From the there’s-no-such-thing-as-bad-publicity-(or-polling) files comes this pitch to Scott Wagman supporters to pony up some bucks despite a pretty rotten showing in a recent St. Petersburg Times poll that placed Wagman tied for fourth, behind Kathleen Ford, Bill Foster and Deveron Gibbons and tied with Larry Williams.

For those not studied in the art of politics, this is called spin.

But before the Wagman haters chime in, let’s give some context to the poll. More than 60 percent of the voters surveyed said they didn’t have a preference yet, meaning that this is a wide open race and the poll was only an indication of a lack of voter engagement and existing name recognition, not a legit look at who will finish in what order. I don’t say this to defend Wagman’s poor showing; but the truth is not all of the campaigns have spent little or nothing in tems of direct voter contact (direct mail, television ads, radio ads, robo-phone calls, etc.) that is what gets voters ready to make decisions. At best, some of the campaigns have been walking door to door and using some new media advertising on Facebook and the like. That’s not enough to drive serious interest to an off-election year municipal election.

But Wagman felt his placement in the poll could be spun to his advantage with supporters and sent them this e-mail today:

Dear Friend,

About the recent St. Petersburg Times poll:

We were delighted. That’s because as the other candidates made little or no significant progress we increased our percentage of decided voters (as compared with our own poll taken earlier this year).

It simply proves that, as our message of change gets out to undecided voters, we win.

With 61% of voters still undecided, our challenge is to continue on that path over the next week. We can’t do that without you.

In less than 13 days almost 60,000 ballots to elect St. Petersburg’s Mayor will arrive in mailboxes. That’s never happened before.

I believe, with the unprecedented challenges facing our city, that we must have open, fresh, strong, effective executive leadership instead of politics as usual. DONATE NOW

Help us get our message out to early voters while there’s still time. Without it, uninformed voters will decide the future of our beloved city.

Please make a contribution of $13, or $26 or whatever you can afford by midnight June 30th — our final quarterly report before the Primary. It will make a difference.

Many thanks,
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P.S. As mayor, I will be a strong leader for change, focused on making city government more efficient and improving public safety. In less than 13 days almost 60,000 voters will have received vote-by-mail ballots. Help me get my message of change and new leadership to those voters while there’s still time.

Disclosure time: My boss, CL Tampa Editor David Warner, is the domestic partner of one of Wagman’s political consultants, Larry Biddle. Because of this conflict, he does not partcipate in any way in CL’s coverage of the mayor’s race.

Jim Johnson is the creator of The State of Sunshine blog.

What would you do if the Tampa Tribune or St. Petersburg Times (or both) folded?

That is, essentially, one of the questions asked in a national study.

The Pew Research Center for People and the Press released results of a study asking about Americans’ attitudes toward their newspapers. The news may not be good for the ailing newspaper industry.

Pew researchers asked two pertinent questions. First, they wanted to know how American’s felt about the possibility of newspapers shutting down. Now I’d like you to think about the local daily newspaper in your area. If there is more than one, think about the one you read most often. If that newspaper went out of business and no longer published in print or online, how much would this hurt civic life in your community?

Less than half, 43 percent, said it would hurt “a lot” while another 31 percent said “some.” The biggest reason most felt it would hurt the community: People rely on the newspaper for local news.

Then the Center asked about the effect of newspaper closings on the respondent. How much would you personally miss reading your local daily newspaper if it were no longer available?

These results should be a warning sign to the news industry: Only 1 in 3 said they would miss their local paper “a lot.” Forty-two percent answered “not much” or “not at all.” FORTY-TWO PERCENT WOULD NOT MISS THEIR NEWSPAPERS!

As if that wasn’t bad enough, it breaks down almost along age lines. We already knew that newspaper readers skewed older, but the poll shows this. Fifty-five (55 percent) of those over 65 said they would miss the newspaper “a lot” and only 26 percent said they wouldn’t miss it.

Here are the numbers:

Here are some of the reasons:

Has anyone started a pool for when Media General closes the Trib (or sells it to the Poynter Institute)? I’ll take June 2011.

Obama’s approval rating on the economy is 68 percent. The Democrats in Congress get a 49 percent approval, while Congressional Republicans score only 33 percent approval.

TPM reports:

• 52% of Americans approve of the stimulus bill, with 41% disapproving. And the public is confident by a 54%-45% margin that the plan will result in significant improvement.

• President Obama’s overall approval rating comes in at 67%, with only 24% disapproval. His specific approval on the economy is 68%-27%.

• Congress’ approval is at only 31%-59%, but additional questions show a much more complicated picture. The number for Congressional Democrats is at 49%-45%, while Republicans are at 33%-59%. The Republicans appear to be cramping Congress’ style.

