Sausage Links, debating the polls edition

Washington state pollster Stuart Elway unveiled his latest poll — and it's a doozy. Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire is crushing GOP challenger Dino Rossi by 16 points. A SurveyUSA poll taken last week, however, showed Gregoire only up 49 percent to 46 percent — a pretty big discrepancy. Either way, voters will get a chance to refine their choices in coming months, as the two gubernatorial candidates agreed yesterday to debate at least three times before the Nov. 4 general election. So far, the debates would be in Seattle, Yakima, and Spokane. ...

Meanwhile, The Seattle Times continues its roll of endorsements today, announcing their support for Republican Allan Martin's bid for state treasurer and the re-election of incumbent Republican Secretary of State Sam Reed. In the words of David Goldstein at Horse's Ass, the Democrats are 0-for-4 in Times endorsements this year. ...

Time is running out: Low test scores and higher standards have given Oregon's public schools their worst showing in six years under the No Child Left Behind law. ...

Overtime: Democratic congressional candidate Darcy Burner's first television ad is on the air, and Republicans already say it's too long to be palatable. ...

Split decision: Meet the local guy who's given away nearly $466,000 in the past five years to candidates from both sides of the aisle. ...

Decisions, decisions: Remember those King County budget woes? Well, they just got worse.

Tabling the issue: U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., is hammering Democratic challenger Jeff Merkley for his $2.1 million decision to upgrade the furniture at the Oregon Legislative offices. ...

Ignoring the issue: P-I columnist Robert Jamieson takes a walk through Belltown and notices a "narcotics fire sale," complete with pot, crack, panhandlers, and zero police presence. Speaking of drugs, apparently there's a King County Medical Examiner who has been stealing them for years. ...

And finally, the folks at Seattlest have a rundown of the nuttiest candidates running in this year's election. At the top of the list is Goodspaceguy Nelson, who says he hails from "Spaceship Earth." I suppose it is fun to poke fun at these guys, but as Pudge at Sound Politics points out, these guys paid the filing fee and deserve to be heard. Or something. ...

• Clark Fredricksen is a University of Washington student majoring in journalism. You can reach him at clark.fredricksen@crosscut.com.