Is Herrera snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?

A single poll is interesting when it comes to momentum. Two polls are REALLY something, but three? That's a trend.

Here's an article from Roll Call, talking about an "internal poll." As Barbie knows, "internal polls" can say anything you might want them to say when they're released to the public.

But if (and it's a huge "IF,") this poll is true, then Herrera could be in serious trouble... as more people examine her more closely and discover what I've known since she first was parachuted back in here by McMorris to, ultimately, run for Congress. Again, IF true, this is the second consecutive poll with results showing Heck closing on the empty suit.

Here's the article: Enjoy.

Washington: New Internal Poll Shows Heck Closing In

By Kyle
Trygstad
Roll Call Staff

Sept. 21, 2010, 12 a.m.

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Democrat Denny Heck is within the margin of error with Republican Jaime Herrera, according to an internal poll conducted for the Heck campaign and obtained by Roll Call.

While Heck’s poll finds Herrera at 47 percent and Heck at 44 percent, it’s an improvement from recent public surveys and past polling conducted for Heck’s campaign.

The Greenberg Quinlan Rosner survey of 502 likely voters was taken Sept. 7-9 with a 4.4-point margin of error.

Automated polls conducted by Survey USA found Herrera ahead by 13 points in August and 9 points in September. In June, a GQR poll conducted for Heck found him behind by 7 points.

As the polling memo points out, Heck’s positive movement occurred as outside conservative groups, including American Future Fund and Americans for Prosperity, have dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars in TV ads against him.

Heck and Herrera are running to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Brian Baird, who won his last four races with more than 60 percent of the vote. President Barack Obama carried the district in 2008 with 56 percent.

Cross posted at Clark County Politics.

Heck begins to campaign... for Herrera.

At the union wake held at Firefighter's Local 452 Hall, Denny Heck officially began to campaign for Ridgefield Barbie.

Stakes are high in Washington’s 3rd, which has been ranked the No. 1 House race in the country by MSNBC, Heck said. “You all were incredibly helpful in the primary,” he said. “We have 56 days to go from today.” Without mobilization of Democratic voters, he said, “you could wake up on Wednesday (after Election Day) and have someone who sounds a lot like Linda Smith.”

Denny, here's a clue: while Babs isn't fit to carry Linda's luggage; Linda Smith, it seems to me, is exactly the kind of representative the vast majority of the 3rd CD is looking for.

Your ONLY hope is to move right. Period.

You have to figure out a way to get past the fear that your election means another vote for that blithering idiot, the Belle of Botox, Pelosi.

You have to figure out a way to reassure the people that you will not vote for any more tax increases or bail outs.

In case you haven't noticed, even a clueless moron like Herrera is kicking your butt sideways in the polls. Resurrecting the "specter" of another Linda Smith is exactly what you DON'T want to do.

Because every time you do it, you're rounding up more votes for Barbie.

Seriously.

Cross posted at Clark County Politics.

Seattle Times endorses Heck.... and Castillo!!!!

The true test of anyone's intelligence is typically that degree to which they agree with you.

The Seattle Times passed over Ridgefield Barbie and endorsed Denny Heck.... and David Castillo!

This is a STUNNING blow to Babs, who seemed to think that Cathy McMorris's effort to make her the "Anointed One" by bringing her corruptive influence to the other side of the state from her own district doesn't, in fact, mean anything CONstructive as much as it has been DEstructive.

Running the empty suit like Obama doesn't mean that people won't see through that.

We've been there. We've done that. And we've got the t shirt, a horrific mountain of debt, Obamacare and a foreign policy that looks like an early Keystone Cops movie... all voted for by Baird, and none of which Herrera found fault with.

Denny Heck and David Castillo the primary picks in the 3rd Congressional District

The Seattle Times editorial board endorses Denny Heck and David Castillo in the primary in Washington's 3rd Congressional District race in Southwest Washington.

