Latest Virginia polls, Senate and Presidency Dead Heats

Mason-Dixon’s latest polling shows the Virginia Senate race between George Allen and Tim Kaine dead even with both candidates getting 46% of the vote and 8% of voters undecided.

The race between Obama and Romney is almost as close with Obama getting 45% of the vote and Romney 44%, with 11% undecided. Romney wins independents by 5%.

Gingrich does not do as well against Obama in Virginia. Obama leads with 49% of the vote to Gingrich’s 38%, with 13% undecided.

More details here.

See-Saw Polls Continue

First Mitt Romney was up in FL, then earlier this week Newt Gingrich took a commanding lead. Now Romney is back in the lead in FL according to six new polls with an average lead of 7.2%. Meanwhile, Romney’s support nationally is cratering.

I’d make a prediction on who is going to win the FL primary, but anything can (and probably will) happen between now and Tue. night when the polls close.

Mark Wolfe Still Playing Fast And Loose With The Law

Right on the heels of documentation being released that demonstrates that the Manassas Ballet is unlawfully employing illegal aliens we have another example of Mark Wolfe playing fast and loose with the law. Someone is really racking up quite a consistent pattern here.

Wolfe recently sent out a letter to convention delegates, using the resources of his company ADCO for the mailing. Although it’s quite laughable that Wolfe describes himself as a “fiscal conservative” while he funnels taxpayer dollars to support the Manassas Ballet Theater, it’s even more laughable that the mailing itself violates Virginia Code Section 24.2-956 (link http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+24.2-956). To wit:

It shall be unlawful for any candidate or candidate campaign committee to sponsor a print media advertisement that constitutes an expenditure or contribution required to be disclosed under Chapter 9.3 (§ 24.2-945 et seq.) unless all of the following conditions are met:

1. It bears the legend or includes the statement: “Paid for by ………… [Name of candidate or campaign committee].” Alternatively, if the advertisement is supporting a candidate who is the sponsor and the advertisement makes no reference to any other clearly identified candidate, then the statement “Paid for by ………… [Name of sponsor]” may be replaced by the statement “Authorized by ………… [Name of sponsor].”

2. In an advertisement sponsored by a candidate or a candidate campaign committee that makes reference to any other clearly identified candidate who is not sponsoring the advertisement, the sponsor shall state whether it is authorized by the candidate not sponsoring the advertisement. The visual legend in the advertisement shall state either “Authorized by [Name of candidate], candidate for [Name of office]” or “Not authorized by any other candidate.” This subdivision does not apply if the sponsor of the advertisement is the candidate the advertisement supports or that candidate’s campaign committee.

3. If an advertisement is jointly sponsored, the disclosure statement shall name all the sponsors.

4. Any disclosure statement required by this section shall be displayed in a conspicuous manner.

Funny, I don’t seem to find any disclosure on this letter, conspicuous or otherwise. Perhaps it’s one more law Manassas Councilmember Mark Wolfe thinks applies to others, and not to himself.

What a Difference Two weeks Can Make, Romney Down to 24% support

Two weeks ago Mitt Romney lead the race for the republican nomination with 37% of the vote, 23% ahead of his closest competitors, Gingrich and Santorum. As of today, Romney garners the support of only 24% of republicans and is down 12% to Gingrich.

They did it again

The global-warming crowd at NASA-GISS was called out for manipulating data to fit their alarmist nonsense, again.

(For the unitiated, there have been so many instances of errors, data manipulation, and other shenanigans, from global warming alarmists that the rest of us can barely keep up with them; the number of my posts alone on this subject stood at thirty-three; now it’s thirty-four).

In this case, GISS made some “corrections” to the Reykjavik data. The Icelandic capital had particularly warm spell between 1940 and 1965 (roughly). Well, “GISS, as the blue line shows, have magically made this warm period disappear, by reducing the real temperatures by up to nearly 2 degrees” (Not A Lot of People Know That via WUWT).

Chart courtesy Paul Homewood (Not A Lot of People Know That – via WUWT)

Suffice to say, the locals are not happy (emphasis in original):

Meanwhile the Iceland Met Office say that “The GHCN “corrections” are grossly in error in the case of Reykjavik”.

Whoops.

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal

Indiana to join Virginia as a Right-to-Work State

Before the Super Bowl comes to Indiana on February 5th, Governor Mitch Daniels hopes to sign into law a bill that will make Indiana a right-to-work state. The bill has passed the Indiana House and has been sent to the republican controlled Indiana Senate. More here.

Gingrich smears Romney on income – again

Newt goes for the soundbite at the expense of the facts, again (National Journal, emphasis added):

“I think you have to live in worlds of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts and automatic $20-million-a-year income with no work to have some fantasy this far from reality,” Gingrich said, jabbing at some of the details of Romney’s self-released income taxes this week.

