Tag Archives: presidential campaign

Campaigns Part I: Public Must Save Campaigns

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

“This is a political stunt.”

That was the analysis of Meet the Press host David Gregory, who was summoned to the anchor desk on the NBC Nightly News August 17, to offer more incisive in-depth coverage of what everyone in America was anguishing over, the Romney and Ryan tax returns.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had taken the podium on the Senate Floor a week or so earlier and accused Mitt Romney of not paying income taxes for 10 years. It is reasonable to assume that Reid deliberately lied about Romney’s taxes in a silly attempt to goad him into releasing tax returns for those 10 years.

Gregory was close, but he didn’t get it quite right. What we were witnessing was not a stunt, but a political disgrace. Continue reading →

By The Numbers

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

We did this a couple of months ago, and I decided, as we are now within four months of election day, to take another look at the polling numbers of former Presidents in their first terms.

As of Sunday afternoon, President Obama’s job approval, according to Gallup, was 46%. His disapproval was also 46%. In the past half-century only George W. Bush has won re-election with an approval score of under 50%.

Let’s go to the chart.

Here’s the list of Presidential approval ratings at approximately the same point in their first terms going back to Lyndon Johnson: Continue reading →

Wisconsin Win

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

It is tempting, but not entirely accurate, to say “Obama Loses!” after Democrats suffered another embarrassing defeat last night when the effort to recall Wisconsin’s Republican Governor Scott Walker failed by the surprisingly wide margin of 55 percent to 44 percent for the Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. An independent got about one percent of the vote.

As of this writing, with 76 percent of Wisconsin’s precincts reporting, it’s over. Walker wins. Much of the Political Punditry Class has been touting this as a preview of the 2012 Presidential election, but now that the Republican won, don’t expect to hear too much of that kind of talk.

In fact, the ink was barely dry on the headlines when the word went forth that it was actually a good night for Obama because the exit polling showed Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney 51-45. This is being spun by the Obama team as a victory even though Obama won Wisconsin by a 56-42 margin over John McCain in 2008.

An exit poll showing the incumbent President just barely over 50 percent does not a victory make, seems to me. Continue reading →

Presidential Campaign Rules of the Road

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

From Great Barrington, MA

Now that we’re deep into the general election campaign – about 72 hours into it – let’s review the rules.

No matter how many times you’ve hear it, it bears repeating that an election for President in the United States are not a national event. It is a collection of 51 separate elections. The number of electoral votes each state gets equals the number of Members of the U.S. House of Representatives plus its two Senators. Thus California gets 55 electoral votes (53 Congressional Districts plus two Senators) while Wyoming (a single Member state) gets three.

The District of Columbia, although it has one non-voting Delegate to the House and no Senators, by virtue of the 23rd Amendment gets three electoral votes which is why there are 535 voting Members of the House and Senate but 538 electoral votes. One half of 538 is 269. Thus, the magic number to be able to take the Oath of Office on January 20, 2013 is 270 – half of the electoral votes plus one.

I took your valuable time to remind you of all that because as you listen to geniuses like me on TV and radio for the next seven months talk about how many women are voting for Obama; how many men are voting for Romney; how many religious conservatives and how many college students will actually turn out to vote you should keep all that in mind. Continue reading →

Negative Ads

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

We are at the point in the Presidential election cycle when the campaigns – and their allies – begin to run negative ads.

Everyone hates negative ads. Candidate after candidate vows he or she will “never go negative.” Supporters – especially donors – vow to leave the campaign if negative ads are even discussed, much less produced and put on TV.

Yet … yet … negative ads are a part of almost every campaign.

Mentor and friend Ed Rollins was a pretty fair Golden Gloves boxer when he was young. He has approached campaigns like he would a fight: You have to be prepared to throw a punch, take a punch, and throw a counter-punch. If you didn’t have the stomach for that, become a CPA, not a candidate for public office.

One of the first consultants I worked for was named Paul Newman. True.

Paul warned candidates that there would probably come a time when he would recommend the campaign – as he put it – “turn mother’s picture to the wall” and flay the skin off the opponent. Continue reading →

Sizing Up Iowa Race

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

The Des Moines Register released its poll of how Republicans in Iowa see the GOP candidates running for President.

The top line numbers are:
Herman Cain – 23%
Mitt Romney – 22%
Ron Paul – 12%
Michelle Bachmann – 8%
Newt Gingrich – 7%
Rick Perry – 7%
Rick Santorum – 5%
Jon Huntsman – 1%

The surprise to me was not that Herman Cain and Mitt Romney are at the top of the layer cake; it is that Rick Perry’s campaign has fallen so far, and so fast. In the run up to the Straw Poll in Ames, Iowa (which, you remember, was won by Michele Bachmann) Rick Perry announced he would announce, but he was a write-in for the actual tally. He got 4.3% of the votes cast and those of us who think about these things wondered how well he would have done had he paid the entry fee and had his name on the ballot. Continue reading →