Weekly Senate Polls- Week VI Labor Day

It doesn't look good...

Weekly Senate Polls-Week V

Letter: Jindal fiddles as colleges burn

Louisiana’s governor must be a fiddler.

As the administration’s budget fires are razing the state’s institutions of higher education, Gov. Bobby Jindal is certainly absent from any active leadership role to limit the damage.

For now, there are no votes in it.

Perhaps our “mystic masseur” is off instead tuning his image and reeling catchy sound bites and platitudes for his “base.”

It is evident that, at best, Jindal sees public higher education in Louisiana as little more than post-high school student job training, for which the only relevant questions are how many students graduate, and how fast.

From that perspective, why care about or fight for quality? Why fight for institutions that don’t support a controlled political agenda? Why has Jindal failed to provide leadership for Louisiana’s higher education? Why has his administration presented the system with reductions that could result in 1990s spending levels and cripple institutions such as LSU, UNO and ULL for decades?

The simple answer is that Jindal is not a product of public higher education himself and has no personal investment in its institutions.

Does anyone have any illusions about the prospects for future Jindal family Tigers? His alma mater is a New England Ivy that is far removed from the causes and concerns of Louisiana’s people.

Jindal’s post-gubernatorial future will also be far beyond the cares of Baton Rouge — Washington, New York or abroad perhaps — where he will bear no responsibility or cost for the unprecedented damage that is taking place now.

If Jindal will not fight for the future of public higher education in Louisiana, then the people must. There is simply too much at stake to leave the state’s future to someone who isn’t passionate about it: Jobs, health, environment, economy and quality of life all depend on the quality of higher education.

It is time to demand that the Legislature abandon entrenched political positions and find practical solutions to problems through a rational budgeting process and, if needed, increased taxes.

Louisiana cannot just cut its way to prosperity. It must invest strategically, and that includes supporting its colleges and universities, not burning them to the ground while the governor plays his fiddle.

Michael King
academic consultant
Baton Rouge

My take on the Alaska situation...

Last night as I watched the returns roll in from Arizona, Florida and Vermont, very few things surprised me. I knew that failed businessman Rick Scott would best Bill McCollum for the FL GOP governor's nod. I was expecting a McCain victory over his tea party-backed challenger J.D Hayworth, however, admittedly I thought McCain would win a closer, that he would get the comfortable 24-point margin that AZ Republicans afforded him. When I went to bed at about midnight, Central Time, the only surprise to me was that Vermont Sec. of State Deb Markowitz did not get the Democratic nomination for governor. But whatever, that race was relatively inconsequential anyway. I had predicted correctly almost every primary winner...or so I thought. At midnight, there were no returns out from Alaska. As I turned my light off, I assumed that incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski would easily best her Palin-backed challenger, Joe Miller. I assumed that Murkowski would cruise to victory much in the same fashion that colleague McCain did in Arizona...no big deal, Murkowski wins the primary and goes on to easily keep Alaska locked in the GOP category.

...This morning, when I went to confirm my seemingly obvious suspicion of a Murkowski win, I was quite shocked...with 97.9% of results in Miller was holding onto a narrow, but impressive 51.1-48.9 lead over Murkowski. Wow!!! If Miller wins, Scott Brown's victory would look like any other boring Senate race, I thought.

THE NUMBERS GAME

As of now, Miller is clinging to a lead of 1,960 votes. Does Muekowski have a chance at a comeback? Yes. Remember, 2.1% of votes have yet to be counted. A large portion of these remaining votes will come from absentee ballots; thus far only about 7,600 of some 16,000 of these have been counted. Thus, in order to win, Murkowski would need to get about 5,100, or 62% of the remaining ballots. That, to me, is possible but more unlikely than likely.

Lets look at the most current numbers:



With a lead of 1,960 votes Miller has a small but significant head start as the final 2% of ballots are counted. With 8,200 ballots yet to be awarded, both candidates have a serious chance at winning. However, in terms of sheer numbers, the incumbent faces an uphill battle. In order to TIE Miller, Murkowski would need to win 5080, or 62%, of the remaining 8,200 votes, to Miller's 3120.



In any case, things are looking undeniably bleak for Lisa Murkowski now. In order to get the GOP nomination, she must win the remaining votes by a landslide margin...


OVERALL IMPLICATIONS

At first, I was rejoicing when I saw the result; it seemed that if Miller were nominated, this seat could have a real chance of falling into Democratic hands.

Weekly Senate Polls-Week IV

Sorry I'm a little late with this one...

Not very much good news for Democrats this week. With polls out this week in WA, CA, OH and PA, all four of those states move more towards the GOP column; the former two have moved to tosssups and the latter pair is now in the Republican column. In mid-America, MO seems to be slipping away from Democrats as well, however, only one pollster Rasmussen conducts regular polls in this state. Thus, the Lean R rating of MO may be intrinsically skewed.

However bleak the situation looks for Democrats, there are a few states moving in the right direction, specifically KY and IL. In IL, Alexi Giannoulias has a seven-poll winning streak over his GOP opponent; hence IL is now in the Democratic column. Within the last week, the KY race has gotten more competitive than I was for much of the summer; Libertarian tea party Republican Rand Paul has seem his double-digit lead over Democrat Jack Conway shrink to just over 1 point. Despite Kentucky’s conservative leanings, Democrats have been competitive on the state level; Democrats dominant on the state and local levels of politics while Kentucky has usually sent Republicans to the Hill and voted GOP in presidential elections. Rand Paul may be too conservative for even this red state.


Changes from Week III:
[IL] Tossup -> Slight D
[NV] Lean D -> Slight D
[CA] Slight D-> Tossup
[WA] See CA
[MO] Tossup ->Lean R
[NC] Slight R -> Lean R
[KY] Lean R -> Tossup
[PA] Tossup -> Lean R