This polling story by Josh Green -- and the RNC's ill-advised response to it -- is really going to be the wound that keeps on bleeding. Rather than just take it on the chin and move on, the folks at the RNC seem intent on coming up with dopey cover stories and obfuscations. You can see an example -- a run-down of my series of attempts to get RNC spokesman Jim Dyke to tell me how much the White House spends on polling -- in this brief piece I wrote tonight in Salon.

Maureen Dowd's column put it into the mix. And I figure we'll be seeing Green making the rounds on TV and radio. I hear he's going to be on C-Span to talk about it.

For a moment, though, let's touch on something related to polling, but different.

Remember 'astroturf' organizing? And the 'King of Turf' Tom Synhorst? Well, when Synhorst isn't out mugging John McCain with low-ball push-polls, cultivating smokers' rights activism, or just ginning up a new senior citizens' insurgency against prescription drug benefits, he apparently works his magic for the Republican National Committee.

Last October, the month after the 9/11 attacks, the RNC paid out $263,742.65 to Synhorst's firm for "telemarketing" and "phone calls."

For all of 2001, the tab was $720,979.35.