Marion Co. GOP Chairman Tom John is firing back against his Democratic counterpart's claim that a poll released yesterday showing Mayor Bart Peterson's support plunging was "phony" and an act of "desperation" for "money and attention" on the GOP's part. “[Mike O'Connor's] response is consistent with the behavior of his officeholders who have been working for weeks to stifle any dissent to their misguided plans," John said. "In the past month, we have seen Mayor Peterson keep citizens out of a Council meeting in favor of his employees, Monroe Gray lock citizens out of the City County Building during a heat wave, and Lonnell Conley throttle debate from the public and his fellow council members." "Now, we have Bart Peterson’s campaign manager disparaging legitimate public opinion."
John went on to say that O'Connor had no facts to refute the poll's findings. "Unfortunately, this is just the Mayor Peterson Machine M.O., slander any dissenter rather than engage in a public debate on the facts," John said. "This is sad for the citizens of Marion County." “I challenge Mr. O’Connor, or any one else, to explain how any specific question in this poll is slanted or unfair." John then backed up his assertions by disclosing the exact questions which were asked on the poll, along with the poll's results. Here's what it shows:
MARION COUNTY POLL
August 8-9, 2007 N= 300 Likely Voters
Project # 07427 Margin of Error = ± 5.66%
Thinking ahead to the November elections for mayor and other local offices? How likely is it that you will vote in that election..would you say it is...
88% VERY LIKELY 12% SOMEWHAT LIKELY
Generally speaking, would you say that things in Marion County are going in the right direction, or have they pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track?
6/07 8/07
42% 28% RIGHT DIRECTION
41% 64% WRONG TRACK
16% 6% DON'T KNOW*
1% REFUSED
And do you think Bart Peterson has performed his job as Mayor of Indianapolis well enough to deserve reelection, or do you think it's time to give a new person a chance to do a better job?
6/07 8/07
28% 23% DEFINITELY REELECT
24% 18% PROBABLY REELECT
13% 14% PROBABLY A NEW PERSON
27% 38% DEFINITELY A NEW PERSON
7% 6% DEPENDS/DON’T KNOW-- -- REFUSED
50% 41% TOTAL REELECT
40% 53% TOTAL NEW PERSON
If the election for Mayor were being held today, for whom would you vote if the candidates were.. Greg Ballard, Republican ... and...Bart Peterson, Democrat
6/07 8/07
15% 25% DEFINITELY BALLARD
10% 12% PROBABLY BALLARD
23% 18% PROBABLY PETERSON
37% 33% DEFINITELY PETERSON
14% 12% UNDECIDED/DON’T KNOW*
1% REFUSED
25% 37% TOTAL BALLARD
61% 50% TOTAL PETERSON
What is your main racial or ethnic heritage? Is it...
70% CAUCASIAN OR WHITE
23% AFRICAN-AMERICAN OR BLACK
1% HISPANIC
1% ASIAN
2% OTHER
3% REFUSED
Gender.
48% MALE
52% FEMALE
26 comments:
looks pretty objective to me. hope it holds true. i feel some major smears of ballard coming on. let's see what jen wagner has up her sleeve now that the racial smear didn't stick.
I have a friend who got the phone polling call.
These were not the questions asked.
And, scientifically, after the "likely to vote question" was asked, ONLY the 88% who said they were likely to vote should've been asked the remaining questions.
Statistically, the 12% who admitted they would not vote, which is a low for normal samples but still perhaps reasonable, are highly likely to respond negatively to incumbents.
(To test this stratification, ask ten people you know if they're going to vote. If more than 6 say yes, you're in rarified air...and on Election Day, we'll be lucky if 35-40% vote. Sad, but true)
And, again...a 41/40 D-R split is not representative. That leaves 19% undecided, another suspect group.
The baseline Marion County vote is now believed to be about 53-55% D. Perhaps higher. And if you have any doubt about that, I have three words for you:
Mary Catherine Barton.
I'm a Democrat, pro-Peterson, and somewhat angry about taxes and the mess the Mayor made of the last income tax increase. You can make up poll questions, and you can make up polling groups, but you can't make up your own facts.
And the fact is, this city is not 41-40 Democrat over Republican, with 19% undecided.
In this election, given the hyper-sensitive issues already well-publicized, I'd be surprised in there were 10% of voters undecided, even now, three months out.
If the polling sample were more-closely aligned with the actual voting block, the Mayor might still have come up with lousy numbers.
But we will not know that until that kind of poll is run.
And the two chairmen can piss and moan all they want. O'Connor's response was childish. John's was not completely representative of the voting block.
