DeVore on Glenn Beck

Chuck DeDovre appeared on Glenn Beck's show on Monday night. Interesting interview with a short constitutional lesson...

Limits of the Party Identification Variable

As you finish your papers, ponder the limits of party identification in polling. An individual's party affiliation is a good predictor of her or his vote, but statewide party identification sometimes produces anomalies. Stuart Rothenberg explains:

Gallup found self-identification in South Carolina at 42.8 percent Democratic and 42.3 percent Republican, for a Democratic advantage of one-half of 1 point. That makes the Palmetto State “competitive” according to Gallup’s system of classification.

That may indeed be the way people in South Carolina identify themselves by party, but it isn’t the way they vote. The state has two GOP Senators, a Republican governor and four Republican Congressmen, compared with two Democrats. The last Democratic nominee for president to carry the state was Jimmy Carter in 1976 (before most of the South had realigned), and in 2008, Republicans won large majorities in both chambers of the South Carolina Legislature.

The moral is that party identification may be a lagging indicator. In South Carolina, many older white voters may still think of themselves as Democrats even though they often vote Republican. So in judging a state's leanings, look at election results, not just poll data.

Rahm

Interesting article from FoxNews about the 2010 election and the "anti-Washington" sentiment that voters are feeling.

...As Americans look ahead to the mid-term elections, anything new is preferable to anything old, -- such as an incumbent. And despite recent Republican wins in Massachusetts, Virginia and New Jersey, this is not necessarily good news for Republicans.

Americans dispense just about as much disdain for Republicans (42 percent favorable; 46 percent unfavorable) as Democrats (42 percent favorable; 48 percent unfavorable), according to a Fox News poll released Friday.

The real dynamic seems to be a revolt against insiders -- as voters say they would choose a challenger over an incumbent by a two-to-one margin (38 percent to 19 percent)...

Link to full article...

Campaign Finance and Home Style

Campaign Finance Limits

Spending Patterns

Advocacy groups

How not to do a town hall: admit that your staff reads the bills for you so that you can pass huge legislation very fast.

Constituents may bring up issues that sound boring, narrow, or technical -- but those issues are important to somebody, so a lawmaker better take them seriously.

Senator Jon Tester posts his daily schedule.

Tweets on Demon Sheep

A post on the conservative FrumForum blog highlights a series of tweets by a Campbell political consultant on Fiorina's Demon Sheep ad. Anyone else think they're unprofessional and petty?:

100% of the people I know who have watched @CarlyforCA’s video have laughed out loud.

And no, Carly, we’re not laughing with you. We’re laughing at you.

SFist: ‘Tom Cambpell must be thrilled right about now.’ http://bit.ly/c5rIUm

The last time a campaign put demon eyes in a commercial, it lost by 13 points.

#DemonSheep is proof-positive the adage ‘all attention is good attention’ has never been true. /via @NathanWurtzel

‘It is now Campbell’s web-savvy campaign that is attempting to use the ad to raise money for his Senate run.’ http://bit.ly/b8vjtP

How’d ‘all publicity is good publicity’ work out for John Edwards?

So anyone think @CarlyforCA’s chances went up in the last 24 hours?

The "Naked Guy In A Truck"'s online strategy

Interesting article from the San Francisco Chronicle about Scott Brown's web campaign strategy: taking the Obama model and "putting it on steroids." Notably, the campaign decided to use the web not as a platform to win over undecided voters, but to mobilize the supporters they already had:

...With an initial budget of just $1 million for the entire campaign, "they wouldn't win via a TV ad blitz."

But Brown had a different kind of capital. "Scott had [already] invested in online media," Luidhardt says. "He had about 4,000 Facebook fans and a decent-sized e-mail list already."

That was the foundation. "We made a conscious effort to focus on building up his social media following and the 'Brown Brigade,' a new social networking organization," Luidhardt says. The Brown Brigade was created on the Ning social network platform, which provided a key way for volunteers to come together, coordinate and organize, entirely on their own.

The campaign Web site was designed for these kinds of people, those already favorably disposed toward Brown, and for the purpose of turning favorability into footwork. "We didn't try to explain the policy positions or try to win over undecided voters. It was about building up the online supporters," Luidhardt says.

Other interesting tactics: Brown would personally reply to every tweeted message his followers sent, even writing happy birthday messages to his Facebook friends.