Van Tran Sends Out Scratch-and-Sniff Mailer

At the Fresno Bee:

Something stinks in the 47th Congressional District race.

Republican candidate Van Tran has sent voters a scratch-and-sniff mail piece taking aim at Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez.

"Something smells rotten about Loretta – it's the stench of Washington," the mailer reads.

Wrote one Capitol Alert reader who received the mailer: "It is a horrible odor – like a combination of five or six of the worst possible scents you can imagine."

Carl Costas (photo at left) and Jay Mather Bee file Democrat Ami Bera, left, and Republican Rep. Dan Lungren will tangle in their only debate of the election campaign this morning on radio station KQED. They're competing to represent the 3rd Congressional District.

The mailer was designed by Ryan Clumpner, a former California Republican campaign operative and legislative staffer who now works for the Missouri-based Axiom Strategies.

"It's definitely eye-catching when you have all sorts of mail pieces in the last couple of weeks," Tran campaign manager George Andrews said.

The Sanchez campaign found the mailer's smell and approach nauseating. "Talk about bad taste," Sanchez spokeswoman Caroline Hogan wrote in an e-mail. "While our opponent is busy spamming voters with ill-smelling mailers, Rep. Sanchez is talking about the issues that matter to Orange County families."

Tran isn't the only candidate making an olfactory appeal. Republican Carl Paladino, the tea party candidate running for New York governor, has mailed out fliers that smell like garbage to make a point about corruption in Albany.

Palestinians Back Hamas Murders in Hebron, Poll Finds — 49 Percent Support Killing 'Israeli Civilians Inside Israel'

Background via Melanie Phillips, "The True Reason for the Middle East Impasse."

But check the full survey, "PSR - Survey Research Unit: Poll No. 37":

... a majority of 51% supported and only 44% opposed Hamas's latest armed attack near Hebron which led to the death of four settlers.

And also at Question #55, 49 percent support:

... armed attacks against Israeli civilians inside Israel.

There's a roundup at Solomonia: "Murder Near Hebron."

Nate Silver: '52-Seat Gain For G.O.P.'

Sounds about right:

If Democrats were hoping for a late surge to improve their chances of retaining control of the House, there isn’t any evidence of it yet. Instead, Republicans have generally had the better of the polls in individual House districts released in the past 24 hours.

FiveThirtyEight’s forecast now projects the most likely composition of the House to be 231 Republicans and 204 Democrats. This is a one-seat improvement for the Republicans from yesterday’s forecast, and would mean that they’d gain a net of 52 seats over all.

There is uncertainty in the forecast: Democrats have a 20 percent chance of maintaining control of the House, essentially unchanged from a 21 percent chance yesterday. Much of this 20 percent probability reflects the potential for there to be systematic errors in the polling, as there were in years like 1998.

Since there are a very large number of competitive seats, relatively small anomalies in the polling could potentially affect the outcome of dozens of races. Although the Democrats’ overall position is poor, it is not yet so poor that it couldn’t be salvaged if they beat their polling averages by 2 or 3 points nationwide.

Still, such errors could also work in Republicans’ favor, potentially enabling gains in excess of 60 or even 70 seats....

Oh, a Storm is Threat'ning...

My favorite Rolling Stones song, ever since I was a teenager. Admire the idealism, enjoy the sounds. "Gimme Shelter":

Oh, a storm is threat'ning
My very life today
If I don't get some shelter
Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away

War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away

Ooh, see the fire is sweepin'
My very street today
Burns like a red coal carpet
Mad bull lost its way

War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away

Rape, murder!
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away...

