Wednesday, October 29, 2008

New PA 10th CD poll

Lycoming College


Chris Carney (D-inc): 50%


Chris Hackett (R): 35%


Undecided: 15%


(MoE: ±4.7%) 441 likely voters interviewed Oct. 19-23


Carney has a favorable rating of 54 percent and an unfavorable rating of 24 percent. Hackett has a 35 percent approval rating and 40 percent unfavorable.


Our friend Local Values has been keeping track of all the 10th CD polls and like RCP has been averaging them.

LOCAL VALUES AVERAGE: Carney – 48% Hackett – 34% Undecided – 18%



I've never seen a challenger win an election with higher negatives than positives. Hackett's line of attack of yelling liberal, taxes and he wears Nancy Pelosi's underwear doesn't seem to be working. An added factor is the left over hard feelings from the primary in which he trashed Dan Meuser and Pride Mobility making it difficult to unite the local GOP. Now after the Pat Toomey outfit, the Club for Growth, has sunk time and money into the race on his behalf he runs an ad starring Senator Arlen Specter. In 2004 Specter defeated Toomey in a bitter primary and the spot strikes me as a slap in the face of Toomey. What a great way to treat your friends.


Carney's campaign has been a mix of touting a positive message of his accomplishments and going for Hackett's throat. The 2 issues about Hackett that people in the district have told me that resonate with them is Hackett didn't pay his taxes on time and he employed a housekeeper who was an illegal immigrant. The Zoey Baird problem. And he doesn't apologize for getting earmarks, people like pork.


The Carney camp put out a press release today saying that they have raised over $2 million:


“We’ve exceeded all of our finance goals, and are proud of having raised over two million dollars this election cycle,” said Aren Platt, Congressman Carney’s Finance Director. “Congressman Carney has a strong base of support, which includes over 1300 grassroots supporters from our 2008 cycle.”


That compares to Hackett's $2.9 million of which $1.58 million came out of his own pocket. Then they got into the usual squabble over where the money is coming from and accusations of pay to play.

I think that the amount of money spent on election campaigns is obscene and a better way to fund them has to be found. But that is a subject for another post.


Rock Solid



14 comments:

Anonymous said...

dan meuser really hurt the republicans in this race. joe peters should have been the nominee, then the republicans would have won this with little effort...

Anonymous said...

this joe peters you speak of, isn't he a john "i love the racist rednecks" murtha supporter?

prsent said...

Joe Peters would have been a decent choice, but the PA GOP wouldn't support him since he considered becoming a spoiler in a recent state election wherein Lisa Baker was involved. The Wayne County GOP pretty much ostracized him since and presented a pretty steady case to the state committee. The end result? lack of funding and lack of support, despite the fact that his proven track record as a conservative would have made him a shoe-in. I also think he would have ran the strongest campaign against Carney.

Hackett would represent the district well and could probably bring in some much needed funding to the area because he knows how to play the game. Unfortunately, I don't think his campaign is being run as well as it should be. As the challenger in this race, he's not presenting a strong enough case to prove to the voters why he should be elected. The only hope he has is that republicans will come out in droves for this election on Tuesday and hit the party lever.

As a side note, the GOP in the 10th CD presented a slurry of poorly run campaigns.

Anonymous said...

Joe Peter's didn't run because he didn't want it known that his cock got stuck in his zipper. Don Sherwood made him nervous.

As far a Chris Hackett, please enlighten me as to what's wrong with his values and agenda. Too pro-life and less government?

What's left of the meuser assholes make me sick.

prsent said...

Anon,

First of all, I did not support Meuser in the primary. Second, I never said anything bad about Hackett's conservative values or his agenda. In fact, I have said time and time again that his values are representative of the district as a whole. I support and will vote for him in the general election.

If your reading comprehension was at least high school level, you would see that I feel that my problem is not with Chris Hackett, but in the way his campaign is run: it is not aggressive enough.

I think the voters get the point that Hackett's a conservative and that he's portraying Carney to be a liberal. But what else is he running on? How come he's not making a stronger case against Carney's voting record (he's just making general comments with very few specifics)? How come he's not attacking Carney on his failure to do anything about the highway infrastructure when NEPA has some of the worst bridges and roads in the USA? How come he's not attacking Carney on his phony record as an intelligence operations person? How come Carney's acting as though he's representing the 5th District of Iowa rather than the 10th District of Pennsylvania? How come Chris Carney, after given a chance for 2 years, has done nothing for this area? There is a lot to attack Carney on, but the Hackett campaign's just not doing it.

Instead of getting aggressive, Hackett's campaign blunders by having the most liberal republican in PA (Arlen Spectacle) do a commercial for him, informing us that we need to vote republican because we can't afford liberals to run this country. When I saw Arlen Specter on that commercial and listened to what he said, my answer was much like Biden's on the recent, infamous Florida TV interview: Are you freakin' serious?

