** Former U.S. Navy Secretary James Webb has pulled up into a tie with Republican Senator George Allen in their hardfought race in Virginia. According to the Mason-Dixon poll, Webb, who trailed by double digits most of the year, now has 43% of the vote to Allen’s 43%. 57% of Virginians in the poll say America is on the wrong track, while only 29% say it is on the right track.
Allen, widely touted as a leading conservative challenger for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, had his hands full with Webb right along. Webb was one of the most highly decorated Marine Corps officers in the Vietnam War, having won the Navy Cross, the nation’s second highest award for courage in combat, just behind the Medal of Honor. He also won a fistful of other medals. One of the most famous graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Webb emerged as perhaps the finest novelist of the Vietnam War, and is a top screenwriter and award-winning documentary filmmaker. He served as assistant secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan before becoming secretary of the Navy. Webb became a Democrat because of his dismay over President George W. Bush‘s Iraq policy.
Allen, in contrast, inherited his fame as the son of a famous football coach. He’s actually a native Californian; his dad, George Allen, Sr., was coach of the Los Angeles Rams before moving east to take over the Washington Redskins. Allen entered Virginia politics and became governor before winning a seat in the Senate. He had a little problem, as you may have heard, last month, stupidly and repeatedly taunting a Webb campaign worker pointing a video camera at him. The Webb intern, an American citizen of Indian descent, was repeatedly derided as “macaca” — a term for which Allen and his frazzled campaign team have come up with a variety of non-credible explanations — before being told by the would-be presidential contender: “Welcome to America.”
Webb subsequently debated Allen on an airing of Meet the Press and wiped the floor with him.
** The LA Times poll released tomorrow will show a huge lead for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger over Democratic candidate Phil Angelides, 50% to 33%. The former action superstar’s job approval rating is up to a whopping 56%. Schwarzenegger is viewed as the superior leader by 60% of likely voters. Only 20% pick Angelides. Schwarzenegger also has a clear edge on integrity and trustworthiness, 43% to 25%. The former Mr. Universe also leads Angelides on all major issue areas.
** Although a panoply of some of the biggest movie stars in the world, including Tom Cruise, have come out against that proposed LNG (liquefied natural gas) platform near Malibu, some 14 miles off the coast, only Home Alone co-star Daniel Stern appeared with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides at his event yesterday announcing his opposition.
** That big Democratic wave predicted across America and through California? Not happening here. Most of the statewide Democratic candidates are in trouble. Only Jerry Brown and Bill Lockyer are in strong shape among the candidates for state constitutional office. (Dianne Feinstein is, of course, a shoo-in for U.S. Senate.)
Tom McClintock has a slight edge over John Garamendi for lieutenant governor, for example, reversing the Democrat’s previous 10-point lead. So sayeth a new LA Times poll, buttressing what has been reported here for weeks.
Meanwhile, with his Iraq War gambit falling flat, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Phil Angelides is returning to the Schwarzenegger tape fiasco, demanding that the governor release the rest of the audio tapes of private conversations that Angelides opppsition researchers surreptitiously obtained from the governor’s server. The Angelides camp only slipped one tape to the LA Times, which promptly slapped the take on the front page.
Are the above three paragraphs unconnected? Only in dreams.
** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Crude oil prices hover above sixty dollars per barrel. Economic growth has slowed, and Venezuela and Nigeria will reportedly cut production to maintain the price.
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| Comments (35) |
A stupid, sucky candidate at the top has negative coattails even in a Democratic state.
I get the dot-prize, huh? lol
I am afraid there will be no prize available.
Oooh, the California Plurality Report mentioned ME! Thanks you Barbara for telling us. I might have gone thru the rest of life never knowing.
The Governor is in a commanding position because of his focus on governing and getting results. He is being the centrist maverick he always was (‘cept for that little detour in late ’04 thru special).
He has been aided by the sheer ineptitude and incompetence of Phil Angelides. So that race is in it’s own orbit, with the outcome very clear.
Now, having said that, I think anything can happen in the down ticket races. We have a bit over a month to go, and I personally believe things will start to trend democrat around the 10th of October. This Mark Foley resignation and Woodward book is all bad news for the ruling party.
Currently if you look at likely voter screens vs. registered voters they are picking up a more GOP sample in the likely category. I would think that will even out as we move thru October.
DiFi is home free, as is Jerry Brown and Lockyer. Everything else is a jump ball at this point. Thus, a democrat trend will tip the ball towards the democrats.
Even with all this…Angelides remains hopeless.
Sayeth Sooth
Re: the Poll Results
Good, that means Arnold can now just totally focus on the Infrastructure Bonds with Speaker Nunez and Don Perata, and Mayor AV can focus on Prop 86 and 87!
Sooth – Woodward is a relic of the past, and has no influence on the events of today, despite the desperrate efforts of all the media’s men.
Mr. Angelides has become a farcical candidate, the unintentional humor of his situation only accentuated by his essential humorlessness.
