VA Gov Poll: McAuliffe Breaks Out
Posted by Tom Bevan | Email This | Permalink | Email Author
New survey from PPP on the Democratic primary in the Virginia Governor's race shows Terry McAuliffe breaking out to a ten point lead over his two rivals, Brian Moran and Creigh Deeds. McAuliffe is up 12 points in the last month, while support for Moran and Deeds remained roughly constant:
McAuliffe 30
Moran 20
Deeds 14
Undecided 36
The race remains very fluid: in addition to the very high number of undecideds, 41% backing a candidate say they may change their minds before the early June primary.
DE Sen Poll: Castle Trounces Biden
Posted by Tom Bevan | Email This | Permalink | Email Author
A new poll of the Delaware Senate race by Susquehanna Polling and Research (April 27-30, 500 RV, MoE +/- 4.38%) shows Republican Congressman Mike Castle with a substantial lead over Democratic State AG (and son of the Vice President) Beau Biden:
Castle (R) 55
Biden (D) 34
Undecided 8
Also from the poll: President Obama has a 62% job approval rating, with 24% disapproving. Democratic Governor Jack Markell has a 48% approval rating, with just 18% disapproving and 34% undecided.
Yesterday Stan Greenberg of Democracy Corps fired off a fantastically snarky letter to Ed Gillespie, founder of the new Republican consultancy Resurgent Republic, slamming the methodology of the group's new poll results:
Dear Ed,
Congratulations on forming Resurgent Republic with the goal of replicating “on the right the success Democracy Corps has enjoyed on the left.” Like Democracy Corps, you are promising to become a resource for groups and leaders, enhanced by the public release of credible surveys and focus groups and, indeed, your first survey has been widely discussed and already used by Republican leaders. Well done.
You would probably be surprised if I didn't have some reactions and advice to offer, as you explicitly state you are “modeled on Democracy Corps.” Given your goal, I am perplexed that your first poll would be so outside the mainstream on partisanship. Your poll gives the Democrats just a 2-point party identification advantage in the country, but other public polls in this period fell between +7 and +16 points – giving the Democrats an average advantage of 11 points. Virtually all your issue debates in the survey would have tilted quite differently had the poll been 9 points more Democratic. [snip]
If the Resurgent Republic poll is to be an outlier on partisanship, then I urge you to explain what about your methodology produces it – or simply to note the difference in your public release.
The problem of partisanship pales before the problem of self-deluding bias in question wording that might well contribute to Republicans digging themselves deeper and deeper into a hole.
Among the bespectacled geekdom of pollsters, this is the equivalent of a chair shot in the WWE. It almost certainly will not be the last correspondence between the two.
Kyle reported yesterday on the Quinnipiac poll in the PA Senate race showing Tom Ridge just a tick behind freshly minted Democrat Arlen Specter, 46-43, also mentioning a Roll Call piece suggesting that Ridge is considering a run. Chris Cillizza has some more detail on Ridge this morning.
NY Gov Poll: Paterson's Ratings Dip Again
Posted by Kyle Trygstad | Email This | Permalink | Email Author
New York Gov. David Paterson (D) takes another hit in the polls today, as a new Marist survey finds a majority of voters would rather have disgraced former governor Eliot Spitzer in office (April 28-29, 1029 RV, MoE +/- 3%).
Just 19% of voters say Paterson is doing a good job in office, while 40% say he's doing a poor job -- including one-third of Democrats.
In a 2010 Democratic primary with Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo, Paterson trails by a 49-point margin, up from 36 points. In general election matchups, Paterson trails Rudy Giuliani by 24 points and ex-Rep. Rick Lazio by 3 points, while Cuomo leads both Republicans by wide margins.
Dem Primary
Cuomo 70 (+8 vs. last poll, March 3)
Paterson 21 (-5)
GOP Primary
Giuliani 75 (-3 vs. last poll, March 3)
Lazio 14 (-3)
General Election
Giuliani 56 (+3 vs. last poll, March 3)
Paterson 32 (-6)
Lazio 40 (+5 vs. last poll, March 3)
Paterson 37 (-10)
Cuomo 67 (-4 vs. last poll, March 3)
Lazio 22 (+2)
Cuomo 55 (-1 vs. last poll, March 3)
Giuliani 38 (-1)
Bill Frezza does not mince words:
The fate of Chrysler and its workers pale in comparison to the wrecking ball that would be taken to economic order if bankruptcy judge Arthur Gonzalez approves the administration's plan to give Chrysler's secured creditors the shaft. And what prize will we-the-people get in return? A doomed third-rate car company majority owned by its militant union run by Italian management building congressionally designed “green” cars no one wants to buy financed by taxpayers into perpetuity because no private investor in their right mind will touch the company with a ten foot pole. Is this supposed to be economic policy or comic opera?