Since your reading comprehension is substandard, I'll spell it out on a 4th grade level for you: I like Chris Hackett more than I do Chris Carney. I will vote for Hackett. I just don't think his campaign is doing enough to ensure a victory on Tuesday.

Anonymous said...

Meuser did not hurt this campaign. Meuser made the mistake of not fighting hard enough. He tried to keep it respectable. He knew about everything the Dems are throwing out there against Hackett. He just didn't use it.
Hackett lied about Pride Mobility and he lied about his pro choice stance. He lied to and about many prominent people in the area.
Now he wants their support?????
As for Peters, wayyyy too much baggage. Can you say Sherwood times 10???

Anonymous said...

Bob,

The idolization of Meuser is dishonest and tiresome. His campaign was entirely about Pride Mobility, and by doing that he opened the door to exposing the MANY violations and fines the company has garnered; some of the most egregious ones were not aired. He was just as negative as Hackett, he made no effort to keep anything respectable, and the reason people did not choose him despite spending twice as much as Hackett is they were and still are uncomfortable with him as a conservative and as a person. His behavior since the primary election completely validates their selection.

And whatever it is you are throwing out about Joe Peters - I suggest you tread VERY carefully lest your favorite erstwhile candidate find himself faced with similar embarassing disclosures. You know what I am taking about.

So get over it already, because this one-sided anti-Hackett pityfest doesn't have to remain one-sided. Grow up.

sexyfemalemuscle said...

Mesuer did a lousy job on his campaign... He made amateur mistakes, the biggest was getting most of the other contenders out of the race. The fact is that either him, Peters, or Hackett would represent the district well, however the one who could beat Carney would have been Peters. Now when Carney wins again the seat will be his for at least the next decade. It was shortsightedness on the republicans side that cost them this one.

Anonymous said...

anon 10:15,

I don't understand the Murtha comparison. The two couldn't be more different.

Anonymous said...

I don't understand how this is meuser's fault. He lost- hackett and the club for growth called him and his company a criminal enterprise (last mailer). This is a company that started from nothing and now employees over 1,000 people in the area. Who can say that they have not helped the local economy and people. These are jobs that people can use to pay there mortgages and send there kids to school. I don't think any other candidates can say that. Hackett does not create jobs but rather takes them away from others a net loss due to the lower wages his company pays.
Hackett made a couple of big mistakes.
1. He is not seen as trustworthy or truthful. He has mislead and lied to people across the district. He has no integrity and Carney is doing a good job in showing that to the people of the district. He will do anything to win the job not because he cares about the conservative agenda but rather to inflate his huge ego. Ask yourself what has Hackett ever done for the party before deciding to run?? The answer- Nothing except to give to Skrep for a big $700,000 contract.
2. Hackett did not go after the Meuser supporters through out the primary and after the primary election. Anybody who supported Meuser he treated like the enemy rather than reduce his big giant ego and ask them for their support once the primary election was over. A major part of Carney's appeal is that he is humble a trait the hackett should look up in the dictionary. After the primary Hackett took an attitude of Republicans have to vote for me. He told one high profile Republican that look I beat meuser and you need to get over it and you have to support me. Not true- you must always develop your support- going to the other side throughout the campaign and humbley asking for there support would have gotten him a long way.

Stop blaming Meuser supporters and realize that Hackett was the wrong person for the job. I don't know if peters would have run. I like Joe and we will see what he does in the future.

Anonymous said...

Anon 5:57
No, I don't idolize Meuser. But my support is only tiresome to you and it is in no way dishonest. The facts are the facts. Hackett made claims IN THE DEBATE that were false that Pride is "shipping jobs to China" and reducing their work force when Pride's workforce continues to grow.
To put your claims right back at you, YOUR idolization, "anonymous", of Hackett kind of reminds me of Obama supporters. No matter what the man does, it's ok. It's not relevent. It's not important. The housekeeper, the protesting Fox's visit while sponsoring it, the tax issues, the pro-choice flip-flop, the list goes on and on but you Hackett people just dodged and ducked and kept changing your gameplan.
Thankfully this will all be over in a few days. You people will no longer be "temps" for Hackett.

Anonymous said...

prsent said:

Hackett would represent the district well and could probably bring in some much needed funding to the area because he knows how to play the game.

Are you kidding? You are obviously not paying attention to what Hackett is running on. He has come out against earmarks and said he would never except them. He would not bring a dime back to the district because he is a coward who wouldn't fight for anything unless there was something in it for him like he did in Luzerne County.

prsent said...

I personally think earmarks are a bad idea. If you want to bring funding back to your respective area as a representative, you should go through the established appropriations process rather than merely slip something into a bill. Earmarks are a waste of taxpayer dollars. Take a look at the recent bailout bill and all the little goodies that were thrown into it: money for handmade goods in American Somoa will really help the our economy rebound.

prsent said...

I forgot to add that $9 million for your nephews to file bankruptcy is a great use of our tax dollars. If this is the kind of stuff Hackett is against, then he has my vote.