The Los Angeles Times was apparently victimized by a leak on Friday that became the talk of the state Democratic convention. At a few minutes until midnight London time, the Financial Times of London published on its Web site the results of an L.A. Times poll scheduled to be released on Saturday. Problem is, midnight London time is 4 p.m. on the West Coast, meaning that the Times got scooped on its own exclusive poll.
But what was embarrassing for Times must have been dispiriting for Phil Angelides, who is hoping for some momentum coming out of the convention of party loyalists who in the main back him over opponent Steve Westly in the Democratic primary for governor.
The horse-race poll in the Times became the third in 10 days to show Westly with a lead over Angelides. This one pegged the margin at 13 percent. The Field Poll put it at 11 percent, and the Public Policy Institute of California scored it at 6 percent. Perhaps more damaging for Angelides, however, is that the Times poll showed Westly leading Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger by 9 percentage points in a trial heat. It showed Angelides and Schwarzenegger in a tie.
Today convention delegates will vote whether to endorse Angelides. It will take a 60 percent majority to make that decision. To the extent the Westly camp is arguing that delegates should restrain themselves on the endorsement because their man is more electable, the new numbers could prove to be very untimely for Angelides.
This race has come quite a distance in the past year. At last years party convention, Angelides wowed the crowd, primarily on the weakness of Westly, whose enthusiastic (yet painful to true partisans) embrace of Arnold Schwarzenegger was/is definitely baggage of the weighty variety.
The smooth and silent Westly organization has worked hard in the past 10 weeks or so to put up a better front for the Dems worried that Angelides might appear "too partisan" ---- a viewpoint they copped from the fancy beltway consultants, one of whom Westly's staff has put on retainer. The old line within the party has been conditioned to not appear "partisan" as this would mean ---oh, I don't know, that maybe the Democrats are different than the Republicans and maybe stand for something. That idea is a threat to status quo in DC. Hence the fear of partisan issues like impeachment by the DC consultancy. Why, worst case scenario, Tim, all the lobbyists would be banned. Who would that leave to pay for lunch and tickets to the big game?
Bottom line, it's early, and Westly's slick and well-coordinated campaign hasn't yet been battle tested, and they just spent a boatload of money. We'll wait and see what comes out of this years convention.
Either way, Arnold is going down. He's got that (R) next to his name, and in '06, that's a flaw that will prove fatal.
What does pre season mean when buying tickets to a football game? I want to buy tickets for my father to a SD Chargers game as a nice gesture for fixing my car. I was looking at prices for tickets and I noticed that preseason tickets are cheaper. I know nothing about football, so my question is why are they cheaper and what does preseason tickets mean?