<a Meg Ryan smile, making eyes almost invisible>
<waves immoderately to Craven>
hey, its Sofia. cool <smiles>
Sofia wrote:Kerry's drop in the polls, IMO, coincided with the video of Kerry delivering that flesh-crawly statement, "I actually voted for it..., before I voted against it."
Course, the article I quoted did just refer to one poll. What should concern the Kerry campaign is the level of detail in the poll - how their candidate and Bush are polling on this subject, that subject, etc - something to monitor over time, see if counter-ads will help, for example.
But in the meantime, there's been, as ever, other polls again too. All in all, in the first ten days of March, polls from seven agencies on average had Kerry at a 3,1% lead. In the polls from six pollsters during the second ten days, the average lead of Kerry had shrunk to 0,3%. In the last ten days however, there were again polls by five pollsters, and on average they had Kerry on a 1,0% lead.
Basically ...
Sofia wrote:They're still neck and neck.
<nods>
<smiles at nimh>
When's the Dem convention? Anyone who knows off-hand?
This summer in Boston. You want the exact date?
Monday, August 14 through Thursday, August 17.
Any druthers or surprise guesses at the name of the Veep pick?
IronLionZion wrote:It is a rather uncanny coincidence, you have to admit.
No, I don't. But that doesn't mean I don't consider it possible that the ads had an impact. Hopefully they did. My point is that it's at least equally likely that some people came to their opinions based on other input. Just because A happened before B doesn't prove B was caused by A.
I'm a skeptic by nature. If I take Tylenol for a headache, and an hour later the headache is gone, I often wonder whether it would have been gone by then if I hadn't taken the Tylenol. :wink:
<winks at Sofia>
I imagine the polling results have been impacted by the Republican ads; their purpose is to define Kerry in a manner propitious to Republican intent, they're slick, professional, and widely aired. In some rspects, selling a candidate is no different than selling any other product, other than that often in the political arena the focus more may be to sell one's opponent as the less desirable product as opposed to promotiing in singular fashion the superiority of the sponsoring entity's own product/candidate. Still, advertising can be expected to do no more than induce the target audience to consider the product advertised. The success of the product depends entirely on the ability of the product to perform to or beyond expectation once considered. All the hype and advertising lavished on the Edsel did nothing to prevent the Edsel from becoming ... well, becoming the Edsel. Another example from the commercial arena might be The New Coke ... anybody remember that? And, of course, there are any number of breathlessly promoted TV series that fail within a few episodes of their debut, or of lavishly hyped movies that never even recoup their promotional expenses. Ads can draw attention, but the market itself decides whether or not the product is worthy of further consideration. Performance, track record if you will, is what sustains a product. Almost anything may be considered, but that which generates and maintains consumer loyalty, and thereby thrives, is that which proves most satisfactory to the largest proportion of the market. To cause a considerable proportion of the market to switch from a favorite, or even a merely familiar product requires that the challenging product demonstrate and provide significant benefit over and above that already provided by the existing product.
As I see things, The Democrats' product is essentially "Replace Bush", but, the energy and fervor of the Democrats' activist base, and the undisguised preference of mainstream media notwithstanding, they offer little if any compelling-to-The-Electorate reason to buy that product in preference to the established product. The example provided the Democrats while the fight for their candidacy was in progress, the fates of Clark and Dean, bodes ill for the Democrats' prospects come November. Continued improvement of employment trends is all but a given; more folks employed means more wages available to buy things which means more things to buy must be provided, which, of course, means more folks will be employed in the interest of providing things to buy, a self re-inforcing progression. Despite a few, isolated, headline-grabbing outrages in Iraq, the rehabilitation of that nation is proceeding not at all unwell, which situation itself is the proximate cause of the increasingly desperate and reckless actions of the insurgency, actions serving largely to alienate the populace. The impending response to the Fallujah atrocity, if handled competently, likely will have devastating impact on the inurgency overall, both from the standpoint of active participants in the insurgency and from the standpoint of the sentiments of the indigenous recruitment pool and the clandestine support network available to the insurgency. What Shock and Awe a year ago did to the Iraqi Military Establishment and the Ba'athist Regime will be replayed, IMO, to much the same effect on the smaller scale of Fallujah and environs. A month from npw, I believe Iraq will be a much less contentious proposition than currently it seems, and that too I expect will progress in self-reinforcing fashion.
All of that coming to pass, the Democrats are left only energy policy and gender issues as selling points, and I just don't see The Electorate At Large switching products on either basis, especially if gas prices decline, or even merely stabilize. Even worse for the Democrats would be resolution in the matters of Bin Laden and/or al Zawahiri, and/or good news coming in any or all of Syria, North Korea, Israel/Palestine and Iran. Yet another dark cloud looming for the Democrats, if only indirectly, is the growing Iraqi Sanctions-based scandal nibbling at the UN, in that demonstrated self-serving politicization of international security matters and wide spread fiscal corruption involving UN hierarchy and other foreign governmental and financial key figures, if proven, will sorely tarnish the Democrats' plaint that the Current Administration owed or owes greater fealty to that body.
All in all, Bush the Younger needs merely to avoid blundering in spectacular manner over the next six months, while the Democrats require an abrubt and significant reversal of the growing momentum of events wholly beyond their control or even influence. I really don't like their odds, even without factoring in Nader.
Hi Sofia,
Nice to see ya. I've missed you. Stay around a while please.
timberlandko wrote:the Democrats require an abrubt and significant reversal of the growing momentum of events wholly beyond their control or even influence.
Talking momentum - that almost continuously dropping orange line up there are President Bush's approval ratings - the almost continuously climbing blue line is the percentage of those polled who disapprove of President Bush.
nimh, whether the trending indicated by that progression of sample points continues or reverses is going to be interesting to watch, for sure. I really expect Kerry to peak well before the finish line, and have nothing left with which to counter Bush the Younger's end sprint.
Even without factoring in Nader
<spirited breast shimmy [a-la Karen Walker on Will and Grace] in Timber's general viewing area>
<tinks wine glasses with Lola>
{Hub is getting transplant procedures done, and will be shlepping me nationwide for next couple of months. Hopefully, when he is all better, I can hang out wid you guys a bit more often. Seems like until Fall, my attendance will be spotty.}
Timber,
I think the trends really back the assertion you make in the second paragraph. A person can sustain an ABB motivation for a while--especially in a spurt of anger at the beginning...but soon, you begin to think of who you are trading him in for. It happened to Dean, and so with Clarke.... The die-hards will go with Kerry--but the middlers will size him up. They are the ones who choose the Pres., and I do NOT see Kerry, with his voting record and Senate double-speak, appearing palatable to them. In hindsight, Gep would have had the best chance, I think.
Good to see you and Lola.
That's the greatest thing about opinion, everyone has one and when they deal with the future, we are all right.
You don't get off that easy - my opinion is that we know what we got and that sucks - bad. Each day, more and more realize exactly how much. When they do, they realize the extent - Bush don't stand a chance in hell. Everyone is beginning to see the emperor wears no armour.
Thoughts and best wishes to you and hubby there, Sophia. Sure hope all that Doctor crap works out for the best. We miss ya.
<thank you so much, good bird>
BillW,
Four more years of Bush will make a good Republican of you. Mwahaha.... Is there anything about Kerry (besides the fact that he's not Bush) that you think will make him a good C in C?
all in all I don't have a lotta hope for either of the munchkins running for C in C. the only hope I have is that Kerry will get elected and will be up against an oppositional congress resulting in stalemate.