ONE incontrovertible truth about Washington's 3rd Congressional District is it is a swing district in the fullest sense of the term. President Obama won there, as did President George W. Bush.

Whoever represents Southwest Washington in Congress must be an independent thinker willing to buck his or her political party. With that in mind, The Seattle Times endorses Denny Heck, Democrat, and David Castillo, Republican, to advance to the general election.

Both have worked in the public and private sectors and have a strong grasp of the challenges facing the district, most notably its unacceptably high unemployment rate. Both appear creative enough to tackle tough issues from an independent vantage point.

The need for jobs and an improved economy overshadow most other issues. Heck touts the need to proceed with a new Columbia River crossing as an economic stimulator and the need to keep Washington ports humming. Castillo emphasizes the needs to improve infrastructure, including flood areas along Interstate 5, and create enterprise zones to help economically distressed counties.

Heck began his political career at age 24, and was elected to five terms in the state House of Representatives. He served as House Majority Leader, and later, as chief of staff to Gov. Booth Gardner.

Castillo, too, showed early interest in public service and worked for George W. Bush, including a stint as a senior official at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Castillo is currently a financial adviser, and was the first challenger in the race, before the incumbent, Brian Baird, decided not to seek re-election.

Heck is an innovator as evidenced by the fact that he was an early investor in RealNetworks, a digital-entertainment company, and co-founded TVW, the C-SPAN of Washington state — a triumph of achievement for transparency in state proceedings.

Both men are levelheaded about wars America can no longer afford. Both realize the U.S. may not know what success looks like in Afghanistan, and if the vision remains too foggy, are willing to move to the end game.

On numerous issues ranging from financial reform to federal spending, Heck elevates the discussion with his vast knowledge and solution-oriented approach. Castillo wraps no-nonsense earnestness into conservative principles, which have room for compassion for people living in poverty. Childhood poverty is part of his own story.

This contest will be close. Voters would be wise to pick Heck and Castillo to clarify their strengths and weaknesses in the general election.

Cross posted at Clark County Politics.

So, what do the numbers in the 3rd Congressional mean?

Well, we've seen all the numbers in the 3rd in the fund raising race, and there were no real surprises.

Heck is vacuuming out most of the leftist money; after all, money attracts money, and writing yourself a quarter million dollar check to start, while really odd for a job that doesn't pay all that much net that such an expenditure would be worth it to anyone except those possessed of the biggest ego, is something of a money magnet.

But adding $300,000 to that figure is very impressive indeed.

As I've pointed out, Pridemore's candidacy is a joke, and he's spinning his wheels in ways that just astound. His many fringe left, hypocritical bouts (The voting for a budget he'd condemned as being balanced on the backs of the "poor and the powerless;" his corruption in cutting his buddy, Steve "I can be bought if the price is right" Stuart a sweet deal on campaign finance; his rabid support of the union welfare project known as the I-5 Bridge /loot rail project that most in the region hate, and his unbridled desire to stick a $1300 per year toll down our throats will make him the laughing stock) combined with an almost pathetic inability to raise money, even when he portrays himself as Obama light, will make him the answer to a political trivia question 10 years from now... but it won't make him a congressman.

On the right, the likely eventual winner had a respectable quarter and as time goes on and more people discover how slimy his main opponent in the GOP really is, we can expect her money to dry up even more, and his money to start rolling in.

David Castillo has run a solid campaign and will continue to do so. And while the special interests who own SEIU Representative Jaime Herrera have tossed a few bones her way, as more and more find out about how very little background, education, vision and independence that slimeball has, they'll desert her in droves.

She touts her $140,000, provided by Cathy McMorris Rogers, her keeper and boss through her contacts, as some big accomplishment. Considering how much time she spent off the floor fund raising instead of being on the floor representing US, and considering the horrifically stupid idea of ditching us during session so she could make a fund raiser with the special interests who already own her in Washington DC, this is a HORRIFIC number... less than half of the cash donated to the democrat who will be in the general, Denny Heck.

