Call It A Comeback
The Lockhorns are just a worn out stereotype of men and women from the 1950s. Zorn probably likes Prince Valiant too…
But really, I think I offer a story of hope. Despite all evidence of past strips, I continue to read the Lockhorns, hoping they will finally amuse me. This is in contrast to Cathy or Marmaduke, both of which I gave up on in the 1980s.
(ICFST==Illinois Circular Firing Squad Team===Illinois Republicans)
Rich Miller points out their most recent hijinks
Hello!
Just a note to let you know that we are closing our Dean for America,
Chicago Office at 20 North Wacker, Suite 2200, this week. (DFA is closing all of the national satellite offices).
Please help us. We are offering you anything "Dean" we have here.
Please take it, it is free!!!
– Boxes of Literature
– DFA Signs & Posters
– Lapel Stickers
– DFA Chicago Letterhead & envelopes
– Boxes of reply card envelopes and Invitation envelopes.
– Yard Signs
– Hand Made Signs
Please let us know what you would like to have as a piece of campaign
history.
Feel free to contact me at the information below to make arrangements.
Materials need to be picked up by Friday, February 20th at 5 pm.
We appreciate all of your support.
Best- Jenny
Jenny M. Lehner
Midwest Finance Director
Dean for America
=====
Now me:
That’s about it. I do hope the Governor can maintain a presence that maintains the activism of his campaign for the upcoming election.
When he advocated the Metric System<
Winning a close race is more than a matter of feet and inches. Just ask Howard Dean, who, during a question-and-answer session at a Spokane, Wash., rally, endorsed pushing Americans to embrace the metric system."We are attached to feet and so forth," Dean said. "I’m a doctor. I was trained and we do our calculations in meters. We don’t use feet and inches and cubic inches and things like that."
Dean said he doubted Congress would present him a bill to mandate use of the metric system, given the American failure to adopt it during Jimmy Carter’s administration.
Still, he said, "We should have converted already. We should do it. I think there’s going to be a lot of resistance, but it would be nice to have somebody explain to the American people why it would be easier and better for our businesses."
Don’t get me wrong, I wholeheartedly agree with him. The Metric System makes far more sense and would make the US more efficient. Hence, it isn’t going to happen anytime soon. I can just hear Billy Tauzin or some other idiot whipping the masses into French bashing and "everyone should do what we want" faux patriotism in defense of traditional weights and measures.
over at Eric Zorn’s. Can you beat a current St. Louisan who only lived in the burbs for about a year?
103–I missed some of the media questions. I’m never good at media questions. I aced the politics, of course.
Also, scroll down and notice the snarky comment about the Lockhorns. I’m a fan of the Lockhorns, but not a traditional fan. You see, the Lockhorns have never made me laugh once. I read them every Sunday and they have yet to crack a smile on my face. But every weekend I try and see if there is anything mildly humourous. Some cynics suggested I’d find it funny after marriage.
Nope, still not funny. Not even close. But I hold out for something every week.
What I do want to know is what human being who hasn’t already committed suicide from the hopelessness of their lives finds any humor in that comic?
On February 13th, Rich Miller published a full run-down on the Survey USA in the Capitol Fax (sorry, but you have to subscribe to the actual fax for this one–see site for how).
The gist of the story is that not only is Blair Hull taking a lead, but he is doing it in almost every category. Take a look at the results available from Survey USA (pdf format). Hull isn’t just ahead overall, he is ahead in all of the demographic categories except Black and Hispanic. In those two, he is second. Geographically, Hull is ahead in Downstate and the Collar Counties, second in Cook behind Obama. Amongst those ideologically self-identified, he’s tied Obama amongst liberals and ahead with conservatives and moderates. As Miller pointed out, Hull is liberal, but no one ever accused mass public opinion of being consistent.
A small note on the Survey USA polling–it is done by computer so the reliability is questioned by some.
Many seem surprised by the findings, but why? There is a model for his campaign (other than the statistical one he devised) and it was John Corzine’s campaign in the 2000 New Jersey Senate Election.
Corzine faced former Democratic New Jersey Governor Jim Florio in the primary. Early on, Florio was well ahead with both organizational support (though key players went with Corzine) and name recognition. Corzine won 58-42.
Let’s look back at the polls in that race.
February 23, 2000 35 point lead for Florio according to a Quinnipiac Survey. That was about 3 1/2 months out of the June 6th primary election with articles noting that Corzine had spent over $3 million
March 30th 50-26 Florio lead
May 10th-Just under one month before the election 48-33 Corzine over Florio
May 26th 47-28 Corzine over Florio, 56-30 for Corzine of those who intend to vote
Final tally 58-42 Corzine.
For one obvious reason this race is different. There are five serious contenders in the race instead of two, but let’s look at the polling trends since September 2003.
September 2003–5 1/2 months from election day
Hynes 10
Hull 9
Obama 8
Chico 7
Pappas not included
January 2004 2 months out
Hynes 14
Obama 14
Pappas 14
Hull 10
Survey USA January
Hynes 20
Obama 19
Hull 19
Pappas 18
Survey USA February
Hull 29
Hynes 19
Obama 19
Pappas 14
One month out Corzine showed distance. One month out, Hull is showing distance.
Does this mean Hull will win the primary? No. The field is divided so Hull has a more dynamic race to run than Corzine did. It does mean that someone who is getting hurt by him has to find a way to attack him. And that person is Dan Hynes, as Miller pointed out in his Friday story. Clearly, Hynes’ internals were showing deep problems downstate and hence the recent tour of Central and Southern Illinois. Free media can be picked up in smaller markets–even a little time in Metro-East.
