Elected in 2002, Gov. Jim Doyle's tenure at the helm of the Badger State has just passed the halfway point. This fact, if converted to the semester time zone in which students reside, would mean that Gov. Jim Doyle has just finished his midterm and is focusing on his final in 2006.
There is no disputing the fact that Doyle's first years in the east wing of the Capitol have had an acute impact on UW. This is a fact that has been ingrained into the collective psyche of the campus as seemingly every day UW and Gov. Doyle are paired together in the morning's headlines. Even the archeology majors who have been studying trilobites for the last two years have formed an opinion about the governor. With Gov. Doyle just completing his midterm, I think it is time to find out what sort of grades UW students would give the governor if we were in charge of the blue book.
In the interest of full disclosure, the method I utilized to measure student opinion was not scientific and consisted of interviews with students as they basked in the sun on Bascom Hill, entered Gordon Commons and waited in line with me at the Asian smoothie food cart. The responses fell in two categories: Those who graded the governor solely on tuition and those who used tuition and mentioned other miscellaneous student issues. In other words, every student, not surprisingly, had something to say about tuition.
Tuition is the 800-pound gorilla of student issues. Tuition was the single issue that most of the students I talked to used to frame their judgment of Gov. Doyle. And, for good reason-over the last two years tuition has risen 38 percent, or $1,400 a year. This fact was not lost to students like UW-Madison junior Matt Luttig who, even though he had to double check that \Doyle is the governor, right?"" was able to conclude in rather perfect Wisconsin eloquence that ""He better do something about fucking tuition! That's all I know."" Ryan Sarafolean agreed, telling me that ""He has done very poor ... he needs to take a public stance on tuition and start standing up for students.""
Not only were most students displeased with how Gov. Doyle has treated tuition, they were nearly uniform in the severity of their criticism. When the responses of the students were added up, 84 percent of the students thought Gov. Doyle deserved a D for the tuition portion of the midterm.
In an affront to the principle that a democracy needs an informed citizenry to work, only 17 of the 38 students (44 percent) interviewed could nail down Gov. Doyle to an issue other than tuition. The majority of students mentioned the TAA contract negations and his proposal to give partner benefits to all of UW's staff. Those students with the most knowledge of Gov. Doyle were also those who were most inclined to think favorably of him, for example, Kyle Wellman mentioned the $300 million that Gov. Doyle has earmarked for a stem cell research center on campus as one of the reasons he ""moderately liked"" Gov. Doyle. Overall, these students gave Gov. Doyle an AB for student issues not related to tuition.
Before we get ready to fail Gov. Doyle on student issues, I would like to remind students that there is more to Gov. Doyle than tuition and, conversely, there is more to tuition than Gov. Doyle. Even with the added tuition hikes, UW is the third-least expensive school in the Big Ten. The tuition hikes, while not excusable, are understandable since the state is trying to work its way out of a $1.7 billion deficit. Constrained by his pledge to not raise taxes, draconian cuts in government spending became inevitable. There are also, as noted above, issues where Gov. Doyle has worked for the interests of UW only to be shot down by the legislature.
Also, as UW-Madison undergrad and Dane County Supervisor Rob Fyrst, Dist. 8, points out, ""While there may not be any candidate for governor in 2006 that gets students terribly excited, there are candidates out there who get students terribly frightened."" One such example is GOP candidate Scott Walker, who just last week said that he would want to look at ways to further cut government spending, and he mentioned that the UW System would be a probable target.
But even if Gov. Doyle can be defended on some fronts, the news that a majority of students blame him for the tuition hikes can't be good for his re-election hopes. This is because students comprise a voting bloc that is absolutely vital to any Democratic candidate running in a state-wide race. A UW-Madison College Democrat, who is very ""plugged in"" to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, admitted to me, ""There is no way Doyle can win without improving his standing among Wisconsin's students, because without student support his campaign will run out of foot soldiers real fast ... we really have our work cut out for us.""
Even though Gov. Doyle flunked his midterm there is still time to improve the final grade students give him in 2006, and he will have to if he expects to pass.
opinion@dailycardnal.com.
