Bacon's Rebellion

Two New Polls Added to Running Tally

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by

James A. Bacon
in

I know that purists sniff at suggestions there is any meaning in compilations like this, but take a look at Real Clear Politics now that Mason Dixon and Rassmussen are posted. The televised debate was October 9 and the Kilgore death penalty ads started two, three days later. Kaine then had his lowest result in a published poll (42) but his response and the Bnai Brith and editorial page assault that landed on Kilgore had their impact. I got the faux “Club for Growth” mailer at my house on Oct. 24, right after Kilgore got his best result (48). I don’t know when the 2,000th military death in Iraq was exactly, or the Libby indictment, but the timing was hardly great for Kilgore. The final push is on to make illegal immigration an issue high on voter radars by Tuesday.

This weekend will (and can) make all the difference, but the weather will be so good fewer Virginians will be huddled around the TeeVee to absorb all those wonderful ads (except football fans — what is a spot now selling for in that Tech-Miami game? You don’t want to know) and the prediction for Tuesday is for a stellar Indian Summer day. At this point in close elections Republicans are usually caught praying for rain.

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19 responses to “Two New Polls Added to Running Tally”

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I’d rather be ahead than behind, but I’m surprised they put the Roanoke survey in the mix, given that they have no track record.

    Without that, it shows Kaine ahead by a couple of points, but with both candidates close enough to 50% to win.

    The question still is: What are the other 10% waiting to hear, and how are they going to break?

    I also note that Rasmussen tries to factor this by pushing non-committeds to try to get them to commit, and when they aren’t pushed Kaine’s lead is less — which suggests that at least some undecideds are leaning Kaine’s way.

    Normally undecideds go against the incumbent, which Kaine virtually is in this race.

    Kaine has nothing to throw the last week to convince the undecideds to pick him; there will be no legislative win, or public pronouncement of gain in Virginia, which would make people feel better about the incumbent. There is nothing more Warner can do to link Kaine to Warner.

    But what does Kilgore have? He’s thrown all his ideas out as well. But Kaine’s movement seems to be related to Kilgore’s advertising, not anything Kaine did. That could be good for Kilgore, since he has complete control over his own ads.

    The Kilgore DP ads negatives can be reduced if Kilgore’s last set of ads makes people feel better about him. Nobody will forget the message of the DP ads, so he doesn’t have to run them or anything like them anymore.

    If Kilgore can do well with what I presume will be a set of positive ads over the weekend, and can make the last word in the campaign be about illegal immigration, he could get those undecideds.

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “Normally undecideds go against the incumbent, which Kaine virtually is in this race.”

    Not when indepedents are breaking towards the incumbent and the “incumbent” is wildly popular.

    “At this point in close elections Republicans are usually caught praying for rain.”

    Why wait for rain when you can just intimidate voters directly at the polls, send them to the wrong day, the wrong polling location, etc.? I’m pretty much in the middle, but for now I think I’ll stick to the party that doesn’t have anything like “How best can we supress the _(insert Democratic leaning minority__ vote?” meetings and just focuses on turning out their folks, simply ignoring those who aren’t with them instead of finding ways to mess with them.

  3. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Kilgore is finally running a “warm and fuzzy”, smiling at the camera, sitting in the woods, walking with his kids. Kaine has a strong ad on the newspaper endorsements. I’m sure both will have a half dozen ads in the mix through Monday night.

    As for the large undecided still showing up in the polls, I suspect that is the harbinger of a lower than usual turnout. It could also be a result (shudder) of some under-the-radar Potts voters, people reluctant to admit it to a pollster.

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I’ve never found voter suppression tactics even the least bit acceptable. They are just sleazy. Don’t answer your phone this weekend, however. Now a good rain storm on the other hand, traditional “Republican weather,” is in the hands of a higher power (Pat Robertson, right?)

  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “I’ve never found voter suppression tactics even the least bit acceptable. They are just sleazy.”

    The best part about them is that even if they are illegal, there are no do-overs in elections. For instance, when the Republican party dialed autocalls directly INTO Democratic phonebanks in New Hampshire to jam up the lines, most of the key players got caught and convicted (the case is still ongoing for the Republican Senatorial chair). But it doesn’t matter: the Republican Party has oodles of dollars to pay out fines for, say, parking cars in every parking space near an African American polling place, hiring people to play phony police officers at the polls to harrass voters, etc. If the price is a few dupes ending up in jail… there are no dovoers, so what!

