McGreevey rises in polls

Poll: N.J. governor’s approval nudges up
after disclosure of homosexuality, affair
AP, by staff

TRENTON—Gov. James E. McGreevey’s approval rating has not suffered since he announced that he had an affair with a man and will resign in November, a new poll showed Sunday. The governor’s approval rating was 45 percent, 2 points higher than in a similar poll conducted two weeks earlier, according to the Star-Ledger/Eagleton-Rutgers poll.

How to interpret this? Sympathy for McGreevey in his crisis? Approval of his homosexual coming out? Even if that were the case, how could people approve of him after his hiring his unqualified non-citizen boyfriend for a six figure job as head of homeland security?

This is New Jersey—All Northeastern Liberalism, All the Time.

A correspondent to whom I sent the above had further thoughts about it:

At first glance, I take it as a proxy for the presidential election. The 42 percent represent the side of the culture war that views gay liberation and gay marriage as “simply” about civil rights, and McGreevy as a convenient (and disposable) representation of their cultural stance against Bush and for any alternative that is available. The key to this is that McGreevy positioned himself that way in his coming-out-but-going-away ceremony. He is a “gay American” not a guy who betrayed his wife, compromised his state’s security, and misused his office. (Gay Americans are misunderstood people who sometimes break rules because society will never let them be just themselves.) And, he deferred his resignation until after the election to help Kerry by keeping Republican voters from getting rile up about a gubernatorial campaign. So McGreevy already nationalized his decision. The voters in New Jersey are responding in kind.

It’s terrible to admit this, but I think my correspondent has got it right. The liberal paradigm (there are discriminated-against classes of persons whom it would be bigoted to hold to normal standards) rules all. Not only does the liberal paradigm lead reporters not to ask a public official normal questions about that official’s clearly suspect activities, as I discussed previously, it leads the public to excuse that same official for gross and possibly criminal misuse of his office after the conduct has been revealed.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 17, 2004 10:10 AM | Send