Posted by Let’s clear out the notebook…
- Hey, I fixed the phone! I junked the old service that caused me to miss voice mail from a reader. (I have never been able to retrieve that voice mail, I am sorry to say. I hope the reader will call back.) I now have set up a service with Google Voice that is functionally the same. Give us a call.
- If there is anything to the claims in this lawsuit that Milton McGregor arranged for Larry Langford to win $1.5 million in jackpots (and some of the info comes from subpoenaed tax returns of Langford’s), how concerned should McGregor be about a deal the feds might offer Langford to testify about it?
- Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is keynote speaker tonight when the state GOP hosts its “Red, White & Blue Dinner” tonight at the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Montgomery.
- Republican gubernatorial candidates Kay Ivey and Roy Moore presumably are not attending the state GOP dinner tonight. They are attending the national Tea Party convention in Nashville. Moore will be a speaker at the event. The event has been marked by some controversy among Tea Party participants over concerns of the cost of the event ($549 per ticket plus hotel and transportation) and how accessible it was for grassroots Tea Partiers. The American Liberty Alliance withdrew its sponsorship of the event. The National Precinct Alliance also withdrew, saying that it was concerned about “profiteering and exploitation of the grassroots movement.”
- Attorney Taze Shepard, grandson of former U.S. Senator John Sparkman is considering running for the AL-05 Congressional seat held by Democrat-turned-Republican Parker Griffith. No Democrat has officially announced for the seat yet.
- Speaking of Democrats in AL-05, that makes me think of Steve Raby who hasn’t shown strong signs that he is running for AL-05, but it makes me think of the earlier post here about the Democrats’ Radney Rule that I have now updated after receiving some clarification from readers.
- The Press-Register this week wrote up a piece here on their former reporter Eddie Curran and the book he has recently published on Don Siegelman, The Governor of Goat Hill.
- Did you see that Kyle Whitmire has left Birmingham Weekly? He’ll be missed.
- Dan of the late DailyDixie.com (still missed) tells me the Free the Hops group, fresh off the success of their Gourmet Beer Bill last year, has a new cause in the proposed Brewery Modernization Act, with a cool website to boot.
- The Luther Strange for Attorney General campaign is airing a commercial during the Super Bowl “on CBS stations serving portions of central and south Alabama.” (Sorry, Huntsville.) What kind of boost might that give his campaign?
- Coming up: The Montgomery-based outfit Public Strategy Associates is releasing results Tuesday from what it is calling the first independently-commissioned poll on the Republican primary races for Governor and Attorney General. The poll was conducted by Baselice and Associates out of Texas.
Who do you like in the Super Bowl? Or is it all about the ads?
Saints.
I believe the state would be well served if Langford were offered a plea deal in return for testimony about his relationship with McGregor. Langford will never be a force in politics again, so why not let him earn some time off his sentence?
If McGregor has left a paper trail in this alleged scam, law enforcement better seize upon the opportunity to get hard evidence from Langford. I doubt McGregor will ever slip up and let it happen again.
Kyle will be missed. He was the best writer/reporter in Birmingham.
Remembering the days of the Unknown Fans in the nose bleed section of the Super Dome, hard to believe the ‘Aints are in the Super Bowl.
public affairs associates – are they worth listening to? does anyone think this is truly an independent and reputable poll? I ask as what is their incentive?
Don’t Taze me bro!
That’s all I got. Wait, no it’s not. If Langford is interested in cutting a deal with the feds, I imagine there are a lot of folks that would have a reason to be worried.
Colts will win, Big Luther’s ad will waste a lot of money and get him a lot of nothing, and I suspect a client is paying for that poll.
Milton may have bigger fish to fry so to speak.
Public affairs associates is Jack Campbell & partner. He has to be working an angle for his old cronies in Texas.
Saints!
Looking forward to the Public Strategy poll, they’ve helped get a few campaign wins recently.
Thanks for the link to Media of Birmingham. Keep watching: We may have more updates on Kyle soon …
Reactionary — name the candidates please. There are several political “strategists” in Montgomery, but only 2 of them seem to be worth their (considerable) weight in salt: Mallory and Anazalone.
Rep. Cam Ward (R) endorses PSA on their website. Sen. Paul Sanford (R) endorses PSA on their website.
http://www.mypublicstrategy.com/
FWIW, I think they’re a credible outfit.
