Dialing for dollars!
We got a call, in the Logical Household, today from Senator Coleman's campaign. Given that today IS the final fundraising day for the second quarter, everyone is working the phones hard to get those last few dollars in. It's no surprise.
The Logical Husband took the call. Now the Logical Husband has had more than his fair share of issues with our Senior Senator in the last 12 months...mostly over Iraq (as an Army man, he is dead set against politicians running the war effort) but that is certainly not the only issue.
Of course the caller was pushing hard for the donation and the harder he pushed the more he trotted out the "standard" MNGOP reasons....the same standard reasons that drove me batty in 2006 and that caused me to vote for a change in leadership on the state level. The same old "you don't want _____ to be in the seat do you?" (fill in the blank with the DFL boogey candidate de jour).
MEMO TO SENATOR COLEMAN AND THE MNGOP!!!!! The people of Minnesota want a reason to vote FOR YOU, not a scare tactic to get us to vote against your opponent! The sooner you figure that out, the better off things will be for you amongst the base and with the moderate voters in this state. You need to figure this out sooner rather than later or you will be another casualty of the disenfranchised voters!
The Logical Husband took the call. Now the Logical Husband has had more than his fair share of issues with our Senior Senator in the last 12 months...mostly over Iraq (as an Army man, he is dead set against politicians running the war effort) but that is certainly not the only issue.
Of course the caller was pushing hard for the donation and the harder he pushed the more he trotted out the "standard" MNGOP reasons....the same standard reasons that drove me batty in 2006 and that caused me to vote for a change in leadership on the state level. The same old "you don't want _____ to be in the seat do you?" (fill in the blank with the DFL boogey candidate de jour).
MEMO TO SENATOR COLEMAN AND THE MNGOP!!!!! The people of Minnesota want a reason to vote FOR YOU, not a scare tactic to get us to vote against your opponent! The sooner you figure that out, the better off things will be for you amongst the base and with the moderate voters in this state. You need to figure this out sooner rather than later or you will be another casualty of the disenfranchised voters!
Labels: MNGOP, Senator Norm Coleman
posted by The Lady Logician at
7:35 PM
9 Comments:
I think the situation is even worse than you paint it. Thinking about it in mathematical terms, most of us who might be inclined to vote Republican (certainly a majority of voters) and especially those who donate to Republican candidates (the activist class) already hold an opinion of Democrat candidates that approaches zero on the likability scale. If the candidate is Al Franken, our estimation of him is probably a little lower than that. Repeated harping on that subject cannot matter-- it's a waste of the Coleman campaign and the Party's time and effort.
Mr. Coleman's approval rating, however, is probably a bit above 50%-- not a lot, but no doubt helped a bit by his last vote. If he makes a wrong vote, his approval goes down instantly. Repeated wrong votes would put him out of the running, all by himself. He needs repeated right votes to "move the needle" and then publicize them to lock up victory. In short, Coleman has a non-zero score that CAN be effected by his voting record and campaigning. Franken can't be driven below zero, but Coleman can drive himself below 50%, easily. Continuing attacks on Franken and not "tending to business" almost guarantees it.
J. Ewing
By
Anonymous, at 10:23 AM
Franken can't be driven below zero in the opinion of conservatives, but that doesn't mean that he can't win in this liberal-leaning state.
The question is, how bad does Coleman have to get before Franken's policies become more conservatively palatable?
Seems like for some reason conservatives would rather have Senator Franken then Senator Coleman. That's something I don't understand. Even Senator K voted Yes on the final cloture vote.
By
Unknown, at 11:43 AM
Well, yes, it could happen. We have Senator Amy, (or Aimless, if I may be snarky for a moment) and she has no qualifications whatsoever other than that she wasn't a Republican. She wasn't a Kennedy, either, but that didn't seem to hurt among the 30% or so who would never vote for Coleman, no matter what he did.