Death to Blue Dogs Coming From Both Sides

Actually, I thought leftist Ari Berman made a perfectly good attack on centrist Democrats in Sunday's New York Times, "Boot the Blue Dogs." He's a little hypocritical on GOP "ideological purity," since his push to purge the Blue Dogs amounts to a de facto endorsement of the right's resurgence and unity at the conservative base. And thus for the Blue Dogs, with the clear loss of support among progressives, these centrist Democrats in Congress are taking fire from both sides. Why should voters reelect a waffling Democrat when they can get a real fighter in a conservative GOP partisan? The Wall Street Journal has more, with a piece mentioning former Democrat star Stephanie Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota, now expected to fall to Kristi Noem, the Assistant Majority Leader in South Dakota's House of Representatives. See, "Blue Dogs Face Sharp Losses in Midterms":

WASHINGTON—More than half the members of the Blue Dog Coalition—the organization of moderate to conservative Democrats in the House—are in peril in next week's election, a stark indicator of how the balloting could produce a Congress even more polarized than the current one.

The Blue Dogs are often seen as a kind of human bridge, connecting left and right in the House. But that bridge is imperiled by the coming Republican wave in midterm elections, the most stark example of how the midterms are likely to weaken Capitol Hill's political center.

Of 54 Blue Dogs in the House, six already have retired or decided to seek other offices. Of those trying to stay, 39 are in competitive races, according to the Cook Political Report, and 22 of those are in pure toss-ups.

Among those facing the toughest races are some of the Blue Dog Coalition's leaders. Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota, one of the co-chairs of the group, is locked in a contest with State Rep. Kristi Noem; in the most recent polling earlier this month, conducting by Rasmussen Reports, Ms. Herseth Sandlin trailed 47% to 43%.

Similarly, Rep. Baron Hill of Indiana, a fellow Blue Dog leader, is battling Republican attorney Todd Young in a deadlocked race both parties see as an indicator of the size of the GOP wave.

The bottom line is that the Blue Dog population could be cut significantly, conceivably by half, in next week's voting.

More at the link.

And obviously, there's no sanctuary for Democrats, Blue Dog, Harry-Pelosi dawg ... it's the same thing.

Jerry Brown Profiled at Los Angeles Times

Continuing my coverage of California's elections, today's Times features a glowing profile of Jerry Brown, "Older and Wiser, Brown Proudly Embraces His Father's Legacy":

At times, Jerry Brown seemed to go out of his way to distance himself from his father.

Edmund G. Brown Sr., California's governor from 1959 to 1967, called himself a "big government man." He built aqueducts, universities and freeways. He liked to shake hands with strangers and slap them on the back. A block might take him half an hour to walk because he greeted everyone he passed.

His only son, Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown Jr., could be aloof, even acerbic. He became governor eight years after his father lost a bruising race for a third term. The son preached an "era of limits" and railed against the kind of politics his father practiced.

Now the brash young governor who thought he knew it all marvels at his father's accomplishments, both privately and publicly. He is acutely aware of Pat Brown's admired legacy, and invokes his name with reverence.

Brown says he is wiser now — an admission that he was wanting before — and that he has mastered the nuts and bolts of governance. He even tries to smile more.

"I was looking for new ideas," Brown said of his first two terms as governor. "I wanted to break the stagnation. Right now the ideas are pretty clear. We need management and forging a consensus and a common purpose regardless of party…. The very extreme positions will not hold."

Is he attempting to vindicate himself, eying his father's legacy and finding his own lacking? Or is his candidacy a calculated stroke, fueled by the strong ego and ever restless spirit that has primed his previous reinventions?

For answers, Brown points to the writings of a 4th century philosopher and developer of Christian thought.

St. Augustine wrote about "not going back to what was said before, always creating and finding new things…," Brown said. "Life is a discovery, and you are always learning and formulating anew."

Folks can read the rest.

I'm not finding anything inspiring, and my thoughts are pretty clear on a Brown governorship: Been there, done that. He's an old-fashioned Democrat --- in the pocket of big labor --- who won't do much to improve California. The state needs major structural reforms. Known previously as an independent free-thinker, Brown is all washed up. He's basically riding the pubic gravy train into retirement, hoping to put even larger stamp on his father's big government legacy. Pat Brown took office nearly 40 years ago, ultimately presiding over the gargantuan expansion of state government and popular expectations for more. Jerry Brown could do well to revisit his early motto claiming the "era of limits," except it's the state government that should be limited, not the people of California. Cut taxes and regulations, reform budgeting and pensions, and revitalize the entrepreneurial spirit. The populace will respond. California always leads the nation. We can do it again, for the next era of innovation and growth. We just need good leadership, and I'm underwhelmed by the promise of Governor Moonbeam.

