The Deacon's Bench
Considering the governor’s record on abortion and same sex marriage — not to mention his “concubinage” — that can’t be the kind of news New York’s bishops like to hear.
Voters approved of Cuomo’s first six months in office 64 percent to 19 percent, matching his previous best in April, according to a survey that Quinnipiac University released today. The positive feedback is the highest for an Empire State governor since July 2002, when George Pataki’s snagged a 66-18 percent positive report card from voters.
One of the more interesting findings of the poll is that white Catholic voters approve of the 53-year-old Cuomo by almost 3-to-1, or 62 percent to 22 percent, despite the Catholic Church’s staunch opposition to the gay marriage bill, which the Senate passed Friday and Cuomo signed shortly thereafter.
“It’s up, up and away for super-Andrew after the close of the legislative session,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “Governor Cuomo’s job approval is high, even among Republicans, and almost 3-1 among Catholics.
“Cuomo has the same economic problems as governors in other states polled by Quinnipiac University, but somehow he outscores them all,” Carroll said.
New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan led the state’s eight Catholic bishops in fighting the gay marriage law in the contentious negotiations in the run-up to its passage. After the law was passed, the bishops issued a statement saying they feared it will open the door to legislation against churches, although the law itself exempts churches from being forced to perform the marriages.
The telephone poll of 1,317 voters, conducted June 20 to June 26, spanned the period in which the Democratic governor built a coalition of state senators that included four Republicans and all but one member of his party to get the 33-29 Senate passage of the law.
UPDATE: Cuomo gets the The Full MoDo in today’s New York Times, and the Catholic Church is (of course) a prime topic.
UPDATE II: MoDo, meantime, gets Skinned by Scalia. Nobody does it better. Memo to self: never piss off Elizabeth.
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