The increasing silly Andrew Sullivan does it again, linking to a poll by a group called Texas Lyceum showing Hillary Clinton in a statistical tie with both John McCain and Rudy Giuliani in potential head-to-head presidential match-ups in the state of Texas.

Curious, we looked at the poll's political breakdown by party and found that the poll's respondents were about equally split between Dems and Repubs (pdf file):

More respondents (40%) identified themselves as Independents than as Republicans (28%) or Democrats (27%). More consider themselves Conservative (41%) than as Moderate (32%) or Liberal (19%).
...

Asked where they'd vote if the presidential primaries were held now, 36% said they'd vote in the Democratic primary, 30% would turn out for the Republican primary, and 24% said they'd skip the primaries.

These assumptions are completely at odds with recent history -- just examine the evidence.

In the 2006 general election, 11 Democrats ran for statewide office; not only did they lose in each race, but only five of the Dems got more than 40% of the vote -- none received more than 45%.

In the 11 races, only two Dems lost by less than 10% points; four lost by between 10%-15% points; one lost by between 15%-20% points; and four lost by more than 20%.

In other words, nine Dems lost by more than 10% points to their Repub opponents; five lost by more than 15%.

And all this in a Democratic Party year.

(There are 28 elective statewide offices in Texas, all are currently held by the Repubs).

It would seem any poll in Texas estimating equal voter strength between Dems and Repubs simply ignores recent voting history, and gives an inaccurate picture of electoral reality.

Somehow, one suspects that accuracy wasn't of paramount concern here.

But Sullivan liked the poll!