Lauren Valle, MoveOn Activist and Accused Criminal Trespasser, Subdued While Attempting to Harass Rand Paul

Well, that's an alternative headline you won't get from the MFM. See Gateway Pundit, "Unhinged MoveOn.org Activist Tackled and Stepped On at Rand Paul Rally," and "UNHINGED LEFTIST Who Lunged at Rand Paul Is Paid Far Left Activist." And some criminal background on the alleged attacker, "Activists Face Felony Charges." Valle is a Greenpeace militant and environmental extremist, as The Other McCain notes:

Given the nature of the May vandalism in Louisiana – which seems to have aroused security concerns for two Cabinet secretaries — Valle’s actions in Kentucky take on a completely different cast. Environmentalists have been known to commit acts of violence and, in the mob scene outside the Lexington debate, some of Paul’s supporters might have feared that this wild-eyed person shoving her way through the crowd was trying to do some kind of weird Squeaky Fromme thing.

Iraq Casualty Myth

At GSGF:

An important article of faith among faithless Great Satan haters (that for decency's sake shall remain linkless) is that Operation Iraqi Freedom unleashed horrific new millennium warmaking on a hapless, helpless populace of a wonderfully despotic illegit Ba'Athist regime and gleefully slaughtered nigh unto a million innocent Iraqis...

RELATED: IBD, "Iran's Imperialism."

Van Tran Counts on Big Vietnamese Turnout in CA-47

At RCP:

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. - California's 47th may be the only congressional district in Orange County where Democrats have a registered voter advantage over Republicans. Still, GOP challenger Van Tran argues that D.C. pundits who assume Democratic incumbent Loretta Sanchez has an inherent edge over him are missing a key point.

The blue-collar district may be two-thirds Hispanic, which offers Sanchez a clear leg up, but it also has one of the lowest voter turnout records in the nation. Tran, a Vietnamese-American, is banking on the likelihood that his own ethnic community, which makes up about 15 percent of the district, will vote in massive numbers to help him unseat Sanchez - a 14-year incumbent who is facing her first serious challenge since first winning office.

"The Viets come out," Tran said in an interview with RealClearPolitics on Monday. "Although they're small, they're powerful and potent because they come out in force as a bloc."

Tran's campaign operates a satellite office in the district's Little Saigon, and the candidate said that he expected to benefit additionally from the presence of other Vietnamese-Americans on the ballot, including a Vietnamese Democrat who is running to replace him in the California State Assembly.

Sanchez drew national condemnation last month when she said in an appearance on the Spanish language network Univision, "The Vietnamese and the Republicans are, with an intensity, trying to take this seat from which we have done so much for our community - to take this seat and give it to this Van Tran, who is very anti-immigrant and very anti-Hispanic."

The Sanchez campaign downplayed the remark's impact, but it was clearly a major distraction, as the Democrat was forced to devote precious time and resources to explain what she meant.

Sanchez is counting on her appeal to the district's blue-collar Democrats, who overwhelmingly backed Barack Obama in 2008 but also twice voted for George W. Bush.

"Loretta is a very moderate and in many ways conservative Democrat," Sanchez chief of staff Adrienne Elrod said. "Every vote she casts, she looks at the issue and how it will affect the district. She has no problem bucking her party whatsoever."

More at the link.

Also, "California 47th District - Tran vs. Sanchez."

