Thursday, March 29, 2007

NOW, do you believe?

Every now and then something will happen out of the blue to restore your faith in humanity, and I had that happen this morning.

Jackson Baker is reporting that not one, but TWO independently commissioned polls show that Carol Chumney has a significant lead in the 2007 Mayor's race over all challengers. it also shows that she is doing far better than expected among African-Americans, who appear to be just as eager as anyone else to remove Mayor Herenton from office.

Here's a clip:

Businessman Karl Schledwitz, who commissioned one of the polls (from veteran pollster/strategist John Bakke), acknowledged that Chumney seems to be in first place as of now and - to answer something that political junkies have wondered about incessantly - is doing well among the city's black voters as well as among disenchanted whites. Herman Morris, still working on his name recognition among voters at large, lags behind, and Willingham is further back still.

Another poll, reportedly taken by lawyer Richard Fields, is said to contain similar findings.

I am telling you that Carol CAN win, WILL win because the City wants her and needs her. The city is rancid, and she is the only electable candidate willing to put on a yellow suit and clean up the mess that has been left, especially in the last eight years.

This is great news for the City of Memphis.

1 comment:

polar donkey said...

Let's show a little patience and wait to see the data. We haven't seen the actually size of the Chumney's lead, the sampling size, nor the margin of error. Nobody wants to see Herenton lose more than me. But I just saw a story on the news saying Herenton is losing and implying it is by a substantial amount. If the poll data comes out and Herenton is within the margin of error and there is any question about the validity of poll, he is going to say the media is out to get him again and treating him unfairly. In a post-MLGW Memphis I don't know how well that will play but it still possibly opens a door for Herenton to counter-attack.

Herenton has enough money to commission a poll himself. Which I am sure he did already. If it had good news Herenton would leak it. (I guess there isn't any good news.) Chumney has been slick though. She hired that big-time marketing agency, got the NY Times to put MLGW on the front page, and then got this poll leaked for substantial free, positive media. A problem this poll could cause would be for more people to enter the race. That would hurt Chumney and help Herenton.