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Chris Dodd has a polling profile reminscent of NJ Governor Jon Corzine. He's behind, he's been behind for a long while, and the poll internals indicate he's likely to stay behind.

Given that the election is less than a year away, how could Dodd eke out a victory?

Have an opponent with high negatives. Thankfully for him, one is already in the race.

Five Republicans are in the race now. Former Congressman Rob Simmons has yet to run TV ads, but has residual name ID in central and eastern CT from his days in Congress. He is leading  Dodd by 11 points.

Former Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley has run TV ads . He is leading Dodd by 7 points.

The other three candidates--Linda McMahon, Sam Caligiuri and Peter Schiff--all are in effective dead heats with Dodd in the 43-41% range.  So they are equal, right?

No. McMahon is the weakest of the lot.  Neither Caligiuri or Schiff have spent dime one on TV ads, while McMahon has blanketed the state--even running ads on NYC TV. Yet she fares no better than the more frugal candidates in the race.

The secret here is while McMahon is buying name recognition, much of it is already negative. 

According to Quinnipiac Simmons's image is now 40% favorable , 10% unfavorable. His rating with unaffiliated voters is 42% favorable- 7% unfavorable.

Linda McMahon did not make such a good first impression.    She rates at 20% favorable to 13% unfavorable.  14% of unaffiliates and 15% of men already have a negative impression of the wrestling mogul.

Amazingly, more people in CT dislike Linda McMahon after a few weeks in elective politics than dislike Rob Simmons after nearly 20 years at  the trade.

The rule of thumb is that a challenger's early numbers usually have to run 2 to 1 favorable to have a shot at an incumbent. McMahon's slick campaign ain't getting the split she needs. And Lord knows what's going to happen if and when Dodd unloads some negatives on her. Sure she'll have plenty of cash to respond, but methinks Chris Dodd will enjoy the mudfest. It's not like his numbers can go much further down.

Now one would think Dodd's dream---a rookie opponent with high and rising negatives--couldn't come true. But it might due to the quirks of the CT GOP and our geography.

Rob Simmons is very well known in eastern CT, which does not have many registered Republicans.  But he is not well known in heavily Republican Fairfield County, which is served by NYC TV.    McMahon's been on those stations; Simmons never has.

I suspect the reason the ballot test for the CT primary is now 28% Simmons - 17% McMahon is heavily due to Simmons having low visibility in the southwestern part of CT.

So all of McMahon's millions got her the same ballot test as the candidates not spending money, and the highest negative ratings in the Republican field.

I suggest CT Republicans take a long hard look at these poll internals. When a candidate makes a tepid first impression, it usually doesn;t improve by just pouring resources into the same suboptimal message.

And if Linda McMahon isn't ahead of the weakened Dodd now after spending millions, why would she be when her negatives inevitably rise?

Let's not do Chris Dodd any favors, please

 Wall Street Journal:

The Obama administration, under pressure to show it is serious about tackling the budget deficit, is seizing on an unusual target to showcase fiscal responsibility: the $700 billion financial rescue. 

The administration wants to keep some of the unspent funds available for emergencies, but is considering setting aside a chunk for debt reduction, according to people familiar with the matter. It is also expected to lower the projected long-term cost of the program -- the amount it expects to lose -- to as little as $200 billion from $341 billion estimated in August.

The idea is still a matter of debate within the administration and it is unclear how much impact it would have on the nation's mounting deficit levels. Still, the potential move illustrates how the Obama administration is trying to find any way it can to bring down the deficit, which is turning into a political as well as an economic liability.

The White House is in the early stages of considering what bigger moves it might make for next year's budget. The Office of Management and Budget has asked all cabinet agencies, except defense and veterans affairs, to prepare two budget proposals for fiscal 2011, which begins Oct 1, 2010. One would freeze spending at current levels. The other would cut spending by 5%.

Politico:

President Barack Obama plans to announce in next year's State of the Union address that he wants to focus extensively on cutting the federal deficit in 2010 – and will downplay other new domestic spending beyond jobs programs, according to top aides involved in the planning.

