The Really Sad Thing
ArchPundit
While the whole Walter Reed angle is amusing, is anyone going to bring up that Roskam is pretty good pals with Grover Norquist and McCain thinks Norquist is a crook?
Just asking.
2006
Obamania
On Air America at 12:30 CST
and in Saint Louis on Sunday. Details to follow.
Blah, Blah, Blah, negative advertising reduces turnout, Blah, Blah, Blah
Michael McDonald actually looks at the evidence:
(3) Negative ads turn off voters and reduce turnout.
Don’t be so sure. The case on this one is still open. Negative TV advertising increased in the mid-1980s, but turnout hasn’t gone down correspondingly. The negative Swift boat campaign against Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., apparently did little to depress turnout in the 2004 presidential race.
Some academic studies have found that negative advertising increases turnout. And that’s not so surprising: A particularly nasty ad grabs people’s attention and gets them talking. People participate when they’re interested. A recent GOP attack ad on Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr., D-Tenn., a Senate candidate, has changed the dynamic of the race, probably not because it changed minds or dissuaded Democrats, but because it energized listless Republicans.
We’ll have to wait to see whether the attack on Ford backfires because voters perceive it as unfair. That’s the danger of going negative.
He actually goes through five voting myths. The standard line that everyone hates negative advertising is somewhat true in that everyone knows they are supposed to dislike it so they tell reporters and pollsters that they don’t like it. It’s also effective and it’s not clear what it does to turnout.
Voters sort it out. They don’t do it by long hours of analysis, but by impressions and remarkably, those impressions serve them well over the long run even when they might miss it on specific elections.
That Puts the Nails in the Coffin
Of anyone confusing Meeks with a liberal.
Hat tip Rich
“YOU HAVE DIED AND GONE STRAIGHT TO HELL!” a tall man wearing a long, black, hooded cloak bellowed over a bullhorn Sunday night as the first busload of about 30 teens and a handful of parents were herded through dark corridors lined in black plastic.
The group moved from room to room, witnessing scenes depicting what the church says are the consequences of “bad decisions involving violence, sex and drugs.”
In one scene, a girl was lying on a gurney where a masked man in surgical scrubs pretended to perform an abortion. A toilet was sitting nearby apparently to collect the aborted fetus.
‘I thought it was very scary’
A fenced-in cell housed a few denizens of “hell,” including a pedophile trolling the Internet for a young victim, a meditating Buddhist, and two mincing young men wearing body glitter who were supposed to be homosexuals.
“The jail scene were people who had recently come to hell and they were trying to explain why they didn’t need to be there,” said the Rev. Willie Comer, Salem’s youth pastor, who also plays the role of Satan. This is the third time the church has put on the “Nights of Terror,” which began Sunday and ends today at 10 p.m.Comer knows some of the parts of Salem’s “hell” will be controversial but says he and Salem’s senior pastor, the Rev. James Meeks, who could not be reached for comment, are confident they can back up their vision of hell with Scripture.
Ummmm…I can think of better ways of spreading the Gospel of Jesus, but I guess this is what one means when they say the are going all Old Testament on someone.
An Admission
I along with many others who talk about politics thought Judy would be a natural antidote to Rod’s poll tested themes and smooth delivery. Underlying that assumption was that she built up a lot of goodwill through her time in office and was well liked by voters.
I think the reality is setting in that she wasn’t that good of a candidate for a bunch of reasons that are abundantly clear now. Rolling pin jokes are funny until everyone is listening.
And I count myself in this category, but I think there needs to be a rethinking of how this election played out. Rod is credited with killing her off early and that’s not entirely wrong, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. She had a strong hand in killing her own campaign off.
This kind of goes with my points in the past that political junkies like her for the very reasons the public doesn’t. She’s brash, a little loud, a bit goofy, and doesn’t pretend to have easy answers. The problem with that is when people pay a fairly small amount of attention to politics and that’s their first impression and then it gets reinforced, she’s not so likeable. Average voters aren’t taking the time to get to know the goofy good side, they are seeing what seems like your crazy aunt in the attic running for Governor. Some might still argue that’s better than Rod, but it doesn’t matter.
Sure the ads finished her off, but the initial wounds were self-inflicted.
Stu Who? Pankau? Rutherford?
Kind of funny given we are talking about third party candidates who aren’t getting included in polls, but does anyone plan on polling these races anymore?
Your ICFST (Illinois Circular Firing Squad Team) relegated to third party status in the campaign.
40-23-5
The poll also found that in the race to replace Topinka in the treasurer’s office, Chicago banker Alexi Giannoulias, a Democrat, has the support of 40 percent of voters compared to 23 percent for Republican state Sen. Christine Radogno of Lemont. Green Party candidate Dan Rodriguez Schlorff got 5 percent.
But nearly 30 percent of voters were undecided in the treasurer contest and large numbers had never heard of either major party candidate, despite a series of stories about questionable loans given by the Giannoulias family’s Broadway Bank, the survey showed.
44-29-13
Trib polling up on the Governor’s race.
Technically, he gained a point. I mean that’s meaningless given natural fluctuations, but you’d think something would dent the armor. Apparently not.
Will Quinn get back to regular form after the election at least? It could be fun seeing him battle down the Guv as the investigations continue.
A week before the election, the survey of 600 likely voters shows Blagojevich backed by 44 percent, Topinka supported by 29 percent and Green Party candidate Richard Whitney with 13 percent. Another 13 percent were undecided in the survey, conducted Friday through Sunday, which has an error margin of 4 percentage points
Even more fun from the end:
The survey found independent voters divided in their support for governor—29 percent for Topinka, 28 percent for Blagojevich and 24 percent for Whitney. Blagojevich also was leading Topinka in the traditionally Republican-leaning collar counties—35 percent to 29 percent—and he trailed by only 2 percentage points Downstate.