Meg Whitman Tries to Close the Deal

I'm tempted to say Whitman's trying to "pull it out at the wire," but she's trailing too far back for that metaphor to work. She's a businesswoman, so yeah, "closing the deal" sounds good, and that's the sense I'm getting from this ad buy, which I saw on TV yesterday morning. 2010 has been an anti-candidate year, so, since nobody wanted to run, Californians are stuck with the "unhappy" choices she enunciates. It's bad enough that Jerry Brown will bore the hell out of the state's residents (younger generations, including college students, simply weren't alive when Brown first held the governor's office), but with Whitman it's clear that politics provides an attractive post-business career path, and as we saw in the primary, she'll tell voters whatever they want to hear in order to be elected. It's the complete opposite of what the tea party movement represents (populist limited government), and the GOP is collectively kissing grassroots ass as the party prepares to take back at least the House of Representatives. As I've noted previously, I don't care for Whitman. I'll gladly take her over Jerry Brown, and if she'd opened up more like this throughout the campaign perhaps I'd have made an effort at an endorsement. But for her sake, let's hope she has better luck closing the deal with the California electorate than she has with me. The voters are ready for some good government, and that's what will matter most over the next election cycle. Performance count:

Lene Lovich

Change of pace freaky flashback, "Lucky Number" (Lene Lovich on Wikipedia here):

Udy, udy, udy, udy etc...

I never used to cry 'cause I was all alone
For me, myself and I is all I've ever known
I never felt the need to have a hand to hold
In everything I do I take complete control
That's where I'm coming from
My Lucky Number's one

I've everthing I need to keep me satisfied
There's nothing you can do to make me change my mind
I'm having so much fun
My Lucky Number's one
Ah! Oh! Ah! Oh!

Ay ay ay ay ay...
I now detect an alien vibration here
There's something in the air besides the atmosphere
The object of the action is becoming clear
An imminent attack upon my heart I fear
The evidence is strong
My Lucky Number's rung
Ah! Oh! Ah! Oh!

Something tells me my Lucky Number's gonna be changing soon
Something tells me Lucky Number's gonna be oweoweoweoweoweowe...

ObamaCare Already Driving a Wave of Health-Care Consolidation — and Higher Costs

The following graph is from the New York Times, "Health Care Overhaul Depends on States’ Insurance Exchanges." The chart is supposed to illustrate how the exchanges will facilitate "the right mix of regulation and competition." But I'll be darned, I can't see anything here that closely resembles the market, and hence competition. Folks go to the "state health insurance exchanges" (where firms are supposed to be competing for patients), then straight to federal-state Medicaid programs (after passing a means test), then to the Department of Health and Human Services (the federal agency running Medicare), then back to the state insurance exchanges, and then to the patient meeting the service provider. And the line for "eligibility" to Social Security, Homeland Security, and the Treasury Department is not clear. I mean, seriously, eligibility? The Department of Homeland Security is now part of the ObamaCare insurance overhaul? Looks pretty messed up if this chart is any indication. But we have better picture at the Wall Street Journal, "Big Insurance, Big Medicine":

ObamaCare's once and future harms have been well chronicled, but the major effects so far are less obvious and arguably more important: A wave of consolidation is washing over the health markets, and the result is going to be higher costs.

The turn toward consolidation among insurance companies is not new, and neither is it among doctors, hospitals and other providers. Yet the health bill has accelerated these trends, as all sides race to anticipate and manage political risk and regulatory uncertainty. This dynamic is leading to much larger hospital systems and physician groups, and fewer insurers dominated by a handful of national conglomerates. ObamaCare was sold using the language of choice and competition, but it is actually reducing both.

The first surge will come among the 1,200 insurers doing business in the U.S., given that a major goal of ObamaCare is to convert these companies into de facto public utilities. Those regulations are now being written—and once they're up and running some medium-sized carriers will collapse under the new mandates and higher overhead. State insurance commissioners warned the Administration this month that "improper or overly strident application . . . could threaten the solvency of insurers or significantly reduce competition in some insurance markets." They also implied that bankruptcies are likely.

