Why Are Bobby Jindal And Sam Brownback So Unpopular With Voters In Their Deeply Red States?

Last week there was a minor news buzz about how unpopular Bobby Jindal has become among Louisiana voters, 60% of whom agree he's doing a lousy, unsatisfactory job. His approval rating had plummeted in less than a year from 51% to 38%, coincident with his embrace of the ideologically-driven Austerity agenda for his state-- state cuts to higher education and health care, plans to privatize the charity hospital system and the governor’s proposed state tax overhaul, the last of which is especially hated. 63% oppose the plan to abolish personal and corporate income taxes and raise state sales taxes, while only 27% support it.

There may be an even more hated governor lurking in the fringes-- and he was chosen to give the weekly Republican Party radio address yesterday, Kansas reactionary Sam Brownback, who, like Jindal, has seen his approval rating disappear as he decided to use his state as a laboratory for failed European Austerity agendas. And of course, he actually used the speech to tout his unpopular tax policy as something everyone ought to try. Like Jindal he's trying to eliminate the state income tax and the services it pays for.

A poll just over a month ago shows that Brownback and his Austerity agenda so unpopular among Kansas voters, that he could have troubling winning reelection in 2014. His approval rating, 37%, is even lower than Jindal's.

Brownback has a negative -15 job approval rating, with 37% of Kansas voters approving and 52% disapproving of his performance as governor. 72% of moderates disapprove of his performance as well as 30% of Republicans and 66% of independents.

Brownback’s plan to phase out the state’s income tax is almost as unpopular as he is, with 48% of voters opposed and 37% supportive. 65% of moderates and 56% of independents oppose the plan. Even 34% of somewhat conservative voters and 28% of Republicans are opposed to the proposal to overhaul the income tax.

And then there's the Republican War Against Women, in which Kansas is a major battlefront and in which Brownback in a leading general. Friday night the Republican-dominated state legislature gave final approval to the worst anti-Choice legislation-- clearly unconstitutional-- in the country, declaring that life begins at fertilization. It passed in the House 90-30 and in the Senate 28-10. Brownback will sign it and it takes effect on July 1.

The declaration that life begins at fertilization is embodied in "personhood" measures in other states. Such measures are aimed at revising their constitutions to ban all abortions, and none have been enacted, though North Dakota voters will have one on the ballot in 2014.

But Kansas lawmakers aren't trying to change the state constitution, and the measure notes that any rights suggested by the language are limited by decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. It declared in its historic Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 that women have a right to obtain abortions in some circumstances, and has upheld that decision while allowing increasing restrictions by states.

Thirteen states, including Missouri, have such language in their laws, according to the National Right to Life Committee.

Sen. David Haley, a Kansas Democrat who opposed the bill, zeroed in on the statement, saying that supporters of the bill were pursuing a "Taliban-esque" course of letting religious views dictate policy limiting women's ability to make decisions about health care and whether they'll have children.

And in the House, Rep. John Wilson, a Lawrence Democrat, complained that the bill was "about politics, not medicine."

"It's the very definition of government intrusion in a woman's personal medical decisions," he said.

Brownback has signed multiple anti-abortion measures into law, and the number of pregnancies terminated in the state has declined 11 percent since he took office in January 2011.

I'm going to just take a guess that many of those poll respondents who have made Brownback one of the least popular governors in America, are women.