Worst Current US Governor

Butch Otter ;_;

i don't know anything else about Butch Otter, but it IS a pretty interesting name. it almost sounds like the name of a gay porn-star.

what kinda freaky otter porn do you watch??

the answer to this one isn't ahnold btw - he's bad for sure, but if he could be much worse

jim gibbons is a good answer

now, if there were only a governor named Butch Beaver ...

i voted for David Paterson, FWIW. is there ANYTHING redeeming about the guy?!?

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue joined other state leaders and ministers at the state Captiol this afternoon to pray to the heavens for rain and relief from a historic drought that has hit the Southeast.

"We've come together here simply for one reason and one reason only: To very reverently and respectfully pray up a storm," Perdue said to a crowd of about 100 people.

The efforts might pay off. The National Weather Service says there is a 40 to 50 percent chance for rain across much of north Georgia tomorrow.

Perdue has tried several ways to ease the crisis caused by the region's drought, from lawsuits to new laws restricting water use — but the water is still running out, and it just won't rain.

Now he is calling on a higher power.

"It's time to appeal to Him who can and will make a difference," Perdue said.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3857886

Gotta be Rick Perry, right?

lol, Haley Barbour and his wife introduced a statewide walking/activity/fitness campaign, and then he promptly gained about 75 lbs. from the look of him. That's not enough reason to vote for him, but there are plenty of others.

rick perry certainly goes out of his way to seem like the worst.

don't really have a problem with governors praying for rain as long as they're taking reasonable temporal measures too.

(not that i know anything about sonny perdue)

yeah, i forgot all about Rick Perry ... or Terry Sanford, for that matter. i think that Paterson's recent problems, plus the fact that i live across the river from NY, has kept him foremost in my mind.

i believe rick perry is going to win this, but i voted ahnuld anyway -- boo to politicians who care more about balancing the budget than governing the people. state parks? why on earth would california want those?

not to excuse Ahnuld, but don't all governors have to care about balancing their budgets since they can't run deficits (unlike the federal government)?

(xpost) raiding transit funding that l.a. county voted for (in a 67% supermajority) to shore up operating deficits rather than put them toward needed projects? awesome.

eisbaer: yeah but this is a matter of balancing budgets at the expense of quality of life for millions of people.

raiding funds earmarked for one purpose to plug budgetary holes is definitely bad, but then again i'm from NJ where Christie Whitman & Jim McGreevey raised that sort of shit to an art-form so it seems old hat to me.

rick just won the fucking primary thanks to a spoiler candidate i kinda liked.

so now he will defeat democrat bill white and be governor for one thousand years

since I don't know anything about any of these people (except obviously, ahnuld, and ed rendell, who I knew used to be a dude and may still be), could you all tell amusing anecdotes/stories detailing each governor's incompetence

tyia

bill richardson seems like kind of a dude

since Christie's only been in office for a little over a month, there aren't any funny stories about his incompetence just yet. you can make fun of him for looking like Jabba the Hut, if yer so inclined though:

http://nimg.sulekha.com/Others/original700/chris-christie-2009-11-4-3-10-33.jpg

Perry ignored evidence for a guy on death row that would've completely exonerated him and tried to cover it up -- there was a big New Yorker article on it -- on top of flirting with secessionist rhetoric. And, isn't he more than a little sympathetic to the foofaraw over the creationists on the TX textbook board?

xpost

RIP Sarah Palin

vote for paterson while u still can

Sanford is still in office?

Anyway, Rick Perry over Haley Barbour.

Sanford is still in office?

his lieutenant governor is a disaster.

jenny sanford should get the governorship in the divorce settlement

According to his driving record with the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles, Bauer has had at least two accidents, four tickets, and one suspended license for failure to pay a ticket. On May 6, 2003, Bauer was stopped on Assembly Street in downtown Columbia, South Carolina, for running two red lights and speeding up to 60 mph in a 35-mph zone. The officer drew his gun after Bauer got out of the car and began heading toward the officer's car in an "aggressive manner." He was issued a ticket for reckless driving.