With these headwinds, investors and Wall Street analysts are now predicting a lost decade for health insurance stocks. But it may be more accurate to say that there will be a lot of losers and some very big winners. Mergers and acquisitions will increase dramatically once companies get a better look at the regulation and figure out the valuation of M&A targets. Larger carriers will swallow smaller ones quietly before they fail.

Both publicly traded and nonprofit insurers have been heading in this direction for years, as in any industry where there are returns to scale. Size is also important in a low-margin business in which capital is costly and political clout vital. But scale is far more central now, because ObamaCare standardizes benefits. Once insurers lose the freedom to design their own products, they'll essentially be selling commodities, and survival will depend on enrollment volume and market share.

There's more at the link, but this is exactly what (tea party) critics warned all through 2009: ObamaCare would drive private firms from the market in a process of stealth nationalization, with the end result being state-planned health rationalization (or death panels, but nobody likes to talk about those).

Republicans Up 55 to 41 Over Dems in Latest Gallup Generic Ballot

That margin is for the "low turnout scenario," but still.

See, "Republicans Remain in Control of Race for House."

And from Charlie Cook, "Democratic House Losses Likely to be Enormous, but Senate is Hard to Read."

Rubber Stamp Man

The new ad from Christine O'Donnell (via Greta):

RELATED: "In new interview, O’Donnell: ‘God is the reason that I’m running’." And at The Hill, "O'Donnell: Prayer contributed to a bump in polls."

Picture of the Day, 10-25-10

Via Theo Spark:

Daniel Ellsberg Works to Give Radical Imprimatur to Latest WikiLeaks Disclosures

I've been following the latest WikiLeaks document dump, but haven't had a chance to comment. Certainly the truth about the morally bankrupt Julian Assange is starting to go mainstream, "WikiLeaks Founder on the Run, Trailed by Notoriety." And it's no surprise that when under some real journalistic questioning the dude can't take the heat:

But the latest buzz over WikiLeaks has mostly bypassed the criminal corruption of the top leadership. And of course most MFM reporting, as well as leftist blog commentary, has gleefully focused on the charges that Iraq forces used torture and the allegedly "grim portrait of civilian deaths." Of course what was most astonishing, and by far much more important, was the latest evidence of massive Iranian intervention in the war, and not to mention the evidence that WMD --- long alleged by the left to have been a Bush administration lie --- were being used by insurgents as recently as 2008. And on top of all this, in one more interesting relationship, the New York Times featured a story on the Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, "WikiLeaks Founder Gets Support in Rebuking U.S. on Whistle-Blowers." Given how dramatically the MFM has been all over the Wikileaks agenda since we first were lied to with the doctored Apache video early this year, this latest report on the communist Daniel Ellsberg (shown here at an ANSWER protest in March) should be getting more attention than it has:

LONDON — Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, and Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, lashed out together on Saturday at the Obama administration’s aggressive pursuit of whistle-blowers, including those responsible for the release of secret documents on the Iraq war.

Mr. Assange also said that WikiLeaks, which released the trove of almost 400,000 Iraq war documents on Friday, would shortly be posting an additional 15,000 remaining secret documents on the Afghan war.

Mr. Assange, speaking at a news conference in a London hotel a stone’s throw from the headquarters of Britain’s foreign intelligence agency, MI6, was joined by Mr. Ellsberg, 79, the former military analyst who leaked a 1,000-page secret history of the Vietnam War in 1971 that became known as the Pentagon Papers.

Mr. Ellsberg, who said he had flown overnight from California to attend, described Mr. Assange admiringly as “the most dangerous man in the world” for challenging governments, particularly the United States. He said the WikiLeaks founder had been “pursued across three continents” by Western intelligence services and compared the Obama administration’s threat to prosecute Mr. Assange to his own treatment under President Richard M. Nixon.

Both men hit out at what they described as the Obama administration’s aggressive pursuit of whistle-blowers, which Mr. Ellsberg said put the United States on a path to the kind of repressive legal framework that Britain has under its broad Official Secrets Act. He said the criminal investigations under President Obama of three Americans accused of leaking government secrets represented a new low.

