Malloy's response to Q-Poll

Today Dan Malloy's campaign manager Dan Kelly released a statement about the latest Quinnipiac Poll:

So much for Ned’s poll in which he claimed to be leading by 35 points; if his poll was right and the Q-poll is right that’s an 18-point drop for him. Not great. As for the Q-Poll, in January Dan was at 11 and Ned was at 27. Today Dan’s at 24 and Ned’s at 41. That means they’ve each moved by almost the same amount. But Ned’s spent a million dollars on TV and Dan hasn’t spent a dime.

Dan's use of the January poll conveniently neglects the results of the March Q-Poll, which showed Malloy only trailing by 10 points. Since then, Malloy won the party endorsement at the state convention, and he somehow lost 7 points! This does not bode well for the Malloy camp.

Given that he has this lead and all this money, I can’t understand why he has yet to accept Dan’s invitation to debate in every community in Connecticut where there’s a daily newspaper. What’s he afraid of?

"What's he afraid of?" Uh-oh! I'm getting the uncomfortably feeling that the Malloy campaign will soon resort to some Merrick Alpert-style taunting. I sincerely hope we don't descend to that level; how soon before we start receiving something like this in the mail?

My concern is that Dan Malloy's campaign is making a huge error by attacking Ned Lamont, rather than the Republican candidate. And Malloy hasn't been talking about the issues, whereas Lamont has been pushing his agenda for job growth and economic stability. I wonder how much of this is the result of several key former Lieberman staffers now employed by Malloy, since they spent much of 2006 talking about Lamont's wealth and not the issues.

As a reminder to everyone, in 2006 Lieberman won solely because the GOP refused to back their own candidate (what a great party!) and Joe Lieberman became their de facto nominee. With the backing of Karl Rove and all the money the Republican Party could raise (Mel Sembler anyone?) Lieberman was able to eke out a plurality, not a majority, of votes to hang on one more term.

And now we have guys who crafted Lieberman's attacks on Ned Lamont working for Dan Malloy.

I fear this is going to be a long, hot summer.

UPDATE: More on Dan Kelly's comments.

Dan quoted Lamont's internal poll, which placed him 35 points ahead of Malloy, and compared it to today's Q-Poll which showed him leading by 17. Kelly claims it was an 18-point drop.

But what Dan Kelly doesn't admit is that an experienced campaign manager like himself would absolutely know that comparing two different polls, with different sets of parameters, isn't like comparing apples and oranges; it's more like comparing apples to Buicks.

The Q-Poll merely questioned "registered Democrats", even those who haven't voted in the last several elections. Lamont's GHY poll questioned "likely" Democratic voters. It's a much more targeted segment of the population and, let's face it, the Democrats who are much more likely to drag themselves out of bed on August 10th and VOTE. Those voters are overwhelmingly going for Lamont.

So if you're going to compare two or more polls, I think it would be best to find several that use the same parameters. Like the last several Q-Polls, which show Lamont trending upward when compared to Dan Malloy, and gives Ned his largest lead yet.