Andrew Sullivan (headline: Obama, Deficit Hawk):

To treat the stimulus package as if it were something he just felt like doing - because he's a big government maniac - is a lie, a piece of propaganda that has seeped into the lazy Beltway desire to describe everything - even now - into the big government/small government, red-blue paradigm.

Item two: The health insurance reform almost painfully tries to pay for itself - something that Bush's Medicare entitlement didn't even pretend to do. 

Item three: there's a big big difference between spending on green and infrastructure investment and slashing taxes or increasing Medicare entitlements.

The way in which cynical and amnesiac Republicans have tried to portray this as classic big government liberalism is a lie. You can debate the merits of each initiative, but this is obviously not an administration as fiscally reckless as the last one. Mercifully, they have a chance to show it in earnest next year. And to call the bluff of those Republicans yelling about spending while having absolutely no plans or ideas for cutting it.

It can’t be the American people…WE didn’t ask that the most virulently dangerous terrorists on earth be brought to American soil, so that they could be defended at the bar of our courts by Marxist ACLU attorneys and given rights that should be reserved only for citizens of this country. Eric Holder and associates have a lot to answer for.

Meanwhile, the Osama–whoops slip of the tongue that– the Obama mis-administration is busy with a purely Soviet-style purge in our government, that far outshines anything that Bill and Hill did at the advent of their ‘most ethical administration in history’, beginning with the firing of the White House travel office employees.

Mr Fair-and-Open is going back FIVE YEARS to purge Republican and Conservative appointees, to replace them with good little Trotskyite apparatchiks like Anita Dunn, another fatality of the people of this country actually listening to what these Politburo types say and then holding them to it.

Obama can’t make a decision or WON’T make a decision to reinforce our forces in harms way, but he sure seems to be able to make every wrong decision possible regarding this country, its people and its rapidly failing economy. We have political correctness operating in high gear throughout the highest command of our military…this HAS to be a top down attitude. Not ALL of our military…the  attitude of the chain of command down at the level of the combat commands is a little different, thank God. But no less affected by it, because they cannot help BUT be affected by a weak and cowardly Commander-in-Chief.

The question is, as I’m sure many millions of Americans have secretly asked themselves, just who or what is Obama working for…who is it that’s yanking this guys chain? Can it be that he’s REALLY that stupid, inept and naive? It is as suspicious as all get out that his Muslim outreach program just happens to encompass bringing internationally known terrorists into our courtrooms, where they will be able to make a mockery of our system and allow a grandstanding display to encourage others like them around the world. Meanwhile, rabid leftist attorneys, who already having done much to destroy our Constitution and our system of jurisprudence, attempt to get them off on one technicality or another that they may again be able to go forth and murder more Americans. Any one or two of these factors could be written off as coincidental. Taken as a totality, it’s mind boggling.

We were warned for years about the evils of socialism and communism and it’s here. We have an awful lot to do to save our country. We must be strong of faith and will. We must join with our families, friends and neighbors, together with all like-minded patriots, to defeat this monstrous evil once and for all.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2009

    Some idiot at work keeps tuning the TV in the breakroom to CNN so everytime I go in there to top off my water I have no choice but to listen to the drivel that comes from there.  Two days ago (sorry for the delay on my posting...) I caught part of an interview with Dede Scozzafava.  The caption below her says "GOP strips Scozzafava of her leadership role".  Well no duh!  The woman endorsed the Democrat canidate!  Why shouldn't she be stripped of her leadership role? 

And then the anchor asked her if there would be a place for moderates in the upcoming 2010 elections...  Hello!  This woman is pro choice, pro taxes, pro card check, pro union, pro government run health care.  In what way is she a moderate?  I get so tired of liberals calling other liberals "moderates".  Grow a pair and admit you're a liberal and that anyone who believes most of the things you believe is not a "moderate" but just as much of a liberal as you are....

