HorsesAss.Org

Respected local pollster Stuart Elway just released a new survey of the Washington Senate race, and it’s a bit of a shocker for those plying the too-close-call meme: 51-38 percent in Sen. Patty Murray’s favor, and a yawning 55-40 percent gap when “leaners” are factored in. That’s a far cry from the spate of surveys from national polling firms that have recently shown the lead bouncing back an forth, near or within the margin of error.

Elway of course is painfully aware that such a dramatic departure from the national narrative might “come as a surprise to many and as unbelievable to some,” so he goes on at some length explaining why these results should not be dismissed as an outlier. This survey only interviewed “likely voters,” defined as those who have voted in at least two of the past four elections, or who have registered since 2008. The demographic profile of this sample matches the samples all year, and the expected profile of likely voters. And, Elway’s results are actually in line with the trend from other, non-automated surveys.

But in the end, one of the big differences between Elway’s results and those of other pollsters comes down to “philosophy.”

One of the challenges of election polling is determining what to do with respondents who are undecided. The philosophy here has always been to let them be undecided. After all, it is still 3 weeks until election day and the purpose of a survey is to describe the campaign situation today—not to predict the outcome. As a consequence, The Elway Poll routinely indicates more “undecided” voters than other surveys—a position that fails to satisfy the partisans, often resulting in charges of incompetence and/or bias from partisans on the short end of data.

And not only doesn’t Elway push the undecideds, he also doesn’t statistically weight the data the way many national pollsters do, using some “secret sauce formula” to estimate how the undecideds will break based on party identification. But if he did weight the data, here’s how the results might look:

51 to 49 percent… that’s right in line with Rasmussen. But as Elway points out, the Party ID model assumes that all of the remaining undecideds would break for Rossi, ignoring the fact that leaners in this survey actually broke 2 to 1 for Murray.

According to Elway, these results illustrate the difficult challenge for Rossi, as “there are simply not enough undecided voters left” to sway.

One path for Rossi is to bring new voters into the electorate—people who were not in the “likely voter” sample. This is where Tea Party voters may help, assuming that there are a significant number who are not “likely voters.” Sufficient help from that quarter seems problematic for two reasons. First, it is not clear that Tea Partiers are disproportionally less likely voters. Second, Rossi has consciously not courted the Tea Party constituency.

This means Rossi must take votes away from Murray. He must convince enough Murray supporters to switch sides, which puts a premium on the two debates and on making an effective “closing argument” in the final three weeks of the campaign.

Good luck with that. Murray has been in the U.S. Senate for 18 years, and this is Rossi’s third appearance on a statewide ballot in six years, so a lot of voters came into this election with their minds already made up. And it doesn’t help Rossi that, according to Elway, Washington seems to be bucking the national generic trend, with a plurality of voters preferring Democrats maintain control of Congress by a 46 to 37 percent margin.

All in all, pretty good news for Patty Murray.

Several readers have now emailed or commented about my “Dino Rossi Did Not Write the 2003-2005 Budget” Slog post, suggesting that I submit Rossi’s false budget-writing claim to the Seattle Times Truth Needle for further fact-checking. But that would be immodest.

That said, I wouldn’t be opposed to other folks submitting it themselves.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV37LrNG7KI&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

In case you haven’t been following this truly bizarre/disturbing story, Ohio GOP Congressional candidate Rich Iott has not only been exposed as an avid Nazi SS re-enactor, he’s even gone so far as to defend the Nazis as merely wanting to protect their homeland from the greater threat of Bolshevism.

And when asked last night by CNN’s Anderson Cooper whether he thought the members of the 5th SS Wiking Panzer Division he portrays were “valiant men,” Iott refused to pass judgement:

Iott defended the members of the unit, who he said “wanted to fight what they saw as a bigger threat to them than Germany,” so they joined up with the Nazis to fight the eastern front of the war against Soviet forces. “I don’t think we can sit here and judge that today. We weren’t there the time they made those decisions…”

“I don’t think we can sit here and judge that today.” Huh. Tell that to all my murdered and never-born relatives.

There are cynical folks who like to claim that there isn’t much difference between the Republicans and the Democrats, but I’m pretty damn sure my party isn’t running a self-avowed Nazi sympathizers this cycle.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, and I just said it over on Slog: Dave Reichert did not catch the Green River Killer.

He simply didn’t. In fact, if anything, it was Reichert’s investigative bungling that allowed Gary Ridgway, one of the earliest suspects in the case, to go on killing for 18 more years.

Of course, the inspiration for both these posts is Michael Hoods excellent series on BlatherWatch, the re-posting of which has become a much looked forward to biennial media event.

Read the whole thing.

