I’ll make this brief.

there’s been only one nationally recognized as reliable poll published about Oklahoma politics since the Runoff Election on Aug. 25.  Rasmusson Poll shows Gov. Henry at 55% and Rep. Istook at 33%.

This contrasts with their Aug. 28 poll when it was 60-34 Henry over Istook.

Polls are not all that good at predicting, in my opinion, but they are wonderful tools for seeing trends and identifying “hot button” issues that can then be manipulated. 

Here, it seems clear that Istook was farther behind on Aug. 28 because he had no primary or runoff opponent and had not been on the TV while Brad Henry, although facing only nominal opposition, had been visible both as an incumbent and with some small TV exposure.  Now, some of Henry’s drop can be seen as apathy growing between elections, the effect of Istook looking for and pointing out “negatives”, and other reasons can be imagined.  What seems less likely to me is that Istook’s numbers are unchanged.  No growth despite Henry’s fall. 

As an interesting subtext, Istook must be pretty careful about putting out “negatives” about Henry because the response will be all corruption-Ambramoff-scandal-dirty-money all the time.  Ole’ Ernie can lose to Brad and still be in the running in the U.S. Senate race in two years.  But, if he’s discredited as corrupt, it’s a career killer.  Ernie is also facing a candidate who can use his incumbency to set the agenda — how about a proposal to bring the Legislature into special session to pass ethics rules?

What would you tell Ernest to do about his campaign if you were a “downballot” candidate?  How about if you’re Mary Fallin? 

I think I’d tell him to take his whippin’ like a man and work just to get out the Repub vote along with the other candidates and even if he loses, that we’ll stand up for him in a Senate showdown within the party and everyone knows Inhofe is on a path to retire.

I said short and then wrote more than anyone cares about.  C U Soon