More bad news for Lil Ricky

The Hill (a newspaper "for and about the U.S. Congress") has published some more bad news for our junior senator:

Democrat Bob Casey has widened his lead over Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), according to a GOP poll to be released today.

The poll, conducted over the weekend by the Atlanta-based firm Strategic Vision, shows Casey, the state treasurer, capturing 52 percent versus Santorum’s 36 percent — a 16-point gap.

Polls released by the same firm showed Santorum trailing by 14 points in September and nine points in August.

While is bad bad news for Rick, this followed in the article:

“There’s no doubt about it: Rick Santorum is in trouble,” Casey Campaign Manger Jay Reiff said.

Reiff also cautioned that the Casey campaign expects the race to tighten considerably.

“A two-term incumbent with $25 million is not going to lose by double digits. We expect this to be a very close race.”

And who is this "Strategic Visions"? Here's their policial polling webpage. They recently completed a poll of Pennsylvania residents. The very interesting results are here.

A poll of 1200 Pennsylvania residents was conducted on October 14-16. When asked whether they approved or disapproved of George Bush's job performance, 57% disapproved while only 36% approved. The results were mostly the same when asked about Bush's handling of the economy - 59% disapprove vs 35% approve.

55% do not want Roe v Wade overturned (38% want it over turned).

The bad news for our lil Ricky happens down in question 13:

Do you approve or disapprove of United States Senator Rick Santorum's job performance?
Approve 40%
Disapprove 47%
Undecided 13%

And then question 14:

If the election for United States Senate were held today, and the choice was between Robert Casey, Jr., the Democrat and Rick Santorum, the Republican, whom would you vote for?
Robert Casey 52%
Rick Santorum 36%
Other 2%
Undecided 10%

Strategic Visions also says that by a margin of 55-to-30 percent, Pennsylvanians approve of the way Arlen Specter is doing his job.

So if the poll is accurate, we live in a pro-choice state that's not happy with the way Rick Santorum's done his job.

Adding insult upon insult, a majority (55%) of Pennsylvanians did not want Rick to (gag!) run for President in 2008. And in question 21, when Republican Pennsylvanians were asked about their choice for a Presidential candidate in 2008 they answered:

Rudy Guliani 42%
John McCain 28%
Newt Gingrich 7%
Bill Frist 3%
Mitt Romney 2%
Rick Santorum 2%
George Pataki 2%
George Allen 1%
Chuck Hagel 1%
Undecided 12%

See that? Rick got 2% of that vote. Six times as many Pennsylvania Republicans responded as "undecided." Geez, Rick scored lower than the guy being investigated by the SEC, Bill Frist.

Of course we have miles to go before the next Senatorial election, but right now Rick's in deep doo-doo.

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Santorum