The Republican primary remains too close to call with private equity investor Gabriel Gomez and former U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan competing for the top spot and State Rep. Daniel Winslow a distant third.
...
On the Republican side, the survey polled 300 voters each in Boston and Shrewsbury. Counting those who were "leaning" toward a candidate, Gomez and Sullivan were tied in Boston at 41 percent. Without "leaners," Sullivan led by four points. In Shrewsbury, Gomez led Sullivan 48 percent to 24 percent, including "leaners." Paleologos said the geographic disparity could indicate that while Sullivan remains strong in big cities, Gomez might be able to run up larger margins in suburbs and small towns. Winslow got 11 percent in Boston and 14 percent in Shrewsbury
If you have not heard, Sean Bielat has dropped out of the race for US Senate. That leaves three candidates: Gabriel Gomez, Michael Sullivan, and Daniel Winslow.
Which Candidate are you supporting? Please take the time to vote in the Poll below:
Also take the time to "like" the Facebook Pages of the candidates.
I would like to propose that the MA GOP in their platform.
I would like to find a way to have the local town/city committees have a vote in who the next Chair is. After all the grass roots, boots to the ground committees are the ones who are trying to keep this party alive and viable. If we ultimately have to work with or around this person it would be nice if we had a chance to hear them and vote for them. After all this is our party to.
The most recent poll shows Professor Warren ahead by 5 points with 18% undecided. If political wisdom holds true that the undecided voters bolt for the challenger then we should all be learning to say Senator Warren. The poll raises certain questions about Brown's strategy.
1) While it may have some interest for independent voters, Warren's Indian heritage issue will have limited appeal
2) Brown is not pulling enough Democrats. The conservative Democrats are far fewer in number than expected. "Of those who said they will vote for Obama, just 9 percent said they also plan to vote for Brown, while 20 percent of Obama voters say they are still undecided in the Senate race, according to the poll." That's not a comforting fact.
3) The expected Obama blow-out of Romney in Massachusetts will seriously hurt Brown's ability as the Democratic base turns out for the President. This is not good news.
4) If the conservative base thinks that more aggressive attacks on Warren's character is a winning strategy then no one should be surprised that conservatives always lose in MA. Tear-downs in favor of issues don't work. "An admirer of what he sees as the senator's bipartisan spirit, Brewer is the type of voter Brown hopes to win over. But over the last week, since the poll was taken, Brewer said he has made up his mind, in large part because he was turned off by the incident with the Native American chanting. "If it were today, I think the image of those guys whooping with the tomahawk chop, I'd vote for Ms. Warren," Brewer said." The poll says that Brown isn't suffering a backlash from voters but nonetheless Warren is popular especially for a newcomer who tends to benefit from undecided voters breaking for the challenger as time whittles away.
5. The Right's continual whining about poll composition is starting to turn exceptionally stale. All polls are starting to show a trend away from Brown as they are nationally for Romney. Rather than expressing outrage and denial it might be wise to ask what's happened in the last two to three weeks that's allowed Warren to surge. She retains a favorable rating. RMG stories about how the media isn't doing its job on Warren explain little.
6. The left-wing Democratic demagoguery on the war on women has fallen flat with even Democratic voters but that suggests that the independent voter is delicately weighing a lot of the issues in a context (Democratic Massachusetts). It's hard to see where Brown makes gains among independents.
Over at CNBC and yahoo! Finance, they are running an online poll asking whether Mitt Romney's statement about the 47% will make one more or less likely to vote for him.
The result: most people agree with Romney and say that his statement will make it more likely that they'll vote for the GOP.
At CNBC, 75% of 22,000 respondents (as of 6:00 Tuesday) say that Americans are too dependent on government. http://www.cnbc.com/id/49071984
At Yahoo! Finance, 47% of over 100,000 respondents say that his remarks will make it more likely that they'll vote for him, only 29% say less likely. http://finance.yahoo.com/
I think that most people agree with Romney's comments. I work in the pampered public sector and nobody in my lunch crowd disagreed with Romney. Once the media realizes this, they'll bury the story.
SPRINGFIELD - With 50 days left until Massachusetts voters decide who will represent them in the U.S. Senate for the next six years, Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren has pulled ahead of Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, according to a new poll.
The survey of Bay State voters conducted Sept. 6-13 by the Western New England Polling Institute through a partnership with The Republican and MassLive.com, shows Warren leading over Brown, 50 to 44 percent, among likely voters.
