Following up on this:

SHOT: "Obama calls No. 1 Kentucky"

CHASER: "No. 1 Kentucky Upset at South Carolina"

Though to be fair to the president, he did offer this prescient advice in his phone conversation with the Kentucky basketball squad yesterday: "There is that tendency once you get to number one to let down a little bit," Obama said.

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter (D) is now polling at 30% against former congressman Pat Toomey (R) in a general election matchup and against Rep. Joe Sestak in the Democratic primary, according to a new Franklin & Marshall survey (Jan. 18-24, 993 RV, MoE +/- 3.1%). While Toomey and Sestak remain largely unknown to the statewide electorate, Specter, running for his sixth term, has just a 35% favorable rating, and 34% think he's doing a good job as senator.

Democratic Primary
Specter 30
Sestak 13
Und 50

Specter leads Sestak by 20.3 points in the RCP Average

General Election
Toomey is tied with Specter among registered voters but jumps out to a significant lead among those considered likely to vote in November:
Registered Voters
Toomey 30
Specter 30
Und 35

Likely Voters
Toomey 45
Specter 31
Undecided

Toomey leads by 7.7 points in the RCP Average

We see the same dynamic in a Toomey vs. Sestak match up:
Registered Voters
Toomey 28
Sestak 16
Und 51

Likely Voters
Toomey 41
Sestak 19
Und 37

Toomey leads Sestak by 11.7 points in the RCP Average

Meanwhile, the governor's race is still up in the air, as seven-in-10 Democrats and Republicans don't know yet who they will vote for in the May 18 primary. However, with Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-Pa.) now out of the race, Attorney General Tom Corbett (R) is expected to win the GOP primary.

Democrats
Dan Onorato 10
Jack Wagner 4
Chris Doherty 4
Joe Hoeffel 4
Tom Knox 2
Other 4
Undecided 72

Republicans
Tom Corbett 23
Sam Rohrer 5
Other 3
Undecided 69

A new poll by Quinnipiac University shows Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum extending his lead over Democrat Alex Sink to 10 points - at least in part due to voter disapproval of the current health care bill and McCollum's call to challenge the Constitutionality of President Obama and Congress' health care legislation should it become law.

McCollum leads Sink 41-31 in the latest survey, up from a 36-32 lead from Quinnpiac's last poll in late October of last year.

Sink's favorable and job ratings remain unchanged since October. McCollum's favorable rating is also unchanged, but his job approval has jumped three points in the most recent poll to a new high of 56%.

On the issue of health care, 57% "mostly disapprove of the proposed changes to the health care system under consideration in Congress," while only 32% "mostly approve." Among Independents the numbers are 58% mostly disapprove and 31% mostly approve.

Forty-nine percent say McCollum's call to challenge the Constitutionality of the current health care bill being considered by Congress is a good idea, and 42% think it's a bad idea.

While the responses split starkly along partisan lines (73% of Republicans in favor, 73% of Democrats against), a majority of Independents (53%) side with McCollum in believing the challenge is a good idea.

Not bad for cable network the White House believes is "not really a news organization."

Among those faring the worst in the poll were CBS and ABC, which were not trusted by 46%.

That makes last week's declaration by White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer even more ironic: "We don't feel the obligation to treat [Fox] like we would treat a CNN, or an ABC, or an NBC, or a traditional news organization, but there are times when we believe it makes sense to communicate with them."

Does the President not see what a caricature he's become with his reliance on the teleprompter?

The enthusiasm with which some left-of-center bloggers are arguing that passing health reform has substantial political benefits puzzles me. I'll state at the outset that none of this post has anything to do with the policy benefit. I leave the policy for people who at least can pretend like they know what they're talking about, and I don't have strong feelings on the bill on the merits. But I can barely see a good faith basis for most of the arguments regarding the political benefits.

Look what happened in 1994! It's true that in 1994 the Democrats didn't pass health care reform, and they lost the House. But it doesn't follow that if they had passed health care, they'd have held the House, or even limited their losses. As I noted last summer, Representatives in tough districts who supported controversial Clinton initiatives lost ground versus those who did not support those initiatives. There isn't any reason to believe that the health care bill would be any different.

Look at it this way: Imagine the next time Republicans get total control of the government (yes, it will happen someday). Now imagine that they decided to press ahead with privatizing social security. Now imagine that support for the bill falls below 40%, and the GOP loses a Senate seat in Idaho to an obscure candidate. What would your reaction be to someone who argued that the GOP needed to pass it because, after all, they had failed in 2005, and lost control of the government?

People will love it once it is passed Now I think a 1994 analogy is apt. In 1994, gun owners didn't suddenly realize that the Assault Weapons Ban would not result in Janet Reno taking away their hunting rifle. Nor did middle-income taxpayers realize that the Clinton budget didn't raise their taxes. In the long run, this is probably a winner for Democrats (assuming it works as well as planned), but in the short run – probably for the next 1-5 years, it will be a millstone for red state Democrats.

To be sure, there are lots of popular things that come into law right away for Democrats to campaign on. But do you really think that, in the face of advertisements claiming that Blanche Lincoln voted for tax hikes, Medicare cuts, and “death panels,” that voters are going to say “well, at least I get to keep my kid on my insurance policy until he is 26”?

Finally, what more can Democrats do? They've been trying to explain this bill furiously for months. Obama's given a prime-time speech. The bill's popularity continued to collapse. I'm sorry, but I'm just not certain what Democrats can do to turn public opinion around on this bill in the next ten months.