Well, I agree with Sooth! Woodward is very short on footnotes, but he is very readable and anyway most people will not read him but hear him on Larry King etc…
He will have an impact. Foley is the last nail on the coffin….it appears these e-mails of Foley were no secret to the House powers that be…The House leaders behavior is on par with Cardinal Law behavior….it is not just
unacceptable …its criminal.
Carla Marinucci has a piece in the SF Chron this morning talking about AS making a big push for the African-American vote – says he’s polling 25% in the AA community, which would be an enormous achievement for a Republican, actually. What’s really interesting, too, is that African-American leaders say they haven’t heard much from Angelides. If Angelides can’t even do well in areas where Dems have historically run well, the whole ticket might suffer.
According to the LATimes prop 86 and 87 are ahead??? Good news!
Re: Foley
Donald Lathbury at California Majority Report (CMR) has authored a very well written, important article…I highly recommend to everyone to read it. Thank you DL and publishers of CMR…what can I say,
when you are good…you are really good! It is a beautiful day here in Sacto…I am going out to play! Toodles!
Oh my God! What did your Democrats do out there?
Schwarzenegger appears unstoppable in California
Bill Bradley takes a quick look at a few statewide races out in California. The LA Times poll released tomorrow will show a huge lead for
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger over Democratic candidate Phil
Angelides, 50% to 33%. The former action…
Barbara, why don’t you tell us what that fabulous article was about?
Is it about the reality of the California elections, perchance?
Sooth-
I disagree with your assesment of likely voters. Right now, the likely voters are Republican. The August PPIC survey belies this point when they look at the actual frequent voter demographics.
Rank-and-file Republicans will come out to support Sen. McClintock…he’s their poster child. I believe that the latest LA Times poll will drive out more Republican volunteers and further depress Democratic vols.
I understand that the grassroots doesn’t win elections by persuasion, but I think that the RNC memo to the NRCC (or was the NRSC) was particularly poingant: TV ads don’t get voters to the polls, but sustained voter contact does. The Republicans will have the turnout, it just remains to be seen whether or not the democratic grassroots activists can channel their energy in one direction to match it. All things being equal, the Republicans run a better GOTV program than the Dems. If you need evidence of flawless GOTV execution, take a look at the first 11 days of Semptember in Rhode Island…
Rich,
While McClintock is the darling of conservative activists (15% of GOP voters), not sure he is enuf to bring out the other 85%. Rank-and-file GOP assume Arnold is a snooze at this point and what you’re asserting is that McC will be the tail that wags the dog. Don’t think so.
Chafee GOTV was a PRIMARY. Different kettle of fish now.
You know, I just took a spin around the blogosphere before taking off for other things and found a conservative friend of mine, um, going on about George Allen’s big momentum.
He posted this brilliance … yesterday.
I am so uncomfortable and frankly dismayed by the endless reality-defying spin emanating from partisan blogs.
I nearly left my friend a comment saying he should be spinning for Phil Angelides, a thought that would horrify him. But why bother?
Oh, one other thing. I was talking with a number of Democratic and Republican strategists earlier about the California situation. That included Garry South. Who has basically been right about everything in this general election.
Sooth: I understand your point, but I think that you may be underestimating things…in particular with regards to the GOP’s ability to turn out voters. That they were able to achieve what they did in a primary, scares me. That they were able to – by some estimates – get 10,000 PAV’s into the ballot box using their “72 hour GOTV plan” in CD50, scares me as a grassroots activist.
I once heard that the difference between the Russian mob and the Italian mob was the the Italians played boche ball while the Russians played chess…Right now, I think that we’re playing boche ball…
I am of course, always willing to allow for the fact that I could be very wrong.
Bill:
thanks for posting the new Allen-Webb poll results. I don’t know when it was taken, but things are only getting worse for Allen – and deservedly so. You know there’s been a lot of stories the past few days about whether he used the n-word in referring to African-Americans, with some friends saying he has and others that he hasn’t. So, the debate in Va. now seems not to be whether he’s a racist, but just how big a racist he actually has been. I still find it hard to believe that Webb will actually win, athough I hope he does – like you, from what I can tell. It would be really fascinating to see him in the Senate – he’d be just as much a pain in the ass to Dems as he would to Reps – which would be great to see.
When was the poll taken? Please read carefully.
From the Roanoke Times article linked to above:
The latest poll results come from a telephone survey of 625 registered voters conducted between Sept. 23 and Wednesday. All of the participants said they are likely to vote in the Nov. 7 election. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Thanks. Sorry, I read right past that. I have to think that if were taken again this weekend, it would be even worse for Georgie. All the media coverage this week has been about his racial slurs and it would seem that it would take at least a few days for that coverage to sink it and drag his numbers down even more…
speaking of interesting Senate races, the Montana race between Burns and Tester is pretty interesting, too – another Republican who needs racial sensitivity training…
Thank you for your kind words, Barbara. It’s a piece I’m very proud of, but as I allude to in it, I didn’t expect to write it. I woke up this morning planning on writing an attack on some conservative blogs exploiting the situation, only to find that none exist so far as I can tell.