But it does have value. On the Democratic side, it helps shape decisions to run or not to run. And it helps the early money figure out on whom to bet, errr, give a campaign contribution.

Given those two benefits, you have to think that today’s Strategic Visions poll on the 2010 race emboldens Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio.

The mayor, who has said she is considering a race but has not announced a decision, runs in a statistical tie with U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek and slightly behind U.S. Rep. Ron Klein. She places ahead of State Sen. Dan Gelber in a Democratic primary:

1. Whom would you support for the Democratic nomination for United Senate, if the choices were Dan Gelber, Pam Iorio, Kendrick Meek, and Ron Klein?
Ron Klein 12%
Kendrick Meek 10%
Pam Iorio 8%
Dan Gelber 4%
Undecided 66%

Even better, Iorio runs strongest of all the Democrats tested against Crist, who has a 2-1 lead over anybody who would run against him if he so chooses.

Iorio’s head-to-head with the Gov?

6. If the election for United States Senate were held today and the choices were Charlie Crist, the Republican and Pam Iorio, the Democrat, for whom would you vote?
Charlie Crist 57%
Pam Iorio 29%
Undecided 14%

The big winner on the GOP side, other than Crist, is U.S. Rep. Connie Mack. He holds a 2-1 lead over any other Republican mentioned without Crist in the mix.

Here’s the full Strategic Vision poll.

Atty General Bill McCollum (courtesy myfloridalegal.com)

It was a toss-up with Sink in the race, at least against GOP Attorney General and anti-casino noodge Bill McCollum. McCollum led 36 percent-35 percent. Not exactly a great starting point for your strongest candidate — who is not even running.

The breakdown of the rest of the race:

Had Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink decided to run for the U.S. Senate, she would have had a small early lead in the Democratic field, and run almost even with the best-known GOP potential candidate, Attorney General Bill McCollum, with 35 percent for Sink and 36 percent for McCollum, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.

Although McCollum holds a wide lead in name recognition among the GOP candidates, U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV, son of the former senator with the same name, runs closely to him in a trial heat of GOP contenders and also is viewed very positively by the party-rank-in-file.

“No one has surfaced as a likely Democratic opponent for Gov. Charlie Crist and that’s not surprising given how well he is thought of by Floridians,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “It’s impressive at this time of national Obamamania that Gov. Crist’s favorability rating is slightly higher than that of the new President. Of course, it’s still more than 21 months until the 2010 election, but Charlie Crist looks like a very strong candidate for re-election.”

Here is how they stand today (a fairly meaningless exercise, I admit, except for ammo in early fundraising) on the Democratic side:

The decision by CFO Sink to walk away from the Senate race leaves a wide open scramble for the Democrat nomination. Because the survey was in the field when she announced her decision not to run, she was left on the list from which respondents were asked to choose for the rest of the polling. In a trial heat among Democratic candidates, she gets 15 percent, while U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek has 13 percent, followed by U.S. Rep. Ron Klein at 9 percent, U.S. Rep. Allen Boyd with 8 percent and State Sen. Dan Gelber at 1 percent. Even with a ballot that includes Sink, 54 percent of registered Democrats say they do not have a candidate.

And on the GOP side of things:

In the Republican trial heat, McCollum gets 22 percent to Mack’s 21 percent, with 10 percent for U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, 6 percent for former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, 2 percent for former Florida House Speaker Allan Bense, and 40 percent undecided. Republican voters’ favorability ratings of the candidates are:

* McCollum: 40 – 14 percent favorable, with 44 percent who don’t know enough to form an opinion;
* Mack: 37 – 12 percent favorable, with 51 percent no opinion;
* Buchanan: 18 – 9 percent favorable, with 72 percent no opinion;
* Rubio: 13 – 17 percent favorable, with 69 percent no opinion.

“Connie Mack does surprisingly well. Whether that’s because voters know about him and like him for himself, still confuse him with his father or figure that he’ll be like his father if elected is not clear, and frankly probably won’t be for some time. But clearly his name is a big benefit,” said Brown.

Here’s the full poll in MS Word format.

Florida voters are surprisingly upbeat about their personal financial condition, as 56 percent say family finances are “excellent” or “good,” and 43 percent say they are “not so good” or “poor,” according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. But only 31 percent expect things to get better in the next year, while 21 percent say they will get worse and 44 percent say they will stay the same.