Tweets from PPP about their poll.
Elizabeth Warren leads in the MA-Sen poll we will release tonight. Last month we found her down by 5 pts.
Imagine governing by polling, Gov. Deval Patrick does. In making a pitch for more taxes, his favorite pasttime, Deval overlooked the irony. He told reporters that the public is with him on raising taxes on soda and other items because he checked a couple of polls. In his plea, Governor Patrick conveniently omitted the reality-based poll that really matters: the ballot box. The will of the voters expressed at the ballot box still carries more weight than polls.
In 2000, as CLT reminds us, the voters at the ballot box opted to cut their personal income taxes back to 5.0. The taxpayers are still waiting for the full measure to take hold.
CLT Press Release below:
Taxation by Polling?
So roll back the income and sales taxes.
Re: Governor Patrick's new taxes - imposing the 6.25 percent sales tax on candy and soda, another hike in the tax on cigarettes.
Governor Patrick's $32.3 billion budget proposal is almost two billion more than this fiscal year's - before "supplemental budgets" are considered. Already many hundreds of millions have been added to the $30.6 billion FY12 budget. How much more will be added to his proposed $32.3 billion?
The governor's latest budget bill continues the tradition of ever more taxes to support increasingly unsustainable spending.
His defense for removing the sales tax exemption on soda and candy, and for adding a nickel deposit to bottled water and other bottled or canned drinks, is that "polling" supports the imposition.
In 2000 the voters overwhelmingly said to "keep the promise" and restore the income tax rate to 5%. A few years ago polls showed that voters would have restored the sales tax rate to 5%, though not to 3%. Therefore, adopting "taxation by polling", the state should be cutting income and sales tax rates toward 5 percent.
Hiking the tax on cigarettes once again is more complicated. Last year smokers paid over half a billion dollars in state excise and sales tax alone for their cigarettes. As the immutable "law of diminishing returns" continues to reduce the number of smokers - the stated goal - maintaining this vast revenue source requires perpetual tax increases on that dwindling target, as long as any smokers remain.
Government shouldn't rely on tobacco revenues for essential services. If state taxes and programs discourage smoking - a good thing - the revenue collected from smokers will vanish, and other taxpayers will be expected to pick up the slack.
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (CNN) -- Republican candidate Jon Huntsman will drop out of the presidential race on Monday and endorse front-runner Mitt Romney, a senior official with the former Utah governor's campaign told CNN.
I believe all remaining candidates support amending the Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman, except Ron Paul. The question is framed as one of supporting states rights versus opposition to marriage, as this report does from a debate back in June:
The seven Republican presidential candidates onstage at a debate in New Hampshire Monday night split on whether they support passage of a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman, while one - Rep. Michele Bachmann - seemed to trip over the question.
Within the context of New Hampshire's law allowing gay people to marry, Bachmann was asked what influence she would use as president "to try to overturn these state laws despite your own personal belief that states should handle their own affairs whenever possible."
"I do believe in the 10th amendment and I do believe in self-determination for the states," Bachmann responded, adding that she also sees marriage as "between a man and woman." Later, she said that she doesn't "see that it's the role of a president to go into states and interfere with their state laws."
The comment generated applause and was taken by debate moderator John King as Bachmann saying she would not interfere with the New Hampshire gay marriage law. Later, however, the Minnesota Republican clarified her position - saying she did back a federal marriage amendment.
"I do support a constitutional amendment on marriage between a man and woman, but I would not be going into the states to overturn their state law," said Bachmann.
Two of the candidates - Herman Cain and Rep. Ron Paul - suggested they opposed a federal marriage amendment. (Cain said it should be up to the states, while Paul stressed the federal government should not be involved in marriage at all.)
Newt Gingrich said that if the Defense of Marriage Act - which the Obama administration is now declining to defend in court - is overturned, "at that point you have no choice but a constitutional amendment."
Both Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty said they backed a constitutional amendment. So did Rick Santorum, who also suggested that the position didn't constitute overriding states' rights.
"The constitutional amendment includes the states," he said. "Three-quarters of the states have to ratify it. So the states will be involved in this process. We should have one law with respect to marriage. There needs to be consistency as something as foundational as what marriage is."
