A recent statewide poll released today shows that Betty Montgomery is the Republican gubernatorial candidate most likely to win the 2006 General Election. It also shows that Ohioans, by a 2 to 1 margin, find her to be more honest and ethical than either Ken Blackwell or Jim Petro.

• Betty Montgomery is the most likely of the GOP nominees to be seen as 'ethical and honest' by nearly a 2-to-1 margin.

• Montgomery would beat Democrat candidate Mike Coleman by 7 percentage points and would also defeat Democrat candidate Ted Strickland by 3 percentage points

• Blackwell's numbers were particularly weak. The poll showed that either Strickland or Coleman would defeat Blackwell by 8 points

• First, they do not tell us who wins the Republican primary. Maybe that is because it shows what ever other poll does: Ken Blackwell wins!

• The poll that she released is from August (TWO MONTHS AGO!). Why wait until now to release this? Maybe she is trying to refute the more recent polls done by Coleman’s campaign, Zogby and The Columbus Dispatch. But polls from September show she is in a free fall if her August numbers were right.

• The release does not give the public the methodology and sampling. Does this poll over-sample from certain geographic areas or have more Democrats involved?

• The truth is, according to the Zogby poll, Betty Montgomery would do worse than any Republican candidate in the general election and would lose by almost 10%! And The Columbus Dispatch reported on Sunday that Ken Blackwell is more favored than any Republican or Democrat candidate, while Betty Montgomery earned less support than Mike Coleman or Ted Strickland.