Dodd Still In Trouble, Plus: The Spin On Spinelli

Another stick-in-the-eye poll for Chris Dodd. No one knows his primary challenger Merrick Alpert, yet Alpert is down just 20 points among Democrats in the new Quinnipiac poll released today.

As for the general election matchups, Dodd does marginally better than the last Q Poll, but the poll shows either announced Republican matches up well. Dodd, a 30-year veteran of the U.S. Senate, has lots of work to do. His honesty level among voters sucks. The good news is that he still has time to recover for the 2010 election, but his numbers better start moving soon otherwise the political sharks will begin to circle. See Q Poll news release below:

May 27, 2009 – Dodd Gains On Challenger, But Approval Is Low, Quinnipiac University Connecticut Poll Finds; Honesty Is Dodd’s Biggest Problem With Voters

Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd is gaining on former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, a possible Republican challenger, and now trails 45 – 39 percent in the 2010 Senate race, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

This compares to a 50 – 34 percent Simmons lead in an April 2 poll by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University.

In this latest survey, Simmons leads 86 – 5 percent among Republicans and 53 – 30 percent among independent voters, while Dodd takes Democrats 67 – 16 percent, up from 58 – 27 percent April 2.

Connecticut voters disapprove 53 – 38 percent of the job the Democratic incumbent is doing, compared to 58 – 33 percent April 2, his lowest approval rating ever.

Facing another possible Republican challenger, State Sen. Sam Caligiuri, Sen. Dodd gets 41 percent to Caligiuri’s 39 percent, compared to a 41 – 37 percent Republican lead April 2.

Dodd leads Connecticut businessman Merrick Alpert 44 – 24 percent in a Democratic primary while Simmons tops Caligiuri 48 – 10 percent among Republicans.

“Sen. Christopher Dodd’s numbers are getting better but they are still lousy. He still has high negatives: About half of the voters don’t trust Dodd and disapprove of the job he is doing. And he is still behind Simmons in a general election matchup,” said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz, PhD. “But Dodd is an exceptionally skilled politician, and he has plenty of time. He is lucky to get this early warning more than a year before the election.

“Nobody knows Merrick Alpert, the new challenger to Dodd, and it should be troubling to Dodd that this political nobody is still getting a quarter of the Democratic primary vote.”

“The April 2 Quinnipiac University survey was conducted immediately after the news broke about Dodd’s involvement in the AIG bonus controversy, and showed Dodd’s worst numbers ever. In this survey, Dodd appears to have stopped the bleeding. But he still has a long way to go to restore the trust of Connecticut’s voters,” Dr. Schwartz added.

Dodd gets a negative 37 – 51 percent favorability rating, compared to 30 – 58 percent April 2. Simmons gets a 34 – 12 percent score, compared to 39 – 12 percent April 2, with 53 percent who still haven’t heard enough about him to form an opinion.

For Caligiuri, 87 percent of Connecticut voters don’t know enough to form an opinion and 93 percent don’t know enough about Alpert.

In an open-ended question, allowing for any answer, 34 percent of voters who approve of Dodd list his experience and/or ability as the main reason.

For those who disapprove, 24 percent list Dodd’s overall dishonesty or lack of integrity, with 17 percent who cite his failure to deal with banking industry problems and 11 percent who point specifically to the Countrywide mortgage deal.

Connecticut voters say 49 – 35 percent that Dodd is not honest and trustworthy and say 47 – 42 percent that he does not care about their needs and problems.

Voters say 56 – 35 percent that he has strong leadership qualities and 50 – 41 percent that he pays attention to the needs of Connecticut.

Obama, Rell, Lieberman Approval Ratings

Connecticut voters give President Barack Obama a 71 – 22 percent approval rating, unchanged from April 2.

Gov. Jodi Rell gets a 73 – 20 percent approval rating, including 68 – 23 percent among Democrats

Beam Me Up

I’m confused. Yeah, I know that comes easily to me, but get a load of this courtesy Ken Dixon of the Connecticut Post:

HARTFORD — The Senate on Tuesday approved a watered-down version of a bill that would ban open containers of alcohol in moving vehicles.