As you know I contend that an Amendment is unnecessary because the Constitution clearly gives Congress the power to prescribe the effect and proof of all legal acts and proceedings that take place in the several states, in order for there to be consistency like what Santorum talks about. It isn't necessary to make an Amendment to define the proof or effect of a legal act like marriage. But that's not the point of this diary, this diary is about the FMA itself.
I support an FMA, though of course by itself it doesn't stop same-sex reproduction, postgenderism or genetic engineering or anything. But, it'd still be good, because it could be used to stop all that stuff, with a federal law that regulates interstate commerce of fertility clinics, by prohibiting labs from creating people except as offspring of married couples using their unmodified gametes. That would even stop egg and sperm donation, which is a terrible injustice and harms equality and dignity.
I am hoping to hear from people here as to whether they support an FMA or not. And also what they think of prohibiting genetic engineering that way, instead of with an egg and sperm law that isn't tied to marriage like I usually promote. Brock, the FMA doesn't prohibit states from instituting CU's if they want to, so in all likelihood Massachusetts will still have CU's, but are you OK with it or do you think it should also prohibit states from creating CU's?
PS, why isn't an FMA in the works right now? What does it take to get it ratified by 38 states right now?
Word on the Facebooks is that Herman Cain is staying in the race. However, read this statement by Herman Cain's lawyer:
Mr. Cain has been informed today that your television station plans to broadcast a story this evening in which a female will make an accusation that she engaged in a 13-year long physical relationship with Mr. Cain. This is not an accusation of harassment in the workplace - this is not an accusation of an assault - which are subject matters of legitimate inquiry to a political candidate.
Rather, this appears to be an accusation of private, alleged consensual conduct between adults - a subject matter which is not a proper subject of inquiry by the media or the public. No individual, whether a private citizen, a candidate for public office or a public official, should be questioned about his or her private sexual life. The public's right to know and the media's right to report has boundaries and most certainly those boundaries end outside of one's bedroom door.
Mr. Cain has alerted his wife to this new accusation and discussed it with her. He has no obligation to discuss these types of accusations publicly with the media and he will not do so even if his principled position is viewed unfavorably by members of the media.
(Since Rob "EaBo Clipper" Eno likes to promote to the front page posts about relevant poll numbers, perhaps he'll want to promote this post to the front page.)
Yesterday saw some mildly unsettling poll news for Scott Brown, as his net approval in the Boston Globe poll took a 14-point hit over the last year.
She may be an undeclared candidate, but potential Democratic U.S. Senate contender Elizabeth Warren appears to be gaining support among Massachusetts voters. A WBUR Poll (PDF) released Tuesday puts the Harvard law professor the closest of four Democrats to incumbent Republican Sen. Scott Brown.
When paired in a hypothetical contest, 44 percent of 500 likely voters said they'd vote for Brown, compared to 35 percent who said they would vote for Elizabeth Warren. In similar hypothetical match-ups, Brown topped City Year co-founder Alan Khazei (45 percent to 30 percent), activist Bob Massie (45 percent to 29 percent) and Newton Mayor Setti Warren (no relation to Elizabeth) (46 percent to 28 percent).
Since the numbers in Brown vs. Khazei-Massie-Setti are all within a point or two, we can pretty safely say that Brown leads "relatively unknown generic Democrat" 45-29ish.
But Elizabeth Warren is a solid tick higher, already holding the race in single digits according to WBUR, 44-35.
According to WBUR, 44% of Massachusetts has never heard of Elizabeth Warren - not too terribly far off the 60% unknown Elizabeth Warren got in the Globe poll released yesterday. About half of the state has never heard of her, and she hasn't raised any serious money yet or done any substantive campaigning, and it's already a single-digit race.
In short, Democrats sincerely hope that RMGers and Republicans across the state are sincerely as unconcerned as they claim to be because Scott Brown will have a race on his hands.
(The left begins push polling. - promoted by Rob "EaBo Clipper" Eno)
In the last week or so, I received two interesting polling calls at home. The first was all about Scott Brown. They tested a few names: John Keryy, Obama, Scott Brown and Deval Patrick - no potential challengers, which makes me think it is an out of state interest group.
The poll was brutal. Not only was the guy asking the questions having a hard time getting through the text, the questions were just plain nasty.
Did you know Scott Brown voted to cut $250 payments to Social Security recipients? Does that make you less likely to support him?
