Posts Tagged ‘ campaigns ’

I’ve voted, have you? 28 October 2008 at 9:04 am by Jason 1,055 views

With only one week to go until the US Elections, it seems that at least 75% of you out there (if you’re voting) are planning to wait until November 4th.  My question is, “Why?”  If your State supports early voting, you really should go and get it over with.  We all know that most people are procrastinators, and when it comes to voting a lot of people think that their vote doesn’t count.  Well, just remember, your vote always counts if you use it… the way a lot of people “win” their elections is by hoping their opponents supports don’t vote.

As far as the election itself, it is currently assumed that with his stable 5 point lead Obama is untouchable and will be our next President, but history shows that’s not always the way it goes.  Just look at the Gallup poll of Nixon vs Humphrey:

In 1968, the race between Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey narrowed over the last month of the campaign, from double-digit leads for Nixon in late September to only an 8-point lead for him among registered voters in polling conducted Oct. 17-22. By Gallup’s final pre-election survey, conducted Oct. 29-Nov. 2, Nixon held only a 1-point edge among likely voters, and ultimately won the election on Nov. 5 by less than 1 percentage point, 43.4% to 42.7%.

As you can see, Nixon just barely won, even though Humphrey was way behind until the very end.  Actually, in the past, the polls have never been that accurate, as you can see in this chart:

The polls showed higher numbers 9 times outof the past 14 elections… in fact, when polling higher, it averaged 6.59 points higher.  When polling lower, it averaged 3.2 points lower.  So, what does that all mean for Barack Obama?  It means that his supporters shouldn’t just assume that he has it made since he’s polling 5 points higher… for John McCain, it means his supporters need to get out en masse and try to win this thing.  It’s been reported that in California, a State where Obama is polled at +18, when it comes to over 210,000 early voters, he’s ahead by only 1000 votes (just +0.5), so yeah, your vote does count.

To sum this entire post up:

GO VOTE.  DON’T WAIT.  YOUR DEADLINE IS 7 DAYS AWAY.



+ Jerry Seinfeld, Microsoft, & the Orpheum By Jason 18 September 2008 at 3:38 pm 1,435 views No Comments

What is the deal with Stand Up Comics?  Do they really have to stand up?  Does this somehow help the jokes they are telling?  What if they get tired and have to sit down?  And why don’t they just sit down anyway?  It seems it’d make them more comfortable, I mean, you don’t have to stand up to watch.  What if they break an ankle… do they have to take time off, or do they have to bill themselves as a temporarily-sitting comic?  I’d bet that’s their worst nightmare… I mean, who wants to see a comic in a cast?  “Well, I was planning on going out to see my favorite stand up comedian, and I heard he has to be in a wheelchair.  I’m sorry, but unless he’s standing the jokes just don’t work for me.”  Stand up comics… huh.

So, I’m off to see Jerry Seinfeld tonight at the Orpheum theatre in Omaha… I’m totally excited!  I can now add Jerry Seinfeld to my list of “Comics I’ve Always Wanted to See Live.”  So far that list contains Lewis Black and George Carlin.  After Seinfeld I dunno who else is on the list… I’d have to think about it.

Speaking of Jerry, did you get a chance to view his Microsoft commercials?  If not, you’d best get to watching because as of today, they’ve halted the campaign:

Microsoft is expected to announce Thursday that it will be suspending its ad campaign featuring Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and veteran comedy superstar Jerry Seinfeld.

Valleywag broke the news Wednesday, and Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw told the LA Times that the move was planned, despite the appearance that the company is reacting to negative reaction to the ads.

According to Mr. Shaw, the Seinfeld portion of the campaign, for which he was reportedly paid some US$10 million, was always intended to be just an introduction for the overall campaign — a two commercial introduction for $10 million.

“All along we said we were having a teaser campaign,” he told the LA Times. “We’re getting ready to start the second phase. This was the plan all along.”

Here is the first commercial:

And the second:

Sad that there won’t be more, but at least we got to enjoy it while it lasted.

Well, I have to go… I need to ponder peanuts on airplanes and why they have that little slot for razors (who is shaving on a plane?!).