Lying about your personal financial condition makes sense. After all, who wants to admit, even to a pollster in anonymity, that their household budget is shot to hell, that they have more personal debt than some small Latin American nations, and that the Holiday Season is going to be slim pickins.

credit: thetruthabout/flickr.com

The poll even hints at this disconnect between our view of how we are doing and the way we tell others about it:

Voters say 59 – 20 percent that they are worse off then they were a year ago, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.

“The housing meltdown hit Florida worse than most of the rest of the country and unemployment has risen there, yet voters aren’t nearly as pessimistic about their situation or their prospects as in some other states,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

(So we’re either more optimistic than the nation at large or too stupid to know we’re in real trouble in the Sunshine State. I vote for the latter.)

“Only 53 percent say they are somewhat or very dissatisfied with the way things are going in Florida today, while 47 percent are very or somewhat satisfied. That’s pretty optimistic given the economy, stock market crash and predictions that the recession could be deep and long,” said Brown. “There are higher levels of pessimism in other parts of the country.”

“A November 13 Quinnipiac University national poll showed a record high 82 percent level of dissatisfaction.”

And anyone wondering just how much red remains in this purple state of ours need look no further than the poll’s top answer for our economic woes:

Floridians say 58 – 30 percent that more cuts in local property taxes are needed, in part because local officials have failed reduce assessments to reflect the decline in property values. They think 73 – 22 percent the voting public, not the Legislature, should make the tax cuts. When it comes to the state budget, they want spending cut rather than taxes raised….

That’s right, giving homeowners a few measly hundred bucks back on their annual property tax bill makes a helluva lot more sense than improving our economy, growing better-paying jobs and upping our education system so we are competitive in the global market.

Lots of interesting things in the latest Florida Chamber of Commerce poll; and aside from a usual disclaimer that this group has a vested interest in certain public issues (hence the push for property tax reform), the big finding in today’s poll is that a majority of Floridians think the state is heading to hell in a handbag.

The actual number is 51 percent think we are heading in the wrong direction, with just 32 percent happy with the state’s direction. That is nearly a 180 from the chamber’s February poll that found 57 percent of the state happy.

The Orlando Sentinel has provided a .pdf of the summary memo of the poll.

(As somebody who has lived in the nation’s wang since 1967, I heartily concur with the majority.)

When Democratic voters were asked if they were satisfied with their options in the presidential primary, 61 percent said they were satisfied. For Republicans, it is a 180 turnaround, with 61 percent saying they want more choices, or more to the point, that they aren’t happy with the field they have right now. As Campaign Insider points out, this is consistent with previous polls and reflects the fact that GOP conservatives haven’t found a horse in this race yet.

On the issue of a desire for a third party choice, 53 percent of all voters said yes, they’d love to see a third-party candidate. Broken down by party, neither Republicans nor Democrats have a majority of members who feel that way (although both show support in the low 40’s for an independent option). Seventy-one percent of registered independents, however, want a third party choice. Should that number be higher? Isn’t that why people register as independents, because they aren’t comfortable with either party or their candidates>

On the Republican side, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain are falling off the table in four of the five states (including Florida). For McCain, that is just another sign of the end of his candidacy, especially in light of fundraising problems and staff layoffs. Mitt Romney has to like his trending upward, but his rise is eclipsed by still-unofficial candidate Fred Thompson.

On the Democratic side, national polling frontrunner Hillary Clinton looks strong and heading up in Florida and New Hampshire; she’s slipped a bit in Iowa and South Carolina. Despite that slippage in the Iowa caucuses, she still is ahead in the latest polls by 1 point over John Edwards, with Barack Obama gaining. No wonder that Bill has joined her on the campaign trail to hold off that Obama rush.

A reminder: As always, polling at this early point in the race is a reflection of name recognition and final results can change. But dragging in the polls and having positions on the issues that run counter to your party (I’m looking at you, Sen. McCain) can kill your fundraising.

In one corner is John McCain, the former maverick turned uninteresting grouch whose campaign is distributing video clips of one of his rivals appearing to accept some levels of embryonic stem cell funding and research. McCain’s campaign is understandably nervous, because the war hero senator is dropping like a rock in polling and can’t survive the imminent arrival of the Rear Admiral (Fred Thompson).

In the other corner is serial position-changer Mitt Romney, who has won many social conservative hearts and minds despite previous stances that were less-than-conservative. In this case, according to the NYT, McCain doesn’t appear to have the goods on Romney; the video has enough wiggle room in it for Romney’s campaign to make the argument that he hasn’t changed in his opposition to destroying fetuses to enable stem cell research.

Of course, it is not even part of the battle that both men’s positions are out of the mainstream for the nation as a whole.  But then again, this isn’t about the nation as a whole; it’s about winning the Republican primary. Plenty of time to “nuance” a position in the General Election.