And so it goes.
Not an expert here but I did sleep at home last night . . .
10:15 said - The baseline Marion County vote is now believed to be about 53-55% D. Perhaps higher.
Going off of the 2004 election results for offices that everyone in the county voted for the split ranges from.
President - 50.6 D / 48.7 R
Senate ( Bayh ) 66 D / 33 R ( rather skewed )
Gov - 52.2 D / 46.5 R
AG - 48 D / 50.3 R
Sup School - 48.9 D / 48.6 R
Congress ( 3 combined )
48 D / 52 R
So my untrained eyes give the D's about a 51 to 49 % edge ( Throwing out Bayh's numbers that is ).
So if 1/2 of the undecided could be split close to 50/50 with a few extra going to the D's come election day ?
I am sure someone else will throw some numbers up to prove me wrong - that is fine.
:)
Pike Voter
It's funny how one of the most respected polling firms in America has all these "issues."
If the poll would have been favorable for Peterson, I wonder where all the criticism would be?
Pike Voter: Party baseline is typically measured by a down-ballot office, like surveyor, etc.
Right now, that'd be right at 52-48, Demmocratic.
As for voter turnout, in 2003, the last general election, it was about 27.5% countywide. In Center, it was under 20% in many precincts.
By any stretch of the imagination, a 41-40-19 (D-R-Undecided) split is far from reality.
Clearly, the Republican poll cut the uncecideds almost in half, and gave them disproportionately to Republicans.
It is clear to all of us, tht the mayor's support has slipped. Has it slipped as far as the poll would havhe you beleive? Doubtful.
But we'll never know if the poll's "givens" are skewered, will we?
Keep crying, 5:41am. We'll all get our answers in November.
So, ala Rove, you think full explanations of facts, is "crying" ?
Yeah. As mentioend earlier, you can have your own opinions, but you don't own the facts.
See ya in Nov.
5:41 your constant referral to the surveyor - how do you know it wasn't name recognition?
See the name "Barton" on there and many old-time residents think its a relative of former Mayor Barton (from way back before UniGov). That's like going to Chicago and seeing a "Daley" on the ballot. Even if the person is not part of the Mayor Daley family, he or she would get tons of votes.
So your assessment of using that race to say we're a Dem county doesn't hold water.
Indiana has always used the election results from the Secretary of State race as the "benchmark".
You're not entirely correct--the SOS race is a state office benchmark. Down-ballot county-wide races, like surveyor, assessor--not the marquis Sheriff/Prosecutor/Mayor/Clerk races, are often viewed as benchmarks. Why? Because little or no moeny is spent on them, thus it is believed these offices more accurately reflect true partisanship.
I used surveyor because a little-known candidate, not very well respected by her own party, won in 2004, beating an entrenched Republican incumbent. No one gave her a chance in hell of winning.
In fact, I know scores of active Dems who did not vote for her because they think she's a goof.
So it's a perfectly legitimate race to gauge baseline party loyalty.
The 2006 SOS results were about 51% D, I think...so either way, my number is a helluva lot closer to baseline than 41-40 this poll used.
It's a flawed poll that did damage to the incumbent,and thus was, I hate to admit, effective.
But don't confuse "effective" with "accurate." The Dem chairman's resposne to it was stupid. So was John's resposne to the O'Connor response...but the longer this is tossed around, the more effective it is for the Republicans. It was, in short, politically brilliant.
To heck with polls. No one called me. The real poll taken will be on election day.
If you look at the track record for the Democrat mayor and the control on the city-county council,
the Democraps will lose.
Bart Peterson, Ron Gibson, King Ro Connelly, Rozelle Boyd, JoAnn Sanders, Monore Gray, Vernon Brown, Patrice Abdullah, and Scott Keller. Atty. Aaron Haith should be replaced as the legal advisor to the council.
The people are angry and disgusted with the lack of respect shown to them by the arrogance displayed by these incumbents. Time for a change!
Are you saying they should have polled 55% D's and the rest R's and undecided's ?
You can talk poll numbers and responses all day long and still solve nothing. The importnat thing to remember is that even the men who built the Titanic thought it was unsinkable. Does anyone know where that ship is today??
10:09, people ARE angry and disgusted with all sorts of things. You're right.
But "people" also know that Scott Keller is a Republican. Try to pay attention, ok?
And to answer the polling question, for 90 days out, given the current climate, the margin between D and R voters should've been 6-8 points, not one point.
With an allowance for undecideds, which I maintain is no more than 10% at this time, that'd be about 48-41 D, give or take.
