I know one thing about challenger Richard Mourdock, he's not Dick Lugar. That's enough.

Seems lots of Indiana Republicans agree.

A new poll shows Treasurer Richard Mourdock building a commanding lead over Sen. Richard Lugar.

The Howey/DePauw Indiana Battleground Poll, conducted by two prominent Republican and Democratic pollsters, shows Mourdock with a 48 percent to 38 percent lead over Lugar.

...

The poll shows a dramatic slide for Lugar, who in his last election in 2006 won with more than 80 percent of the vote after Democrats considered him so unbeatable that they didnÂ’t field a candidate against him.

Only about a month ago, a Howey/DePauw Battleground poll showed Lugar leading Mourdock 42 percent to 35 percent.

Even if Mourdock isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread (and he may well be), knocking off Lugar and maybe Hatch in Utah (fingers crossed) will have a salutatory effect on the Senate GOP caucus.

Now all we have to worry about is getting Mourdock over the line in November and worrying what Lugar will do in the lame duck session.

The fight never ends!

Added: Something I meant to include in the original post...Mourdock isn't a political novice, out of nowhere, untested candidate. He's in his second term as state treasurer, so he's an accomplished statewide vote getter. We're not likely to see a meltdown and he's a known quantity to general election voters.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:04 AM | Comments (346)
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Update [rdbrewer]: This hyperlink should point straight to the PayPal Donation Page. I put it here because some people can't see the PayPal button on their browsers.
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Happy Friday, Morons! Can you smell that? Our little ewok pal has run out of Axe pelt spray. It smells like sweaty marmot nuts up in here.

I call that 'my musk.' Do I make you horny, baby?

I think you all understand the dangerous nature of this situation. We need to wash and spray him down before the bears come.

So, it's that time again.

Please tap the PayPal button in the left sidebar and drop him a little subscription scratch, or click the Amazon link in the right sidebar and do your ordinary Mother's Day shopping from here, so Ace gets a little kickback.

Morons are renowned for helping each other out. Maybe in the comments we can brainstorm some good Mother's Day gifts.

Here's an idea from Slublog.
Every Mom appreciates a new pack of butt-neutralizers. Card suggestion:
"Happy Mother's Day Mom! Check your britches for bones. Please."

Another idea from Slublog. The card:
"Dear Mom, you are the sweetest lady I know. But you look so disagreeable. These anti-bitchface pads should help."

Posted by: LauraW at 06:42 AM | Comments (106)
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Fappy Hriday. I mean, Happy Friday, at long freakin' last.

In case you missed this little meme, the Tumblr "Hey Girl, It's Paul Ryan" has been getting laughs and winning plaudits for a while now. Yesterday, Nancy Pelosi decided she'd just couldn't take it anymore and submitted her own "joke" versions to members of the D.C. press. Pelosi's attempt at mockery was so lame that not a single member of the press wrote about it or even mentioned it.

Fortunately, my pal Emily Zanotti, one of the folks actually behind "Hey Girl, It's Paul Ryan," was included on Pelosi's distribution list. And Emily is more than happy to show ya'll what a world-class FAIL Pelosi is at humor. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:54 AM | Comments (322)
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So How Popular Is/Was Your Name?

Well head over to the Baby Name Wizard and find out. It gives you the popularity of baby names by year and by region.

For instance here's 'Brandon' - clearly a super trendy name in the 80's and 90's.

And it's also interesting to find out that certain names like 'Jonah' really only appear in just 3 or 4 states. So go and find out just how faddish/creative your parents were when they came up with your name.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:31 PM | Comments (602)
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A drop for Walker, a rise for Barrett, with Walker still leading the race. Barrett will beat Falk, barring enough Republican voters causing mischief, next Tuesday.

Barrett benefits from re-framing the election, unfairly in my opinion, to "jobs" when the whole point of the recall was payback from the unions for Walker daring to actually balance the budget at their expense, rather than (as it always has been) the expense of the taxpayers. If I were Kathleen Falk, I would be privately seething right now that a guy who used Walker's reforms and oversaw job losses himself is going to be...the guy to unseat Governor Evil. But that's just me using, you know, logic.

How the projected share is calculated:
First, I calculate available two-name polling in same screens (LV), averaging the two. I then weigh the polls based on "freshness", and see if a particular trend pops up, and whom that trend benefits. That trend in favor of one candidate is applied to much of the remaining undecideds/leftover vote and voila.

How the map is generated:
Maps are based on available county data from previous cycles. Walker's 2010 win over Barrett serves a nice data point, with him carrying the state by roughly 6. Prosser's 2011 election serves as another good source, wherein he carried the state by under half a point. Bush's 2004 race is the most recent close loss for a Republican, that data is also considered. I simply watch the counties as their share for R/D move relative to R support statewide, and there you go.

I hope we start to see a lot more polling data out of this state, being that all political eyes are going to be on Wisconsin for the next five weeks. Rasmussen, Mason-Dixon, Survey USA, Opinion-Dynamics, hell even the major news networks have all been absent through the process. Rasmussen did a generic recall/don't recall number in March, Marist the same. But much of my data is based on two existing polls: Marquette U and the PPP poll commissioned by Daily Kos. Here's to seeing a wider sample in the coming weeks.

Follow me on twitter for more polling and projection updates.

Posted by: CAC at 04:16 PM | Comments (191)
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Is the ad "devastating" as Krauthammer says? I think two parts of it are powerful -- the I, I, I and smirk from Obama, and Clinton's claim that if the SEALs were killed it would have been "horrible for [Obama]."

But isn't the rest of it too over the top to be persuasive? I think when you go too over the top people's defenses come up and it winds up being ineffective.

Thanks to @rdbrewer4. more...

Posted by: Ace at 03:54 PM | Comments (149)
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Rumor is that this movie is bad, bad, bad. But the trailer looks pretty good. Spider-Man is the quintessential teen superhero, with all of the angst and disrespect and arrogance that comes with. Definitely some interesting camera work in this one. And the Lizard doesn't look nearly as bad as I expected.

I do wish they'd stop calling it "the untold story." Because, um, we've heard this one before. Like . . . several times.

I'll probably see it when it comes out on DVD.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:45 PM | Comments (64)
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This one's even worse, as it knits together three (or four) different soundbites to present a single -- false -- conversation.

This isn't related, but plonked did this for us.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 03:18 PM | Comments (127)
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All five.

Treacher notes that Brandon "Skabby" Baxter (Oh? Skabby? Of the Skabbys of Boston?) was at organizing an Occupy rally... last weekend.

And ABC knows this, but chooses to conceal information from its viewers.

Posted by: Ace at 12:54 PM | Comments (291)
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Dear Lord, this is compelling and rich.

Via Instapundit, American Thinker, and, I guess, I Own The World, originally.

More: John Fund on Check-Box Liberalism.

Posted by: Ace at 12:35 PM | Comments (173)
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