The larger problem is that Hull hasn’t even hit his big media buy yet and Dan Hynes is in no shape to counter that effort. He doesn’t have adequate funds. Negative ads are a problem because Hynes would have to take ownership of the ads according to the new FEC regulations and say he paid for the ad (Miller pointed this out too). And Hynes agreed to Dick Durbin’s no negative ads against other Democrats pledge.
In fact, if Hynes were to attack he would probably damage Hull to some degree to the benefit of Barack Obama who can stay above the fray and simply look to turnout black and liberal votes while the other two go after one another. In such a scenario, Joyce Washington may play a spoiler to Obama even with a small number of votes.
Why did so many miss this? Because the past guides most of our views of the future and in the past, organization wins in Illinois. And Dan Hynes has organization as my e-mail demonstrates with the union of the day endorsement for Hynes. When one looks at other states, the potential for Hull was clear. New Jersey is heavy with organization, but Corzine was able to create his own organization with money–just as Hull is doing.
Fortunately, I haven’t been a naysayer. Since I’ve been doing the Roll Call in June, I’ve never had Hull above 2 or below 3. Why? I pointed out organization wins in Illinois, but money can buy an organization.
Unfortunately, a grave bias against stats geeks still exists in the political world,
From the Sun-Times on January 22nd, BLAIR HULL’S WINNING FORMULA
The densely written theorem is a string of precise numbers carried out to the eighth decimal place. It’s designed to identify people for Hull to target with fliers in the mail or telephone calls. Those chores were previously handled by precinct captains, who often flunked high school math.
"The basic idea," Hull said, "is you take the probability of voting times the probability of voting for Blair Hull and multiply them together, and that gives you the relative weight of how desirable it is to contact that person."
For those paying attention to modern campaigns, this is nothing earth shattering except that it formalizes the system of identifying certain and likely supporters in a formula.
This is especially useful if one is trying to create a get out the vote (GOTV) organization out of nothing because one can target 1s and 2s, as certain and likely voters are called, in the most efficient manner possible. Some folks didn’t pick up on the point of the formula in the article:
"The formula says ‘I’m spending $40 million,’ " Pappas said, laughing uproariously after learning of his formula. "He’s driving everybody crazy in this race, except me.
"Everybody will be running around trying to figure out his formula. … Forget about the formula. The formula is: The guy’s got money."
Not only that, but he is trying to use it efficiently.
The most professionally embarrassing comment comes here:
Michael Mezey, a political science professor at DePaul University, read the Atlantic Monthly piece but is skeptical.
"Winning primaries is very much sort of getting your people to the polls, especially in a divided race," he said. "And that’s not subject to a mathematical formula."
Some of the old guys just don’t get what statistics can do. The whole point of the model is to focus efforts on the most likely voters for Hull which also includes the GOTV efforts. Given Hull is already canvassing downstate, I’d say he’s planned for this.
This doesn’t mean a formula alone will do it, but it can be a powerful tool in campaign management. I cannot evaluate it without the data and model and some free time I don’t have, but there is no reason to dismiss it.
Later today, will be a new Roll Call (hopefully). I think you can guess who is on top.
Cubs increase their offer to Greg Maddux
For those of you who aren’t baseball fans, this will be a painful blog from now until the end of the World Series.
(Peoria Pundit linked to it first)
Every Presidency does it, but really now, shouldn’t they learn that stonewalling only makes you look like you have something to hide? Even if there is an explanation you look like it is bad.
Josh Marshall reprints Scott McClellan’s Who’s On First performance
Here is the way to make the issue go away–release the records and answer the questions. Even if it is bad, it is better to release it now because you will release them eventually–trust me.
The presumptive Democratic nominee may be needing that advice soon too.
UPDATE: As I was saying, you will release them eventually
in the Republican Roll Call. No one even seemed to notice. I think that makes the point.
I’m hearing (nice passive way to avoid who the source is) that the internal polling for Hull is even better. Now, all internal leaks should be treated skeptically. That said, there is a back story why those polls might not be the normal push polling. Hull is a stats geek and we (the statgeeks of the world) have a thing about accurate numbers. Sure, we can push numbers, but more importantly we want to know the real state of the universe. Assuming this info I’m getting is accurate (and no I haven’t analyzed the raw data–but if someone wants to send it to me with the questions I’d be happy to give it a go with the numbers embargoed until after the election!), Hull’s polls should be be both reliable and valid.
Eric Zorn is surprised.
His ads are everywhere, and many insiders and know-it-alls (I’m squarely in the latter camp) who dismissed the uncharismatic millionaire as a vain, inexperienced dilettante who had no chance with the voters must now take serious notice.
Having been down this road before myself, and having been rightly criticized–is it any more vain than the son of a party leader who was handed a statewide office at a young age? This isn’t to pick on Dan Hynes–I like him, but what is the real difference? Hull has an impressive private sector background. Others in the race did work their way up, but if we are going to criticize Hull, let’s spread it around. I am a big fan of legislative experience at lower levels of government, but neither of them have it. At least Hull knows who the hell Kjellander is and what he did.
That said, we shouldn’t be surprised. I’ll have to look it up, but I know at least in private my take is that Hull has to increase his name recognition by this time and then be ready to duke it out. Having all the money in the world helps get that name recognition. This campaign has all of the markings of Corzine’s a couple years ago except with more chaos in the race from the big candidate pool.
The bigger news for Hull, he is getting some organizational support. Over the objections of the elder Hynes, Dick Mell is set to endorse Hull at the end of the month in an event featurign Billie Jean King and also attended by Bobbie Rush and Luis Gutierrez. Mell is organized in labor and can dole out patronage jobs. This doesn’t mean Hull will win the labor vote, but it does mean he can eat into that vote at the margins and this is likely to be an election at the margins.
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