Obviously, those lessons on being pleasant weren’t entirely successful.
Nevertheless, Poliquin’s revised approach—combined with Cain’s terminal case of Mitchell plague—has had the desired effect. A Press Herald poll released September 28 showed him leading the race by a solid 10 points. The same survey indicated his net favorability rating was up three points, while revealing that 43 percent of those polled didn’t know enough about Cain to have an opinion.
If these numbers hold, they mean voters are about to send somebody to Washington who’s lived in their district for little more than a year (when he decided to run, Poliquin transferred his legal residency from the estate he owns in the 1st District town of Georgetown to his family’s summer place in Oakland, just over the border in the 2nd). They’ll be picking a rich guy (Poliquin is an ex-Wall Street investment banker) to be the voice of one of the poorest areas in the northeast. They’ll be choosing someone with a history of ethically questionable activities (Poliquin ran a business while serving as treasurer, something not permitted by the state Constitution; he claimed a property tax deduction because parts of his Georgetown land were being used for tree harvesting, even though a deed restriction prevented any such activity).
Congressman Poliquin? That’d be a diagnosis even scarier than electing Mitchell-infected Emily Cain.
Take two Aspirin and email me in the morning ataldiamon@herniahill.net.
