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LEFTOVERS: Another poll, fact-checking Crossroads, NRCC on Kelly

While we were reading through the details of Rasmussen’s latest Senate poll Tuesday, another survey slipped by us.

The good folks at Reuters and the research shop Ipsos got together and also polled the race. Their survey found Republican Pat Toomey leading Democrat Joe Sestak by 10 points, 47 percent to 37 percent. That’s a lead four points larger than Rasmussen showed. Toomey’s edge is smaller among all registered voters at three points.

And the poll also showed Republican Tom Corbett still holding a comfortable 15-point lead over Democrat Dan Onorato in the race for governor, 49 percent to 34 percent.

Meanwhile, our friends at FactCheck.org are taking a conservative group to task for its new ad targeting Sestak. We already pointed out some factual missteps in our initial coverage of the ad. But the expert fact-checkers go further, faulting the Karl Rove-connect group Crossroads GPS for “misdirection” and “faulty claims” about the newly enacted health care reform law. They key findings:

•The ad’s claim that “hard-hit families” will see $2,100 premium hikes is “not true for the large majority, who are likely to see somewhat lower premiums, according to the very source the ad cites. Any families that do see such large premium increases are likely to also get federal subsidies to help pay them, resulting in lower cost to most of them as well.”

•The ad’s charge that Sestak voted to “gut Medicare” is a “wild exaggeration. It’s true that the law calls for restraining the future growth of Medicare spending by about $555 billion—about a 7 percent reduction spread over the next 10 years. And millions who now have private Medicare Advantage plans are likely to see their extra benefits reduced. But that hardly amounts to eviscerating the program.”

And lastly, the National Republican Congressional Committee has added Mike Kelly to it’s so-called “Young Guns” program for tracking and helping House challengers. Kelly is challenging freshman Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper (D-3) in the conservative-leaning northwest Pennsylvania. And while he hasn’t had much fundraising success, he’s cut big checks of his own the keep the campaign going.

Kelly joins Pat Meehan, Mike Fitzpatrick and Lou Barletta as Republicans who the party see as their best pick-up opportunities.

share001btn LEFTOVERS: Another poll, fact checking Crossroads, NRCC on Kelly

August 31, 2010 at 5:28 pm

--Dan Hirschhorn

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  1. David Diano

    Sep 1st, 2010

    Dan-
    Of course, the Republicans would eliminate Medicare and Social Security if they could.

  2. Bryan C

    Sep 1st, 2010

    I’d personally give up all the money I was forced to put into these money pits already if I NEVER had to pay into them again. If my kids weren’t forced to pay into these sham entitlement programs when they start working, I’d be most grateful as well. The federal government (both sides of the aisle) can’t keep their own house in order, why would I want them controlling money that supposedly belongs to me but won’t be there when I retire?

  3. Adam S.

    Sep 1st, 2010

    Bryan,

    Find ONE senior citizen who thinks that Medicare is a “sham”, as you put it. Polls consistently show that Medicare recipients are a) the most happy about their Health Care coverage and b) feel the most secure about the future of their Health Care coverage, compared to other groups of people such as folks who get their insurance through work or who buy it on their own. Yet you can stare these facts in the face and call the program a “sham”? Utter nonsense.

  4. David Diano

    Sep 1st, 2010

    Adam-
    You are correct. The seniors like their Medicare so much, that during the health care debate, the seniors opposed to the health care plan kept making statements like: “Keep the Government out of my Medicare.”
    They were so anti-Government that they couldn’t even comprehend that Medicare was a government program, because it worked so well for them.

  5. Bryan C

    Sep 1st, 2010

    Of course they don’t think of it as a sham or as David pointed out, even know that it’s a government program. They’ve been forced to pay into it so long that if anyone deserves to get the pay out its them. I’m not saying get rid of it cold turkey, you could never do that at this point. But unless we want to end up in the bad shape Greece and other countries that are built upon entitlement programs are in, we need to phase these sham programs out for at least the future generations if not our own.

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