Polling and Political Wrap-Up, 9/16/10

Thursday night brings the veritable buffet of polling data, as no less than sixteen polls grace this edition of the Wrap. It is way too early to draw any conclusions about a trend or a shift in momentum, but it is hard not to notice that there is a considerably reduced amount of suck in the recent polling, on balance.

Hell, even Blanche Lincoln has drawn within 25-30 points. Hope springs eternal!

That poll, and over a dozen more, on the Thursday edition of the Wrap...

THE U.S. SENATE

AR-Sen: Good news for Lincoln--it's closer. Bad news--Still down 17
Blanche Lincoln is still virtually certain of losing her Senate seat in Arkansas in six weeks. However, she has at least bounced off of the floor, as she rises from the almost comic weakness that marked her late summer numbers and moves within twenty points of Republican nominee John Boozman. The latest poll, from Mason Dixon, puts Boozman up by seventeen points on Lincoln (51-34).

IL-Sen: Republican pollster sees Kirk lead cut in half
The midwestern GOP polling firm We Ask America raised some eyebrows last month when they claimed that Republican Mark Kirk has moved out to a six-point edge over Democrat Alexi Giannoulias. This month, the right-wing firm cut Kirk's lead in half, putting Kirk at 39% and Giannoulias at 36%. In a sign that they can play a spoiler role in November, the Green and Libertarian nominees combined for 6% of the vote.

OR-Sen: SUSA finds one Democrat in a comfortable November position
SurveyUSA has been pretty bearish on the Democrats this cycle, but they do have one Democrat in a position of considerable strength for November--incumbent Senator Ron Wyden. SUSA puts Wyden at 54% of the vote, with Republican Jim Huffman sitting on 38% of the vote. Even at that outsized margin, it would still be considerably smaller than Wyden's margin of victory in both his 1998 and 2004 re-election campaigns.

THE U.S. HOUSE

DE-AL: Dems a double-digit favorite to pick up Castle's House seat
According to PPP, Democrats head into the general election cycle with an excellent chance to pick off the House seat vacated by moderate GOP Congressman (and forced retiree, courtesy of Tuesday's primary) Mike Castle. The poll shows Democrat John Carney with a 11-point lead over Republican nominee Glen Urquhart. That margin could well widen, as Urquhart seems to be a little bit of an ass, if this film by a Democratic tracker is legit.

IA-02: GOP pollster says Loebsack in real danger in November
Add second-term Democrat David Loebsack to the stack of Democrats who may be endangered in November, if a new internal poll by Tarrance Group for her campaign is to be believed (and yes...the standard caveats apply). The survey puts Loebsack up by only single point over Republican Marianette Miller-Meeks (41-40). The pollster also has Libertarian Gary Sicard gaining 6% of the vote. Loebsack easily dispatched Miller-Meeks in 2008 (57-39).

MD-01: Dem internal puts him up mid-single digits in tough district
Another poll obtained by The Fix is much happier news for Democrats--a new Garin Hart Yang poll on behalf of freshman Democrat Frank Kratovil puts him in the lead by six points (45-39) over the man he narrowly beat in 2008--Republican CfG fave Andy Harris. Kratovil just launched an air war, and the polling memo claims that Kratovil is up double digits among those people who have seen the advertising.

MI-09: Add Peters to the target list? Unknown pollster says "yes"
I'd be mortified by this poll, except that it has a very high margin of error and it comes from a pollster that I have literally never heard of. The new poll, out today from The Rossman Group/Team Telcom, gives Republican challenger Rocky Raczkowski a narrow edge of four points (45-41) over incumbent Democrat Gary Peters. The poll only had 300 respondents, however, meaning the margin of error here is pretty high in this case.

WA-03: Heck closes gap, but still trails Republican in Dem open seat
SurveyUSA returns to southwestern Washington, and finds an incrementally closer contest than the one they found last month. Republican Jaime Herrera is still out in front of Democrat Denny Heck, but the margin is now in the single digits (52-43). That is a four-point shift from August, when SUSA had Herrera up 54-41 on Heck. The district is a swing district (carried by Obama by only a 52-46 margin), one held by Democrat Brian Baird since the 1990s.

THE GUBERNATORIAL RACES

GA-Gov: Deal discloses huge personal financial problem, clams up
Nathan Deal's finances have been the stuff of rumor, rumors that the candidate himself confirmed after an educational forum today. Deal disclosed that his auto salvage business, which he co-owns with a business partner and was the subject of a congressional ethics investigation, is in debt to a serious magnitude. Deal would not give a dollar figure, but an AP review noted that the figures was $2.85 million, spread out over two loans from two Georgia banks. Deal failed to disclose these loans in state campaign finance reports, something he deemed today as "an oversight." He also said today that he would not address his finances further, saying that his release of tax returns earlier this month ought to suffice.

