Pederson and Kyl September Polling

Pederson continues to chip away at Kyl in the latest SurveyUSA poll, which shows a 43%/48% race with a MOE of 4.6%. The two main factors to pay close attention to are that Kyl remains under 50%, and that Pederson continues to trend closer to Kyl, converting undecideds slowly but surely.

I don’t put a lot of faith in SurveyUSA polls as a rule. They purchase their phone number database from a vendor, rather than create it for the poll themselves, so I’m leery about their framing methodology. And they use recorded anouncers, which cannot adequately pre-screen respondants. They are releasing more detailed info on the poll on Thursday, so I’ll post again if there is anything interesting.

Generaly, however, this poll is confirmatory of existing trends and not all that surprising. The one thing that does rather surprise me is that Pederson’s contrast ads aren’t gaining more traction in pushing some of Kyl’s people into the Undecided camp. I’m firmly of the opinion that Kyl is way hell and gone more conservative that Arizonans really want in a Senator. I hope that the Pederson campaign rolls out an TV ad about Kyl’s attempted fraud upon the Supreme Court. That is a legitimate ethics issue that Arizona voters need to know about before going to polls in November.

The message about Kyl’s radicalism, lack of ethics, and water-carrying for Bush is obviously not getting out there. I think Pederson need to throw another bale of his cash on the media bonfire and turn up the signal. The truly disturbing thing about SurveyUSA’s polling is their Senate tracking poll on Kyl. It shows approval for Kyl increasing over the past couple of months. That is very troubling. One poll or one number I take with a grain of salt; a consistent trend in a series of polls, that’s the electorate talking.

I saw Pederson speak at the Labor Day rally at Reid Park. Zzzzzz… uh, what? Oh, yeah. He’s not exactly electrifying. My advice – more proxies out hitting the circuit. Pederson should be like Washington; a man of few words and imposing presence. He’s got some really great ideas and about the best political environment a Democrat could hope for in Arizona.

Now I rail and rant: COME ON, JIM! STIR UP SOME SERIOUS SHIT, BITCH! WHAT YOU WAITING FOR?

Ok, I feel better now.