Tag: 2010 senate elections

Fiscal conservatives are sheep. Some are demon sheep.

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 6 Comments

Carly Fiorina’s Senate campaign gets points for creativity – releasing a web video to make a detailed case against her primary opponent, Tom Campbell, that just couldn’t be made in a thirty second ad.  But whoever cut and approved this ad has done more harm than good:

Likening conservative primary voters to sheep is a bad idea on its own, but Fiorina’s folks take it a step farther with the “demon sheep” at the very end.  It’s funny, but in a so-bad-it’s-funny kind of way, which is a bad thing for a political ad in a charged primary.

Sure enough, the parodies have begun almost instantly, and they have been thorough.  You can follow the Demon Sheep on Twitter (@DemonSheep) and ask questions of the unholy beast.  Campbell is using the ad as fund raising fodder, and it has likely helped his name recognition among prospective non-California donors.

More important, the ad – and not the message the ad was trying to convey – is the subject of discussion and media coverage, some of it quite tongue-in-cheek.

All politics are local…

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

…but this may be a little too local, even for Arkansas:

Riding down Highway 165 through the Arkansas Delta, I knew I was about to experience one of the timeless traditions of Arkansas politics.

For more than 60 years — there is some dispute whether it is 64 or 67 — people have descended on the little town of Gillett to participate in the Gillett Coon Supper, where the main course is the exotic meat of locally hunted raccoon but the real dish is the political undercurrent that is impossible to miss.  Within this humble event lies perhaps one of the most important lessons in Arkansas politics.

Mass hysteria

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 2 Comments

In an early surprise of 2010, Republican State Senator Scott Brown is picking up steam in the special election to fill the Massachusetts Senate seat left vacant by Ted Kennedy’s death last year.  Of course, he’d need a lot of steam, since even Rasmussen’s polls put him nine points behind Attorney General Martha Coakley – who still polls at 50%.  A deeper reading of the poll shows some reasons for even further optimism, though:of those who “definitely” plan to vote, Brown’s disadvantage sinks to 2%.  In a special election in January in New England, leading among independents and the most passionate voters is enough to be within striking distance.

Massachusetts Republican-leaning bloggers from conservative thinker Dan Flynn to scum-of-the-Earth, fake-bloody-sock-wearing Curt Schilling have expressed excitement about Brown’s run.  And given the political environment in Massachusetts, this is an against-the-spread race.  If Brown finishes within 5-10 points on election day, he’ll start the media narrative that, even in the bluest of blue states, support for the Obama agenda is wavering.  And it will help excite the Bay State Republican Activists who would be crucial for later contests – including a Governor’s race later this year.

Specter the rubber stamp

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Online video makes it a little bit easier to hold a politician’s words against him or her.  Sometimes campaigns employ “truth squads” to follow their opponents around, recording their speeches, hoping for some embarrassing sound bit.

The folks at Pat Toomey’s Senate campaign didn’t even have to go that far.  Today, they released a video demonstrating Senator Arlen Specter’s changing rhetoric on his allegiance to the majority party in the Senate.  Notably, all of these are on national programs – underscoring the distance Sen. Specter has established between himself and Pennsylvanians.