Steele Campaign Seen in Disarray

[indigo]

from WaPo

Good news, but too early to cheer, maybe?

[LiberalEsto]

1. Steele has so many things going against him

He's a rethug in a majority Democrat state

He's African American in a racist rethug party

I don't think he has any real legislative experience

And he has little or no name recognition.

[AX10]

2. Still, I am NOT cheering yet. I will only cheer once we have a victory...

on election night.

[safi0]

3. He actually has really

High name recognition. His name recognition is in the 80's while Cardin's is in the 40's. That's not a good thing for his perspective though, the fact that he trails Cardin despite having 2x higher name recognition

[nickshepDEM]

4. Latest poll shows Steele +5 over Cardin.

[indigo]

5. Is this Jan Rasmussen?

A Zogby poll in Jan showed very different results:

Cardin 49
Steele 43

so I don't know how reliable the polls are at this stage.

[nickshepDEM]

6. Yeah, contrary to most posters on DU, I happend to believe

Rasmussen is one of the best pollsters in the nation. They had a bad 2002, but they were one of the best in 2004. On the other hand, Zogby was down right awful in 2004. He had Kerry polling even with Bush in Alabama for a while. And in May, his headline read "Election Kerry's to Lose. Zogby Predicts 350+ EV's" or something along those lines.

[DaveinMD]

7. Rasmussen

is wrong on this one. Trust me. That said, I don't think Cardin will win the primary.

[indigo]

8. due to

the large field?

[nickshepDEM]

9. You cant just say something like that and not tell me why...?

:mad:

Why do you see Cardin losing the primary?

[DaveinMD]

10. I sent you

a pm.

[Stinky The Clown]

11. You can't just say something like that and not tell all of us why ......

:)

[indigo]

12. there has always

been some gossip that Rales was encouraged by GOP to run and draw support from Cardin, thus leaving Mfume as the preferred opponent for Steele. I can't comment on whether there's any truth to this, or if it's something one of his opponents is interested in spreading around.

Rales is ex-GOP -- claims to have switched from (D) to (R) after meeting Connie Morella in the 90s. Now he's back to (D), claiming disgust w/ GOP leadership. I find it telling that you won't find "Democrat" prominently displayed anywhere on his web site. I did get a laugh out of the picture of him pitching for Whitman, as I went to Churchill (HS rivals, for those not familiar w/ MoCo).

In any case, he's running as a "fiscal conservative/social liberal" (D). Adding Lichtman and Van Susteren into the mix, I suspect some Cardin support has been drawn off in Montgomery. All three have viable campaigns at this point. Rales can self-finance, both Lichtman and Van Susteren have put money into their own campaigns, and I noticed that Van Susteren has quite a few donations from doctors/health professionals.

I find Lichtman and Van Susteren to be interesting candidates. Lichtman's work with voting rights is fascinating, and Van Susteren is undoubtely the most qualified to debate stem cell research w/ Steele. While I normally don't look much past frontrunners, I am looking forward to seeing these four candidates (Cardin, Mfume, Lichtman, Van Susteren) square off across multiple issues. I have no interest in Rales.

[indigo]

13. Also Rasmussen

Forgot him -- we have so many candidates ... I believe his area of strength is Baltimore, so putting it all together, Rasumussen + Rales + others = siphoning of Cardin support.

[DaveinMD]

14. I agree with this

I also think Cardin has made some errors.

[safi0]

15. Rasmussen oversamples

Republicans, its hard to deny that. Its why Bush polls at 47 in their poll while not getting more than 42 in any other. In 2004 this worked because the GOP did better than expected, but if 2006 is a Dem year, Rasmussen will do terribly.