Did you know Scott voted to eliminate 17,000 jobs in Massachusetts? Does that make you less likely to support him?
They seriously asked questions where the choices I had were: Very supportive of Scott's position; Somewhat supportive of Scott's position; Somewhat unsupportive of Scott's position; Very unsupportive of Scott's position; Neutral or "I do not believe the statement". Seriously? I do not believe the statement?
This thing was such as sham. They presented 2 or 3 positions which supposedly come from Scott's supporters like "Scott supports don't ask, don't tell". Really? That doesn't even make the top 20 statements of most supporters I would guess . . . this was a negative message test, no question about it.
Look for more ads from the League of Women Voters, MoveOn and other liberal groups to pick up.
The second call was about Verizon, prior to the strike:
They asked the generic baseline questions to start - what do I think of AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and the CWA . . . then they got into the juicy stuff. The poll was pretty clearly commissioned by the CWA to determine what messages would resonate with the public.
The long and short was that the CWA wanted to preserve pensions, health care costs and keep Verizon from shipping their jobs to other states or overseas.
Their defenses which they tested were:
1. Verizon Execs made over $270 million since 2007 and they want to eliminate pensions for employees.
2. Verizon made record profits in the past few years and they want employees to pay more for their health care costs.
When they tested the Verizon messages, I got less sympathetic:
1. Verizon says they only want to eliminate pensions for new employees.
2. Verizon currently pays 100% of the employees health insurance premiums and they want employees to start paying a portion.
Well . . . as a Verizon customer I did not get the option of cut pensions for new employees, increase employee share of health insurance and reduce executive pay - and reduce rates to customers . . . but it seems to me like that should be an option.
I am basing my opinion here on the poll information given and the Globe's saccarine strike story today - but my guess is this is a strike which will cost me - the consumer - more money in the end.
Down the stretch Charlie catches (or creates) a break for his campaign. At Emerson yesterday Charlie ruled according to the Boston Herald:
Republican Charlie Baker was on his game yesterday as he tackled health-care failings, while Gov. Deval Patrick dropped the ball when scrambling to answer a tough question posed by an uninsured student during a fast-paced online debate hosted by the Herald, Emerson College and Fox 25.
Virtually admitting the state's landmark health-care reform is a frustrating maze, Patrick offered to help an Emerson grad student navigate the system - not by changing the system, but by using the clout of his office.
"I'll get back on the phone or you can get back on the phone through my office," Patrick said when student Anaridis Rodriguez told him she doesn't qualify for state-assisted aid but can't afford any other coverage. All Bay State residents are required to have health insurance under reforms passed in 2006.
Why didn't Deval know the answer? Health care is supposed to be his big issue given that he's soaking the taxpayer enough to expand universal health care in Massachusetts. Shouldn't he know all the details about health care which is the cornerstone of liberal Democratic theology?
But that wasn't Patrick's only mis-step. All that coolness, sweetness and light was no match for holding an awful position on in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, proving once again Patrick has a tin air for public opinion. This might explain why most poll respondents think the state is going in the wrong direction and are balking at giving Patrick a second term.
Patrick's fumbles didn't stop with health care, however. The governor tried to distance himself from his controversial support of giv ing illegal aliens in-state college tuition, saying the question is "hypothetical" because federal law prevents him from doing it.
He stood by his position, however, saying, "It's a matter of fairness. They were brought here by their parents, they didn't choose to come."
And to top it off Deval The Slick tripped up over a touchy feelie question about which politician he most admires. After fumbling and lying that he's not a politician Patrick chose the Nanny of all Nannies the insufferable Michael Bloomberg for his so-called principled decision to back a mosque near the World Trade Center.
Baker chose Giuliani, America's mayor. Pretty much sums up the difference between the two candidates.
Democrat pollster Celinda Lake says Martha Coakley's Massachusetts Senate campaign failed to commission any polls in the weeks coming up to last week's special election because it did not have enough money.
Coakley asked national groups to pay for polling, but was denied because she did not need any polling done.
Odd that this would come out now. The day before the election, her internal polls showed her up by 2%. Allegedly.
Oh what tangled webs we weave When first we practive to deceive.
To see who can get closest to the actual vote count, and to see if there is any collective wisdom in the composite values of multiple predictions, I have put together all the Senate predictions from BMG and RMG.
Here are the straw poll and predictions from RedMassGroup:
