17 April, 2006

A New Statewide Poll, Same Old Results; Sienna Poll Shows Spitzer Winning In A Walk And GOP Candidates Searching For An Identity

There's a new poll out today from the Siena Research Institute.

Here are the highlights:

In the Democratic race for governor, likely Democratic primary voters pick Eliot Spitzer over Tom Suozzi by 71%-11%.

On the Republican side, John Faso leads Bill Weld 18%-15% with 62% undecided.

The Republican race for Senate remains equally wide open at this point. KT McFarland leads John Spencer 20% to 18% with 63% undecided

According to the Sienna pollsters, GOP voters remain undecided because the candidates are unknowns at this point in the race.

"The four Republican candidates are virtually unknown to three-quarters of Republican primary voters. Weld’s favorable/unfavorable rating is 16% to 7%, while Faso is at 19% to 6%. Spencer has a favorable/unfavorable rating of 15% to 6%, while McFarland is at 15% to 7%," the poll report said.

Andrew Cuomo continues to lead Mark Green in the race for the Democratic nod for attorney general, but the lead has slipped since Sienna's last poll in December. In the latest tally Cuomo has a 34% to 21% lead, or 13 percentage points. In the December poll Cuomo had a 17 point lead.


PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS?

The Daily News' political blog The Daily Politics reports Al Gore is hooking up once again with a key aide in his 2000 presidential campaign, Roy Neel, purportedly to help Gore boost his profile as a chief voice on the issue of global warming.

And the New York Post reports Rudy Giuliani, who - like Gore- is not running, can expect a hero's welcome when he visits Iowa (the first state to have its say in the presidential political sweepstakes) next month.

COSTING MORE BY THE DAY

No not gasoline, although that is too. The price of representative Democracy just keeps putting more and more candidates on the sidelines.

In a private chat with a local politician not so long ago, I asked her why she has never considered a run at Congress. This politician, who is a veteran in her current post, told me she'd love to run but it takes $500,000 to $1 million to run a decent race and you can't get that kind of money unless you tap special interests - which she refuses to do.

I guess my friend may have undershot the mark though. According to a story in today's Utica Observer-Dispatch, the cost of the race to replace retiring Republican Rep. Sherwood Boehlert in New York's 24th District may reach as high as $5 million

1 Comments:

At 7:49 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Regarding the high cost of campaigns, it seems the only way to avoid being beholden to special interests is to mandate that all elections be publicly financed. That would not be as expensive as you think, since the high cost of campaigns mostly comes from television advertising.

But since TV stations get their broadcast licenses from the government, all that has to be done is to make it a condition of the stations' license that they allow so much commercial time for each candidate for free. That cuts down significantly on the costs and insures that each candidate gets equal time. And it satisfies the public interest standard upon which broadcast licenses were issued in the first place.

The campaign system we have now essentially equals legitimate bribery. The wealthy support their candidates of choice, and more money makes them more competitive, so they get elected and return the favors to those who financed their campaigns, creating a favorable business environment or tax breaks(often at the expense of taxpayers and the middle class) so those wealthy benefactors can finance their next campaign.

Money shouldn't equal speech. Because if it does, then what does no money equal? No speech.

 

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