In no reasonable manner, does 41-40 D represent the elctorate. Not even close.
The John-O'Connor back-and-forth is starting to sound like the "adult" (so-called) political version of nanna-nanna-boo-boo.
If the poll were 41/40 D/R lets add 5% to the D's and take 5% off the R's and see what we get for the 8/07 numbers ?
8/07
33% RIGHT DIRECTION
59% WRONG TRACK
6% DON'T KNOW*
1% REFUSED
8/07 ( add 3 to definite and 2 to probable )
26% DEFINITELY REELECT
20% PROBABLY REELECT
12% PROBABLY A NEW PERSON
35% DEFINITELY A NEW PERSON
6% DEPENDS/DON’T KNOW--
-- REFUSED
46% TOTAL REELECT
47% TOTAL NEW PERSON
If election held today
8/07
22% DEFINITELY BALLARD
10% PROBABLY BALLARD
20% PROBABLY PETERSON
36% DEFINITELY PETERSON
12% UNDECIDED/DON’T KNOW*
1% REFUSED
32% TOTAL BALLARD
55% TOTAL PETERSON
The poll taken by Channel 6 wasn't exactly good for Peterson either.
The Channel 6 poll wasn't exactly scientific either.
Political polls are rarely "scientific", unless performed for research purposes (which wouldn't be touted to the media during election campaigns).
All else is designed to maximize the potential for an agreeable result.
Gary, I have some interesting I want to send you. Will you print your email address?
I'll try this again:
Gary, I have something interesting I want to send you. Will you print your email address?
Mayor Peterson lunched and talked to residents of a senior community today. He was on location near 16th and Shadeland.
During his speech he again blamed the State for the tax issues.
After his departure several residents were interviewed.
Their comments ranged from
"Typical politician", " He's confused", my favorite "He's lost in space", and "Over his head" to "Very dishonest".
Peterson is in trouble if he's upset the Geritol crowd.
Peterson failed again to tell the truth. His continued denial is costing him votes.
Keep saying bad things about Bart, and Wilson Allen will respond with about 50 anonymous posts and 5 using his name.
Right Wilson?
gwelsh@indy.rr.com
To anonymous (10:15): You misread the results. Please note that the "likely to vote" question results are for those who responded that they were very or somewhat likely to vote. Those who said they were very or somewhat unlikely to vote were not asked further questions. It is common in political polling - by both parties - to screen for "likely voters" in this way. Consequently, 100% of the respondents to this poll are considered "likely voters."
As for having 19% undecided, that is not at all uncommon this far out from an election that is in flux. The two GOP polls show a classic movement. Voters rarely abandon one candidate for the other in a single move. They typically will go from candidate A to undecided and then to candidate B. The polls shows that shift is happening, perhaps the single most troubling aspect for the mayor.
The R-D baseline split in Marion County may be 53% or higher. But the electorate is angry...very angry. Anger motivates voters and and angry voters rarely vote for incumbents. The mayor may yet win re-election. He has significant advantages in money and name recognition. But he is not safe. Neither is the council majority.
7:25, I don't misread anything. I've commissioned, read and paid for polls for over 25 years. THis one's not good.
Once 12% of the respondents said they wouldn't vote, the phone calls should've been over.
They weren't. S0, over a tenth of the continuing repsondents taint the results, because they self-identify as non-voters.
And precisely because voters are very angry, unlike anything I've ever seen, don't think for a minute that 19% are undecided. I think 10% may push it...people are galvanizing, and there are not 1-in-5 voters undecided. No way on earth.
Again, the poll is faulty on many fronts. But it accomplished what its originators wanted, so it was brilliant politically.
And no doubt support for the mayor is down. But it's not 41. No way.
I don't think he's vulnerable, but if he doesn't make decisive moves in Patrice and other issues, he could move into that category.
He would do so, I have to point out, by losing supporters. Democrats are not likely to bolt. The Independents and many Republicans who have traditionally supported him, would have to bolt.
I think most of them already have.
It's the political equivalent of the sports analagy: "playing not to lose."
But it will likely be just enough for another term.
a haughville dealer said fuck impd, ipd, bart peterson, all the feds, dea, all dat bull shit cuz they dealin too we street niggaz aint stupid fuck any type of law enforcement im da truth all the drugs thats in haughville right now are mine if i get indicted boy o boy well ima jus say how would indiana feel with a knife to their mayors throat a gun to the prosecutors throat and a bullet in every cops head that i see bitches dis real shit "haughville niggaz "
Post a Comment