TexTrib poll blows up in their face again

Remember what I said yesterday about polls? It's particularly true of the Texas Tribune's Republican half of their most recent gubernatorial poll -- released today but conducted before the Medina truther kerfuffle, which will surely alter the numbers severely.

So disregard that right away. Let's take a quick look at what they have on the Democratic side, however.

White 50
Shami 11
Everybody else 9

Among Democratic voters, 30 percent were undecided, and of those, 48 percent, when pressed, said they lean toward White. With White already at 50 percent, that means Shami would have to strip votes away from him in order to force a runoff or to claim a win.

That's now two three polls showing pretty much the same result, and both all were conducted in the week prior to their debate on February 7. So with the previous advice about polling value in mind, White may improve on his position. And if these are numbers are accurate I have to eat crow served by Dr. Murray.

Democratic primary voters have a couple of other statewide races to decide. In the contest for lieutenant governor — the winner will face Republican incumbent David Dewhurst in November — labor leader Linda Chavez-Thompson took 18 percent of those polled, former Travis County District Attorney Earle got 16 percent, and restaurateur Marc Katz had 3 percent. Five percent of voters said they wanted "somebody else," and a whopping 58 percent remain undecided on the eve of early voting, which begins on Tuesday.

Recall that the TCUL's numbers from February 3,4, and 6 were Earle 25, Chavez-Thompson 18, and Katz 5. Ms. Chavez-Thompson's is the only campaign with any visibility to me in this contest.

Friedman and Gilbert — two refugees from the governor's race now running for agriculture commissioner — are locked in a tight race, 32 percent to 27 percent. While Friedman's ahead, the difference is within the poll's margin of error. And, as with the Lite Guv race, “undecided” is actually leading, at 41 percent.

These two are going at each other hammer and tong. After the DMN disguised a slap at Gilbert with a lukewarm endorsement of Friedman, Gilbert shoved back with this:

Kinky told the El Paso Times Tuesday, among other nonsensical things, that Governor Perry could win re-election and "will probably be President".  This despite running four years ago in the governor's race as a spoiler and taking votes from the actual Democrat.

"We knew that Kinky's baggage would be used to damage the Democratic ticket by suppressing minority turnout," said Gilbert campaign consultant Mike Lavigne referring to questionable comments in the candidate's recent past.  "But we didn't expect him to dismiss the Democratic gubernatorial nominee before there even was one."

Kinky then countered with an endorsement of Bill White. Stay tuned for more headlines today from these two, and probably every day until Election Day.

Last interesting bit from the TexTrib's poll ...

How strong is the Tea Party movement, and who does it steal votes from? Asked the generic congressional question with that movement included as a third organized party, 21 percent said they would choose the Republican, 36 percent would choose the Democrat, and 16 percent would vote for the Tea Party candidate. More than a fourth — 27 percent — said they were undecided. So the Democratic numbers held, while Republicans lost 16 points to the Tea Party and the rest to undecided.

"The electorate is responding to whatever it is they're associating with the Tea Party — at the expense of the Republicans," Henson said. While that's not necessarily to the advantage of the Democrats, he said it will have an effect on the majority party: "The tea party is going on in the Republicans' house."

Take that with a grain of salt, and now toss it out.

Update: Katherine at Burnt Orange adds the results of the Research 2000 poll conducted by the Daily Kos, and rounds up all of the February polls in pretty side-by-side graphs. That view makes it seem likely that Governor MoFo doesn't clear a run-off -- but again, the Medina gaffe's effect is reflected in none of them.

So hit the reset button ... or the flush handle.

Of the kooks, by the kooks, and for the kooks

And she was doing so well, with everybody on that side thinking she was only a closet secessionist...

Anti-Washington activist Debra Medina was on the brink of knocking U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison out of a likely Republican gubernatorial runoff, but she may have spoiled her chances Thursday with her remarks on the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

A series of public opinion polls of likely Republican primary voters this past week had indicated that Hutchison was dangerously close to losing second place to Medina in the contest to oust incumbent Gov. Rick Perry.

Medina has benefited from a pair of solid debate appearances, and millions of dollars in attack television advertising by Hutchison and Perry has made her the none-of-the-above candidate for conservative voters.

