REPORTERS FROM POLITICO WERE OBVIOUSLY UNDERCOUNTED IN THE SURVEY SAMPLE

But ... but ... but I thought Bobby Jindal was the future of the Republican Party!

Gov. Bobby Jindal's approval rating dropped from 51 percent in October to just under 38 percent in March due to voter dissatisfaction with state fiscal and education policies, according to a poll released Tuesday....

Hunh? This must be some skewed liberal poll -- right?

The poll [was] conducted by Southern Media & Opinion Research with funding from conservative businessman Lane Grigsby....

(By the way, it says here that Jindal was at 61% approval a year ago in the same poll. From 61% to 38% in a year? That's not good.)

So why are Louisianans upset?

Jindal's tax swap plan, which would do away with income and corporate taxes in favor of higher state sales taxes, did not fare well in the poll with 63 percent opposed....

Over 60 percent of those polled were also opposed to what have become annual mid-year budget cuts to higher education and health care as well as plans to privatize most of the state's public hospitals. More than half oppose school vouchers....

In other words, what's bothering them is ... the entire right-wing policy agenda. Regressive taxation, education and health cuts, the evisceration of public schools -- who knew the public was against those things?

And yet the poll says two Republicans, Senator David Vitter and Lieutenant Governor Jay Dardenne, have approval ratings in the high 50s. So the notion that Republicans are the problem has not quite penetrated.

(The state's Democratic sibling act -- Senator Mary Landrieu and her brother, New Orleans mayor Mitch -- have 56% approval ratings, although the Landrieus have been in Louisiana politics forever, their dad having also been a New Orleans mayor.)

The GOP agenda always bumps up against this problem of being extremely unpopular (see also Florida, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.) Which is why, if we're ever stupid enough to elect a Republican president, House, and Senate, those SOBs are going to work to enact the agenda fast, before we know what hit us.


(Via Diane Ravitch.)