Bending the Third Rail
Because We Should, We Can, We Do
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Here's a Measure For Ya
I found this graf in Slate's "Today's Paper" very interesting:
The National Republican Congressional Committee will spend 90 percent of its ad budget on negative ads this fall, reports the WP. The paper reports that challengers are often more vulnerable to negative ads, since they lack a definitive public image and can be easily branded by the incumbent. The idea of a party resorting to negative ads is nothing new, but what the GOP hopes to obtain with these tactics is newsworthy: "GOP officials said internal polling shows Republicans could limit losses to six to 10 House seats and two or three Senate seats," if the ads do their job.
Is this the real goal post or just trying to set expectations? If it's real, then we have some real sense of what a "victory" will look like for the Dems. Interestingly (and noted later in the article), the GOP strategy says nothing at all about any Dem counter-strategy. Is that arrogance or a statement that the GOP doesn't really believe the Dems are worthy opponents .... or both? Given the past several elections, I can see how they assume they set the agenda. Let's hope that Dem candidates everywhere stand for something and actually make it a contest.
Written at 10:06 AM by Greyhair.
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