Over on Slog, I do a little myth-busting, pointing out that despite all the credit Dino Rossi gets for balancing the state budget in 2003, he really didn’t do much budget writing at all. In fact, according to contemporaneous news reports at the time:

The Republican budget has much in common with the all-cuts plan that Democratic Gov. Gary Locke unveiled in December. In fact, Rossi opened a press briefing yesterday with a PowerPoint presentation titled: “Following the Governor’s Lead.”

The truth is, Rossi wrote the 2003-2005 state budget much in the same way that Dave Reichert caught the Green River Killer, in that he didn’t. Though just like with Reichert’s claim to fame, that hasn’t stopped the media from parroting Rossi’s revisionist narrative unchallenged.

Our friend Joan McCarter’s got the scoop at Daily Kos, with new polling data showing the race in WA-08 between Republican Dave Reichert and Democratic challenger Suzan DelBene closing to within the margin of error:

Dave Reichert, for the third election in a row, remains among the most vulnerable Republican House members. This is the swing district where Darcy Burner nipped at Reichert’s heels in both 2006 and 2008. It could be that voters in the 8th have finally decided to stop grading Reichert on a curve, and expect their congressman to start doing more than just showing up….

Most of the public polling in the race has been done by SUSA, which has had some pretty funky numbers in the Seattle Metro area in polls this cycle. Nonetheless, the SUSA numbers have shown an increasingly tight race here, with their latest poll showing a seven-point gap, Reichert leading 52-45. An internal poll released by DelBene last week confirms PPP, with Reichert leading by the skin of his teeth, 48-44.

In other words, we’re off to the races!

And a quick look at the cross-tabs shows that there’s still plenty of upside for DelBene, with 31% of WA-08 voters still having no opinion of her, and plenty of opportunity for her to pick up support with women, who she currently splits 47-47, despite Reichert’s anti-choice record. As far as I know, there’s little or no outside money committed to defending Reichert’s seat, so if DelBene can continue her air assault while perhaps doing a little better job of introducing herself to voters, this one appears winnable.

And, as Joan astutely points out, given the Seattle Times’ primary abandonment of him, “it doesn’t seem likely that Reichert can look forward to another October surprise hatchet job coming from them.” Cross your fingers.

The Tacoma News Tribune now makes the fourth major paper to endorse Democratic Sen. Patty Murray over Republican challenger and foreclosure speculator Dino Rossi:

Murray has made a political career out of defying expectations. She’s grown into a formidable lawmaker who has proven she can both help lead the Democratic Party and work across the aisle when needed. To turn her out now, when she is at the height of her ability to fight for important state, regional and local projects, would be foolish.

Foolish indeed. Which is why none of these endorsements comes as much of a surprise.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvm0cWgHp6A&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Yup, Republican strategists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie are spending millions of dollars in secret, undisclosed money, some of it from wealthy foreign donors, to run misleading attack ads against Democrats nationwide. And much of that dirty money is being spent right here in Washington state against Sen. Patty Murray.

And Dino Rossi accuses Murray of being a captive of the other Washington?

Of course, all this is made possible by the Supreme Court’s recent Citizens United decision, which overturned a century of established precedent by essentially ruling that money has more free speech rights than speech itself. And the secrecy is aided by the Senate Republicans refusing to let the DISCLOSE Act come to the floor for a vote… a bill that Sen. Murray has strongly supported, and which Rossi would oppose. The result has been to dramatically expand the destructive and undemocratic influence of wealthy special interests:

“We have allowed these 527s to run wild, unfettered, unregulated, not subject to the same rules and regulations as the national parties. And I think that’s been incredibly unhealthy.”
— Republican strategist Ed Gillespie

Yup, that’s the same Ed Gillespie who is working with Rove to fund and run these secretly financed ads on behalf of Dino Rossi. But then, it’s hard to be a Republican these days without also being a shameless hypocrite.

Hmm. If the Seattle City Council can’t manage to pull the trigger on Mike O’Brien’s very sensible proposal to create a city-run registry to allow citizens to opt-out of receiving the yellow pages — thus saving innumerable trees, not to mention $350,000 a year in recycling costs — perhaps it should consider our surfeit of unwanted phonebooks as an opportunity to solve the city’s homeless problem?

The books form a ready made, insulated building module held in place with sheet metal angles normally used as drywall bead material. Once tensioned, the phone books form a stable wall into which additional layers can be easily screwed. The roof joists are also made of laminated phone books. The finished structure becomes a kind of time capsule, recording the names and numbers of community members.

Yeah sure, it looks kinda silly, but I mean, who the fuck actually still uses a phonebook these days to, you know, actually look up phone numbers and stuff? So this makes as much sense as simply tossing ’em straight from your porch, into the recycling bin.

Or, the Council could just give us the opportunity to tell the phonebook publishers to shove off.

