elections – Page 3

Eric Idle for governor?

I love this story, especially because it’s not clear if it is anything more than a prank.

Chris Christie, the Republican candidate for Governor of New Jersey in Tuesday’s knife-edge gubernatorial election, has been called out as a copyright thief. The 47-year-old lawyer, who was controversially appointed by George W. Bush as a U.S. Attorney in 2001 on Karl Rove’s recommendation after being a top Bush fund-raiser in the 2000 election, has created an election commercial that steals copyright-protected material from British comedy troupe Monty Python — without permission or credit.

The official campaign advert — titled “Deja Vu” — attacks incumbent New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine by using scenes from a famous skit on the “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” TV show that features Michael Palin. The ad is on Christie’s official YouTube campaign site, and has already aired on national TV.

But neither Christie — a lawyer for 22 years — nor anyone in his campaign bothered to seek any permission for using the copyrighted material in his election spot.

Alerted to the theft of their copyright, members of Monty Python are most unhappy. Michael Palin, who appears in the clip pirated for the advert, is especially displeased that his likeness is being used by the Republican candidate without permission.

“I’m surprised that a former U.S. Attorney isn’t aware of his copyright infringement when he uses our material without permission. He’s clearly made a terrible mistake. It was the endorsement of Sarah Palin he was after — not that of Michael Palin.”

Monty Python’s Terry Jones says that the troupe is strongly considering suing the Republican for his copyright infringement:

“It is totally outrageous that a former US Attorney knows so little about the law that he thinks he can rip off people. On the other hand — another of Bush’s legal appointees was Alberto Gonzales and he didn’t seem to know much about the law either…,” Jones said.

The New Jersey race already was surreal, but introducing Monty Python takes it to a whole new level.

It’s still a numbers game

It’s about numbers, and the most recent number to hit the New Jersey is the registration figure released by Secretary of State Nina Wells (as reported in The Star-Ledger):

New Jersey Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells said the state has 5.22 million registered voters, down from 5.35 million in 2008 when the presidential race brought a registration surge.

There are still more Democrats than Republicans — 1.77 million to 1.06 million. But Republicans have closed the gap a bit, adding some 5,000 voters since last year. Meanwhile, the number of Democrats dropped by a similar amount.

Nearly half of the voters — 2.51 million — are registered as “unaffiliated.”

It’s not much of a change, especially when you consider last year’s record registration figures. And it seems pretty clear that quite a few of those still registered will be staying home next week. The question is: Which candidate benefits?

The long, silly season

The Connecticut U.S. Senate race has started early — really early.

Sen. Chris Dodd, a longtime Democratic incumbent who holds the seat once held by his father, is under attack (with some cause) and facing a serious challenge.

This probably explains the TV ad I’ve seen several times over the last couple of days. It is from Linda McMahon, former CEO of the WWE — the wrestling empire. She’s not the frontrunner — not even in the top four, acccording to all the major campaign sites and most polls — but she’s already opening her wallet.

And that means that Connecticut voters — and those of us as far away as the northern half of New Jersey who share a television market — are in for a long, drawn out campaign season.

Green issues not likely to be on gubernatorial table

Environmental issues are likely to get short shrift in this gubernatorial race — and not only because the two leading candidates appear stuck in attack mode and willing to focus on the smallest of alleged ethical lapses.

It’s not only because property taxes and the economy are front in center in voters’ minds.

It has to do with a lack of real interest in the environment by either Gov. Jon Corzine or Chris Christie.

Corzine does not have a good environmental record. He has done some good things — boosting alternative fuels, for instance — but his larger record is far from green, as this report issued by the EPA (which is led by his former environmental commissioner) shows.

Christie has some interesting (if vague and modest) proposals on his Web site, but has said little about green issues on the stump — except to slam Corzine for failing to win the endorsement from the Sierra Club (which Christie also failed to earn).

A second group last week also withheld its endorsement — this time of all candidates:

One of New Jersey’s leading environmental groups announced today it will withhold an endorsement in this year’s governor’s race because its leaders have yet to hear substantive environmental plans from the candidates.

“We really think the candidates thus far have done a poor job crafting environmental positions and showing where they stand on the environment,” said Dena Mattola Jaborska, executive director of Environment New Jersey. “Before people go to the polls this fall, we want them to be educated on the candidates positions.”

Basically, neither of these guys has much of a record to stand on when it comes to green issues and neither is going to go out of his way to talk about it.

Poll positions: A GOP firm issues its own numbers

OK, so we have another poll showing us something we already know — voters in New Jersey are not happy with the governor and, at least at the moment, ready to hand the reins off to his Republican challenger.

But the poll in question — conducted by Strategic Vision — may not be the best one to hang one’s hat on, primarily because of two things:

Strategic Visions has among its clients a bevy of conservative groups, including U.S. English and is run by a former campaign operative for Bob Dole’s presidential race.
The other issue with the poll results can be seen in this bit of info:

The results of the poll also showed that 50 percent of those polled approved of President Barack Obama’s overall job performance, with 40 percent disapproving; and 10 percent undecided. When asked if they approved of the President’s handling of the economy, 47 percent approved and 45 percent disapproved.

That means that Strategic Visions has Obama at about 10-12 percentage points below what other New Jersey polls have shown, and may explain why a race that most polls have at about a 7-or-so-point gap is at 15 points in this poll.

I have one other major question: Who commissioned this poll? Strategic Vision does not appear to function as the Gallup, Monmouth or Fairleigh Dickinson polls do. They seem, from their own literature, to be client-driven. So who’s the client in this case?

This description of the polling firm from a 2006 Media Matters piece may shed some light:

Far from being “independent,” Strategic Vision is a Republican polling firm. Johnson, the company’s founder and CEO, worked on former Sen. Bob Dole’s (R-KS) 1988 presidential campaign. Johnson’s personal website — which identifies Johnson at the top as a “Republican conservative” — further notes that while working “at Associated Industries of Florida, he assisted in the development of the association’s political operations department that played a pivotal role in Republicans capturing the State Senate in 1994 and State House in 1996.” Johnson was also involved in Republican Florida governor Jeb Bush’s first gubernatorial campaign. Most media outlets identify Strategic Vision as a “Republican polling company,” such as a March 13 Philadelphia Inquirer article. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted on March 12 that Strategic Vision “has a Republican history,” and the company’s hometown paper, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, noted in a March 13 article that the “polling firm lists to the GOP side.”

No one would be foolish enough to argue that Corzine is actually leading or that the race is particularly close. But the prevalence of polling in the coverage, especially when polls like this one get the headlines, tend to create a momentum of their own, making the election results seem a forgone conclusion.

As reporters, we need to be very careful to identify those polls that are most reliable and, should we opt to use polls from places like Strategic Vision, make sure we identify who the polling firm is and take as close a look as we can at the results and how they match up with other more reliable polls.