It’s just abundantly clear that Newt doesn’t get it.

Mitt Romney’s income is far from automatic. There is risk involved in every investment. Sure, risk can be mitigated or minimized in various ways, but it never goes away. Even the “risk-free” T-Bill was downgraded last year.

I mention this because a certain fellow blogger has focused on Newt’s economic policies as friendlier to the supply-side school of economics. From a policy perspective, this is true. However, statements like this make it clear that Gingrich has none of the underlying respect for investments and upper-income earners that are at the heart of supply-side economics. For Gingrich, the private sector exists to fuel his various government schemes; it has no value of its own.

In short, when it comes to economics, Gingrich may know the words, but not the music.

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal

P.S. and Non-Seq: Read the whole piece (here it is again); Gingrich’s “guest-worker permit” plan reads a lot like full-blown amnesty to me.

“Unabashed”

New Virginia Congressional District Maps

The new Congressional district maps, with cool overlays, are available here. They can be viewed to the street level.

Mitt Romney Paid A Staffer To Write This…

The great Mark Steyn dug up this gem of a quote from Mitt Romney to help explain why his campaign is embracing a slow death-spiral.

I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that’s the America millions of Americans believe in. That’s the America I love.

I haven’t heard such inane use of the English language since Maj. Frank Marion “Ferret Face” Burns, MD uttered these immortal words on M*A*S*H:

It’s nice to be nice to the nice.

Federal Budget Explained In Simple English

Virginia Senate Dems Shut Down The Senate

From State Sen. Steve Martin:

The Senate Democrats have just voted in block to prevent the election of any judges as well as preventing any further action until we finish electing judges. Again, we cannot precede with any further business until the election of judges (under Senate Rulle 6) have been completed, but the Dems have voted to block us from voting on any judges. Accordingly, we are presently in limbo, completely shut down. This in a most productive body.

From Del. Greg Habeeb:

Senate Ds are refusing to certify judges their Courts Committee already certified. Worst partisan power grab I’ve seen in my short time here

Toll Road Hysteria

The FLS (the 2011 Worst Editorial Board in Virginia)  is at it again.

A little explanation.

The George Washington Toll Road Authority was formed to govern a prospective toll road that would have run between a new I-95 Interchange around MM 131, near the Rappahannock River, down to intersect with Gordon Road on Rt. 3 in Spotsylvania. Now, this road would have required the use of eminent domain to take the property of literally hundreds of people in one of the most pristine and environmentally sensitive areas of the county. The proposed benefit would have been roughly 7 minutes off the travel time on Rt 3 West in the evenings, and cost more than $100 million per mile of road (4+ miles) and taken more than 10 years to build, in the best case scenario. Further, it would have funnelled traffic away from Spotsylvania businesses, as the only exit on this toll road would have been into Fredericksburg’s Central Park.

So, hearing the feedback from the voters of the county, the new conservative Board of Supervisors passed a resultion earlier this month opposing the Toll Road and pledging to seek alternative options to ease congestion on Rt. 3.

Then the FLS struck.

Screeching bloody murder, the FLS has now written three articles about this project (!) in three days. In two of those “hit piece” articles (here and here), authored by Scott Shenk, not one quote from any of the new majority on the BoS was included. NOT ONE. Yet, several quotes were included from Stafford Supervisors, who naturally would not have had this road project going through their citizens’ backyards.

There are always other options, and it is fully disingenuous for Stafford politicians to dictate local concerns to Spotsylvania. One would hope that, as other options are explored and eventually pursued, people don’t resort to hysteria to use transportation as a political football. Hysteria was an OK Def Leppard song from the 1980s. It is not a viable transportation policy.

Romney Loses 20 Points In FL In One Week

A third poll has now come out now showing Newt Gingrich with the lead in Florida.  This poll, from PPP, gives Newt a 5 point lead over Mitt Romney, who led Newt in Florida in the same poll just a week ago by 15 points.

I haven’t seen a collapse happen this quickly since the 2004 Yankees blew a 3-0 series lead in the ALCS.

And The Oscar Nominees Are…

Extremely Lame and Incredibly Dull…

Nine Best Picture nominees?  Seriously?  To use a popular phrase, I am part of the 99% who haven’t seen any of these films nor do I have any desire to see any of them (although I have heard good things from friends about Hugo.)

It is pretty much until you get to “Best Animated Feature” before you recognize any genuine box office hits.  Even then, 2 out of the 5 films I haven’t heard of (A Cat in Paris?  Chico & Rita?) while the other 3 (Kung Fu Panda 2, Puss in Boots, Rango) were ones that I didn’t even see despite having two kids under the age of 10.  We did see Gnomeo & Juliet, Rio and Cars 2, but none of those were nominated.  I’m somewhat surprised that they didn’t nominate The Adventures of Tin Tin, though.