Posted on 04/27/2006 7:38:11 PM PDT by litany_of_lies
Sorry, column is packed full of of a Big Lie.
This has nothing to do with G.W.B.'s poll numbers.
DeWine's idol is John McCain. He's concluded Ohio is going Liberal, and thinks he can be Ohio's Maverick.
He stabbed us in the back on judges and he's been stabbing us for awhile now on other issues. This is why his son lost election, but he didn't learn his lesson.
And this is why I've said repeatedly conservatives should make an example of him and Chafee specifically. FIRE THEM.
DeWiner needs to be booted out of office. He is another gutless bastard with no backbone!!
Hmm. I'm an Ohioan, and think Tator has a point. If I weren't reading the blogs, I'd barely have heard of Pierce. There's little advertising going on here (southeast Ohio) for Pierce.
But either DeWine or Pierce can certainly beat Brown.
1. He has been met with over 80 of Ohio's county GOP committees and has been nearly always well received and supported, and has nearly always heard disdain for DeWine, for a wide variety of reasons that vary from county to county. He was won three of five ballot-based endorsement contests and tied one (DeWine won once), so there is plenty of discontent to go around.
2. He could always be better known than he is. Spread the word.
3. It's not going to get done by advertising. It's going to get done through new media techniques.
The Columbus Dispatch poll has an outstanding track record in statewide candidacies. The last time I researched the numbers (a year or two ago), they were the single most accurate polling organization in the country.
As you've indicated, their polling for last year's statewide reform measures were disastrously wrong, and there was a lot of discussion among the polling pundits about why a normally reliable polling outfit was off by such huge margins. Without getting into all of the specifics, the bottom line is that there are some major differences between polling for candidates and polling for issues, that make the latter much less reliable.
Given their overall track record, I would still put great stock in candidate polling from the Dispatch.
I'm thinking that the Dispatch has a few different polling methods.
With RON and the late March poll, they used mail-ins. I don't understand how mail-ins can be considered random, scientific or accurate. Cheaper, maybe, but who can predict what kind of person is going to be a responder and non-responder?
I suspect that the solid polls from the Dispatch in the past have been phone-based. These weren't.
No, the Dispatch polls have always been mail-based. Here is a very good article from pollster Mark Blumenthal (who is unaffiliated with the Dispatch), discussing the history of the Columbus Dispatch mail-in poll, and why their methodology may be more accurate than telephone polling:
http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2004/11/ohio_back_to_th.html
That link didn't seem to work. Let's try again:
http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2004/11/ohio_back_to_th.html
If there is any justice, Bill Pierce will stomp DeWhiner and it won't even be close.
I have a theory, though it seems a bit quick for it to have taken root -- the degree to which different types of people pay attention to their mail has changed a lot.
People who are not online (about 25% of the pop) will pay more attention than those who aren't, especially those who do most or all of their finances online. I'd expect higher responses from offline than online folks.
What this does or doesn't do to skew the results, I don't know. But the RON results make me think that something is seriously amiss, and it's not just because of the difference between an issues-based v. a candidate-based poll.
There hasn't been any kind of race since November, so I think the burden of proof is on the Disptach right now, and they don't get their credibility back until they get something right again.
Do you know of any candidate, anywhere, that isn't an elitist? Any judge? Any Mayor? Any DA? Any City Board member? Any Union leader? The two party cartel is a well presented facade of choice. The actual third "party" is the fed-up US Citizens who will throw good tea into a bay and fight. Until then, Our US Constitution and Bill of Rights have been aborgated, by the lowest of all common human denominators- arrogant vanity.
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