Fischer, who is a rancher and a first-term state senator, faced two statewide office holders in the primary, each of whom had national support from interest groups that filled the state with numerous negative ads. The opponent who was favored was Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning, who was supported by the Tea Party Express, Citizens United, Rick Santorum, and Mike Huckabee. The other well-known and well-funded candidate was Don Stenberg, the state Treasurer. He was supported by Jim DeMint’s PAC, Senate Conservatives Fund, and the Club For Growth.

These two candidates and their Super PACs spent over $3 million combined in the primary. They decided to use almost all of the money on negative ads against each other. It is a well-known concept that when there are three candidates, and two of them engage in a negative campaign against each other, the third person will gain votes at the other two candidates’ expense. The best known example of this was the 1992 Presidential race, where Perot’s popularity rose as Clinton and Bush began running negative ads. When they each recognized this, both camps switched to a more positive style, emphasizing their own good qualities. Perot’s popularity then stabilized. He was still a factor in the race until the media mounted its own negative campaign against the Texas entrepreneur to keep a third party from arising.

Fischer becomes a slight favorite over Kerrey in the general election due to a Republican voter advantage in the state. She has staunchly conservative credentials and the GOP is expected to solidify its support behind her. It can be expected as well that, if she seeks Palin’s active support, she will receive it. This campaign provides additional evidence that Ms. Palin retains enormous popularity in the GOP. In this race, she single-handedly defeated perhaps the two most powerful interest groups within the party, the CFG and Tea Party Express. I don’t believe anyone else could have accomplished this.

Here is a campaign video for Fischer:

The purpose of each of the questions is the same; how well does the politician relate to average voters.
Here are the questions:

1. What’s the minimum wage? Caution: this can be a trick question as some states have a higher minimum wage than the federal standard.
2. What’s the price of milk?
3. What’s the price of bread?
4. How much is a gallon of gas?

The following question, obviously, differs by location:

5. When was the last year the (local sports team) won the Championship?

The candidate must be able to answer the following questions, which can sometimes get tricky:

6. Why do you want to be a (whatever office you’re running for)?
7. What mistakes have you made, and what have you learned from them? When I used to hire people, I asked this at every interview. I didn’t really care what their mistakes were, I wanted to see if they would take personal responsibility for them instead of blaming others.
8. Who is your favorite Supreme Court Justice and why? Alternative form: What is your favorite/least favorite Supreme Court decision and why?
9. Who is your personal hero? The correct answer to this question is Roberto Clemente.
10. What newspapers do you read?

OK, here are the answers to questions 1-4.
1. $7.25 per hour.
2. $3.50 per gallon of milk.
3. $1.40 a loaf is the answer that the website says is right. I do most of the food shopping for us, and I would have guessed closer to $3 per loaf.
4. $3.87 per gallon of gas.

National polling now shows support for Obama’s reelection at an all time low even among his own supporters. We recently covered the startling Romney surge in this article by Right Pundits journalist Andy Zarkowny. But looking beyond the national numbers, emerging trends at the state level are shocking to say the least.

Just last week the West Virginia primary was held, a contest that was suppose to be a forgone conclusion. After all we’ve been told that no Democrat would run against the president this year, right? Wrong. A felon named Keith Judd who is sitting in federal prison won almost half the vote. More than two out of every five Democrats voted for the jailbird over the president, an impossible to believe result that we lampooned in this article.

Enter John Wolfe, Jr., an Arkansas lawyer who is not sitting in prison but has something in common with the convict. He too is polling very well in Arkansas and may actually beat the president in this swing state. Such an event would be unprecedented in modern American politics. Read the story here. The primary vote is May 22nd and Right Pundits might just live blog the result for our readers.

John Wolfe is polling at 38% one week before the primary while Obama is at 45%. There is an old adage in political handicapping which holds that an incumbent polling under 50% is in deep doo-doo. I expected Mr. Wolfe to win the Arkansas primary and send an interesting political shock wave through the country. How cool is that?

We can expect Obama’s campaign to spend a fortune in the state this week in a bid to keep his head above water there. We doubt that will be helpful as there is not much you can say about the president that the moderate Democratic voters in Arkansas don’t already know. And what they know they don’t like and are preparing to vote for anyone but Obama, which in this case is Mr. Wolfe.

What the president will do is attack the challenger using negative ads on the airwaves and his campaign operatives will dig up whatever dirt they can this week. That is the way his Chicago political machine works, just the same way it is orchestrating already against Romney, but they are starting awfully late to make that avenue fruitful in the Arkansas primary.

By the way Wolfe is also on the ballot in Louisiana and may get on the Montana and Idaho ballots too, so stay tuned for another run for the money elsewhere. He contrasts himself with Obama in obvious ways that moderate Democrats hunger for in this election. He is job-oriented and pro-business, while he opposes Obamacare because he wants to cut healthcare costs instead of raise them.

Good luck to John Wolfe, Jr. in his lonely quest to beat a sitting U.S. president. The people of Arkansas will speak on May 22nd, and may the best man win.

