Polls n Stuff

Taxi driver told me joke from Mao-era China:

Mao announces that there's good news and bad news.
What's the good news?
There's only shit to eat.
OMG. What's the bad news?
There's not enough for everyone to eat.

FormosaNation passed this graphic from SCMP around twitter on the Taiwan elections. The KMT news organ turned up a poll on Taipei from the pro-KMT Taiwan Competitiveness Forum:

In another news story, the Taiwan Competitiveness Forum recently conducted two separate polls and released the results on October 21. In the first poll, the gap between Lien and Ko had shrunk from 12.7 in a previous survey to 4.4 percentage points. In the second poll, undeclared voters were asked about their party preference and voting behavior in both the 2010 Taipei City Mayoral Election and the 2012 Presidential Election. In this poll, the gap between the two candidates narrowed from 2.9 to 0.7 percentage points.

No other poll that I am aware of has the two candidates in Taipei so close. Most have 10-15% gaps, irrespective of the political allegiance of the paper. Taipei'ns are saying that the KMT strategy is to "dump Lien, protect Hu" -- give up on Sean Lien in Taipei and devote resources to the race in Taichung, a must-win for both sides. Dunno if that rumor is actually true, but it is reported in the papers. Hu's team basically strongly hinted there's no need for Ma to come down and help the Hu campaign.

Just remember, if Sean Lien wins, he'll have to be taken seriously as a presidential candidate. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Lien Chan tried to put him forward as a 2016/2020 candidate even if he loses.

The paper also had a UDN poll on Keelung, long a KMT fief:

Among the six candidates vying in the election, 41% of the voters surveyed stated that they would vote for DPP candidate Lin Yu-chang (林右昌), while 13% expressed support for KMT candidate Hsieh Li-kung (謝立功), and 11% for Huang Ching-tai (黃景泰), an independent. According to the poll, most Keelung residents believe that Lin would win the election (54%), while fewer than 10% of the respondents thought that either Hsieh or Huang could win the election.

With the DPP's Lin out in front 41-13-11, even if former KMTer Huang drops out of the race and instructs everyone on his team to vote for the KMT candidate (that's happened before in other races), the DPP still wins handily. That's good news.
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Daily Links:

• Role of identity in Hong Kong's protests, with reference to Taiwan
• Illegal Chinese workers function as industrial spies on Taiwan's tea farms. Who could have imagined that?
• KMT legislator says Taiwan is China, so Dalai Lama coming here is equivalent to him going to China. I love it when they talk dirty right before elections. 
• Speaking of right before the election, the KMT is appealing the ruling that gave the victory to Wang in the Ma vs Speaker Wang mess. The KMT seems to be flailing about peeving everyone these days.
• Alan Romberg's piece at Hoover on cross-strait relations. Read more for its usefulness as a precis of events than for insight.
• HSR to undergo financial restructuring
• Letters from Taiwan with another good one on the 2014 local elections
• Keep Taiwan Free: Why I fight
• Rupert Hammond-Chambers with an excellent piece on the silliness of the spat over ractopork. So good I've linked to it twice.
• MLK with excellent work pooh-poohing the idea that Taiwanese in China will swing the election for Sean Lien in Taipei.
• Young Hong Kongers leaving for Taiwan
• Kerim at Savage Minds on the Chinese reaction to Mark Zuckerberg speaking Mandarin
• FSC looking into banks with highest China exposure, broadening previous probe of state-owned banks in Taiwan and their China exposure.
• Coming soon: an ADIZ in the South China Sea for Beijing?
• Don't forget: Eur Assoc of Taiwan Studies 2015 Conference abstracts due Oct 31
• Today is the 70th anniversary of the Battle Off Samar, perhaps the greatest moment in American naval history. 

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