Hau's that again?

The most recent Taipei mayor election TVBS poll. According to question three, a bloc of KMT voters is voting Hau even though they think he's not as competent as Su. Question 2, of likely voters, shows the numbers across the last few polls -- basically they are running neck and neck.

The Taipei Times ran a story today entitled Hau Blames Prosecutors for Poll Drop. It said:

With the latest poll showing rivals for the Taipei mayoral seat running neck-and-neck, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday stepped up his criticism of prosecutors, saying their high-profile raids of city government offices in relation to the Xinsheng Overpass scandal was costing him vital voter support.

Hau blamed the searches for the drop in his support rate in recent polls conducted by his campaign team, and said he was willing to take a polygraph or handwriting test to facilitate the investigation.

.....

Hau, of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), said that in polls conducted by his team, his support rate dropped significantly every time news about the prosecutors’ searches of the Taipei City Government came out.

Perhaps the KMT internals really show that Hau is taking a beating because of the investigation, but the TVBS polls has had the two basically neck and neck since the beginning, despite the slight bump for Su in the last poll. Hau might squeak by because of Blue tribalism in Taipei, but fundamentally he is not a strong candidate, and he doesn't seem to able to overcome his own limitations. In fact if Hau gave the investigation less prominence and concentrated more on positives, he might be able to move past it.

Hau was responding to the latest search, Oct 5:

The Taipei District Prosecutors Office yesterday searched the office and residences of Yang Hsi-an, Taipei City Government Secretary General, in the wake of the alleged Xinsheng Overpass Rejuvenation project scandal. Wang Wen-teh, one of the head prosecutors, stated that Yang was not a suspect, and the purpose of search was to “assure the entirety of a third party’s evidence.”

According to media reports, the prosecutors yesterday wanted to find out the truth about how Chen Chih-sheng, former section chief of the Taipei City New Construction Department, obtained a memo which was seized during a search of his office. The other purpose for yesterday’s search was to clarify whether or not Taipei City Hall had invited bidders to participate in the project or driven up the budget for the Xinsheng Overpass Rejuvenation project.

Ironically, the China Post says it was Hau himself who asked the prosecutors to intervene to clear up the matter.
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Daily Links:

• Taipei Times rips the rubber stamp EPA
• Shore up US-Taiwan Relations in IBD. Great piece is like a primer of what to do -- except for the F-16s, all very doable. I also like the clever title -- now that Two-China Tensions Have Abated. True, but independence tensions haven't, have they?
  
• Chinese Dissident wins Nobel Peace Prize. ‎"Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said it would be "totally wrong" for "such a person" to win the Nobel Peace Prize, - the comment was later scrubbed from the official transcript of the briefing." Haha. The world wonders: What will Ma Ying-jeou say?
• How China Plays the Great Game: China wins when the US loses Afghanistan. How long have I been saying that? Newsweek notices the sea-change in China.
  

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