Let me just make this clear. It isn’t the point that Chrissie doesn’t know some arcane factoids that happened to pop up on the program. That’s a test of intelligence that I assume few of us would want to take. Instead, he made a point of projecting the same aura of arrogance that he exposes to viewers nightly on his MSNBC program. Consider the following sequence:

A question on the show was: “Full name of the U2 pilot shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960.”
Matthews: “Who is Gary Powers?”
Trebek: “We need the full name.”
Matthews (again): “Who is Gary Powers?”

Yeah, that’s right. Chris assumed that his answer was correct and that the judge was wrong; so he had no need to adjust his response. Like I said, it isn’t important that he knew that the guy’s first name was Francis. But when anyone automatically figures that the other person must be wrong and that there is no need to update your own beliefs, then, that person is stupid.

Don’t get me wrong. Chris gave a number of silly answers as well. In the category ‘6-Letter World Capitals’, his answer was ‘What is Istanbul?’ In the category, ‘Law and Order’, the question was ‘A USDC is one of these, charged with the jurisdiction of a specific region.’ His answer was ‘What is a US attorney?’

I’d probably be less likely to mock Matthews’ responses if he were less judgmental himself on who has intelligence and who lacks it. He famously has repeatedly criticized Sarah Palin for ‘looking like an imbecile’ or ‘does she know anything?’ or ‘do you think cute will beat brains?’

I confess that I rarely watch Hardball anymore; it’s just too tiresome to hear his endless monologues and his lack of comity with guests who don’t have his seal of approval. See the video of his appearance below:

First, let us look at the CBS News/NYTimes poll, which is always skewed in favor of Democrats, in this case, by at least 6 points. Even with this built-in bias, Romney leads Obama 46% to 43% in whom people are likely to vote for. The survey was conducted between May 11 through the 13, so the impressions are fresh. This is a 6-point shift from their same poll last month. On the gender gap, Obama fell from 49% support with women in April to 44% now, while Romney went up from 43% to 46%. Concerning bases of support, Obama lost ground, 3 points among declared Democrats and down 5 points among Independents. Romney gained one point among both Republicans and Independents. On same-sex marriages, the numbers have declined in support since last polled in February, 2012. Down from 40% to 38% in favor of marriage being legal, however those in favor of legal civil unions went up from 23% to 24%. Those believing that same-sex partners should have no legal recognition at all went up from 31% to 33%. So this issue will not help Obama.

Now, let us look at the new USA Today/Gallup Poll. Interestingly enough, 58% of those polled believe that economy will be better in 2013. Why? Perhaps because 55% think Mitt Romney will improve the economy. Only 46% think Obama can. We also see in this poll that favorable-unfavorable gap has closed between the two candidates. Romney is now at 50% favorable with just 41% unfavorable while Obama is at 52% favorable with 46% unfavorable. One last item for you ′ticket′ fans. The GOP now has a 50% to 44% lead in congressional races. In February, the poll was tied and last August, Democrats enjoyed a 7-point lead.

To wrap up these two new polls by CBS News/New York Times and USA Today/Gallup, we see that even with the built-in slant which always favors Democrats, Mitt Romney has either taken the lead or has eliminated the gap with Barack Obama. The economy is still the number one issue in the country and that favors Romney significantly. The attempts by Obama to deflect attention with lesser issues, such as gay marriage, or his campaign′s early efforts to smear Romney′s character have failed. Should this trend continue through November, Mitt Romney stands to beat Barack Obama by a landslide in 2012.

***

Yes it is caption Friday on Right Pundits, a weekly contest now revived by popular demand after a four year vacation. Caption this photo of Keith Judd and be the lucky winner to be declared by our Right Pundits editorial committee. And no Andy this isn’t something new for you to do “just for fun” like the last ten fun things. I’ll declare the winners myself, taking the heat from our commenter community. The buck stops here.

The photo this week is of the honorable Keith Judd, otherwise known as Federal Inmate No. 11593-051. The felon received 41% of the vote in the West Virginia Democrat primary, proving that Democrats can succeed when given a governmental handout. Barack Obama? He got the other 59%. So caption this photo. Winners will be declared sometime on Monday, or soon after if we remember to do it.

Caption this photo!

Here are the winner’s of the last contest, with prizes appropriately sized to the level of your accomplishments. Based on the numerous high-quality entries, choosing was very very hard so try again next week!

1st Place! flyingmonkey “This guy has the 20 year to life demographic all sewn up!!!”
2nd Place! L.Rivera “And my VP runn-inmate is better too!”
3rd Place! Chris in N.Va. “Hair of the dog that bit Obama.”

Stay tuned for our next caption contest on Friday. Congratulations to all the winners this week, and thanks to everyone who entered. Better luck next time!

Rules
—–
1. Shut up. If you are reading the rules for a caption contest, you need to get a drink and come back in a better mood.
2. You can enter as many times as you like, in fact it is encouraged.
3. A first, second and third place winner will be declared.
4. Winner will receive the vaunted Right Punditeer award, which has not been given away on these pages for four years.
5. Second and third will receive a smaller version, appropriately scaled to the achievement.
6. Contest is over Monday 6pm PT.