. He took
office with the state facing the biggest fiscal crisis since the Great
Depression. For a time in August 1971, the state had no power to spend any
money, and state employees were not paid. Shapp had to guide two state
income tax bills through the legislature within a six-month period because
the state supreme court ruled the first one unconstitutional. But he too was
easily reelected.
Only Dick Thornburgh, elected in 1978, had a solid first year‹due less to
his agenda and more to his ability to manage a crisis. Only ten weeks into
Thornburgh¹s first term he faced the Three Mile Island nuclear crisis.
Widely applauded for his handling of the crisis, Thornburgh ended his first
year a popular state figure, with a well-earned national reputation. Yet
Thornburgh, caught in the 1982 recession, nearly lost his reelection effort
to a political unknown three years later.
The pattern is clear: governors with the roughest starts‹Shapp, Casey,
Rendell, and to a lesser extent Ridge‹won reelection relatively easy, while
the governor with the best first year, Thornburgh, had the hardest time
winning reelection. Counterintuitive as this seems, it actually does make
sense. These governors all got the ³bad news² out early, then concentrated
on rebuilding their support in the final years of their first term. Voters
have notoriously short memories. What happens at the end of a term usually
matters much more than what happens at the beginning.
Still, it must be acknowledged that Tom Corbett in 2011 is pushing the
envelope, advocating unprecedented cuts in spending while supporting a wide
range of reform proposals in a state that historically is uncomfortable with
change. His approval rating is probably lower than any modern governor at
this stage in office and there is still much bloodletting to come. Corbett
could yet become the exception to the rule. He may dig himself a hole too
deep to escape. That clearly is an argument some will make. Anyone making
it, however, gets little support from modern state history.
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Politically Uncorrected is published twice monthly, and previous columns
can be viewed at http://politics.fandm.edu <http://politics.fandm.edu/> .
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and
do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any institution or organization
with which they are affiliated. This article may be used in whole or part
only with appropriate attribution. Copyright © 2011 Terry Madonna and
Michael Young.