The one debate I don’t get is the one over election accuracy. The Republicans come out pro-Diebold, apparently because any criticism of the machine gives legitimacy to the argument that Kerry really won Ohio, and all that. There must be some quota on AirAmericaRadio where they must talk about that 5 minutes every hour.
The Democrats come out against a photo-id requirement. Who here even knows people who can legally vote, but don’t or can’t get a photo-ID? That’s just goofy thinking.
What I want is to vote by writing X’s in boxes with a huge Sharpie™ pen, then feeding it into some weird scanner which stores the paper, and transmits the results somewhere. Geez, why is this even a political issue?.
Well a few other polls still have Allen up by 5 over Webb, but I been told that people are doing what has happened before in races when race becomes a factor like this and lying to pollsters. Show to be safe you might want to end 3-5 points to any allen number you see (Some thing with the race on Tenn.)
As for the GOTV, the republicans drove GOTV did a great job for in RI to get the Chaffee thought the primany driving out recond turnout for a republican primany.
Webb has the momentum. The examples you cite don’t relate to white candidates, they relate to blacks mostly.
YOu can’t watch that macaca video of George Allen and think he is anything but a bigoted buffoon. Voters don’t like to be represented by embarassments, they think it reflects on them.
No, the Macaca fiasco (and the denial of his heritage, and other things) show more of a foot in mouth syndrome than anything else. Then, after a while of non-response, he starts self-flagellation, which doesn’t endear himself to conservatives. Basically as a candidate he is becoming toast unless he can find something other than “Jim Webb didn’t want women in the Academy 25 years ago” as a viable means of attack.
Bill I’m hearing that the media is looking into Webb to see if there are similar accusations against him…I do not know any specifics….I also heard or read last night that some of the people who accused Allen of things said back in college are now admitting they lied….so this is going to get interesting and wild in the state of VA…I personally abhor any kind of race baiting from either side and at some point I’d love to see all cease and desist this horrific tactic in the political arena…it’s like Al Davis’s just win baby and that does not make it right…voters are smarter than that and it usually backfires anyway
The VIDEO.
Of course there will be a lot of attempts back and forth, especially from a campaign in trouble like Allen’s.
The main event regarding race already happened.
Well, kids, the LAT poll pretty completely confirms what was absolutely predictable and utterly inevitable: the Democratic nominee for governor is going down in flames — and he himself probably still doesn’t have a single notion as to why (“Hey, I thought I was the anti-Arnold! How come this shtick isn’t working?”). The only question is whether Angelides’ personal unsaleablity and political ineptitude take other good Democrats down with him further down the ticket. I would think these shocking, almost unbelievable numbers might make some of the major Democrats and organizations that propped up this lousy candidate, and helped him squeek through the primary through no fault of his own, search their consciences — or at least their internal decion-making processes — and ask themselves what on earth they were thinking. Pretty much the same rules apply to politics as to poultry: You put up a turkey for a candidate, and he’s liable to get his head chopped off just before Thanksgiving. I’m sure Arnold and the Republicans are even now giving thanks to the Democratic Establishment for the meal they are about to consume. Amen.
Good Morning Mr. Bradley,
After Mass this morning I am going to run into the Hyatt Regency and buy a LA Times!…I want to read that poll while I am sipping my non-fat latte!
Now, I remember Mr. South saying here at NWN that Westly’s campaign internal polling never showed a 13 spread and,a few months ago I had C-Span on and there was a panel of journalists talking about politics and one woman said something like… Matthew Dowd does not like LA Times polls!… and I thought to myself at that time…hey, that is one of those guys that Mr. Bradley calls Arnold’s Texans! But I bet he likes this poll!
I think it is really finally fall! I am even going to wear my Ralph Lauren kilt and boots this morning! and Guess What! when I woke up and turned on the radio (94.7) guess what was playing?! “Girl put your records on! Tell me your favorite song!” I think that means something! I think it is a sign! The DEMS are taking back the House!
Go CIRA 2007!!!!
“Maybe sometimes, we got it wrong, but its alright
The more things seem to change, the more they stay the same
Oh, dont you hesitate
[chorus]
Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead let your hair down
Sapphire, and faded jeans i hope you get your dreams
Just go ahead, let your hair down
You’re gonna find yourself, somewhere, somehow”
Corrinne Bailey Rae
The LAT poll’s methodology and results are often suspect to consultants on both sides of the aisle, Barbara, but the general and inevitable direction of this race is clear in other polls, too. Both the PPIC and Field polls have Arnold with double-digit leads. Given the multiple deficiencies of Angelides’ personality and his campaign, that gap will not be made up, no matter whether it’s 10 or 17. Plus, as you know, whether the actual spread is correct or not, polls like this are often a self-fulfilling prophecy, because they cut off all oxygen to the campaign that’s struggling.
Mr. South “a self-fulfilling prophecy, because they cut off all oxygen to the campaign ”
From your mouth… to God’s ears Mr South!!! Have a happy Sunday with your wife and son!
Now, everyone let’s get goin’… on with the ALL of the Infrastructure Bonds and YES on 86 & 87!!!
YbuNWK Good point. I hadn’t thought about it quite that way.