BOB TAFT-- THE MOST HATED & MISTRUSTED GOVERNOR IN AMERICA... BY FAR

Survey USA posts regular approval/disapproval ratings for each of the 50 U.S. governors. If you've been a visitor to this blog you already know who has the lowest approval ratings. But I'll tell you anyway: Ohio's Governor Bob Taft rates an abysmal 19% approval (vs a 74% disapproval rating)-- and this was BEFORE the Coingate scandals really got going! The average governor has an approval rating of 48%. No one comes anywhere near Taft. Alaska's very distrusted Frank Murkowski comes in second worst with a 27% approval rating and a 66% disapproval and the only other governor in the bottom third is Matt Blunt of Missouri. A more recent poll shows Taft's rating to have dropped another 2% to land at a 17% approval. 71% of those that identify themselves as conservatives disapprove of Gov. Taft and 73% of those that attend church regularly disapprove of the job Gov. Taft has been doing.
Ohio voters are sick and tired of 15 years of the corruption and arrogance engendered by the one-party Republican control of their state and of the "pay-to-play" state government that Taft and his Republican cohorts have created (mirrored nationally by what Tom DeLay has done in the U.S. Congress).

Currently, Taft, who most Ohioans blame for the theft of hundreds of millions of dollars from the state Workmen's Compensation Funds, funneled into the pockets of key GOP donors and into the campaign coffers of every Republican pol in the state (as well as into the BushCheney campaign and into Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign war chest), is under investigation by the Ohio Ethics Commission for failing to report up to 60 golf outings he's taken since becoming governor. Taft faces ethics charges for failing to report gifts including expensive golf games. Many of Taft's generous golfing partners were people with whom the state was doing business, like Thomas Noe (who is charged with bilking millions from taxpayers under Taft's regime, while contributing gigantically to Republican officeholders), Tony Gorant (chairman of Akron General Medical Center), Tony Alexander (president and chief executive of Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp) and John Snow (then the head of transportation company CSX Corp. and now the Bush Regime's Treasury Secretary). On May 13, Taft golfed with his pal Noe-- who acknowledges that $13 million is missing from the state fund he was running for Taft-- at the Inverness Club in Toledo along with state Sen. Randy Gardner, according to documents obtained yesterday by The Associated Press through a public records release. Gardner says the outing was hosted by Mike Wilcox, who owns a Toledo financial firm, but the senator claims he doesn't know if Taft paid. Wanna make a guess?