Tuesday’s political round-up

May 30, 2006

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* In the race to take on Gov. [tag]Arnold Schwarzenegger [/tag](R) in California, a Los Angeles Times poll shows two Dems practically tied, but with state Treasurer [tag]Phil Angelides [/tag]making recent strides. According to the poll, Angelides now leads state Controller [tag]Steve Westly[/tag], 37% to 34%, with 28% undecided. In a Times survey last month, however, Westly led Angelides, 33% to 20%. As for the general election, Westly enjoys a more substantial lead over Schwarzenegger, 50% to 40%, while Angelides was almost tied with the governor, 46% to Schwarzenegger’s 45%. The Dem primary is a week from tomorrow.

* In Montana, Sen. [tag]Conrad Burns [/tag](R), burdened by a deep ties to the Jack Abramoff scandal, is slipping in his re-election bid. The latest Mason-Dixon poll shows Burns trailing both state Senate President[tag] Jon Tester [/tag](D) and state Auditor [tag]John Morrison[/tag] (D). The same poll shows Burns’ approval rating slipping to just 38%. As for the Dem primary, Mason-Dixon showed Tester and Morrison effectively tied, with Morrison leading by one point, 42% to 41%.

* New York Attorney General [tag]Eliot Spitzer [/tag](D) is a strong favorite to win the state’s gubernatorial race anyway, but that seems even more likely in a three-way race in which both Republican candidates appear on the ballot. Former state Assembly leader [tag]John Faso[/tag] and former Massachusetts governor [tag]Bill Weld[/tag] are vying for the GOP nomination, but Faso will also appear on the ballot as the Conservative Party’s nominee, while Weld has won the nod from the state’s Libertarian Party. The WaPo reported that spokesmen for the two potential GOP nominees “said they would run on the third-party line regardless of what happens in the GOP primary.”

* New Jersey’s Senate race between Sen. [tag]Bob Menendez[/tag] (D) and state Sen. [tag]Tom Kean[/tag] Jr. (R) has been going back and forth for a while now, and the latest Rasmussen poll shows the race edging back towards the challenger. Rasmussen now shows Kean edging ahead in the race, 40% to 37%. Kean’s three-point lead is a drop from a Rasmussen poll from April, while showed Kean up by seven.

* And in California, we’re only eight days before voters pick Duke Cunningham’s replacement in the state’s 50th congressional district — and Republicans are very nervous. [tag]Francine Busby [/tag](D) is still looking strong against former Rep. [tag]Brian Bilbray[/tag] (R), and it’s reached a point in which GOP House staffers are being urged to volunteer and travel to California to help former Bilbray in the last week of the campaign. For that matter, the NRCC is quietly telling GOP House members to prepare for a possible loss.

As for the Dem primary, Mason-Dixon showed Tester and Morrison effectively tied, with Morrison leading by one point, 42% to 41%.

When is the Montana Dem primary? Please let it be soon. We need the Dem candidate to focused entirely on unseating Burns.

  • How could the people in New Jersey even think of voting another Rethug into the Senate????!!!!! Are they blue or just depressed and giving up?

  • Please – vote No for Governor of California!!

    Westly and Angelides are both neck-deep in proven acts of voting against the interests of the people of California in favor of their major contributors in their roles as State Treasurer and State Controller in casting their votes on the various state retirement boards they sit on. We are talking major bad votes for major bucks. Go look it all up in the Los Angeles Times over the past two weeks – the Times has done a great job of demonstrating clearly that calling either of these two scumballs a Putz (Yiddish for “a penis that thinks it’s a man”) is a friggin’ compliment. These two combined are enough to make Schwarszenegger’s political morality look like Mother Teresa’s.

    Not only have they sold votes for money big-time, but you can believe the mud each slings at the other. That this is all the Democratic Party of California can come up with for Governor is truly demoralizing.

    I only wish we could change the election laws so that when two guys are running, they only get to claim victory if their combined vote totals equal 60% of the total votes cast in the election.

    I will be leaving the box for Governor blank, as well as the office of Senator. Dianne Feinstein is a corporate pig who I only ever voted for twice: once back in 1969 when she first ran for office and I didn’t know any better because no one knew she was a DINO, and once in 1994 to keep Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffingandpuffington from jumping up to the role of Senate Wife. If you don’t believe it on Feinstein, take a look at how she voted in the Intelligence Committee on Hayden – we might as well have had a Republican there, as in all her other votes on that committee, not to mention her votes on Bush’s judicial nominations.

    I don’t normally say this about Democrats, but a pox on all three of these self-dealing corporate pimps.

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