Posted on 09/24/2004 6:28:53 AM PDT by Kryptonite
But Michels still has time, pollster says
Less than six weeks before the election, two new polls show U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) holding a lead over Republican challenger Tim Michels, in part by drawing significant support from voters who also support President Bush.
In a Badger Poll released Thursday, Feingold led Michels 53% to 38% among probable voters, with 9% undecided or giving other answers. The poll was conducted by the University of Wisconsin Survey Center and sponsored by the Journal Sentinel and the Capital Times in Madison.
An ABC News poll from earlier in the week showed a tighter margin, with Democrat Feingold leading Republican Michels 51% to 45% among probable voters, with 4% undecided or giving other answers.
In the Badger Poll, 30% of Feingold supporters say they also back Bush. The ABC News poll, which asked the question differently, found that 22% of Bush supporters back Feingold.
Michels, a former Army officer and heir to his family's construction fortune, is a strong supporter of Bush's re-election, while Feingold opposes Bush on virtually every major policy issue, including the Iraq war, tax policy, Medicare legislation, abortion rights, education reform and free trade matters.
. . .
Tim Roby, a Michels spokesman, said he saw "warning signs on the horizon" for Feingold in the Badger Poll, particularly in numbers rating his job performance and those showing that just under half of the probable voters wanted to see Feingold elected to a third term.
G. Donald Ferree Jr., who headed the poll, said: "Although (Michels) remains much less known than the incumbent . . . there is plenty of time for campaigning to make a difference."
(Excerpt) Read more at jsonline.com ...
The Badger Polls haven't been given much credibility lately but it's clear that Michels has to make up serious ground and fast. Name recognition is a big hurdle for Michels, so order your bumper stickers and yard signs, volunteer for his campaign, donate money -- whatever you can to help Ranger Tim kick Feingold to the curb.
My theory is that a lot of middle-ground independent voters are just idiots. I am glad they're voting for Bush, we need them. But they also vote for Feingold. It's all name recognition and it gets incumbents re-elected, which in W's case is great but in Whinegold's its bad. They know nothing about the candidates or the issues, otherwise there's no way they'd be voting for that moron Feingold.
I'd love to see him lose along with Dasshole. Looks like Thune's got a good shot against Tiny Tom, but we'll probably be stuck with Feingold another 6 years...
Does anybody know where I can find polling data on individual congressional races?
Tim Michels Ping
Never trust a university poll. They are usually conducuted by people who think Michael Moore is a conservative sellout.
Support Construction, not Obstruction. Vote Michels!
(excerpted from http://shinbone.home.att.net/abort.1.htm )
During a Senate debate on Sept. 26, 1996, both Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) refused to condemn infanticide under questioning from Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA). Santorum asked each man, in the event that an attempted partial-birth abortion accidentally resulted in a live birth, whether the abortionist and the mother of the child would still have a right to kill the baby.
"I am not making the decision," protested Lautenberg, although Santorum had made it clear to him that the entire baby would be outside the mother's body. Feingold adamantly agreed, saying, "I am not the person to be answering that question. That is a question that should be answered by a doctor, and by the woman who receives the advice from the doctor."
If those answers seem peculiar, what transpired six months later was positively surreal. After the previous debate had failed to sway enough votes to override Clinton's veto, the ban was introduced a second time. During a joint hearing between House and Senate Judiciary Committees, Feingold accused anti-abortion groups of deliberately misquoting his response to Santorum's question.
"This distortion of our exchange is the kind of tactic which undermines efforts to reach an agreement that would ban late-term abortions," he sermonized, "except for the most narrow circumstances where a woman's life or health was at stake."
NRLC president Douglas Johnson responded that his organization had quoted the senator correctly in its literature, and that it is the Congressional Record which is inaccurate, since it is subject to being altered after the fact. He then offered to show a videotape, which he had brought with him to the hearing, of the original C-SPAN broadcast of the debate where the remarks in question were made.
Sen. Feingold, alas, was not present to view the tape. Shortly after Chairman Henry Hyde (R-IL) assured Johnson that he would be allowed to respond to Feingold's accusation, Feingold departed the chamber in haste. He later admitted that he'd altered the official Congressional Record, so that his comments would not be "misunderstood."
Sen. Feingold's behavior is instructive of the modus operandi of the pro-abortion movement in general. He told what he knew was an absolute lie, confident that nobody present would be prepared with proof to the contrary. When he saw that his lie was about to be exposed, he quietly receded to consider his next move, as if he'd just been jumped in a game of checkers.
Like Mr. Fitzsimmons, Sen. Feingold admitted the truth not because his conscience had badgered it out of him, but only because he figured everybody already knew he was lying.
Unfortunately, I don't think Michaels will pull this out. It's possible, but unlikely. However, the closer he gets, the easier he makes it for Bush.
Sorry about the repeat post (I'd posted this distressing article on Feingold, a few months ago), but I want to get the truth out about this deceitful man [Feingold] in every way possible; our state has been saddled with him for far too long!
FWIW: anyone who can, check out and/or help (if you can) the Catholic Voter's Guide project from Catholic Answers ( http://www.catholic.com ); it explains, quite clearly, why a Catholic in good standing can't possibly vote for a pro-abortion, pro-gay-marriage, pro-euthanasia, pro-embryonic-stem-cell, pro-cloning candidate (which describes Feingold, on all counts!). It would really be nice (*weapons-grade understatement alert*) if the clueless Catholics who make up over 20%+ of Wisconsin's electorate could get their "clue" reattached, somehow... rather than simply following the Dem pattern set up in their families and communities when their Great-Grand-Pappy rebelled against Herbert Hoover!
How is Tim Michels on the stump? One reason Feingold wins is because he is likeable.
Fivetwoseven Feingold's buttons can be pushed, and he turns snarly.
Tim is a great, great fella, very personable, very charismatic, very dynamic. Heck, the guy was a US Army Ranger officer!
I am convinced that WI will reelect Feingold, just as LA would reelect Breaux had he run again or WV would reelect Robert C. Byrd were he on the ballot this year. TX would still be electing Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr., had he not resigned from the Senate in 1993 to join the Clinton administration and had his health not failed.
I recall quite a few years ago that WI elected a Republican as governor because he drove a yellow school bus around the state to introduce himself to the uninformed. Gimmicks work in WI, and that's what Michels needs, a gimmick to draw name ID.
The only Senate incumbent I can think of who is in real trouble is Tom Daschle.
Yea, it's odd that the SD seat is not nearly as secure as the one in ND, where they are really committed to Republican presidents and Democrat senators.
Daschle is minority leader. That gives him less leeway to cater to local tastes.
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