Day: August 22, 2006

Poll: Ho-Hum Hillary Leads ’08 Dems, But Gore Trails by 5 Points in Time Survey

Jon Ponder

The cover story on this week’s Time magazine is about Hillary Clinton’s prospects as a presidential candidate in 2008. One of the key points in the story — or at least the one that Chris Matthews couldn’t resist flogging on “Hardball” tonight — is that she is the second-most polarizing figure in politics today.

I just don’t get that. She is the opposite of polarizing to me. She doesn’t inspire me but nor does she grate on me. I find her to be not unpleasantly bland.

If Hillary Clinton were a food, she’d be grits.

She has name recognition out the whazoo, so it is no surprise that she leads the 2008 Democratic pack with 46 percent. But what is surprising is that Al Gore is closing in on her at 41 percent.

As regular readers of these pages know, I’m not an Al Gore fan, but I am on record as believing the 2008 cycle is his to lose. Gore has barely placed in some recent polls so this new survey could indicate momentum in the “Draft Al” movement.

Poll: New Data from SUSA on Governors

Jon Ponder

SUSA has new 50-state polling on governors. The commentary is from Kos:

Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) of Montana is now the second most popular governor in the country and highest-ranked Democrat at 76/18 approval/disapproval. Given his strong partisan streak and eagerness to campaign against Republicans in November, that can’t be a good sign for Conrad Burns…

Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger of California continues to score big gains. He’s at 44/53, up from 40/57 a month ago and 32/65 back in February. Democrat Jennifer Granholm of Michigan, the most endangered Democratic incumbent of any kind, is steady at 43/53. Meanwhile, threatening to make the 4-way race for Texas governor more interesting, Texas governor Rick Perry has suddenly tanked to 43/52, down from 51/45 just two months ago…

Florida Governor Jeb Bush is 54 percent, which surprises me no end and is another indicator that the Republicans put the wrong Bush on the ticket in 2000.

McDonald’s Hummers a Big Bummer

Trish

McDonald’s is giving away toy Hummers in its “boy” Happy Meals. What’s next? Wal-mart introducing a line of arctic fox stoles?

The Environmental Working Group has put up a parody site that allows you to generate your own golden arches sign on the subject. My favorite: “Would you like a war with that?” Next runner-up: “Global warming…I’m lovin’ it!”

From the site, you can also send McDonald’s an email asking them to end this campaign, which in a world of scare resources sends the wrong message to both kids and their parents. Let them hear from you.

GOP Senator: Iraq Is ‘Nothing Short of a Miracle’

Jon Ponder

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, is a) a party hack who’ll say black is white if it’s in his talking points; b) delusional; c) seriously off his meds ; and d) all of the above:

“Iraqi security forces now number 275,000 trained and equipped,” he said. “The commanders in the field and the Iraqis say when this reaches 325,000, that would equal 10 divisions, and that’s what we need to take care of our own security.”

…”What’s happened there is nothing short of a miracle,” he said.

Nevertheless, Inhofe said the current international situation makes him “wistful for the Cold War.”

Passive Agressive: Bush Subjects Male Staffers to Flatulence

Jon Ponder

Republicans and the media liked to refer to President Clinton as “Bubba.” But he never behaved like this:

He loves to cuss, gets a jolly when a mountain biker wipes out trying to keep up with him, and now we’re learning that the first frat boy loves flatulence jokes. A top insider let that slip when explaining why President Bush is paranoid around women, always worried about his behavior. But he’s still a funny, earthy guy who, for example, can’t get enough of fart jokes. He’s also known to cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides, but forget about getting people to gas about that.

He should try lighting them. Teenaged boys — and grown men suffering from arrested development — really like that.

Web Traffic Down Due to Terrifying ‘Asymmetry in Cyberspace’

Buck Banks

Missed hits: Pensito Review Editor-In-Chief Jon sweats the Web site traffic numbers every month. He crunches them, massages them and analyzes them to ascertain how many above-average people visit Pensito Review and how many stick around to read its insightful and occasionally irritating content.

Just the other day at the watercooler, he was lamenting to Trish and me about how our traffic numbers were down in July and are likely to be down again in August. We tried to make him see that it’s the summer and people are away at the beach or the mountains or whitewater rafting or watching “Snakes on a Plane” instead of seeking out trenchant political and cultural commentary on the Internet. But Jon was not to be consoled.

The collapse of Bush’s political standing and the growing public reaction against the war in Iraq appears to have produced an asymmetry in cyberspace

Yet, as it turns out, like George Bush’s polling numbers, traffic at conservative Web sites is plummeting at a much higher rate than the dozen or so folks who failed to visit Pensito Review in the past month (you know who you are). According to National Journal’s Technology Daily, conservative pundit Bill O’Reilly of Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor” has experienced a 50 percent drop in traffic to BillOReilly.com since March, when it had more than 100,000 visits for every 1 million Internet surfers to below 50,000 in August.

And it ain’t just Billy-boy — other wingnuts are losing readers, too.

Traffic to blond blatherer Ann Coulter’s site is off 16 percent over the last three months. Rambling Rush Limbaugh has seen his site traffic drop 14 percent, and The Drudge Report has fallen 10 percent.

While all weblogs seem to be off their peak this summer, red ones are doing worse than blue ones: RedState traffic is down 28 percent; Right Wing News dropped 20 percent, Blogs for Bush was down 13 percent and Townhall dropped 14 percent.

Readership at the liberal Huffington Post is down 14 percent, and at Daily Kos, the most trafficked blog, traffic is down 12 percent. Some liberal bloggers saw gains, however — MyDD is up 9 percent, as is Alternet, and Virginia’s Raising Kaine grew 119 percent over the past three months.

The Democratic National Committee was down 24 percent, but the Republican National Committee doubled that at 48 percent fewer clicks.

Pundits trying to fathom the traffic drain have resorted to arcane explanations:

“The collapse of Bush’s political standing and the growing public reaction against the war in Iraq appears to have produced an asymmetry in cyberspace that, together with other consistent evidence, bodes well for a strong national Democratic tide,” Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, said of the traffic numbers.

So don’t feel so bad, Jon, it’s just a passing asymmetry in cyberspace that should clear up about Nov. 8.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

You have got our country, but are not satisfied; you want to force your religion upon us. Brother, you say there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it?

— Red Jacket (Sagoyewatha) (c.1758-1830), Seneca Indian chief, in a reply to a missionary during the Council of Chiefs of the Six Nations

Harris Imploding as Primary Nears

Trish

If a tree fell on Katherine Harris, would anyone be around to see it?

She said a tree fell on the hangar that the rally was scheduled to be in…Airport officials, however, said no trees had fallen and that Harris was in the hangar her campaign had originally booked.

Even by Katherine Harris standards, it was a bad week. First, in her U.S. Senate campaign against Democrat Bill Nelson, she held a rally that no one attended, even the headliners. Next, the campaign worker that she tried to blame for the no-show event quit. And finally, one of Southwest Florida’s biggest newspapers announced their endorsement in the U.S. Senate Republican primary for…no one.

To begin, there was the rally. Harris expected to share the stage at the Orlando Executive Airport with a score of notables, before a teaming crowd of well-wishers. That’s not exactly how it went down.

None of the nine officials listed on her event flier appeared, leaving Harris on her own to address a group of about 40 supporters, reporters and campaign staff members.

Harris spoke in an airplane hangar that seemed to highlight the modest size of the crowd…

Harris spoke for 10 minutes…When she finished, red, white and blue balloons dropped onto an empty stage, rendered unnecessary by the sparse crowd.

Harris expected her fellow Florida Congress-people Mark Foley, Ginny Brown-Waite, Jeff Miller and Cliff Stearns to be at the airport, especially since her campaign web site boasted their support. Instead, right after the disastrous event, each spoke up to say they never endorsed Harris and their names were pulled from her site.

Then yet another campaign worker quit.

Rhyan Metzler, who had been Harris’ political director, is no longer with the campaign, according to Harris spokeswoman Jennifer Marks. Metzler is being blamed for embarrassing comments Harris made after a rally at Orlando Executive Airport.

Only 40 people showed up for the event, and Harris blamed the paltry turnout in part on a last-minute location change. She said a tree fell on the hangar that the rally was scheduled to be in, forcing her campaign to switch to another hangar.

Airport officials, however, said no trees had fallen and that Harris was in the hangar her campaign had originally booked.

Now, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune is clearly stating the Republican case in the Senate race, and it is this:

There is no one worth supporting.

U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris’ erratic behavior and her extensive contacts with defense contractor Mitchell Wade have further undermined her tenuous claim to be the Republican best able to represent Florida in the U.S. Senate.

Unfortunately, Republicans who want an alternative to Harris as the GOP nominee don’t have a good option. Harris’ opponents in the Sept. 5 primary — retired Adm. LeRoy Collins Jr., attorney William McBride and developer Peter Monroe — waited until the last possible day to file to run. They’ve done little on the campaign trail since May to dispel the appearance that they were last-minute, seat-of-the-pants candidates….

The party leadership’s misgivings have been underscored by Harris’ Senate campaign. She is incapable of keeping a cohesive congressional or campaign staff, and her behavior has frequently ranged from bizarre to inexplicable…

In light of Harris’ problems and the lack of support from party leaders, and the absence of other candidates who took this race seriously before May, we offer no recommendation in the Republican primary for U.S. senator.

Yepper.