The three men he was referring to were Pfc. Bradley Manning, a former military intelligence analyst suspected of providing the documents on Afghanistan and Iraq to WikiLeaks; Thomas Drake, an official with the National Security Agency who was indicted this year; and Shamai Kedem Leibowitz, an F.B.I. linguist who pleaded guilty to leaking five classified documents in late 2009.

Mr. Ellsberg said the Pentagon’s demand that Mr. Assange “return” any classified materials in his possession was carefully couched in language similar to that used in the aftermath of the Pentagon Papers release, when he was threatened with criminal prosecution for espionage. “Secrecy,” Mr. Ellsberg said, “is essential to empire.”

Nazis? Really? Leftist Academics Totally Wiggin' Over Tea Parties, Suggest Crushing Them Like the 'Wobblies'

Folks are making hay of Rob Reiner stupid freakin' comments, slurring tea partiers as Nazis:

But seriously, the real National Socialists were meeting up in the East Bay this weekend, "Lefty academics convene in Berkeley to try to make sense of the Tea Party movement." This is the elite of the elite, scholars and political scientists who feel simply violated that regular folks are more in tune with the country's founding than they are. And frankly, some of them are suggesting that's just not acceptable.

"I wonder if we're likely to see a Timothy McVeigh situation," says Nicholas Robert, an attendee originally from Australia, who basically wonders if any Tea Partiers can be arrested. "It seems to be that we're being very polite. I wonder if there are any legal mechanisms—one that comes to mind are the provisions used to crush the Wobblies."

The Wobblies. It was a Democrat administration that crushed them, and the ideological crises in Germany following shortly thereafter --- exacerbated by the Wilson administration's failed peace at Versailles --- helped give rise to the far right-wing extremism that elevated the Nazis to power in the 1930s. And here we have National Socialists in Berkeley calling for the exact same kind of repression. The difference is that the Wobblies were real communists and subversives. Today' tea partiers --- not so much.

Enthusiasm Gap Favors GOP in Early-Voter Data

At Politico "The Early Vote: Signs of GOP Passion" (via Memeorandum):

Just over a week before Election Day, signs of widespread Republican enthusiasm are apparent in the early-voter data, including in some places with highly competitive statewide races. Yet at the same time, for Democrats there are promising data in numerous states suggesting that the idea of a devastating turnout gap may be overblown.

POLITICO surveyed early voting through Saturday in 20 states, and in 14 of the 15 that have voter registration by party, the GOP's early turnout percentage is running ahead of the party's share of statewide voter registration — whether measured against 2006 or 2008, when President Barack Obama's campaign led to a surge in Democratic voter registration. As a result, Republicans say they're turning the tables on the Democratic dominance of early voting that paved the way for Obama's victory in 2008 — and that independents' lean toward the GOP this year will do the rest.

And here's this:

California provides an illustrative example of the complexities of interpreting early returns. According to data gathered by the Atlas Project, a private Democratic consulting firm, 43 percent of California early voters have been Democrats, while 39 percent have been Republicans. Considering the Democrats' current 44-31 registration advantage in the state, the GOP appears to be outpacing its share of the electorate, while Democrats appear to be staying home. Then again, in the 2006 early vote — a great year for Democratic candidates — each party drew 41 percent, a performance that was below Democratic registration and well above the Republican share.

Like all recent articles on early voting, the Politico report cites Michael McDonald, an expert on the topic at Brookings. See, "Web Chat: Voter Enthusiasm, Early Voting and the Midterm Elections." He suggests there that neither party necessarily enjoys a clear advantage in early voting, and that other factors come into play. Dems historically do better with GOTV, athough in California I'm seeing an extremely motivated conservative grassroots, so let's hope the numbers cited above in Politico hold up for election day.

