Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published in “Day: March 26, 2007”

Will Gonzales envelope Rossi?

March 26, 2007

By way of David Postman's blog, some blogosphere speculation is arising that the firestorm around Attorney General Alberto Gonzales could do some long-range damage to gubernatorial prospects for Republican Dino Rossi.

During the endless aftermath of the 2004 Washington gubernatorial election, the time of the count and the recount and the re-recount, no one on the Republican side was more doggedly energetic than Sound Politics writer Stefan Sharkansky in pursuing theories of election counting malfeasance. His posts hit the point over and over, and he was an activist on the subject as well. Probably at least as much as anyone on radio or in the party structure, he kept pushing the idea that something was seriously wrong in the King County elections office.

So how does that tie in to Gonzales and Rossi?

(more…)

Bad numbers

March 26, 2007

We'll start by suggesting not only the "appropriate grain of salt," but also a real-world reality filter: We're talking here about a partisan poll measuring something that seems unlikely to ever happen.

Okay? It still may be worth some consideration, at least to chew over, as what we think is the first head to head (sort of) for the next Senate race in Oregon.

This concerns a poll conducted last month by Rove Insight for the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, aimed at Oregon Republican Senator Gordon Smith. (Information about it has begun popping around the web; the most detailed posting we've seen on it was the post at Daily Kos.) The question asked was, "If the November 4th, 2008 general election for U.S. Senate were held today and the candidates were: Peter DeFazio, Democrat or Gordon Smith, Republican, for whom would you vote or are you undecided?"

The results: Smith 38%, DeFazio 42%.

It also did a right track-wrong track measure, with wrong track prevailing 61%-27%.

(more…)