[JCEccles]

Correction: You don't have time, or you don't have an answer?

It is a simple question, really. What is your evidence for your bald assertion that McClintock cannot beat Bustamante?

[onyx]

FYI: McClintock leads Bustamente and Arnold in WHICH poll?

There's 3 in the race: Arnold, Cruz and Tom. Tom trails badly in ALL polls.

[pogo101]

What is your evidence for your bald assertion that McClintock cannot beat Bustamante?

Let me play Devil's advocate here.

The only evidence that McClintock COULD beat Bustamante is polls, like the one leading off this thread, which essentially say McClintock has slightly better than a coin-flip chance of beating Bustamante in a race in which Schwarzenegger is not an option.

But Schwarzenegger IS, and will remain, an option. (Even if he were to announce he was dropping out, or fell over dead tomorrow, he already has taken hundreds of thousands of the reported 700,000+ absentee votes already mailed in.)

Accordingly, the hypothetical condition underlying the 42 - to - 40 result in this poll has not been met and is very unlikely to BE met.

This isn't really evidence that McClintock CANNOT beat Bustamante, but it strongly suggests that there is little evidence that, in the race that's ACTUALLY being run (i.e., WITH Schwarzenegger), McClintock CAN do so.

To me, such poll results' principal value is to refute hardcore Arnold folks who say that McClintock could never have won anyway. Plainly, based on this poll, if Arnold had never gotten in (and if other biggie GOP folks also hadn't gotten in for long), Tom could have won, albeit perhaps in a squeaker.

[Dave S]

It is a simple question, really. What is your evidence for your bald assertion that McClintock cannot beat Bustamante

Its really simple! Arnold isnt going to get out of the race and McClinton isnt going to hold his 18%. Tell me how you win a basically three way race with 18%. Seems to me that it cant be done but then maybe you folks live in a parallel universe.