From David Goder at One Jerusalem:
Bloggers won’t have to depend on interviews from the Left Wing Media on what is happening in this year’s national election if you check out One Jerusalem’s Newsmaker call with John McLaughlin, one of America’s leading pollsters and political strategists.
John’s clients include: Governor Schwarzenegger, The Republican National Committee, Congressman Peter King, Congressman Eric Cantor, Senator George Allen, John Spencer (who is challenging Hillary Clinton) and many more.
You can check his current and past client list at McLaughlin Online
John has also advised Benjamin Netanyahu, Natan Sharansky, and the UK Conservative Party.
John is one of the best practioners of politics today. For several years he has analyzed election returns for WCBS Radio.
A week before the elections we thought it would help the Internet news reporters to hear from an expert and to ask him questions. Besides being involved in one of the most watched races in the country (Allen vs.Webb ) it will be interesting to know what John thinks the results this year will have on the Presidential in 2008.
John McLaughlin spoke for a few minutes and then took blogger questions.
Here are few of the points that John shared with the group today:
There hasn’t been a softening with the Republican troops.
The media is telling the Republicans not to vote. The democrats are very fired up. But, Republicans are fired up in many of the closely contested races.
The people in the narrow middle- are generally unfavorable to president and War in Iraq.
Democrats are trying to focus their attention on that. Dems are also going on the corruption angle. The double standard is the media where Republicans are set at higher standards than democrats. McLaughlin is getting that from his travels. Democrats have a technological edge on the internet. Republcans are trying to catch up.
Specific questions:
Foley Scandal impact? Florida has been different in that Jeb Bush is 20 points more popular than his brother. Variable there is the real partisan values clash. Foley is looking like an isolated incident.
Democrats running without agenda? There was a strong message back in 1994. Democrats know their position is not popular. So, they say they want change but have not set that up. They are running without an agenda. It looks like it is working.
John briefly talk about the role of blogs. Ex: George Allen race- First of all it was self inflicted (the macaca thing). On other hand, you can’t be naive to beleive that Allen is not being researched since he is a future presidential candidate.
Democrats circulated bogus claims about Allen parking tickets.
Boker tov, Boulder: Allen’s Jewish heritage- It didn’t seem to play much with the electorate. It didn’t really matter much in the local electorate.
Does press see consequences for their outrageous behavior this cycle? Media is facing a bit of a backlash now where Webb was concerned about his writings. Media is facing a bit of a backlash.
Democrats and party identification: Is there oversampling of democrats going on? Democrats and media have wishful thinking. Polls need to use “likely voter” models. These tend to be more accurate. In ’04 eection poll models are all wrong.
The media polls now in key states are trying to suppress Republican voters to stay home just like they did in 2004 in Florida. Make sure you go vote! In close states the Republicans are fired up to go vote.
Is enthusiasm too low: The message matters more than the phone calls. Republicans don’t like being told they are going to lose. In 2004 the 72 hour GOTV worked for the Republicans. There is a clear contrast in Virginia between Webb and Allen.
Some of the states where they have more problems is where the message is more blurred- where liberals run as conservatives.
Amendment 2: The pro-amendment 2 advocates have loads of money and are dumping it into the issue. It is easier to get a “no” vote than to get a “yes”.
John has not done research on this issue since the MJ Fox ads aired.
In Tennessee African Americans will poll strongly for Ford. You would rather see them focus on issues but press goes with the sex, smut, personal attacks, etc.
This audio will be posted at the One Jerusalem website.
