Another smart take on LAT Poll

From John Fund in Opinion Journal, who makes a case that the Times should poll proven registered voters, not random phone answerers. He has some other critiques, but thinks the poll probably caught the right order -- Bustamante, Schwarzenegger, McClintock -- just overstated the gaps some. He finds optimism in the numbers for Republicans since their candidates total more votes than the Democrats. Fund also describes a scenario in which McClintock runs hard for a couple of weeks to make some conservative points, then bows out in favor of the actor, earning major hero points within the party.

Update 4:49 p.m.: One of Fund's points is that the Field and PPIC polls work from lists of registered voters. But a supervisor at the LAT Poll emails that all three sample using random digit dialing. Horribly simplified, each area code and phone exchange gets called in proportion to the state population. All polls, of course, depend on the respondents giving honest answers.

Schwarzenegger starts raking in special interest cash: SF Chronicle, L.A. Times, Dan Weintraub, Recall Watch