- Pronouns
- he / him / his
Written by HEM Tiberius
ENN recently asked the region to respond to a political survey where 29 citizens gave their feedback on the state of the region and the upcoming Presidential race. The poll was commissioned before the resignation of Senator Notolecta, so no questions about that race were included. Below are our findings, with some commentary from ENN special contributors:
The first question might be one of the most interesting. How is President Trinnien doing? Citizens seem to be not holding the President's absence against him, as he scores fairly high marks. When quantifying his approval rating, it clocks in at roughly 67%, though as Hyanygo will remind us, by giving each option qualitative labels we make quantification problematic.
Hyanygo: People have given Trinn' relatively high results because he has been visible. Without any easily graspable measure, most people are "good". Because of this it is not worth comparing a percentage point here or there from other polls or even this one. You will broadly get a consensus on "inadequate", "requires improvement", "good", "outstanding". Trinn' is a Good President. We should go further than this though.
To go further we should look at what Trinn' set out to do. This means that we should look at his platform and judge his progress based on that. Looking at culture (http://s6.zetaboards.com/Europeia/single/?p=8279645&t=8957620) can we say that the anniversary event was good? can we say that Culture has used mixlr well? can we say that we've had consistency in weekend games? have we showcased historic cultural events?
To do a large analysis is obviously not what this panel is for. However, it is clear to me that what Trinn' needs to do to be Outstanding is to deliver on those campaign promises. He's merely Good for having started precious few of them. He's lucky that what he's started has been rather visible --- at least from Culture's front. I think we'll see (when HEM sends the graph over for Culture) that it will do relatively well.
Writinglegend: I'm not very surprised to see an above average score from him - he has been a rather visibly active President which has helped him attain support for his Presidency. However, I also feel there is a level of "status quo" feeling that caused his numbers to slip lower than they could have been - which may have been caused by his illness that put Vice President Coolidge in charge for a week or the feeling of stagnation in several ministries. Personally, I think Trinnien has been a -good- President, and this number certainly dictates that, however he could have definitely been better without the activity block of his sickness which caused plans to hit a road-block, more or less.
Brunhilde I'm actually surprised that there were any middle of the line or negative responses at all. Given his work so far in the term I suspected his approval rating might actually be higher than what we got.
Nation numbers are up, there have been a massive amount of new citizenship applications, we've had a Culture Ministry that's had a so far successful festival, we've had cultural interactions with other regions because of said festival, and a good amount of articles from the EBC. On top of that, we've seen an active Foreign Seminar that, while having lost steam in terms of activity, has been what I'd call successful along with a military that has avoided setbacks outside of their control to continue to be an active military presence. Not comparing his term to his campaign, I'd say that he's done pretty well across the board at ensuring we keep an active and engaged executive government.
The only negatives that I can see are the vetos and the debates that have came about from his legislative policies and EOs alongside a failure to follow up on some of his campaign policies. He had his run-ins with the last Senate and there was some pretty obvious tension there. Going forward I think we should watch to see how Trinn deals with the newly elected Senate and if he can get back on track with his campaign to finish out the second half of his campaign.
This question shows a lot more variety, and the recently Grand Hall controversy triggered by Senator Notolecta may be part of the reason.
Writinglegend: Aex has been a highly popular public official - and while the GH thread did cause some speculation about the ethicality of his actions I think it's fair to say the public mostly supported him.
Brunhilde: This seems a bit more like what I expected when compared to the approval numbers of Trinn. While the general census here, as well as in the thread, seems to support Aex through the controversy surrounding him there does seem to be a minority who had their opinions impacted by the relevation. The "scandal" could leave a bad taste in people's mouths and influence his approval ratings in future polls depending on how well he does this term.
Writinglegend: Agreed. There definitely does seem like a minority of voters who seem turned-off by the scandal, which can definitely leave a bad taste in the mouth's of some voters who will further question his actions.
Hyanygo: The situation with Seymour was very interesting to watch. The initial post was up for a relatively long time before I broke its cherry. The resulting thread was so predictable that Noto' was able to identify (before I had posted my first post) who would support him, who wouldn't and to what extent. We both knew that Seymour would get the ascerbic, caustic support from relative newcomers, that older members would be more guarded in their response and NES would love the transparent politicking.
Obviously the situation has swayed some people to having less confidence in him than they would have. It was all about what you considered appropriate and how well you knew Notolecta. As I said in the thread very few of us on the forum have seen him as a newcomer all the way up to now. We know the strength of duty he feels to the region and not his political wellbeing. We know that he will and has consistently spoken out about things that he feels are not quite right.
The relative newcomers unaccustomed to his style and being poor in their experiences with him have come out fighting in support of Seymour. Others, as I've said before, have been more guarded and private.