    Last year they made a big push on voter challengers, alleging that anyone who didn’t respond to a Republican mailing wasn’t a valid addressed voter (they ran a similar autocall/mailing here to African American Democrats that the papers tangentially covered, but I think they got scared off from using it). Not only did many local attorneys who had helped the Republicans file these challenged get fined and sanctioned for committing perjury (claiming they had personal knowledge of each voters ineligibility when they did not), but many of them ended up in apologetic tears after an endless stream of voters who showed up angry as hell that their right to vote in the place they’d been voting for years was being attacked. One marine fighting in Iraq sent back a letter horrified to find that his right to vote was being challenged when he was overseas and unable to attend the challenge hearings (which were convieniently scheduled at 8am in the morning during a weekday). Those local Republican lawyers got misled about what they were doing, and many got burned. To the RNC though, those locals are all small fish. Let em fry. There are no do-overs in elections.

    What tiresome new low will this year hold? So far, from what I can tell, despite a court order ruling that “goldenrod” ballots are not official yellow and are thus permissible to hand out outside the polls, the RNC is planning anyway to hire folks from out of state to dress police officerish and harrass anyone that takes or hands out a goldenrod ballot (the traditional color of the sample ballots in the African American precincts), trying to “confiscate” them if possible. Violating a court order? Sure. But what’s the worst that will happen? A few million in fines? Ta. No do-overs! Happens every election.

  6. Scott Avatar
    Scott

    > Rolling Stone: Kilgore helped Marvin Bush in illegal dumping in Va.
    >
    > by bolgia7
    >
    > Wed Oct 12, 2005 at 06:41:47 AM PDT
    >
    > The Oct. 20 issue of Rolling Stone has a small article about Marvin Bush, GWB’s favorite brother, and his involvement in a waste-disposal company called Tellurian. Marvin’s company Winston Partners bought Tellurian in 2001.
    >
    > Thereafter, Tellurian – renamed National Waste Services of Virginia after Marvin’s company took it over – dumped 6,500 tons of trash per day, much of it from other states, into a rural landfill even though its state permit allowed it to dump only 250 tons per day. According to the company’s chair, Marvin Bush knew all about this.
    > bolgia7’s diary :: ::
    >
    > Tim Kaine, who’s the current Lieutenant Governor in Va. and is running on the Dem ticket for Virginia governor, blew the whistle on the dumping back in 2003, but, according to RS, “the landfill stayed open – and continued to violate its permit – for another eight months.”
    >
    > How was the company getting away with this? Well, it helps to have friends in the Attorney General’s office. Jerry Kilgore, the Republican candidate for Virginia governor, “repeatedly delayed hearings on the violations, turning a blind eye as Marvin’s company continued to dump more than 1,000 tons per day. While the hearings remained stalled, Kilgore was tapped to head President Bush’s re-election campaign in Virginia.”
    >
    > The state finally shut down the landfill in 2004, and NWS declared bankruptcy. But “Kilgore levied no fines, brought no criminal charges and kept the Bush name out of the mess.”
    >
    > Unfortunately, this story doesn’t appear on RS’s web site – if you want to read the whole thing, you’ll have to find a paper copy.
    >
    > I can’t find any evidence that this has become a campaign issue or is being covered anywhere else, and I’m not sure why. With Bush’s approval rating around 40 right now in Virginia, it seems like Kaine could make a little hay with a “Jerry Kilgore helped George Bush’s brother illegally dump millions of tons of waste in Page County. Tim Kaine tried to stop it.” ad. I wonder why this isn’t happening.

  7. zeke Avatar
    zeke

    call me crazy maybe because kilgore is a devicive hick with no real ideas other than the “hot button” will help indeceided voters jump towards kaine?

    also take into account the 6 billion dollar deficit left by the last right wing hack and MW 70 % approval rating

  8. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “I can’t find any evidence that this has become a campaign issue or is being covered anywhere else, and I’m not sure why. With Bush’s approval rating around 40 right now in Virginia, it seems like Kaine could make a little hay with a “Jerry Kilgore helped George Bush’s brother illegally dump millions of tons of waste in Page County. Tim Kaine tried to stop it.” ad. I wonder why this isn’t happening.”