+ Hillary Clinton wins PA By Jason 23 April 2008 at 12:48 pm 580 views No Comments

With a 10% lead over Barack Obama, Hillary was able to pull off a great win in Pennsylvania last night. A lot of people have a lot of things to say, with most looking at Obama and wondering why he just can’t seem to “end the game.” For all of his rhetoric and all of his money spent, after 4 weeks in PA, he still lost by over 215,000 people… that’s a pretty big loss. Obama outspent Clinton in the state almost 3:1, spending at least $11 million dollars (according to his camp), yet just couldn’t bring home the “win.” So what is going on here? There are plenty of thoughts on the subject, for example this is from Anderson Cooper and deals with the “late voters”:

According to Yahoo News, the most recent local “search buzz” stats for Pennsylvania (as of yesterday) show that users in city after city searched the word “Obama” four times as much as they did the word “Clinton.” They were more curious about Obama from one end of the state to the other.

The problem for Obama was that his negative-related searches—searches of terms “Rev. Wright” and “bitter,” for instance – outnumbered all searches for Clinton by a margin of 7 to 1. While folks followed the rumor mill with Obama, even searching his name with Brad Pitt after reports surfaced they may be related, Clinton searchers predominantly focused on policy-related matters like “health care” and “economy.”

CNN exit polls show of the 18 percent of voters who decided their vote the final three days, Clinton handily won those voters 58% to 42%.

So are the comments and other issues surrounding Obama now coming to the front? Will this affect him in the coming races? He’s expected to win North Carolina, which is just 2 weeks away, but the latest polls show him with just a 9% lead, and with news like this:

Howard Fineman is reporting on MSNBC that Clinton will soldier on to North Carolina and to not be surprised if Elizabeth Edwards makes several appearances with Hillary and let her feelings be known who she stands with. He says that this could have a real impact there as they love Mrs. Edwards.

He did say that while this was likely to happen, John Edwards would remain “neutral” on the sidelines.

Clinton could feasibly win (as it says, they love Mrs. Edwards, and some will see it as a “silent” endorsement by John himself)… and if she does, what does that mean for the Superdelegates? Will they continue to support Obama, or will the tide turn, looking to Clinton as regaining her strength in time for the General Election? Also, according to Real Clear Politics, here is the current (estimated) popular vote results:

Popular Vote (w/FL & MI, Estimating IA, NV, ME & WA):

Barack Obama: 15,307,804 47.5%

Hillary Clinton: 15,319,525 47.5%

Iowa, Nevada, Washington & Maine Have Not Released Popular Vote Totals. RealClearPolitics has estimated the popular vote totals for Senator Obama and Clinton in these four states. RCP uses the WA Caucus results from February 9 in this estimate because the Caucuses on February 9 were the “official” contest recognized by the DNC to determine delegates to the Democratic convention. The estimate from these four Caucus states where there are not official popular vote numbers increases Senator Obama’s popular vote margin by 110,224. This number would be about 50,000 less if the Washington primary results from February 19th were used instead of the Washington Caucus results. This count also includes certified vote totals in Florida and Michigan.

You can either call this a statistical tie, or say that Hillary Clinton is now leading the popular vote. While it’s not any “official” indicator, it’s a lot to think about at this point in the game. It seems that also with the wind, she’s found new support in contributors with her website saying:

The campaign has raised more than $3.5 million since PA polls closed last night…last night’s fundraising total the was the strongest ever.

The unofficial reports (yet to be verified) are stating:

Clinton campaign Chairman Terry McAuliffe just announced that the campaign has raised $10 million from 50,000 new donors since the polls closed last night.

If this is true, Mr. Obama may face some serious heat in the coming weeks. Only time will tell what happens here, but I think it just got a bit more interesting. For those interested, here are the current remaining Primaries:

May 3: Guam
May 6: Indiana and North Carolina
May 13: West Virginia
May 20: Kentucky and Oregon
June 1: Puerto Rico
June 3: Montana and South Dakota

Let’s keep on watching and see what happens!