The others running on the right are fine, quality people. I've listened to Castillo and David Hedrick, who championed the cause of the people against Cowardman Brian Baird last August. Castillo's qualifications far exceed anyone else running in the 3rd, but Hedrick isn't far behind and I hope that this doesn't represent his only foray into politics.

Ultimately, I believe this will become a Heck-Castillo showdown, and it's the wrong year for the democrats.

Herrera supporters confuse me; Castillo calls nailing Barbie bad, bad; RNCC calls nailing Pridemore good, good.

Lately, there's been a massive brouhaha by Herrera's Kool Aid drinkers over the word-for-word accurate robo-call used by David Castillo to tell the 3rd Congressional District about our session-ditching, SEIU supporting, someone-else-voting-for her-while-shes-gone, slurping-at-the-DC-special-interest-trough-during-session-HERE, Ridgefield Barbie.

Man, the outrage, the over-the-top responses, the out and out lies and exaggerations Barbie supporters engaged in as a result of these calls... unbelievable.

As I pointed out with a word-by-word analysis, everything the calls said is true. Of major interest to me is the approach to their commentary.

Where this site, who opposes this cardboard cut out of a representative, questions the zombie-like response of the Herrera Herd, I did so actually posting the "offending" call in question.

Where the Herd bleated its fake anger, I was unable to find any of them who posted the call, and then disputed its contents. There's something quite sickening about that.

And here's where my confusion comes into play.

Apparently, Craig Pridemore's local political deathwish is to be an Obamaton.

That, of course, is his privilege.

Between his corrupt politics, his support of the horrific project known as the I-5 Bridge/Loot rail, his vote to trash I-960, and apparently being a complete Obama tool for health care, including the communistic public option, Pridemore has no chance. None.

To date, he hasn't been able to raise money, and the local fringe whack jobs supporting him, like the fringe whack jobs on the right supporting Herrera, tend to show proof of doom in the primary.

I get that he wants to lock down the fringe left. But to the 80% of the voters to Pridemore's right, positions like these:

"Let me be clear: I believe that Democrats in Congress should pass the bill, include a public option, and if necessary, use the reconciliation process to get it done," he said.

are simply out of the main stream. This sentiment serves to bury Pridemore and his fellow fringers even farther behind any chance of winning the seat.

Of course, if the GOP still had control of Congress and this was on a bill Pridemore didn't like, he'd be bitching like a cut cat if the Republicans were planning to do the same thing... and we can be sure his opposition to such a maneuver would be EVER so principled.

But not even THAT is the point. Pridemore's campaign will collapse soon enough without any particular help from me.

The point is that the Herrera Herd was positively GIDDY over the RNCC calls blasting the positions of the two leading democrats. Major tweeting, re-tweeting, etc.

And that's where I'm confused.

As I said, I posted the "offending" Castillo robo-call, in its entirety. I did that to show that everything in the call was completely factual. I pointed out where members of the Herrera Herd have lied and exaggerated about its contents, and even have gone so far as attack those wise enough to agree with the contents of the call... which are, after all, completely factual.

So, Castillo does a robo-call, factual in every way. The Herrera Herd wants to draw and quarter him as a result.

The RNCC does a robo-call, apparently not so factual, having rightly indicated that Heck is, apparently, "undecided" (which is a euphemism for being too cowardly to take a position on the issue, given its level of radioactivity in this area and his party's moronic support of the bill) while wrongly indicating the Pridemore was "undecided" in the face of his left-of-Lenin position on the matter.

The result?

The Herrera Herd dances around a rhetorical bonfire the size of Pittsburgh.

So, let me get this straight:

Castillo is savaged for doing a factual call accurately attacking Ridgefield Barbie.

The RNCC is applauded, cheered and generally worshiped for attacking Barbie's presumed democrat competition?

So, it's bad when some people do it, but good when others engage in the process?

So, I admit it. The Herrera Herd confuses me.

Crossposted at Clark County Politics.