MI-Gov: Two polls show little movement in gubernatorial race
Democrat Virg Bernero has been unsuccessful so far in closing the gap with Republican Rick Snyder in the open seat battle to replace Jennifer Granholm as Governor of Michigan. That is the verdict from a pair of polls released over the past 24 hours in the state. Venerable local pollsters EPIC-MRA continue to give Snyder a wide lead, with Snyder at 53% of the vote and Bernero well behind at 29%. Meanwhile, the aforementioned (and unknown) Rossman/Team Telcom combo also polled the race statewide. Again, the poll is plagued by a high MoE (only 400 respondents), but the numbers fall well within the range seen in other polls of the race. They have Snyder at 51% of the vote, with Bernero at 32%.

MN-Gov: SurveyUSA confirms tightening race in Minnesota
The University of Minnesota broke the pattern several days ago, when they showed the gubernatorial race as an absolute coinflip (previous polls had given Democrat Mark Dayton a modest lead). Late last night, SurveyUSA released their own numbers, and confirmed the UM findings. They had Dayton in the lead over Republican Tom Emmer, but it is painfully close (38-36). The most notable thing is the apparent ascendancy of Indie candidate Tom Horner, who draws 18% of the vote. Horner does the worst among conservatives, which implies that the two trends of recent vintage (a closer race between Emmer and Dayton, as well as Horner's surge) may very well be related.

NH-Gov: Lynch not as dominant as usual, but still comfortably ahead
PPP revealed their gubernatorial numbers out of the Granite State today, and they find that Democratic Governor John Lynch has a double-digit lead over Republican nominee John Stephen. However, it is a considerably tighter race than Lynch had grown accustomed to over the years. Lynch, re-elected with 70% of the vote or more in both 2006 and 2008, is leading with 51% of the vote. Stephen trails with 39% of the vote.

OH-Gov: Q poll disastrous for Dems, but is there a slight caveat?
Only rarely do I look at the demographic details of a poll to try to explain away a particularly ugly (or particularly good) data point, but this poll out today from Quinnipiac merits such treatment. The toplines have got a lot of attention today: the poll shows Republican John Kasich leading Democratic Governor Ted Strickland by a 54-37 margin. What caught my attention was the partisan breakdown. Strickland did marginally worse with Democrats than Kasich did with Republicans, but the differences were not massive. Kasich enjoyed a 23-point edge with Indies. So, how in the world did they get a seventeen-point lead overall? Clearly, there was an issue with either GOP oversampling, Democratic undersampling, or...well...both.

Applying the 2006 exit poll demographics for Ohio, the margin was halved to eight points. Even using the best GOP parameters over the last several election cycles (2004: R 40 D 35 I 25, which was a better breakdown by party than was even seen in 1994), the margin is cut to less than fourteen percentage points. Not that it is anything to write home about, but clearly, Quinnipiac is seeing the most stratified electorate by party in recent history.

OR-Gov: Dueling polls offer two different interpretations of race
Either Republican Chris Dudley has emerged with a modest lead in the Oregon Governor's race, or former Democratic Governor John Kitzhaber is clinging to a single-point edge that confirms the race as a coin flip. Those are the competing verdicts (though within the same margin of error, I suppose) of two new polls in Oregon today. The SurveyUSA poll of the state gives Dudley a 49-43 lead over Kitzhaber, propelled by a continuing deadlock between the two candidates in normally Dem-friendly Portland. Meanwhile, local pollsters Riley Research puts it at a virtual tie, with Kitzhaber at 40% of the vote and Dudley at 39%.

UT-Gov: Local pollster puts Herbert up 21 in re-election bid
A poll conducted mostly during last week, and released today, shows that Utah's Republican Governor, Gary Herbert, enjoys a 21-point advantage over Democrat Peter Corroon (52-31). What makes this potentially interesting: the poll was conducted before the burgeoning scandal involving a highway contract that was awarded to a company that had funneled $87,000 to Herbert's re-election campaign. The state had to offer an eight-figure settlement to the losing bidder on the contract after it was revealed that the state department of Transportation tweaked the scoring of the bids, which moved the contributing firm (Provo River Constructors) into the lead for the bid.

THE RAS-A-POLL-OOZA

The House of Ras continues its recent surge of data, with a quintet of new results out today. Rasmussen follows other recent pollsters in moving Patty Murray out to a modest lead, and they also break normal Ras form in being the best pollster for Rory Reid in a long time (don't get too excited--he is still down double digits).

DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 52%, Christine O'Donnell (R) 41%
NV-Gov: Brian Sandoval (R) 52%, Rory Reid (D) 39%
NH-Sen: Kelly Ayotte (R) 51%, Paul Hodes (D) 44%
PA-Gov: Tom Corbett (R) 49%, Dan Onorato (D) 39%
WA-Sen: Sen. Patty Murray (D) 51%, Dino Rossi (R) 46%

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Open Thread

enlargeCredit: Driftglass

Che Greenspan, worse than 11 George Soroses, balks at any of the Bush Tax Cuts continuing. Whatta commie.