RELATED: "New Los Angeles Times Poll is Outlier: Democrats Oversampled in Survey From Left-Leaning Greenberg Quinlan Rosner."

CARTOON CREDIT: Reaganite Republican.

New Los Angeles Times Poll is Outlier: Democrats Oversampled in Survey From Left-Leaning Greenberg Quinlan Rosner

The headlines for the new Los Angeles Times poll are falsely indicating a November blowout for the Democrats in California. My hardcopy newspaper headline reads: "Brown's Lead Doubles in One Month." And at LAT's homepage, "Brown's lead over Whitman widens to 52%-39%; Fiorina not gaining ground." And the killer is the New York Times' blog post, "Brown and Boxer Have Significant Leads, New Poll Shows."

Note first that other recent surveys find the governor's race no better than "lean Democrat" (see Rasmussen's survey out yesterday, with Brown holding a four-point edge with a +/-4 percentage point margin of error). And Survey USA, which routinely tilts left, has a poll out this week with Brown at 47% and Whitman 40%. That same survey throws some particularly interesting light on the CA Senate race. The survey is leaning Democrat in all the statewide races, but is a toss-up for Boxer-Fiorina, Boxer 46%, Fiorina 44%. (This needs more investigation, but there's some interesting speculation that support for marijuana decriminalization among highly-motivated voters is lifting Boxer's numbers. I'm predicting a defeat of Prop. 19 at the polls, so perhaps Survey USA's numbers hold even worse implications for Boxer's chances.) And Rasmussen's poll out yesterday had "Boxer picking up 48% of the vote, while Fiorina draws support from 46%."

I don't want to overstate the point, since it's always uphill for Republicans in California. But there's something suspicious with the methodology at the Times, as indicated at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, who conducted the poll:

These findings are based on a random sample survey of 1,501 registered voters in the state of California conducted from October 13-20, 2010. These findings are also based on 922 likely 2010 voters. Likely voters are defined as registered voters that meet certain conditions based on previous vote history as determined from a voter file, likelihood of voting in 2010, and enthusiasm in the election. This includes respondents who have already voted, voted in both the previous two general elections who indicate they are “almost certain” or “probably” will vote in 2010 and those who have registered since the 2008 election due to ineligibility who are “almost certain,” all of whom must respond as a 5 or higher on a 0-10 enthusiasm scale.

And:

An oversample of 400 Latino registered voters were interviewed by telephone. All interviews from the Latino sample were carried out by bilingual Latino interviewers, and conducted in the preferred language of the survey respondent, English or Spanish. Overall, 41 percent of interviews with the Latino sample were conducted in Spanish and 59 percent in English. The technique of using fully bilingual interviewers is greatly preferred because it does not terminate calls with Spanish-language households and require a callback, which can be difficult to schedule with language barriers ... Upon completion of all interviewing, the results were weighted to bring the Latino oversample population into line with the racial and ethnic composition of registered voters in California. The data were weighted to reflect the total population of registered voters throughout the state, balancing on regional and demographic characteristics for gender, age, race and education according to known census estimates and voter file projections.

Folks can check other analysts (Nate Silver, for example), but given the huge Democrat advantage in California registration (see 2008 totals here at Page 4), and the tremendous Democrat enthusiasm in previous elections, it's pretty clear that the Times survey has oversampled Democrats. Likely voters are tilting toward the Dems at the Times, and Latinos are supporting Democrats this year by a roughly 2-to-1 factor: "Boxer has opened up a whopping 64% to 28% lead among Latinos."

The Los Angeles Times is pressing its fingers on the scales to favor the Democrat Party. There's widedly varied results across polls (the Field Poll had the governor's race tied at 41% last month), and Whitman may indeed be washed up, but I'd hardly count out Fiorina. Additional influences include the ground game over the next week, GOTV efforts on election day, and any last minute bombshell surprises.

ADDED: The Other McCain links: "Disinformation is the new objectivity."

Sunday Cartoons

More cartoons at Flopping Aces and Theo Spark's.