Seymour's speakership will be under more scruntiny now and unfortunately he does not have a Notolecta to give the heavy responsibilty of a law review to. I think he's done good in hiring me as General Counsel, not that I think I'm absolutely fantastic but that I think he can offload some responsibilty for any poor Senate performance at my feet. I'm under no illusions of my true purpose (whether he makes it obvious or not).
Kazaman: I haven't commented on the thread, mainly because I haven't found threads like it productive in the past. However, I do think a public conversation about what is and isn't acceptable behaviour for politicians is good.
Now we look at matchups against incumbent President Trinnien. While there is no guarantee that Trinnien will seek a second term, he has not yet ruled it out, and he would certainly be the frontrunner in any contest — which these polls seem to tepidly confirm.
Kazaman: This is a good sign for the President, I would think. The public clearly favours his work so far
Writinglegend: Indeed, it is a definitely a good sign for the President and shows that he still has a lot of support from the populace.
Hyanygo: I don't think it's so clear cut. If they were so favourable he wouldn't be so tight against a recent president. I'd be more worried about Calvin.
Brunhilde: All of these tell the same story and that story is that Trinn's approval numbers hold true against potential challengers. This is, of course, without any sort of campaigning but the idea that seemingly everyone that rated him higher than good would vote for him against almost every opponent is undoubtedly a good one.
Kazaman: How recently was the data collected? WL's relatively high performance may be due to the recent LoA
Brunhilde: WL wasn't particularly more visible during Trinn's LoA so I don't know if I agree.
Kazaman: That's a fair point. He is certainly the most visible executive in the list of people asked, however
Brunhilde: It's more surprising to me that HEM got the same support as Aex, though I would contribute that less to activity or recent positions taken and more to name recognition.
Kazaman: I was surprised both that my rating was as high as it was, given that I very recently returned, and that Noto's was so low
Writinglegend: Considering HEM launched a very credible campaign against Trinn with Aex as VP, it's interesting to see how they faired against Trinn now.
Brunhilde: Noto has never been extremely popular as an executive candidate. Not to my knowledge, anyway.
The panel then examined two polls without President Trinnien in the mix, in the event that he decides not to run for re-election.
Writinglegend: I think it's interesting to see Calvin beating Aex, considering Calvin has previously had poor polling when it comes to Presidential Elections. Is it that his higher visibility has turned into more support for a possible Presidency? I definitely feel he has increased his visibility this past term, which has possibly had an effect on the outlook people have on him. Also, I agree with Brun that the numbers over the ethicality of offering positions to multiple people make it clear how and why Aex's numbers have fluctuated and their shown support earlier in the poll.
Brunhilde: Calvin has been a constant name in cabinets and Presidential elections for quite some time now. He's well liked and has very little controversy outside of low visibility at certain periods in time. His experience all over the cabinet and familiarity with almost everyone in the region as a face of the executive compared to the controversy and Senate only appearance that comes with Aex makes these numbers make sense to me. Calvin is simply the more familiar name when it comes to the executive branch.
Writinglegend: I definitely do agree with you there. He's been in the Cabinet for quite some time now, and has been Vice President a whopping four times. I believe the people feel he would be a good President considering his experience in a number of roles.
Brunhilde: Comparatively, the close race between Aex and Noto surprises me. We're talking about two people separated by over 20 points in the polls about a race against Trinn. Before seeing these numbers, I would have said that Aex would undoubtedly had a larger lead against Noto. As I said earlier, Noto doesn't have a presence in the executive. His name isn't associated with it. For him to come out this strongly against Aex makes me question how well Aex would fair in any Presidential election.
Brunhilde: The reform numbers are as varied as Aex's confidence numbers, interestingly enough. Given how many people outright want, at the very least, tinkering done there's not nearly as much controversy but it at least shows that opinion are more varied than some might have thought.
The poll regarding offering multiple people a position helps make sense of the Aex numbers from earlier. Undoubtedly, the people who said no also gave Aex poor ratings while the others who voted with a more open mind were likely to vote more positively. No surprise here.
HEM: I am curious about the Senate reform polls. I think many people know I've been a champion of Senate reform, so I'll back off on it. Why hasn't it happened yet? And what do people actually want?
Brunhilde: I think it hasn't happened because it's such a massive undertaking and an unglamorous one at that. Every time there's an election for a Senate seat, there's talk about a reform and every term it goes undone. It's one of those things that gets promised but never carried up on and people seem to be so hopeful for it that it stokes fires so effectively during Senate races. I honestly think that if we get a workhorse Senator that has a true passion for Senate reform, they'll be considered the best Senator of the year.
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And even if he doesn't run again I don't have an interest in being on the top of the ticket.