Open thread below...

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Election Diary Rescue 2010 (9/16 - 47 Days 'til
Election Day)

   This Rescue Diary covers the period from 6 PM, Wednesday, 9/15 to 6:00 PM EDT, Thursday, 9/16

Today's Menu Includes :
43 Diaries Overall

- 7 On House races

- Covering 7 individual Districts in 7 states

- 23 On Senate races

- Representing 11 different states

- 5 On Various election races

- Encompassing Governor, Secretary of State, Local, and more

- 1 On Ballot Initiatives

- in 1 state

- 6 General election-related diaries

And be sure to follow the Election Diary Rescue on Twitter

(Tonight's compilation and more after the jump............)

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Late Night: Center for Security Policys Report
Boykin-Blessed Anti-Muslim Propaganda

There's nothing at all legitimate about a so-called report which relies on the input of world-class bigots like Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin (Ret.).[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://firedoglake.com/2010/09/16/center-for-security-policys-report-boykin-bless
ed-anti-muslim-propaganda/

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McDonald's not happy with new 'I was lovin' it'
TV ad

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Wow, that's a brutal advert. It's not possible to argue against the reality that fast food churns out high blood pressure and high cholesterol product. One missing item that isn't mentioned is "highly processed" as well. The products all seem to chemically engineered which is another part of the problem. As much as I am in agreement with the campaign, I doubt this will have much impact on consumers.

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C&L's Late Night Music Club With Randy Newman

Genre: Randy NewmanTitle: Marie
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In this song off of his 1974 masterpiece Good Old Boys, Randy Newman steps into the role of a drunken man proclaiming his love for the song's namesake in a beautifully heartbreaking way . This is definitely one of my favorite love songs of all time. What's yours?

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Who hates the Girl Scouts

I bet you didn't know about this:

Next month, the Girl Scouts USA national convention will be held in Atlanta. It will be a gathering of radical feminists, lesbians, and cookie peddlers... During the last couple years, it has become clear that the Girl Scouts – nationally and, in many cases, locally – is allied with the abortion industry and Planned Parenthood... The Girl Scouts is almost as much a part of the radical feminist movement  as the National Organization for Women. Knowing the radical agenda of the national Girl Scouts organization, parents need to take action.

It's not your mother's Girl Scouts, anymore. At least not in the fever dreams of this Washington legislative candidate, Hans Zeigler. Yikes. Does the cookie peddling lead to radical lesbianism? Maybe it's something they use in those thin mints. If you think he's radical on service organizations for children, you should hear him on all the other religions:

Frustrated with the fact that the bulk of people involved in the National Day of Prayer actually believe in God, Lynn and his left-wing atheist-secularist-ecumenist allies are holding their own counter-events this year. [...] Unitarians, mainstream Baptists, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, members of the “Military Pagan Network”  and other watered-down ecumenists will hold an “Interfaith Day of Prayer and Reflection” on the steps of the Oklahoma State Capitol today to pray to the generic god.

But ... the significant difference between the kumbaya sessions and interfaith vigils and atheist protests of the Religious Left and the Bible studies and prayer circles of the Religious Right is that our God is real.

You really don't even want to know what he says about Islam. Oh, and the National Education Association and the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network are terrorist organizations. This guy got 36% of the vote in last month's top two primary. This is just one legislative district in one state in the country--but a one of the blue states. But it's instructive for what's happening with the Republican party in this state and around the country, as they embrace the teabagger extremism. Goldy has been keeping watch, and to date, the most prominent Republican, and definite 2012 candidate for governor, in this state won't condemn this guy's crazy. He won't even withdraw his endorsement.

There are always going to be a few out-there candidates who slip through the cracks. But this year it's become epidemic, from U.S. Senate races on down the ticket. Today's Republicans, seeing vast political conspiracies in children's organizations.

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Thursday PM Stuff

To learn more, click here (and by the way, I also posted here)...


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...and I have a question for Pat "Voted For The Iraq War And Both of Dubya's Tax Cuts" Toomey - which extra-terrestrial alien is providing the numbers about how much health care and the bailout is costing "households" that appear in those annoying pop-up ads at CNN and Yahoo, among other places (I mean, those numbers can't be based on this planet)? Health care reform costs $8,900 per "household"? The bailout (passed under Dubya) $6,600? WHAAAAA???????

To help Admiral Joe, click here...


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...and Elon James White has an interesting Haley Barbour story on "This Week In Blackness"...


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...and happy 85th birthday to B.B. King (no video, but I always dug this song).