I'll skip down to the money quote, or quotes:

Ryan said an important factor in the decision to concede was the unexpected -- and erroneous -- close vote in Oswego County, where polls had Hoffman with a double digit percentage point lead heading into Election Day.

"That’s the thing that threw us off," Ryan said.

Oswego County elections officials blame the mistakes on "chaos" in their call-in center that included a phone system foul-up and inspectors who read numbers incorrectly when phoning in results. Of 245 races in the county -- not including the congressional and court races -- 84 had incorrect totals reported election night.

In the congressional race, more votes were cast in Oswego County than any other in the 11-county district.

The district’s second biggest voter turnout was in Jefferson County, where Hoffman also has benefited from a turnaround since election night, gaining about 700 votes. Owens led Hoffman by 300 votes on the final election night tally. But after recanvassing, Hoffman now leads by 424 votes, 10,884 to 10,460.

Jerry Eaton, the Republican elections commissioner for Jefferson County, said inspectors found a problem in four districts where Hoffman’s vote total was mistakenly entered as zero.

Liberals and Marxists everywhere are quick to point to Fidel Castro’s Cuba as the ideal socialist society. Insipid pandering celebs such as Michael Moore, Sean Penn and Harry Belafonte are all over themselves lauding the place to the skies. Understand…they wouldn’t want to LIVE there. Not as ordinary citizens anyhow, much like our Congress won’t LIVE under the health care that they are proposing for us.

I’m forever astounded at the consistency of liberal thought versus action. It’s always for someone ELSE to do or say, or think or live by. Never themselves. Wherefore the disconnect? I’ll stick with my brain lesion theory.

Not too long ago, we had a massive state of emergency in the Gulag of Cuba when it was announced that there was a critical shortage of toilet paper. See, if they’d just listened to Sheryl Crowe… they don’t grow corn in Cuba so no corn cob… and sugar cane don’t work so well…how about tobacco leaf? Gee, they can always carry a bottle of water and emulate the middle eastern example…wonder how long that would take to catch on with the trendy lefty crowd? Now we have a severe shortage of power and clean water. What a surprise…shortages in this worker’s paradise?

Handsome UGO Chavez has announced severe shortages as well, as has Brazil which just had a power outage affecting 60,000,000 people (that’s sixty MILLION people for you math challenged libs out there), due to nothing more than very poorly maintained power transmission lines.

Our own flu vaccine production has become a rancid joke under “GOVERNMENT” supervision. People all over the country are unable to access a vaccine that we have had ample time and warning to prepare. It’s so embarrassing that the Obama administration has stopped ginning up the pandemic hysteria because of their obvious ineptitude in managing a largely manufactured crises. This is BEFORE ‘healthcare’ is even passed.

By way of example and a harbinger of our own future if we don’t STAND UP and stop these Marxist dilettantes, the socialist health care system in the UK is on the verge of imploding. They can’t pump enough money into it to make it work. It produces nothing but bureaucracy and mismanagement, to say nothing of very poor and inadequate patient care…almost indifferent. I personally know of one lady in Wales who has waited well over a year to see a specialist over a rotator cuff problem. She has told me of a friend of hers who waited EIGHTEEN MONTHS for an eye operation that I obtained here in two weeks.

Insane levels of taxation and regulation are causing a massive exodus of business and manufacturing overseas, while all the DeMarxists and the wannabe Dictatorate in the White House do is grope for more money, while planting ever more burden on the backs of the citizenry. Socialized health care…hell’s bells…SOCIALIZED ANYTHING has failed miserably wherever it has been tried. A quick look at any unrevised history will tell the tale very quickly.

It’s time we told the Obama bunch just exactly that and we will not have any part of it. Elections are coming in 2010 and we need to sweep the boards clean!

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2009

The Latest Quinnipiac poll is out, and Dodd is still down.

Former Connecticut Congressman Rob Simmons has an early lead in the Republican primary race for the 2010 U.S. Senate contest and runs better than any other challenger against Sen. Christopher Dodd, topping the Democratic incumbent 49 - 38 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.  

