These people do not quit, do they? First it’s bloggers, now it’s people who release inconvenient polls? The Cincinnati Enquirer has the Strickland Campaign’s hysterical reaction to the recent Quinnipiac poll:

While it is our general policy not to comment on or respond to polls, especially in light of the explosion of unreliable public polling this cycle, this morning’s Quinnipiac Poll (along with the last two polls that they have released) is at so wide a variance with what we have seen in internal and even public polling in recent weeks that we believe it is worth comment.
With just two weeks until Election Day, it is our opinion that the Quinnipiac polls are irresponsible, inaccurate, and completely removed from the reality of the Ohio governor’s race.
Some quick facts that call into question the Q poll results:
– Today’s Quinnipiac poll had Kasich leading Strickland 59% to 32% among independents. Last week’s Ohio poll, on the other hand, had Strickland leading among independents 40%-39%.
– Our internal polls have shown Strickland with a small lead and an uptick this week. Last week, Kasich’s pollster held a call with donors saying that their internals had Kasich with a 2 point lead.
– Over the past 2 weeks, the Kasich campaign has switched to 100% negative advertising and resorted to character attacks on Strickland.
We have 14 days to making our closing argument to Ohio voters. In the meantime, we have seen that we are outpacing Republicans in terms of early voting and are confident that we have the get-out-the-vote apparatus to continue this trend on election day.
As written in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, the Ohio Republican Party has virtually no turnout capability, leading its Chairman to write to RNC Chair Michael Steele begging for money to help get out the vote. Similarly, signs of panic from the Kasich campaign- including pandering to the most Republican base groups, wild accusations against Ted, and harshly negative advertising- show that even they know they do not hold a 10 point lead in this race.
If you are planning on writing on this poll and would like to talk to our campaign manager, Aaron Pickrell, please reach out to me as soon as possible.

Now, there’s any number of gems that are wrong with this statement. However, the statement about the results being an outlier is the most problematic. In point of fact, the Ohio poll is the only one showing Kasich losing to Strickland among independents, and even there only by a single point. Quinnipiac’s result is more consistent even with the most narrow polls of the last two weeks. I don’t think anyone believes that the race is nearly as far apart as 10 points, given that the internal polling of Strickland and Kasich each have their candidate up two points, but the RCP average still puts Kasich up 7, and the Fox Poll shows that Strickland is vulnerable on a key question – namely, whether he has a plan to create jobs. A lopsided number don’t believe he does.

Update: Never mind about the Kasich internal polling – that apparently is also a lie. This tweet from the Kasich campaign sets the record straight:

@plunderbund It’s “Tarrance” not Terrence, it wasn’t a conf call, it was 5 points not 2, and the Ohio Poll now has it at 8-points 51-43.