"We have lost our ambition, our imagination, and our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge" - Barack Obama (aka President Malaise)
Reader Wisdom
By Greg L | 7 March 2007 | Prince William County | No Comments
A while ago I started putting up polls for readers to share their insight on local political matters, and so far their collective wisdom has proven very interesting. Some of it confirms my outlook on local politics, and in some cases readers seem to have a somewhat different outlook on what’s happening. Some of these poll questions are just fun (”Worst Candidate Ever?”), and others give us some insight on the strengths of local candidates at least among those who visit, and choose to participate. While the level of participation on these isn’t high enough to provide a convincing statistical foundation for conclusions, it’s nevertheless interesting to see what readers are thinking.
Let’s start with the more significant questions. Readers seem to be pretty pessimistic that Manassas Park will have a good shot at getting cleaned up, with 45% saying that those responsible for what I believe is a rather troubling case of public corruption will successfully cover up the problem. I understand why there could be such an expectation — the park’s government is pretty insular, and few seem to be interested in closely following what’s going on there. The local press rarely digs very deeply into what’s going on, and the larger regional press just isn’t all that interested in this small locality. The silver lining here is that 13% of readers seem to think that at the end of this, underdog Dave Ruttenberg would have a pretty solid basis for a run at Mayor, which would be a fascinating reversal of fortune to watch unfold. That’s not a large percentage, but that anyone might consider this a possible outcome seems significant.
Readers don’t seem to share my expectation that Chuck Colgan is going to retire this year, with 41% saying that he will succumb to pressure from DPVA to run for re-election. 23% believe that he will, and an equal percentage of respondents are of the opinion that Bob Fitzsimmond’s challenge is strong enough that even if he does run he won’t retain the seat. At least among readers there seems to be a pretty strong belief that Colgan’s waning days as a legislator are going to be difficult regardless of what he chooses to do this election cycle, which is borne out by another poll that ranks him as the top most vulnerable incumbent in Prince William County.
One interesting straw poll going on is the Faisal Gill vs. Julie Lucas race in the 51st District. Among readers Julie is a convincing favorite commanding the support of 74% of readers, compared to 16% for Faisal Gill. What’s probably most troubling for the Gill campaign is that he is only beating a generic Democrat by six percentage points among the readers of a conservative blog. I would expect that if the participation here was more representative of the general electorate as a whole, Gill would likely be lagging in third place in a three-way poll. If Gill has exhausted the pool of potential campaign contributions from his personal and community relationships I expect that fundraising is going to be pretty difficult going forward.
As for the more fun stuff, Steve Chapman is still holding onto the lead for “Worst Candidate Ever” with 46% of the vote, with Faisal Gill coming up in second place at 28%. Together these two close associates would probably run away with the prize for “Worst Campaign Team Ever”, which would probably stand for quite a while unless the Mike Messier fiasco manages to pull some other phenominally stupid stunt this cycle. A majority of respondents think the lawsuit threatened by Manassas Park will never materialize, although I’m not planning on using that as a basis for making decisions about how I address this issue.
Loading …Thanks to those who have weighed in, and I look forward to seeing others participate as well. Although these results aren’t quite scientific, it’s still fascinating to see what the readership is thinking. So far I think the collective insight of the readers is pretty impressive.
UPDATE: This post sure brought on some strong activity in the polls, and some of the results have shifted a fair amount from how they were reported originally. I leave it to readers to decide whether this is just a case of broader reader participation, or whether some with an interest in the poll subjects are attempting to swing results in their favor.
The opinions expressed here are solely the views of the author, and not representative of the position of any organization, political party, doughnut shop, knitting guild, or waste recycling facility, but may be correctly attributed to the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. If anything in the above article has offended you, please click here to receive an immediate apology.
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