As sharp and entertaining as the last part of this paragraph may be, it's the first sentence that's the most important. If the Obama administration's Chrylser plan is not stopped in court it will, in the words of a very knowledgeable friend of mine who deals in bankruptcy and securities law, "completely eviscerate the private debt markets."
Read the Frezza from start to finish to understand exactly why this is such a big deal.
Unfortunately, Chris Dodd appears to be serious in this video clip where he compares the Bush administration's waterboarding of KSM to the Nazis at Nuremburg.
Staredown of a "Lifetime"
Posted by Samuel Chi | Email This | Permalink | Email Author
The game of brinksmanship between the New York Times Co., and the Boston Globe's guild is coming to a head. At stake: The continued existence of New England's largest newspaper, first published in 1872.
With all other unions having agreed to concessions pending a formal vote by their members, the guild, which represents the newsroom employees, is holding out. While it has given the $10 million in concessions management demanded, it is unwilling to let go of a "lifetime guarantee" provision that affects over 500 former employees and 190 current ones.
The guild's latest offer was rejected last night, prompting its negotiators to leave the table as of this morning. More talks may resume tomorrow, but no resolution is likely unless the guild is willing to relent on this one issue.
That the guild is playing hardball, in the face of a threatened shutdown, is surprising. Elsewhere in the country, almost every union has quickly acquiesced to management demands given the fast unraveling of the newspaper business.
While the NYT Co. has backed off an earlier threat to file a plant closing notice, it's still not impossible for the paper to be shuttered. The Times paid $1.1 billion to acquire the Globe in 1993, and now it's expected to lose about $85 million this year at the paper. The circulation of the Globe has dwindled from 508,800 in 1993 to 382,500 today.
Dan Totten, president of the guild, said his union is negotiating in good faith. But the union's unwillingness to give in on the "lifetime guarantee" issue is not winning any friends or sympathies.
The idea of lifetime jobs seems hopelessly quaint in this era of Darwinian globalization, continuous technological disruption and profound economic uncertainty.It also was born of arrogance on the part of publishers who thought their market supremacy would endure forever and arrogance on the part of unions who once wielded sufficient power to intimidate management into agreeing to this perfectly preposterous proposition.
Apart from federal judges and tinhorn dictators, no one has the luxury of a job for life. And no one should.
Across town at the Boston Herald, Howie Carr snickers:
Outside the employees themselves and a few limp bloggers, nobody cares about the Globe's demise. Let the epitaph be: Smug Is Not a Workable Business Plan. These pampered poodles assumed they had a monopoly. Nobody ever has a monopoly, at least not for long. ... One last thing to all my dear friends on the Boulevard.We're not hiring.
Will the guild dare management to shut down the paper? Will the NYT Co. follow through with its threat? One thing we already know: Despite all of his liberal and union-friendly politics, Pinch Sulzberger is proving to be quite a capitalist when it comes to his own family business (as he should be).
(Cross-posted at RCP's Media Watch.)
LA Senate Poll: 'Ambivalent' On Vitter
Posted by Kyle Trygstad | Email This | Permalink | Email Author
A recent Louisiana poll from Southern Media & Opinion Research finds the "state's voters are markedly ambivalent about their junior senator" David Vitter (R), the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports. "As a whole, they can live with him. But they'd also be just fine living without him, if someone better were to come along."
Despite a 58 percent job approval rating, just 30 percent said they would definitely vote for the first-term senator and 28 percent said they would vote for someone else. Thirty-five percent said they would consider someone else.
"The bottom line is that, if Vitter gets a credible opponent, voters seem quite willing to at least think about a change," the Times-Picayune's Stephanie Grace writes.
"If we had pursued what President Nixon declared in 1970 as the war on cancer, we would have cured many strains. I think Jack Kemp would be alive today. And that research has saved or prolonged many lives, including mine." - Arlen Specter on Face the Nation, responding to a question about why he switched parties and is now more comfortable with the Democrats.
