43 vs. 43

On On Politics, the San Jose Mercury News' political news blog, Kate Folmar reports:

An internal poll conducted by Democratic pollster Mark Mellman of The Mellman Group out of Washington, D.C. recently found that the governor's race was a dead heat, I'm told.

Forty-three percent of respondents favored Treasurer Phil Angelides and another 43 percent wanted to re-elect Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The remaining 14 percent were undecided.

The poll of 800 concluded on June 11, after Angelides emerged victorious in the Democratic primary and after Schwarzenegger kicked off his general election campaign.

I suppose either side could claim this as good news. Angelides supporters could claim that despite the fact their candidate only recently achieved statewide name recognition– and achieved it in the course of a nasty primary fight– he's even with the movie star governor. And Schwarzenegger's people could point out that even though he's a Republican in a Democratic state, and suffered a resounding electoral defeat in last year's special election, the Democratic candidate still isn't beating him.

So, the glass is either 43% full or 43% empty, depending on how you look at it. Unless, of course, you decide that 800 people isn't a big enough glass for this poll to hold water.