Racial Divide: Which Leaders are Biggest Obstacles to the Economy?

The Brogan Survey revealed that Michiganders grade most of their leaders at or below average. Of particular interest is that Caucasians and African Americans feel differently about which leaders pose the biggest obstacle to economic improvement.

Over twice as many African Americans as Caucasians felt that educational leaders have been the biggest obstacle in helping to turn Michigan's economy around. In fact, 20.2% of African American respondents said educational leaders are the largest impediment, while only 9.3% of Caucasians did.

The majority of people in both racial groups felt elected officials are the biggest obstacle to the economy's turn-around, with 58% of Caucasians answering in this way and 51.7% of African Americans doing the same.

Caucasians were slightly more likely to say business and union leaders were the biggest obstacles.

Do these responses warrant a red flag? What do you think these results mean?

Gas Prices Still Soaring

Gas prices in North Carolina averaged a little over $2.83 one month ago, just before respondents completed the Brogan Survey. Based on that price, 59% of respondents told us they had been forced to postpone other purchases. Fast forward to today and the average cost of regular unleaded gas in North Carolina is nearly $3.15, according to AAA's Media Site for retail gasoline prices. That is a $0.32 increase in just four weeks! What does this mean for North Carolinians? Our guess is that the 26.8% who said they didn't intend to change how much they drive this summer will be reconsidering.

Different parts of the state are being affected pretty evenly, with Charlotte, the Triangle and Fayetteville all seeing an increase of $0.31 in the last month. The national average of regular unleaded gas was up to $3.22 as of Monday, coming up $0.12 in the past week.

With no sign of a slowdown in price increase, what will people do? It'll be interesting to see how Memorial Day Weekend turns out; catching up on LOST episodes instead of driving to the beach anyone?

TV Show Cancellation Wishes Vary by NC Region

In yesterday's post, we shared the data on which popular TV shows North Carolina residents surveyed would cancel first. Today, we look at that data by region of the state, and there are significant differences.

• American Idol has a lot of haters in the Southern region, where 19.4% of respondents would tube that show. That's a sharp contrast to their neighbors to the north, where only 1.8% of Coastal residents would get rid of the show.
• The Coastal folks don't like 24 much. They were the most likely region to pick that show to cancel, at 8.8%. The Southern region disagrees again, where only 2.8% would cancel 24.
• The Charlotte region wants to vote Survivor off the island. 24.7% are done with that show. Only 8.3% in the Southern region feel the same...most of them continue to give the show the immunity necklace.
• Speaking of islands, the Southern region also had 19.4% of folks wanting to get rid of Lost, putting it in a tie in that region with Idol. Charlotte has the most Lost fans, with only 6.5% choosing to cancel Locke, Kate, Jack and Sawyer.
• Nobody got too worked up about canceling E.R. (Now it could be because most people thought it was canceled years ago, but that's just us talking here...). The North Central region had 7.1% in favor of taking the show off life support. In contrast, the Western region had nobody (0.0%) give their votes to snuffing out E.R.
• CSI didn't have many people eager to investigate it, either. The Charlotte region at 3.9% slightly edged out the Triangle (3.7%) and the the Coastal (3.5%) region. The North Central folks came in lowest, at 0.9%.
• Everyone saved their animosity for Desperate Housewives, which might just prove that the brightest stars also flame out most brilliantly. The Coastal region kept their powder dry from other shows and used it here, with 40.4% saying they are tired of Wisteria Lane. The Southern region of the state was kindest, coming in at 25.0% who were no longer mourning the passing of Mary Alice.

With the American Idol finale going tonight, we may head to the Southern region, where we're confident it won't be showing... But hey, that's just us...

NC Says: Please cancel "Desperate Housewives"!

At the Brogan Survey we like to ask the occasional fun question as well as the serious ones, just to mix it up a bit.

This North Carolina survey asked 600-people: "If you were a network television executive and you had to cancel one show, which of the following shows would you cancel first?" We rotated the orders of choices so as not to have any bias in the order they were read.

Desperate Housewives "won" in a landslide, meaning people in North Carolina are really ready for that show to go... American Idol came in a surprisingly strong third. (Angry Sanjaya fans maybe??)

Here are the results, the most often canceled first:

• Desperate Housewives: 31.5%
• Survivor: 20.2%
• American Idol: 14.2%
• Lost: 11.9%
• Twenty Four (24): 5.6%
• E. R.: 4.1%
• CSI: 3.1%
• Don't know/refused: 9.5%

We think the picture above shows the Housewives mourning their dwindling fame...

The 600-person telephone survey was conducted May 3-7, 2007 for Brogan & Partners by the Glengariff Group of Chicago. The questions were not commissioned by any candidate, company or organization. You can read press releases that came from the larger survey here.

What do you think? Which show would you cancel first? We thought maybe 24 was the most tired show, but the anti "Housewives" crowd came on strong... Do you agree?

Income Optimism Varies

When we asked North Carolinians: "Thinking about six months from now, do you think your income will be higher or lower than it is today? Or do you think your income will be about the same as today?", we got a wide variety of opinions.

Most people in North Carolina thought there incomes would stay the same. However, some interesting breakdowns in the cross tabs. African Americans were more likely than Caucasians to say they expected their income to rise, but they were also much more likely to say they expected it to fall.

Young people were the most optimistic, as might be expected, with a steady consistent leveling off with age. Males were also more optimistic and more pessimistic than females, suggesting a bit more volatility there.

The 600-person telephone survey was conducted May 3-7, 2007 for Brogan & Partners by the Glengariff Group of Chicago. The questions were not commissioned by any candidate, company or organization. You can read press releases that came from the larger survey here.

NC: African Americans Much More Likely to Support Ban on Tobacco

One interesting piece of data from the question about banning smoking in North Carolina entirely, is that African Americans were significantly more likely to support such a ban.

To be specific, the exact question asked was: "Would you support or oppose a North Carolina law that would ban tobacco use entirely?" And then we asked, "And would that be strongly support/oppose, or somewhat support/oppose."

Here's how the answers differed by race:

Caucasian:

• Strongly support 17.9%
• Somewhat support 8.4%
• Somewhat oppose 15.8%
• Strongly oppose 54.9%

African American:

• Strongly support 28.9%
• Somewhat support 6.6%
• Somewhat oppose 19.7%
• Strongly oppose 42.8%

So 35.5% of North Carolina African-Americans would support a complete ban on tobacco in the state, versus 26.3% of Caucasians. And the opposition is softer among African-Americans as well.

There's a lot of interesting data in this survey. Watch the blog for more data, or better yet, use the tool to the right to subscribe so you can see the latest at a glance...

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