William Saracino is still upbeat about Bill Simon's chances against Grayout Davis:

Virtually every registered voter knows and has an opinion about Gray Davis, and all he can pull is 41 percent and 37 percent. Bill Simon is still a cipher to many voters, which is one reason Davis has spent so much trying to define him. Both the PPIC and Field polls indicate that, so far at least, Davis?s money has not been well spent: it has pulled the incumbent down as fast or faster than it did Simon.

To summarize: Simon has had a horrendous six-week run of negative coverage (perhaps the worst six-weeks of bad press in my memory, which goes back farther than I care to admit). Davis has spent $25 million and his share of the vote is lower than at the first of the year. He has spent more than $15 million attacking Simon and portraying himself as the lesser of two evils ? and can barely break 40 percent. Until a few days ago, Simon had spent virtually nothing in response ? and is within 11 or six points.

And in another Simon story, the Wapo is trying to spin the brilliant E-Gray web site as a Simon negative, because it says that Ebay is thinking about suing for trademark infringement.

I'm not a lawyer, but I doubt if they have a case. It's clearly a parody, and should constitute fair use. I wonder if Gray's offered them any favors, though...? The best part was this:

Simon's campaign told the Associated Press that it has no plans to take down the site. A Davis spokesman, meanwhile, said he does not believe the site will win many converts.

Sounds like he might be whistling past the gra(y)ve yard...

I hate to break it to you, but unfortunately Davis's odds look really good right now. According to the reputation betting market, the Foresight Exchange estimates that Governor Davis has a 90-97% (with bias towards the high 90's) chance of getting reelected. I hope you are right about the chances for the Master of Disaster.

BTW, I caught your article on Foxnews (actually a reference to Foxnews from another weblog). Great stuff!

Which one? I have one every week.

Doh! Sorry, I thought it was a one-time thing. The story about the Australian scramjet that slides immediately into advocating launching lots of rockets rather than playing with cool but unproductive technologies.