Anyword on what happened today at the meeting about Charles Grimsley? Did the SDEC comm. rule he could stay on the ballot?
they could be credible – but what incentive do they have to run a totally independent poll and have a big roll out? I am just suspicious. I personally would love to see a poll that is un biased – hopefully this will be that?
2010, Any poll that has to be announced at a luncheon cannot be credible. Any poll worth its salt is guarded with watch dogs. Big watch dogs.
Why don’t we just wait until the poll is released to make judgments about it? Once it’s released we can decided whether it is credible or not.
I don’t think we should be bashing these folks who are doing something that all of us have wanted done for months now.
And besides, it is possible that some folks who are opposed to such a poll are tied to campaigns and might just be afraid that an unbiased poll might make their guy or gal look bad – maybe/maybe not – we will see on Tuesday.
i’d love to see an unbiased poll. i just don’t see why a political consulting firm would run one, at their own expense, have a lunch by invitation only, etc. it’s just weird.
Who is Public Strategy Associates?
I think the person most likely to drop the dime on Milton will be Troy King!
Once he starts talking a deal with the feds.
The subcommittee on Grimsley decided on a third way — it’s going to the executive committee. As I understand it, Grimsley will need to convince 2/3 of them that he should stay on the ballot.
Thanks Mooncat.
Also, on polling I heard that an AEA & AlFA poll have Roy Moore way ahead. He is around 40% in both and Byrne and James way back in the mid-teens. ALso, Artur is way ahead as well.
Last post, those polls are old…Early December.
Byrne has moved because of TV…just not enough to satisfy his $$$ people. Campaign staff changes are on the way.
Finally, concerning Public Affair Strategies —look at Byrne’s disclosure statement — they moved money for him.
So apparently this is a Byrne poll. No wonder they polled after Byrne ran ads.
Actually, LoyalIndpendant – I think JJ had it right.
Before Ivey was second and I heard that the movement was James and Byrne going ahead of her with them both in the teens.
Isn’t getting interesting about how the AEA and ALFA won’t release their polls and no paper or TV station bothers to run a poll.
One thing is for sure – if Byrne was doing well – ALFA would waive that poll around!
Moore is ahead but hasn’t moved an inch from the numbers he had on day one. In elections, that means he’ll fade. No question. He cannot win – that’s why he hasn’t raised any real money. He still may make the runoff, but that looks unlikely now.
Loyal Independent: I am pretty sure those polls were done in January and the Byrne ads did not move him that much. Thanks for your defense princeliberty.
While Moore is not moving that much in the polls he is not losing support either.
These comments on our poll are hilarious. We conducted the poll because we, and many other Republicans, want to know where the Gov. & AG races stand. To clear up the rumor, we were on retainer with Robert Bentley from March until October 15th. Since then, we have NO TIES with any gubernatorial or attorney general campaigns. To be honest, I don’t even know who I’m going to vote for in June.
You’ll be interested to see the results tomorrow. We used the best Republican voter data out there to get the best possible numbers.
The reason we’re having a luncheon is for marketing reasons for our firm. What company out there doesn’t market themselves?
The pollster, Mike Baselice, is a good friend of my business partner and is a very credible pollster (does work for TX Gov. Rick Perry, CA Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican Gov. Assoc., & the NRCC).
For those negatively commenting on the poll, I welcome you to have some courage and use your real name in the future. Also, it is easy to reach us, so call or email me if you have any questions about our motives, methods, marketing or anything else.
According the National Journal you polled registered Republicans.
The majority of primary are not registered with either party – esp. not teaparty and relgious right types. This would make you poll results reflect the country club republicans way too much.
And why did not you go out your way to bash Moore? You could have talked about James’ results being a disappointment. But you went out your way to argue that Moore’s results should be ignored. Neutral pollsters do not normally act that way.
We didn’t poll “registered Republicans”; we polled “known Republicans” using advanced voter identification data.
You have a valid point that Roy Moore has voters that are not traditional Republican primary voters, which wouldn’t be reflected in our poll. At the same time, it will be difficult for him to get those people to the polls without spending a lot of money, which he doesn’t have.
As for the quote, the reporter asked me about Moore and I responded. Tim James should be a little disappointed too considering he’s spent millions thus far and isn’t in the lead.