Last week’s contest was a bit of a lay-up, which Liberal Scientist solved in quick fashion. It was Sioux Falls, SD.

This is the second Sunday of the month, so this week’s contest is the first of my new contest theme, TV and movies. The picture I choose for this will be related to something in a TV show or a movie (new or old). Here’s this week’s, good luck!

Don’t drink from the red cups. That’s what I’ve been telling folks here for years.

Unlike a lot of other political bloggers, the election season is a time when I tend to step back a little bit from the blog. The obnoxious (and often wildly inaccurate) TV ads that constantly run leave me feeling hopeless about the ability for anyone to go to the ballot box informed enough to make the right decisions about which initiatives and candidates to vote for – and about my power to make any difference in that. Being able to separate truth from fiction is a challenge for anyone who isn’t already devoting significant amounts of their time to following the issues and candidates themselves.

But there are a handful of races out there where I feel like I need to speak up more. One of them is the race for the House seat in the 45th Legislative District currently held by Roger Goodman. Goldy wrote about the challenger there the other day, and I don’t have anything to add to that. Unlike Goodman’s last opponent for this seat – Toby Nixon, who I have a lot of respect for – Kevin Haistings is a partisan hack with absolutely no qualifications for that seat.

It’s no secret that I’ve worked with Goodman a lot in the past. I’ve supported his campaigns because I think that he’s one of the most courageous and principled legislators in the state. He’s one of the few people in Olympia (from either party) who understands what makes government effective and efficient, and can truly call himself “fiscally responsible”. So when I read this from the endorsement of Haistings in the Seattle Times, I was floored:

For Position 1, Republican Kevin Haistings would bring a pragmatic, independent voice to the principal task in Olympia: wrestling a tight budget. The Carnation resident and Seattle Police Department sergeant is a political novice. Haistings’ budget approach — which includes looking at spending and asking not if a program is of value, but rather who should bear the cost — ought to be the standard in Olympia. Haistings proposes a public-private partnership to help pay for parks and other public needs.

Rep. Roger Goodman is the Democratic incumbent. An attorney, Goodman is best known for drug-law reform. But his tenure lacked independent leadership and efforts toward pragmatic budget solutions.

What amazes me the most about this is that Goodman is considered such an expert in “pragmatic budget solutions” that he travels to other states to talk to their legislatures about how to reduce their criminal justice costs. If that’s not enough, and you want to see an even clearer illustration of how odd the Times endorsement is, the following video was taken last week at a candidate’s forum. Goodman asked Haistings about the specifics of his budget approach, and Haistings admits that he can’t answer it because he doesn’t have specifics:

Our state budget isn’t going to be fixed by slogans. It needs real solutions from people who take these issues seriously. The Times may have fallen for Haistings’ empty rhetoric, but the voters in the 45th LD don’t have to make the same mistake.

Anyone who reads my posts here knows that I generally distrust (and often dislike) politicians from across the political spectrum, but with that cynicism comes a real appreciation for the politicians who truly defy special interests and win by standing against the corporate shills and obnoxious nanny crusaders. It pains me to see Russ Feingold potentially losing his seat in Wisconsin this year, and I wish that more principled conservative politicians who truly believe in small government had a larger voice against the Tea Party crazies. Roger Goodman is one of the few politicians out there who belongs in that category – and he belongs in Olympia too.

John 15:6
If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

Discuss.

The Oregonian also endorsed Sen. Patty Murray yesterday, highlighting her power and influence, and lavishing praise on her for the careful attention she pays to local issues and veterans’ affairs.

Once upon a time, the Pacific Northwest was a powerhouse in the U.S. Senate, wielding the long-term muscle of powerful chairmen like Mark Hatfield, Warren Magnuson and Bob Packwood. After generational and other changes, the region has spent years in a weakened position, and has been only slowly working itself back.

By itself, that could be a reason to re-elect Washington Sen. Patty Murray, after three terms the senior senator from the region and an increasingly influential force in both the Appropriations Committee and the Democratic leadership. But Murray, with a long history of being underestimated, has a range of other arguments, including her tenacious advocacy on behalf of veterans and in support of a Hanford cleanup.

And just like the Seattle Times, they didn’t have many kind words to say about Republican challenger Dino Rossi, arguing that his perfunctory parroting of NRSC talking points “provided little reason to replace Murray”:

Rossi in particular seems to get further and further away from the productive, working-across-the-aisle state legislator he was 10 years ago and more into a generic Republican Senate candidate who might be running in any state. This year it’s become common to use images of the U.S. Capitol as an accusation, but that is in fact where senators work.

I final sentiment that Rossi is unlikely to learn from personal experience.

(And there are 50 more clips from the past week in politics at Hominid Views.)