By Brad Friedman on 1/31/2014, 1:40pm PT  

Sure, Pennsylvania's Republican Governor Tom Corbett may be the dumbest in the nation, but the competition for that title is certainly fierce and tough to quantify.

Who can forget his advice to women of the state back in 2012 that they should just lie back and "close your eyes" while being forced by his government to receive a vaginal ultrasound while the monitor must be pointed towards them before terminating a pregnancy? That was fun.

Then there was his claim that same year, described as "ludicrous" to The BRAD BLOG by a longtime Keystone State election integrity expert, that the GOP polling place Photo ID restriction bill he signed into law was needed, in no small part, because some precincts in the state "come in with a 112 percent" turnout. Of course, that was completely untrue, but, hey, it sounded like actual information! That voter restriction law, as we reported recently, was permanently enjoined by a state court earlier this month after it was found to be in violation of the commonwealth's constitutional right to vote. The law, according to the court, would also have disenfranchised "hundreds of thousands" of legal voters in the bargain.

But how could Corbett have known that? After all, when Corbett's own appointed Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele (another great mind and, coincidentally, the wife of Corbett's own Chief of Staff), was asked about it in court during the legal challenge to the law, she admitted, "I don't know what the law says." Hey, if the state's chief election official doesn't know how many thousands or millions of otherwise legal voters will be disenfranchised by a law, how should the Governor be expected to know any better?!

But the news is not all bad for Gov. Genius, as a new poll out this week in advance of his exciting re-election bid this year details!...

Fewer than one-fourth of Pennsylvania voters think Gov. Tom Corbett (R) should be reelected, according to a Franklin & Marshall College poll released Thursday.

The survey found that only 23 percent of Pennsylvania voters believe Corbett has done a good enough job to deserve reelection, while 63 percent believe it's time for a change. Even among his own party, just 42 percent said he should be reelected.

The overall numbers are actually an improvement for the governor since last fall, when just 20 percent said he deserved to be reelected. But the latest poll still shows Corbett faring considerably worse than fellow Republican Rick Santorum before Santorum lost his Senate seat by a historic 18 points in 2006. That spring 36 percent of voters thought Santorum deserved reelection, while 52 percent called for a change.

See? Look up, Guv! Your 20% support for re-election last year is now up to 23%! You're moving in the right direction! If the numbers don't move fast enough for ya, well, what can we say? Just lie back and "close your eyes". Maybe it'll all work out well in the end.

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Article Categories: Election Reform, Pennsylvania, Rights And Freedoms, Photo ID Laws, Accountability, Republicans, Election 2014, Tom Corbett