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Read The Full Article:
http://liberaldoomsayer.blogspot.com/2010/09/thursday-pm-stuff.html

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President Obama Went from a Campaign of "Hope and
Change" to "There's Only So Much I Can Do"

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG BY MARK KARLIN

Say what you will about Ronald Reagan, but the guy knew how to tell a story. After all, he was groomed for the presidency by General Electric and some right-wing members of the oligarchy when his film career had run its course. In many ways, he wasn't president; he was a man acting as president, and he had quite a script.

Reagan went from "B" film star to "A" media age pitch man, working out of the White House. His narrative was written by ad men and public relations pros who knew how to sell products; in this case a "morning in America" that was full of sunshine, promise, American know-how and John Wayne toughness. It was an unapologetic cinematic vision of a nation at the top of its game, willing to do what it took to stay there.

Reagan was a master at using anecdotal stories to bolster his narrative, even if some of them weren't true. And in the back rooms, his wealthy backers were embarking upon the looting of America.

President Obama, on the other hand, went from a campaign with a narrative of change and "throw the rascals out" to an almost elusive series of positions and non-positions. He went from a narrative of change and hope to a non-narrative of "there's only so much I can do." That's not something that inspires; but rather, it confuses and frustrates.

read more

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Losing Our Sense of Common Decency

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Something precious is being squandered in the rough and tumble of this political season - - a shocking decline in respect for the values that made this country a symbol of freedom and decency. After years of progress in the area of civility and civil rights voter angst in a time of economic trauma has become an excuse for virulent, racially-charged campaigns.  Suddenly it is acceptable to air long-repressed hostility that had been frowned upon as the country moved to moderate an ugly, divisive past.

Tea Partiers say they want to take the country back, a rallying cry without substance except as an expression of anti-government fervor even though, in many cases, protesters are the beneficiaries of federal programs like Medicare and Social Security. They feel oppressed, over-taxed, and under-appreciated. And they tend to support candidates in spite of their dubious qualifications because those deficits are a better fit with their own self image and distance them from people they disparage as political elites. Gaining an advantage is the game; no rules of conduct need apply in attaining that goal.

What this has come to mean is that Tea-Party and right-wing supported candidates have won Republican primaries despite obvious failings and a lack of preparedness to govern effectively. But anger and dissatisfaction aren?t credentials for holding office, and the brickbats aimed at the president and various incumbents exhibit an unprecedented level of disrespect that cheapens the national debate.  Political, upstart Ben Quayle for example, running for the House from Arizona had the temerity to call Obama the ?worst president? ever, as if he actually had the bona fides to make such an assessment.

In general the current crop of candidates is a sub-standard lot of people who talk values but trash what?s best about our culture and turn free speech into slurs that signal a return to the dark days when racial epithets and low-minded innuendo were common in the public forum. Tea Party favorite Christine O?Donnell won her primary race against an incumbent she vilified as ?unmanly? saying the race was not a ?bake-off? and that he should get his ?man pants? on. What garbage from someone who hopes to represent Delaware in the Senate. Nevertheless she won the primary and made an exuberant victory speech with a typically white Tea Party entourage at her side, until someone had the presence of mind to propel a black male supporter onto the stage beside her.

In Connecticut a wrestling maven is willing to spend millions of her personal fortune to run against Richard Blumenthal who has served with distinction as that state?s Attorney General for many years. For her part, Linda McMahon touts her organizational skills as WWE?s CEO and seems to feel that makes her a viable candidate and desirable addition to the Senate. Apparently running a large ?entertainment? business is no match for the power trip serving in the Senate would be.

Sharron Angle in Nevada and pals like Michele Bachman in Minnesota seem to be of a mind that any elected representative in Congress who fails to offer uncritical support of business interests is a traitor to the ?free market? system and therefore an enemy of the state. When questioned about whether she would actually call such a person an enemy Angle hedged and just said ?well they aren?t a friend.?

Rounding out a distressingly undistinguished roster of Republican primary winners New York?s Carl Paladino was chosen to run against Andrew Cuomo for Governor. Self-financed with a million-dollar fortune Paladino scoffs at critics who find his racially-laced, pornography-laden e-mails to friends unseemly for someone seeking to serve as the state?s highest elected official. The fact that he thought his mailings were amusing and that voters seemed not to care is just another indication of how distorted our values have become - - perhaps because Paladino and others are very much like so many of us.

But in addition to other pressing issues we should be working to reaffirm our allegiance to standards of common decency. Today?s low-minded contrivances are reminiscent of the fifties when Joe McCarthy conducted his notorious Communist witch hunts. Joseph Welch, counsel for the US Army being investigated by McCarthy confronted the senator for needlessly sullying the reputation of a Welch colleague saying ?have you no decency Sir, at long last have you left no sense of decency?? That is a question we should be asking politicians and media propagandists whose personal ambition has led them to trash the principles we most value and admire in ourselves as a people.

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