In January 2010, Bauer came under fire for comparing public school children who receive free lunches to stray animals who should not be fed.[17] "My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals," Bauer said during a town hall meeting. "You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't... think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better." Bauer made the comment as part of an argument that people should lose government benefits if they fail drug tests or don't attend parent-teacher conferences or Parent-Teacher Association meetings. [18] The Associated Press reported that Bauer was a child of divorce who benefited from free lunches himself.[19]

o_O_o_O_o

yeah that was a minor scandal

jeez, I've thought to myself "god forbid anything happen to Gregoire", but Brad Owen isn't thaaaaaaaat big a d-bag

i want a best poll so i can vote for brian schweitzer

word

"rick just won the fucking primary thanks to a spoiler candidate i kinda liked."

err, do you mean debra medina? cuz i understand she's a nutso right winger...

voted for perry

i'm pretty ignorant about most of these dudes, but gonna go with Perry. he seems to be the most out front with his shittiness.

i said this on the other thread but it seems pretty unfair to paterson and arnold to call them the worse, they are really terrible governors but they are both trying to work with impossible, ungovernable state legislatures

i mean paterson sucks, dont get me wrong, but i dont think anyone who took power following a scandal would have been able to whip the NY state senate into order to get anything done

and arnold, well, he sucks too, but i dont think jerry brown is going to do much better; ca needs some major overhauls at the constitutional level from what i can tell

"Sanford is still in office?"

I think he runs the inside, while Lamont runs the outside and drives the truck.

Paterson should take this in a cakewalk. every day there's something new this blundering fool has screwed up.

Jesus, can Paterson do ANYTHING right?!? dude can't even shake down the Yankees for World Series tix w/t seeming like a complete moron!!!

"rick just won the fucking primary thanks to a spoiler candidate i kinda liked."

err, do you mean debra medina? cuz i understand she's a nutso right winger...

voted for perry

― sknybrg

zomg thought you were saying you voted for him in the primaries!

Any governor that says that climate change is real should automatically be taken out of the running for "Worst Governor."

am I really expected to keep track of the buffoonery of OTHER states' governors? have enough trouble keeping track of California's.

is there ANYTHING redeeming about the guy?!?

He pardoned Slick Rick!!

are there any good governors???

i guess ppl like the guy from montana, but that's literally the only one i know

Jindal

lol i gather that is not in response to my question

how hard is it to be a good governor of montana?

i have no idea!

this woulda been easier a year ago when blago was still around

afaik schweitzer hasn't had to make any big and controversial decisions cause, well...montana. he's a v. likeable dude who can play both sides and govern a state w/ less than a million people. I think 'best governor' would have to be one who had to deal w/ a difficult state/situation and proved themselves capable. nobody comes to mind tho...

jim gibbons needs more support!! dude has a not-CA/NY/TX state and still managed to get a single digit approval rating.

representin'

Tim Pawlenty is absolute unmitigated scum in the midst of selling his citizens down the river so he can make a play at the big show. worthless fucking maggot.

medina is a tea party fave and has a lil O_O language in her platform, and glenn beck wrote her off when she gave a waffly nonanswer to "do you believe the government was involved in 9/11?," but overall she was miles better than perry or hutchison AND she probably would've been handily beaten by bill white in the general.

rick just won the fucking primary thanks to a spoiler candidate i kinda liked.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 4 March 2010 05:07 (Yesterday)

Pretty sure Medina had nothing to do with Perry winning. The Tea Party nutsos that would have supported her would have been more likely Perry voters than KBH.

I'll be so sad if anyone votes Bill Richardson.

1. Repealed death penalty
2. Head-butted my mom-in-law

These are two of the awesomest things a person w/power can do, and Bill Richardson did them.

so why is Perry a douche besides being from tejas?

Perry ignored evidence for a guy on death row that would've completely exonerated him and tried to cover it up -- there was a big New Yorker article on it -- on top of flirting with secessionist rhetoric. And, isn't he more than a little sympathetic to the foofaraw over the creationists on the TX textbook board?

oh yeah I remember reading about that - the guy whose daughter died in a fire, with the sham arson investigators?

GIS'd and was disappointed to find out he doesn't wear a ten gallon hat.

ca needs some major overhauls at the constitutional level from what i can tell

george lakoff is trying to get a proposition on the ballot to change the 2/3rds-to-pass-a-budget requirement back to a simple majority. i had to hear it on a pacifica station so take it fwiw

I voted for Pawlenty in solidarity w/my fellow Minnesotans.

