No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for January 29th, 2010

Poll-a-copia, late-January WI Gov edition

by @ 14:53. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

Rasmussen Reports delivered some more bad news for Democrats today, specifically Milwaukee mayor and presumptive Democratic gubernatorial nominee Tom Barrett. In a poll of 500 likely voters conducted Tuesday (margin of error 4.5%), he trails both of the main Republican challengers. Barrett trails Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker 48%-38% (with 12% unsure), and he trails former Congressman Mark Neumann 42%-38% (with 13% unsure).

While the public Rasmussen story merely mentions that both Republicans have significant leads over Barrett among those who don’t consider themselves part of either party, the Walker campaign in their press release notes that Walker has a 2-1 lead in that category.

For those playing along at home, Walker’s lead is more than double the margin of error, while Neumann’s lead is almost the margin of error. Moreover, that 38% that Barrett got against both Walker and Neumann is what the Democrats would get if they ran “Insert Candidate Here”, which combined with Barrett’s lack of effort beyond fundraising, is precisely what is running on that side of the aisle.

The favorability ratings are not exactly favorable for either Barrett or Neumann:

  • Walker has an “Approval Index” of +14 (29% very favorable/15% very unfavorable), and an overall approval/disapproval split of 56%-27%.
  • Neumann has an “Approval Index” of -1 (10% very favorable/11% very unfavorable), and an overall approval/disapproval split of 46%-35%.
  • Barrett has an “Approval Index” of +2 (19% very favorable/17% very unfavorable), and an overall approval/disapproval split of 44%-41%.

While the September WPRI/UW-Madison poll did not address the general election, it did address the favorability of all three candidates. At that time, a majority of those surveyed either had never heard of the three (an option not in the Rasmussen poll) or did not have an opinion on approval:

  • Walker had an “Approval Index” was +5.6 (12.6% very favorable/7.0% very unfavorable), with an overall approval/disapproval split of 29.7%-15.9%, 36.3% never hearing of him, and 18.1% not knowing enough.
  • Barrett had an “Approval Index” of +8.9 (12.0% very favorable/3.1% very unfavorable), with an overall approval/disapproval split of 35.9%-12.0%, 33.3% never hearing of him, and 18.9% not knowing enough.
  • Neumann had an “Approval Index” of +1.0 (5.1% very favorable/4.1% very unfavorable), with an overall approval/disapproval split of 24.1%-12.2%, 39.0% never hearing of him, and 24.6% not knowing enough.

I guess the “conventional wisdom” that those outstate hate Milwaukee applies mostly to Milwaukee Democrats. At the same time people turned away from city of Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett, and had a very mixed reaction to Mark Neumann, they seem to have embraced Milwaukee County executive Scott Walker.

Pure Speculation-Ain’t I Smart Edition

by @ 5:57. Filed under Miscellaneous.

You’ve probably heard about the arrest of James O’Keefe of ACORN scandal fame.  He and several associates were arrested at Senator Mary Landrieu’s office.  Several of the original reports suggested that O’Keefe and his companions were attempting to bug or wire tap Landrieu’s phones.  It turns out that reporting wasn’t exactly accurate.

According to Patterico, the affidavit filed said nothing about bugging, intercepting or wire tapping.  It did talk about an allegation that they attempted to access the phone equipment closet.

Patterico guesses:

I believe they pretended to try to access the telephone closet, to tape the reaction of officials: “Why? It’s not like there’s a problem with the phones in Sen. Landrieu’s office!”

I think Patterico is on to something. 

With Landrieu getting the “Louisiana Purchase” and the heat of the placebocare debate, there is no doubt that Landrieu’s office was being swamped with phone calls.  My personal experience with Senators that didn’t have the profile of Landrieu is that for the several weeks prior to Scott Brown’s election, your odds of getting someone to answer your call were slimmer than getting to talk to Rush Limbaugh. 

Thinking about O’Keefe’s warped sense of humor I think they had been working to see how many times they could get through to Landrieu’s office.  Finding that the number was only fractionally above zero, they set up the scenario in Landrieu’s office where they would feign working on the phone system under the guise of numerous reports from constituents that the phone system was broken.  I’m sure they would have gotten responses on tape denying any malfunction of the phone system and O’Keefe would have his “gotcha” moment.

Hey, I didn’t claimed it was great theatre but I think I’m on the right track.  I’m hoping for O’Keefe’s sake that it is that simple.  It would be good to have a quick end to this for O’Keefe.

Update:  I’m so damn smart!  From Hotair.com

The government has now confirmed what has always been clear: No one tried to wiretap or bug Senator Landrieu’s office. Nor did we try to cut or shut down her phone lines. Reports to this effect over the past 48 hours are inaccurate and false. …
I learned from a number of sources that many of Senator Landrieu’s constituents were having trouble getting through to her office to tell her that they didn’t want her taking millions of federal dollars in exchange for her vote on the healthcare bill. When asked about this, Senator Landrieu’s explanation was that, “Our lines have been jammed for weeks.” I decided to investigate why a representative of the people would be out of touch with her constituents for “weeks” because her phones were broken. In investigating this matter, we decided to visit Senator Landrieu’s district office – the people’s office – to ask the staff if their phones were working.

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