The Poythress salary gimmick
So, not a whole heck of a lot to report from the debate last night. It was pretty clean, and all of the candidates had their impressive moments. But there was one thing that kind of stood out to me -- David Poythress' campaign promise not to take a salary as Governor until unemployment is under 7%.
Color me unimpressed. To put it bluntly, it's kind of off-putting and gimmicky.
Team Poythress will tell you (and I'm sure they'll be emailing me soon enough) that Poythress has ideas, grounded in his experience as Labor Commissioner, and that this promise is about showing Georgia that Poythress has skin in the game. He's gonna suffer right alongside us, or something to that effect.
The thing is, as a former Labor Commissioner, Poythress should have credibility on job creation and unemployment, and to be fair, he has real ideas. Unfortunately, Team Poythress would rather talk gimmicks than policy, and that's disappointing. Not taking a salary isn't policy; it's not going to put a single person back to work. It's political theater and not particularly good theater at that.
[Full disclosure: I'm voting for DuBose]
Photo credit: Flickr
True but...
Submitted by GALiberal on Wed, 02/03/2010 - 11:39am.Martin,
We all see this as a Gimmick, and most politically active people do. However, the other 90% of Georgia will not see it as a gimmick, which is why it will work. We see through it, the average Georgian who has lost their job will see it as solidarity.
The only thing worse than this would be the other candidates pledging to do the same thing in the next week. It will only show that all of them are falling for the gimmick.
Disagree
Submitted by Martin Matheny on Wed, 02/03/2010 - 11:56am.Voters have a much better BS meter than we give them credit for. It's not that this kind of pandering is going to backfire, it's just not going to do Poythress any good, and it's going to look exactly like what it is -- a gimmick. The 'other 90%' flat-out don't trust politicians, especially ones who act like politicians; that's exactly what the General is doing here.
Never underestimate the voters; I learned that the hard way a long time ago.
It may even backfire
Submitted by Sarah on Thu, 02/04/2010 - 12:38am.Because anyone who can pledge not to take a salary for an unknown period of time clearly doesn't need the money, and how many voters can relate to that? It's not like he'll be eating ramen and clipping coupons to make ends meet, I suspect.
My contention ...
Submitted by Johnathan McGinty on Wed, 02/03/2010 - 12:02pm.... is that, sure, it's a 'gimmick' at the end of the day, but it's also not really a constructive one either. It only affects one office, and that's it. There's some symbolism, sure, but it could have a lot more bang for the buck if Poythress, or any candidate, actually laid out plans to get the state's economy rolling again.
Such as...
Submitted by Martin Matheny on Wed, 02/03/2010 - 12:12pm.coughHB356cough
Nice sentiment but...
Submitted by Bill (not verified) on Wed, 02/03/2010 - 12:17pm.It's a nice sentiment. And a gimmick. Of course, it's pretty easy to promise to forgo a salary for a job that provides housing, transportation, 24 hour security, etc.
gimmick, yes, but...
Submitted by Patty Freeman-Lynde (not verified) on Sat, 02/06/2010 - 8:25am.I do think it would be nice to see lots of leaders, political and others--how about UGA President Adams?--perhaps taking a 10% cut for the time being. I think they need to show leadership and that they "get it" I heard a disturbing number this week. Unfortunately, I can't do it justice. Some kind of coefficient is the ratio of the top 5% to the bottom 5%. The US average is 26--Athens is 46. That just makes my skin crawl. How can any one deserve to earn 46 times what someone else does?? This difference is what is destroying our country and our community--the wider it gets the more trouble we're in.