Pretty sure Medina had nothing to do with Perry winning. The Tea Party nutsos that would have supported her would have been more likely Perry voters than KBH.

― Matt Armstrong, Friday, March 5, 2010 3:24 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

that's a fair point, i was just bitching. rescinded.

Pawlenty just seems like a regular run-of-the-mill right-wing jackass, which is not a good thing but he seems to be on a different level than the likes of Perry or Sanford. but i'm not from MN so what do i know?!?

Pffft.

Gibbons, Jim
governor of Nevada (R)
0205 claims in a deposition that he hasn't had sex since 1995, not with his wife and not with either of his two suspected mistresses

0222 repeatedly lies to a Las Vegas reporter about whether Kathy Karrasch, a married woman with whom he had exchanged hundreds of late-night text messages, was traveling with him — even though she's right there and they leave in the same car

0223 apologizes for "any ambiguity" caused by his unambiguous lies

0225 appears in a photo with Karrasch at the meeting from which they were returning... along with fellow philandering governor Mark Sanford

Schwarzeneggar definitely isn't the worst but he's one of the most useless, and the entire way he came into office, forcing a recall, and then falling prey to exactly the same shit that ruined the governorship of Davis is pretty goddamned annoying.

everyone I know in NM hates Richardson but they are my family and admittedly are basically republicans, but this tortilla tax thing is pretty fucking dumb.

Medina was fucking laughable. Precisely the type of right-winger whose politics begin and end with PROPERTY RIGHTS ARE ABSOLUTE AND CANNOT BE MODIFIED IN ANY WAY.

I was pulling for Hutchison because, while I think she wouldn't be less nuts than Perry, I thought her nuttiness and corruption would at least be more competent. The fact we're going to ensure that Goodhair reigns for 14 FUCKING YEARS is just horrible and depressing.

Governor Tim Pawlenty followed through on his pledge to rein in state spending with or without the legislature. He used a line-item veto to surgically remove $381 million from a health plan for low income adults without children.

The cuts to General Assistance Medical Care, or G.A.M.C., will take effect in July of 2010, according to Human Services Commissioner Cal Ludeman, and strip eligibility from 30,000 persons. He told lawmakers Friday those persons must earn less than $7,800 per year to qualify for the program....

so you'd think that was from someone trying to slander him, but it's actually quoted from a featured article on his own website. meaning that this is a dude who is proud to trumpet his ability to take health care benefits from the poorest people in the state so he can look tough on this creeping making-an-effort-to-not-kill-poor-people national stage socialized agenda.

http://www.timpawlenty.com/articles/governing-like-a-conservative (also has link to original blog post)

Pretty sure Medina had nothing to do with Perry winning. The Tea Party nutsos that would have supported her would have been more likely Perry voters than KBH.

― Matt Armstrong, Friday, March 5, 2010 3:24 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

that's a fair point, i was just bitching. rescinded.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, March 4, 2010 11:02 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

not 2 pile on, but regardless of who ppl vote for in the primary, ya gotta get 50% + 1 to win outright so if medina/KBH had siphoned off enough votes theyd do a runoff with perry plus whosoever got 2nd.

fuck this state's politics, tho, we are doomed for prolly i dunno at least 30 years when the pinche gabachos get outnumbered.

Chris Christie should get a pass for legalizing medical marijuana.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I cannot wait for the unveiling of America's Worst Governor. There's def a reality show here, begging to be born.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

4000 more years

nice to see a vote for mayor carcetti up there

i wonder how far brewer would shoot up if this were polled today

yeah she'd be the obvious choice

Paterson is probably the worst governor ever of any state. Seriously, this guy is hilariously bad.

Everyone always says he's bad but it seems like "bad" is pretty normal when it comes to politicians in New York, so what makes him so special?

I might have said it upthread, but Jim Gibbons is objectively a worse person and politician than all of these people.

deval is not tops on my lists these days

so what makes him so special?

^he's a bumbling fool.

Specifics, please.

give me fifty dollars worth of circus tickets.

http://www.stationstops.com/2008/12/15/governor-patterson-interrupts-amy-pohlers-touching-goodbye/

the guy literally can not see. i mean, come on

Yeah, but in an eye-for-an-eye state the blind man is governor.