    Mostly because there are too many issues floating around already. You need to give voters a clear, singular theme rather than muddying up the waters with a new message every other day. Kaine’s message is “I take Warner as my model of what a good Governor should be, and that’s what you’ll get with me: more of the same.” Kilgore’s is “Kaine is a bad bad man, weak on this that the other thing and wrong for Virginia.” Both candidates have strayed from this theme for their negative (Kaine) and positive (Kilgore) sides, but by and large those are the big themes. Was Kilgore a corrupt, crony-servicing AG? Pretty hard to have a fair debate on that in the middle of the election.

  9. Scott Avatar
    Scott

    Scott –

    Here’s the full rolling stone article on marvin bush and the page county landfill…..the issue has been pitched to reporters all over the state (more than once & over the last few years) & so far nothing except this rs article.

    M

    Michael Town
    Director
    Sierra Club, Virginia Chapter
    6 N. 6th Street, Suite 102
    Richmond, Virginia 23219
    (804) 225-9113

  10. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Wait — is “Scott” really Michael? If so, that ‘splains alot about some prior posts.

  11. Scott Avatar
    Scott

    Nope.
    I am not Michael.

  12. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Maybe having the Kaine Campaign sanctioned for lying to voters on campaign mailings, and being referred to the commonwealth’s attorney for possible prosecution, could be something that might finally convince undecideds that Kaine will do anything to get elected.

    If he’ll deceive voters in campaign fliers, and he’ll do a survey breaking his promise not to use debate footage to decide whether people will be upset if he breaks that promise further by making a general campaign ad with the footage, what promise can we trust?

    His word is meaningless. He readily admits he won’t live up to his own principles, leaving 2/3rds of the voters HOPING he won’t.

    He’s a Dean-type Democrat, who thinks being pro-choice is not incompatable with being pro-life. “I’m Both!”.

    Kaine – “I’ll do and say anything to get your vote”.

  13. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    If lying to voters in campaign mailings were against the law, both campaigns would be in jail. The Kaine campaign is being sanctioned for having their “paid for/intended to benefit” print too small, which is not quite the same thing as lying (everything printed was true from the source).

    If you can’t have it both ways on abortion then where is Kilgore on abortion? Don’t criminalize women? Isn’t that the same beg-off you usually lambaste Democrats for using? And the guy accepts money from pharmas that MAKE abortions (well, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars taken straight from taxpayers by pharmas that cheated the public under his blind-eye watch, and then turned around and handed him tons of money)! How’s THAT for playing both sides?

  14. GOPHokie Avatar
    GOPHokie

    Kaine isn’t making anything out of the Page landfill thing b/c the head honcho of eth DEQ was a Warner appointee that let it continue on.
    Don’t blame this one solely on us GOPs. It was covered up by both sides. Otherwise the dems would be using it.

  15. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    did some research today on the Roanoke College poll. Turns out that this outfit has been remarkable accurate when it comes to predicting winners. They were the first poll that called for Robb to beat North. I think this poll bears more study than it has received and I think we’ll be looking at its data sets pretty hard come Wednesday morning.

  16. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Especially when one considers that media polls exist to sell newspapers.

  17. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    If I had done hard work to verify a poll, I think I would want to take credit for that work, anonymous.

    If Kaine beats Kilgore by 8% or more, I’ll come back here and apologize.

  18. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Anon 8:33

    I wasn’t meaning to be contrary with you. I just meant that the Roanoke poll is the first one I have seen not affiliated with a media outlet.

    When MSM stops reporting news and trying to create it (and some polls clearly are for that purpose) I just wonder whether there’s a bias to create a horserace or whatever. Not saying all do it.

    So, for me, when a poll like Roanoke comes out, it may suffer from some other bias, but at least not media bias.

  19. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “Asked where the money would come from, Kilgore said the state will have a $3 billion surplus next year. There will be money enough from the surplus to help pay for transportation improvements, he said. He estimated the cost of widening I-66 at $250 million to $400 million.”

    Wow. I guess the tax hike was necessary after all, according to Kilgore.

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