Very
different media strategies are being pursued by the two campaigns. Obama is
following his television ads in recent weeks with radio spots individualized by
swing state (Congress cutting back on highway money that could alleviate
traffic congestion in VA and MediScare in FL). Romney is putting TV money into
the same swing states but with the same message. He has what appears to be an
excellent ad with normal people who say they like Obama or even that they voted
for him in 2008, but he hasn’t lived up to expectations. It lets leaners to
Obama off the hook so they are free to vote for Romney.
We discussed the
Chuck-Todd theory- who has recently posited that Romney's candidacy is being driven down by a negative "branding" of the Republican Party. Romney's inability to pull ahead of Obama is more a function of that, than a function of his candidacy. Todd argues that public opinion data shows that many voters indicate discontent with the party, particularly with congressional Republicans. Additionally, Romney and other Republicans are being tarnished by the Todd Akin controversy. Or it may
be that Romney is just not a very good candidate and that he is the beneficiary
of an incredibly weak primary field analogous to Bill Clinton and the weak Democratic
field in 1992. It must be pointed out that Clinton did win that election.
Romney is hampered by a more conservative base this year while Clinton was not
as bound to the liberal base in his first run. Whatever the cause, thus far, Romney has not managed to gain traction in the race and polls have been mostly stagnant since he unofficially secured the nomination in late May.
With
respect to Joe Biden putting “y’all backing chains” we found it hard to
distinguish the difference beween shackels and chains. Biden’s performance to
date has not been particularly effective (the recent ebook out by Politico says
that Obama was even more upset by Biden’s gay marriage comments than was
previously indicated). Republican wailing over the back-in-chains statement,
however, seems to be over the top, particularly for Republicans who have made
some rather graphic attacks themselves this campaign.
We
understand that the President has 30-35 people involved in scheduling his
appearances. We wonder why none of them seemed to understand that Obama’s
acceptance speech was scheduled at Bank of America Stadium on the date of the
opening of the NFL season. Are there no NFL fans on among the schedulers? The
NFL graciously moved opening night to Wednesday to get around the problem. The
Democratic Party then promptly chose Bill Clinton to nominate Obama during the
Cowboy-Giants game. Who is in charge here? One of us still thinks there will be
an August Surprise on Friday morning, the 31st by the President to
make up for Palin announcement the morning after Obama’s triumphant speech in
Denver.
Some
big events coming up in the next eleven weeks include the debates. It was
suggested that Obama would be favored. He has not had any experience debating
since 2008, unlike Romney who has had several opportunities in the last year.
The expectations game will favor Romney. Obama needs to pin Romney down to
specifics or show that he is unwilling to commit to any. On the other hand,
Ryan could be a victim of the expectations game against Biden. The Democrats
are getting better at messaging, but they are still not as effective as they
should be. Rebates for ObamaCare start going our September 1, and that should
help the Obama campaign. Finally, forecasting models were mentioned. Nate
Silver had a column on them a few weeks back
(http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/07/models-models-everywhere/)
with 10 of the 13 predicting
an Obama win. The Campbell model was not included, but he may not have one this
year. Two articles that have come out since that reflect some of what was
talked about in our discussion are linked below:
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