They'll come after you anyway This is true, at least for those who supported the bill the first time around. But if I'm a Republican given a choice between an ad saying “he voted for a tax hike that didn't pass” versus “he voted for a tax hike that passed,” I'll take the former every day. Actually passing the tax hike makes it more tangible, and writes it into law. I really don't see any argument why people wouldn't see the latter as more tangible, and react more strongly.

We have to show we can govern. This is easy to answer. Yes, you have to show you can govern. But you also have to show you can govern well. Republicans passed all kinds of laws between 2001 and 2006, often using this maxim as a justification. When people decided they didn't like the style of governance, it didn't matter that Republicans were actually “governing.”

Be a statesman. Okay, I guess this one has something to do with the policy merits. The argument here is that, since this is a good, important bill, Democrats should take it on the chin and pass it anyway. Both Parties make this argument from time-to-time; Republicans most recently with regard to the troop surge.

But the bottom line is that we are a “representative democracy.” Which word you choose to emphasize probably depends on whether you want a bill to pass or not, but at the end of the day our institutions have legitimacy only insofar as they are tied to the will of the people. And there's little doubt that the Democrats, for better or for worse, have lost the public on this bill, and that they have done so badly .

We very rarely pass major legislation in this country where the public is so viscerally opposed. When we do, there's almost always a backlash. And have no doubt: If the Democrats go ahead and pass this bill, the backlash will be much worse than if they don't pass it.

Is it any wonder the handicappers immediately shifted the Delaware Senate race from toss-up to a likely GOP pickup?

A Rasmussen poll (500 LVs, 1/25, MoE +/- 4.5%) taken in the wake of Beau Biden's decision not to run for his father's old seat finds Republican Rep. Mike Castle (R) well ahead of the Democrat many are pointing to as the party's strongest potential candidate: New Castle County Executive Chris Coons.

General Election Matchup
Castle 56
Coons 27
Und 13

Though Coons does not have the advantage of name recognition Castle has, he does have a 47 percent favorable rating among the likely voter pool, while 30 percent view him unfavorably. New Castle is the state's most populous county, accounting for more than half of Delaware's overall population. When Vice President Biden first won the Senate seat in 1972, he was a county councilman there. Castle, the state's former governor and nine-time Congressman, has a 66 percent favorable.

A Daily Kos poll taken in October found Castle leading Coons 51-39.

Things are heating up in the Democratic primary in New York between Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and former congressman Harold Ford Jr., even though Ford isn't actually in the race. Yesterday, Ford likened Gillibrand to a parakeet that just takes instructions from party bosses on how to vote.

Today, Gillibrand hits back with a released statement to reporters:

"I dont know who Harold Ford thinks I am, but I will not be pushed aside by him and a handful of his big banker buddies.

"As for his childish name calling, I would not allow that kind of name calling from my 6 year old son and I certainly dont think it is appropriate for someone who says they want to be a Senator from NY. Fords attacks dont hurt me, they do hurt the people of New York by distracting us from the real economic challenges that middle class families are facing.

"Day after day, Harold Ford Jr. is revealing just how wrong he is for every day New Yorkers. This is all about who we fight for. Harold Ford is advocating for more of the same failed policies that favor only the wealthy and the powerful big corporations, while I am fighting to create good-paying jobs for New York families and help small businesses that are struggling in the difficult economy."

A new CNN poll reports that only 12% of Americans believe the stimulus “has improved economic conditions.” Some 46% believe it “prevented conditions from becoming even worse.” Another 41% said it had “no effect” or “made economic conditions worse.”

That only 46% believe the economy could have been worse without a stimulus is hardly worth the political cost of the nearly $800 billion bill. The public was told the stimulus would make hard times better. But soon we learned the stimulus was more social services bill than jobs bill.

To be sure, there was that other big slice of the pie – a $247 billion mishmash of tax credits. But a job builder that was not. The political gain of the tax credits was also lost in the cost of the bill itself. As a Washington Post headline read last summer: "Recovery's Missing Ingredient: New Jobs."

By late 2009, we had double-digit unemployment. And, as I've reported, three-in-four jobs lost were blue-collar. The stimulus helped teachers and social services. But it was not targeting those losing most of the jobs. (Don't buy the myth that there were no shovel ready jobs to fund; this administration did not seek any New Deal-like direct-jobs program–a WPA for our era–but rather far smaller projects that funneled money through the states.)

One can debate how much the stimulus has helped. I'd side with the 46% who say the economy would have been worse without it (see the CBO report here). But as I've argued, there is also what could have been.

On plain perception, that only 12% believe the stimulus "improved" our economy is an awful statistic for this White House. And not only Barack Obama and Democrats are weighed down by the stimulus albatross, so is liberalism.

Democrats went all-in on the stimulus. They faced the blow back of big government without the big achievements to tout. One repercussion? Almost one year later, Obama announces a three-year freeze on non-security discretionary spending, 17% of the total federal budget. The net-left is displeased. Some moderates might begin to reevaluate. But this president realizes now what he should have last year: the cost of the stimulus was even more than its $787 billion price tag.

In a new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll (Jan. 18-20, 600 Dem LV, MoE +/-4%), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) continues to lead former Tennessee congressman Harold Ford Jr. in what could be a competitive primary race -- if, that is, Ford decides to run. Ford holds Gillibrand well below 50% however.

Gillibrand 41
Ford 27
Tasini 3
Und 29

In the governor's race, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo -- who has still not announced his candidacy -- leads Gov. David Paterson by an overwhelming margin.

Cuomo 63
Paterson 19
Und 18