He loses as well to Linda McMahon and Tom Foley, and is in a dead heat with Sam Caligiuri and Peter Schiff

Why?  Because CT voters don;t find him trustworthy and don't think he cares about their issues.They also don;t think he's doing a a good job on the economy.

Support for the Democratic health plan, although higher here than most places, is slipping.

The good news for Dodd, if any, is that Simmons does face a primary challenge of significance from the "Wild RINO". But in a matter of weeks she's raised her negative rating almost as fast as her positive rating. Oops!

Chris Christie had a primary too, Didn;t help Corzine. And the pattern of Q polls on Dodd is looking more and more like the pattern of polls on Corzine before his failed re-election bid.

You cannot have one without the other. Why, then, do those who seem to earnestly champion economic liberty seem so at home with cultural repression?

Free markets require free men. If I am a slave to the prevailing cultural mores, then I am not likely to have a great deal of freedom on the market.

Political correctness leaves the US Army leaderless

This week, during an interview by David Gregory, General Casey, Chief of Staff of the US Army, said the following:

"Yeah. I think those concerns are real and I, and I will tell you, David, that they're, they're fueled partially, at least, by the speculation about--based on anecdotal evidence that people are presenting. I think we have to be very careful with that. Our diversity not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse."

As soon as one realizes what the general has said in this mind-numbingly idiotic statement, one becomes aware of the trouble we're really facing as a nation.

Damage to 'diversity" is a greater loss than the security of our troops, the 13 people we've lost, and the dozens more who have been injured or maimed? Any general who believes this garbage does not deserve the rank. We have been attacked by a politically/religiously motivated Islamofascist, and all this numbskull general is worried about is the damage done to diversity?

Ahem, Hey General: SCREW DIVERSITY.

Diversity is irrelevant to a fighting force, and in fact can actually hamper or obstruct it.  Focusing on diversity, as a military objective, is the most ludicrous notion we've yet seen. You would be fired, but for the fact that our current President, your boss, doubtless laps up this bilge-water.

I live in central Texas, and this was quite the ordeal for our community, one that hasn't ended yet, in fact, and all you are worried about is diversity, General Casey? Hand in your stars. You are an embarrassment to every soldier who ever wore the uniform of the United States, myself included.

Markamerica

One would think it would be impossible to screw up voting on a nonbinding resolution congratulating a sports team, but Mr. Arrogance, Congressman Chris Murphy, succeeded in the politically impossible.

He insulted his constituents across a majority of his district. 

U.S. Rep. Christopher Murphy voted against a resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives that congratulated the New York Yankees on recently winning the World Series

Now why would a politician do this? OK, there were a few members from Massachusetts, metro Philadelphia, and one sore Anaheim Angel fan out there who voted no. But a Connecticut congressman? 

The 5th District is located primarily in Fairfield and New Haven counties.  As the Quinnipiac poll demonstrates, not only are the Yankees the most popular baseball team in CT, they are especially popular in that part of the state.

In fact, the largest city completely within the 5th District is only 56 miles from Yankee Stadium

I haven't seen any polling on this point, but I strongly suspect Derek Jeter is hell of a lot more popular than some Nancy Pelosi lapdog in Congress

So back to the point, why Chris?, Why anger your constituents who are celebrating a well earned victory?

As a lifelong diehard Sox fan, I have too many scars from Bucky Dent to Aaron Boone to add another from casting a vote to congratulate the Yankees for winning this year’s World Series," Murphy said. 

Sounds like a whole lot of sour grapes and arrogance, Mr. Murphy.  You would think a liberal Democrat would appreciate a team that wins even after paying a "luxury tax". Oh boo hoo, Chris.

That's Ok Chris, we'll let all your constituents in southwestern Connecticut know you are a petty little man who saw fit to insult a team they've rooted for all their lives.  Perhaps your career will then emulate that of this brilliant Red Sox legend