September Quinnipiac Poll

The headlines read about how Kean is locked in a dead heat with Menendez in yesterday's Quinnipiac poll on Our Fair State's Senate race. The actual numbers are: among likely voters, Kean Jr. 48%, Menendez 45%; among all voters, Menendez 41%, Kean Jr. 38%. With a +/- of 3.7 points, that's a statistical dead heat if I ever saw one.

Well, we've got two months for folks to see Tom Kean JUNIOR for what he truly is. In the meantime, let's look at the non-headline numbers, always the most fun part of the Quinnipiac Polls:

• 45% approve/36% disapprove of the way Corzine is handling the job as governor. That's up from 44/43 in July, and 39/41 in June. Maybe it's the great way he's winning over people to his sensible financial ways? Maybe it's that he got the ball rolling on legislative changes to property taxes? Or, maybe it's that gas prices have decreased steadily since July. (Why do I just know it's that last one, even thought the Gov. has not thing one to do with it?)
• We hate the state legislature, 27% approve/55% disapprove. Get goin' on that property tax reform, guys, or you'll all be looking for new jobs next time around.
• We hate George W. Bush, too: 33% approve/64% disapprove. We know what we don't like here in Jersey, and we don't like Bush. Nice to know.
• 41% of us think the federal investigation of Bob Menendez is politically motivated, 42% think it's a serious issue. The 41% are right.
• 48% of us think Tom Kean Jr. is a George Bush Republican who supports administration policies. That number has heald pretty steady over the last couple months. I'm not sure about this one, personally; Junior has gone out of his way to distance himself from Bush policies lately, see the point above about how we feel about Bush. I won't vote against him because he's a Bush lackey; I'll vote against him because he's basically useless as a legislator, he's running on daddy's name alone, and that once he's in office he'll be a Bush lackey.
• 50% of us think the United States is losing the war in Iraq, 20% don't know, 29% say winning. 59% of us think that it was the wrong thing to do to go to war with Iraq. Nice to know we pretty much agree on this one.

Completely aside, on every Quinnipiac poll result site, they include a pronunciation guide on their name: it's KWIN-uh-pe-ack. I think it's harder the other way- hearing the name on the radio, then trying to spell it.