And we are generally wary about putting too much stock into one campaign’s internal polls. An exception carves out when those polls are openly released and touted — and when the opposing campaign fails to respond or responds in a way that suggests their internal snapshot looks much the same.

Fresh from the field, the DSCC released a poll conducted by the Berenson Strategy Group showing an 11 point lead by Bob Casey in a three way Pennsylvania Senate race with Sen. Rick Santorum and Green Party candidate Carl Romanelli. In a two-way race absent Romanelli, Casey leads by 14 points. ~Hotline

The sample is small, but the people questioned are apparently likely voters.  What is interesting to see is how little difference the presence of the Green candidate seems to make at this point.  In New Mexico, nobody loved the Green Party more than former state GOP chairman John Dendahl (who is incidentally now running for governor after the party committee replaced a snoozer of a nominee), and he had some success in diverting Democratic votes to the Greens to protect the GOP hold on NM-1; the Greens even once tallied as much as 19% in a race for the open NM-3 seat, but it was such an overwhelmingly Democratic district that even then Udall pulled out the victory. 

But the constituency for the Greens in La Tierra del Encantado is much larger because of our weird blue-state white demogaphics caused by liberal Californians (other Californians seem to move elsewhere), who are sick of the expense of living in California, overrunning everything and wanting to turn New Mexico into New California.  In Pennsylvania Santorum will have much less luck using the Greens as a club to beat the Dems, and he will in all likelihood not simply lose but lose badly.