Pete King

Pete King says he is completely confident that he will win reelection tonight, and he is still trying to figure out why, aside from a couple of questionable polls, anyone ever thought he was in trouble.

His answer: It was Newsday.

"It's five hours to the polls, but based on everything I know, as of 4:35 this is a campaign totally contrived by Newsday," he said.

He said the reports of his fund-raising were greatly downplayed in the paper while the reports of money raised by his opponent, Dave Mejias, were inflated. He pointed out that neither MoveOn.org, NARAL or any other national liberal organizations even got behind Mejias, as far as he could see.

"And also you haven't seen any poll released by him," King said. "And I know he has taken polls."

So, in King's calculations, that leaves Newsday. "I have something to say tonight about Newsday , and it is not going to be a rant, it is going to be something fairly thoughtful, I hope, on what they have done here."

When told about King's comments suggesting that Newsday exaggerated the competitiveness of Mejias' campaign, John Mancini, the paper's editor, said, "We disagree strongly."

"All we have done," Mancini said, "is cover a Congressional race on Long Island."

--Jason Horowitz

Pete King has spent the last couple of weeks dismissing the notion that he's in a close race, an impression that stems largely from a poll that showed him leading little-known challenger Democrat Dave Mejias by only two points. He argued that the polling firm, Constituent Dynamics, was unreliable because it used automated pollsters, and that his internal polling, conducted by human beings, had him up by well over 20 points.

The firm defended the accuracy of its data in a discussion last week.

Now, after Constituent Dynamics released another poll earlier today showing King up by a mere 49 percent to Mejias' 48 percent among likely voters, the congressman is even more convinced that the numbers are a fiction.

"There is no credibility to those polls," King said.

By way of contrast, he shared what we said were his internal polling numbers -- from the firm McLaughlin & Associates -- which showed that as of October 18th, he was up 55 percent to 32 percent. A subsequent polling of 400 people taken Friday October 27th showed a 54 percent to 27 percent advantage.

Meanwhile, Mejias is plugging away, releasing another ad today taking King to task for his support of President Bush and the war in Iraq.

--Jason Horowitz

Jason Horowitz takes a look at Pete King, a wartime congressman who, unlike most of his Republican colleagues and fellow candidates, isn't scared of talking about the war. "I am what I am," he said. He's a hawk, but will that hurt him in November?

Choire Sicha hits the roads of Hillaryland, where the onetime "cutie" stares daggers into John Spencer at the debate in Rochester. He also observes the sophisticated mechanics of the Hillary news cycle: reporters want to know about 08, so Hillary talks about 08, and then reporters write about Hillary talking about 08.

John Koblin has the goods on Bill Clinton's three-day 60th birthday bash. He tells us who's going (Burkle!) how much guests are paying (60 - 500 grand) the entertainment (The Rolling Stones, golfing) and who's tired of Bill's endless fund-raising carnivals (much of New York.)

Steve Kornacki follows the ripples of Barack Obama's announcement that he is "considering" a presidential run all the way into the House. Sure, the country's lone black Senator is generating great excitement, but what about guys, like, Charlie Rangel, who have helped run the country for decades? Why hasn't anybody ever been excited about any of them?

And Joe Conason is evermore depressed by the Republican leadership and the spiraling situation in Iraq.  read more »

We just heard from Pete King, who said he's hoping that Michael Bloomberg's testimony tomorrow before his homeland security committee in Congress will help reverse some of the recent cuts in homeland security funding for New York.

"He's good, he's been very outspoken on this issue all along, and he can cross party lines," he said of Bloomberg, who also spoke briefly with President Bush about the cuts yesterday. "He has now hit the stage of Washington celebrity. People will come and listen to him."

King said he was realistic about what he expected to come out of the hearing.

"The ideal is Chertoff saying I'm wrong, here's the money, but I don't think that is going to happen," said King. "The realistic optimum in that they give a broad enough definition of terror money that we get some transportation and interoperability money."

- Jason Horowitz