Busy Thursday (and Friday)

Yes, I know it’s Friday. But I was a wee bit busy yesterday. Here’s a quick roundup of what happened yesterday, with a little bit of today thrown in.

Cuccinelli wants to move OCA to AG’s office. In a conference call with members of the press Thursday morning, Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli announced that he would like to move the Office of Consumer Affairs into the Attorney General’s office. During the call, Cuccinelli stated that 70% of all complaints are consumer protection related and only about five of the 250 lawyers in the AG’s office are working on the complaints, a situation he called “an inbalance.” By moving the OCA into the AG’s office, he believes the office will be able to respond quicker. The plan is available here (pdf). In response, Cuccinelli’s opponent, Democrat Steve Shannon, notes that Cuccinelli is against putting an interest rate cap on payday loans, an ultimate consumer protection issue.

I would like to see how many complaints the OCA handles to get a better sense of whether this makes sense. Surely the previous AGs would have allocated more than five attorneys to the problem if warranted, right? And the OCA handles more than just complaints. (My own interaction with them has nothing to do with complaints.)

Deeds and McDonnell square off in Fairfax. Gubernatorial candidates Creigh Deeds (D) and Bob McDonnell (R) squared off in front of the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce. The debate was streamed live. The first story out of the debate was that the press was moved out of the room where the debate was being held and sent to a press room. They might as well have watched it over the internet like the rest of us 🙂

The debate was heavily skewed in terms of national questions, something I really hated. Believe it or not, we actually do have Virginia issues that need to be addressed and not all of them in terms of national issues. Let me know when a governor has to vote on cap-and-trade and then I’ll be concerned about his answer.

In my opinion, there weren’t any knockout punches and no major gaffes. Of course, the spin afterwards would have you think otherwise. The blogs are full of doctored clips of the debate, making one or the other candidate look bad.

Let me take head on one issue from the debate: Deeds saying he is a “Creigh Deeds” Democrat, as opposed to being an Obama Democrat. You know, the Democratic Party supposedly prides itself on being a big tent – that is, until some Democrat says or does something that other Democrats think doesn’t fit their definition of a Democrat. I’m calling BS on this: either we are a big tent party or we’re not. And if someone disagrees with Obama (ahem – yours truly) it doesn’t make them any less a Democrat by saying so.

Last year, I kept being told that we had to support Obama because of the Supreme Court. Well, we have our own big issue in Virginia that requires that Democrats get behind Deeds: redistricting. If you want Bob McDonnell and the Republican-controlled House of Delegates to make the redistricting decisions that will affect us for the next ten years, then go ahead – take your ball and go home.  The rest of us get it: it’s about winning in November.

By the way, there will be another debate on October 6. Sponsored by ABC 7/WJLA-TV, POLITICO, Google and YouTube, voters can submit questions to be considered for inclusion. Details on that are available here.

Gubernatorial race polling. The  release of the latest Rasmussen poll showed the race a virtual tie, with McDonnell at 48% and Deeds at 46%, well within the margin of error of +/-4.5%.  The thesis seems to be having an effect as more people are familiar with it.

To be honest, though, I didn’t believe the numbers when they were released yesterday for the same reason I didn’t believe their earlier poll: the poll was conducted on a single day. I just don’t believe that a one-day poll is as accurate as one that is done over several days.

As if on cue, the DailyKos/Research 2000 poll was released today. Conducted over three days, the poll shows McDonnell at 50% and Deeds at 43%, with a MOE of +/-4%, numbers virtually unchanged since the last poll six weeks ago.

I think the race is a little closer than that and the differences in the polls relates to the voter models the pollsters are using.

PPP is putting a Virginia poll in the field next weekend and is soliciting input on how to poll McDonnell’s thesis. If you have some ideas, head on over and let them know.