But Medina may have stumbled Thursday when talk show host Glenn Beck asked whether she believed the government was involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Medina said people raising that question were slinging “mud” at her but went on to say:

“I don't have all of the evidence there, Glenn, so I don't, I'm not in a place, I have not been out publicly questioning that. I think some very good questions have been raised in that regard. There are some very good arguments, and I think the American people have not seen all of the evidence there so I have not taken a position on that.”

Where exactly is the line drawn on the Right between crazy and sane? Beck is a birther, and he's calling Medina crazy for being a truther?!?

These are people who think climate change isn't happening, that evolution isn't happening, that Barack Obama isn't a US citizen, that the Earth is only 6000 years old ...

Some on our side want to suggest that this a plot executed by the Perry campaign. I think that has the potential of being as big a conspiracy theory as MIHOP itself. The only real story here is that Medina pulled a Clayton Williams -- which is a big enough (and funny enough) story all by itself.

Really, all you need to do is just sit back and watch the lunatics set fire to each others' hair for the next few days.

Texas Right aflame with Medina "truther" insanity

Get your corn popped and watch the lunatics fall down and spin around. I'm serious; these people are ALL batshit crazy.

There are fifty blog posts and dozens of comments on the mainstream websites arguing about how much damage Debra Medina did to her campaign today.

In an interview with the certifiable Glenn Beck -- that would be the same Glenn Beck who calls Rick Perry a "progressive" -- she couldn't say with certainty whether the federal government was in some way responsible for the terrorist attacks on 9/11.

You could not dream up stuff this wacky if you were smoking rocks.

The normally breathless Eric Dondero at Libertarian Republican -- a near-daily source of laugh-out-loud amusement for yours truly -- is hyperventilating over the news. Go ahead, click on over. You won't get any slime on ya. Read also the HouChron's Texas Politics blog for the direct quotes and especially the comments.

Perry lovers are giddy with excitement. Medina's minions are outraged.

Todd Gillman at TrailBlazers sums up the moral of the story in "At last, something Perry and Hutchison can agree on".  And this comment there is pure comedy gold:

Hutchinson's campaign headqurters (sic) is probably delirious with joy. What an earthquake! This comment is even dumber than Clayton Williams' "rape" blunder. It cost him the election and this is even bigger than that. I was seriously considering voting for Medina. I'm not sure which one of us that exposes as the bigger idiot. Well, I'm not a big enough idiot to stay with her, now. Kay, I'm back in the fold.

Can I get you more popcorn while I'm in the kitchen?

Update: Rhymes with Hate rounds up more links (if you can stand any more) and slams the door on Medina's foot.

Bi-poll-er disorder

One says there were almost certainly be a run-off in the GOP primary and one does not ...

A new Texas Credit Union League poll in Texas finds Gov. Rick Perry (R) leading the Republican race for governor with 49%, followed by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) at 27% and Debra Medina at 19%.

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 A new Public Policy Polling survey finds the Republican primary for Texas governor on a path to a runoff. Surprisingly, however, the runoff could be between Gov. Rick Perry (R) and Debra Medina (R), leaving Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) as the odd-woman out.

Perry currently leads with 39%, followed by Hutchison at 28% and Medina at 24%.

This is why pollng will drive you nuts. When you see blog entries -- or for that matter, Traditional Media reports -- along with the pundit class quoting the poll's results, just dismiss it (and them). Any poll you can come up with always has nearly immediate diminishing marginal return. In layman's terms, the instant-and-then-instantly-useless value of toilet paper freshly used.

Yes, it's very important to have for a brief moment, and then it's worth shit.

Having said that -- and noting particularly that both polls show Bill White being thisclose to avoiding a run-off --  I will skooch a little farther out on the limb I crawled a few weeks ago and say that if Rick Perry is as wily a political raccoon as I believe he is, he will start laying off the attacks on Kay Bailey. Because if he should find himself in a run-off with Debra Medina on March 3, he will lose.

The most interesting information in these polls IMHO are the TCUL's numbers associated with the Democratic lieutenant governor candidates -- Ronnie Earle, Linda Chavez-Thompson, and Marc Katz -- who show 25, 18, and 8 respectively. That leaves 49% undecided.

I'd say that's exactly right. Now throw that nasty thing down the toilet, would you?