But the law, an attempt to create legislation that could finally pass the House before the legislative deadline on June 3, would not allow police officers to stop a moving vehicle for that reason alone if they spotted people drinking alcoholic beverages.

In fact, it might depend on law enforcement officials to create reasons to stop cars when they witness drinking going on.

The legislation would allow tailgate parties at sports and entertainment events and it would also let people sit in parked vehicles along residential and city streets and imbibe alcohol.

The legislation, which was approved by the Senate through a unanimous-consent provision after a brief debate, is a way to finally prohibit alcohol in vehicles in Connecticut, where it’s still legal for passengers to drink — and for lone drivers to carry — open containers of beer, wine or distilled spirits.

Okay, so if this legislation passes the House and is signed into law by Governor Rell, a cop could snag a driver with a cell phone held to his ear but not a driver sucking down what appears to be a fifth of whiskey. Or perhaps he’ll stop the car and take his nightstick to a tail light. “Gee, buddy, what a shame your tail light is busted. And so are you for sucking Mr. Jim Beam.”

Anthony’s Song

It sucks to see my journalism friends lose work and a whole bunch have gone that way the past year. The latest is Tony Spinelli who spent more than 30 years at the Connecticut Post. Tony and I were teenage brothers-in-arms anchoring the obituary desk in the late 1970s when obituaries were free.

Tony was a pretty good songwriter too and once in a while he’d pull out his guitar to croon a lyric about a bad babe like “this old cowboy ain’t getting shot twice by the same gun.”

Ah, those obit calls from Mrs. Spadaccino. We were always nice to her because we knew that Mrs. Spadaccino could get us in the end. Tony and I had this attitude about obits: it’s the last chance for folks to express themselves in print so let’s give them their due.

Tony’s career spanned city coverage, suburban coverage and even the Internet as he became the paper’s website neighborhood video presence. When Tony and I worked the newsroom all assignments were on the table, including fetching wire editors from their favorite watering holes who drank entirely too much.

One night this old copy editor didn’t show up for work. The problem wasn’t that he didn’t show up for work, really, but whether he had drunk himself into the Pequonnock River. So we were assigned the task to enter the dank and dark West Side rooming house trap where he was purported to live.

We were young and used to chasing fires so what the heck. Jesus, the rats were so big you could saddle them. Guys were walking around the hallways in their underwear dragging paper bags on the floor. And we really didn’t know what room this wire editor occupied. Knock, knock. “Get out of here you asshole.” And that was a polite response.

Finally, we hit the right door. Good ol’ Jack answered. He looked like someone lit his face on fire and put it out with a rake. But he was alive and that was the important thing. Tony and I returned to the newsroom to reassure the city desk that Jack was among the living. Just goes to show some of the best stories we could never write.

Tony Spinelli cleaned out his desk in the CT Post newsroom over the weekend, another layoff victim. But here’s a toast to a mighty fine career. Keep pluggin’ Tony.

News release from Jim Himes:

ABCD’s Total Learning Success Guides Himes’ Early Education Legislation

Himes to introduce legislation creating competitive grant program to fund early childhood education based on success of Total Learning Program

BRIDGEPORT, CT-At a roundtable discussion today at ABCD, Inc. Congressman Jim Himes announced legislation that creates a national competitive grant initiative to fund early childhood education programs based on the successful model developed by Bridgeport’s Total Learning Program. He was joined by parents, teachers, students, and program directors to discuss the importance of making similar resources available to children throughout the country. The program run by ABCD, Inc. has been touted by Yale researchers as “more effective than Head Start.”

“In order to educate our children, we have to prepare them to learn,” said Congressman Himes. “Providing a high-quality education–and ensuring students are ready for that education–is critical to ensuring America’s long-term economic competitiveness.”

The Total Learning Program has experienced great success in preparing at-risk students for elementary school. Experts have found that a key to the program’s success is its early, whole-child approach mixed with parental involvement. From nutritional programs to a music component, mental health, and literacy academic preparation, this program is consistent with the best knowledge experts have in both the fields of early brain development and general child development.

In a letter to ABCD leadership, Yale researcher Dr. Edward Zigler, a key player in the creation of Head Start, said of the Total Learning Program:

“Your Total Learning intervention is as impressive a program as I have encountered over my five decades of work.”