So, in short, what I am saying is that the election is Coleman's to win or lose, by showing the 70% that he lives by some conservative principles, rather than lib service, political expediency, and negative campaigning.
J. Ewing
By
Anonymous, at 12:00 PM
Let's take a look at Senator Klobuchar. Did she run a campaign that was all bashing all the time? HAIL NO - not even to her hard core lefty supporters. Her campaign was all positive and sweetness and "I'm going to do good things for the people of Minnesota". We all knew it was a lie, but that didn't stop the voters!
Take Congressman John Kline and Congresswoman Bachman. Were their campaigns solidly negative? NO. As a result, Congressman Kline got 60% of the vote and his opponent (who ran the bitterest, nastiest, hatefilled "anti" campaign I have ever seen) could get 40% of the vote (the Independence candidate got 3% of the vote IIRC).
NEGATIVE CAMPAIGNS DO NOT WORK with the voters that the candidates need to reach the most. Deny and justify all you want Brent, but all the negative campaigning is going to do is drive the voters we need AWAY FROM THE POLLS in 2008! Heck - it's starting to drive hard core Republicans (like the Logical Husband and I) away! Is that really what you want?
LL
By
The Lady Logician, at 12:47 PM
Congresswoman Bachman. Were their campaigns solidly negative?
Some people think that Bachmann ran a *very* negative campaign.
I seem to remember some extremely deriding ads from Amy's campaign.
I haven't seen any ads from Senator Coleman's campaign, so I can't say yet whether his campaign will be positive or negative.
Since Franken is a very angry person, I'd have to believe that the emotion would spill over to his campaign.
You can say that a campaign has to be positive and promise a lot of money to voters, but Kennedy did his best to promise stuff to voters and it didn't help.
Only a small subset of the 70% who don't vote Democrat care about conservative principles. Senator Coleman knows this.
But Senator Coleman is fundraising now. And he knows/his campaign knows that those who are most likely to give to him are the same people who do not want a Senator Franken. Or Senator Ciresi. Perhaps those who haven't made up there mind at this point would be less inclined to give at this point. Or you can pick your own reason to give to a specific candidate. Or not give at all. But to not give because the fundraiser didn't somehow telepathically guess your hotbutton????
By
Unknown, at 2:15 PM
"You can say that a campaign has to be positive and promise a lot of money to voters, but Kennedy did his best to promise stuff to voters and it didn't help."
You don't get it do you Brent. We don't want government to "give us stuff" we want government to get the h3ll out of our way. The vast majority of the voters want that and unfortunatly Republicans have shown that they are JUST AS BAD as Democrats when it comes to that stuff!
What the vast majority of Republican leaning voters that I talk to want is a politician that TELLS US WHAT THEY WILL DO!!!! Not what the other guy will do....what will YOU Mr. Candidate do if we give our votes to you!
LL
By
The Lady Logician, at 3:20 PM
LL, you are the one that admitted:
Her campaign was all positive and sweetness and "I'm going to do good things for the people of Minnesota". We all knew it was a lie, but that didn't stop the voters!
Now you say:
We don't want government to "give us stuff" we want government to get the h3ll out of our way. The vast majority of the voters want that and unfortunatly Republicans have shown that they are JUST AS BAD as Democrats when it comes to that stuff!
I think you were right the first time. Voters don't care if a politician lies, but they want promises from the candidates for lots of "goodies." If Republicans want to win, they can't pretend that voters want politions to "get the h3ll out of our way," they have to play toe-to-toe on education, health care, prescription drugs, the environment.
Consider last year's election. Krinkie? LeClair? Hardly candidates that conservatives love to hate. Unfortunately, by aligning themselves only with conservatives, they lost the moderates they needed to win an election. How much of an influence are they now in the legislature?
By
Unknown, at 5:14 PM
"Consider last year's election. Krinkie? LeClair? Hardly candidates that conservatives love to hate. Unfortunately, by aligning themselves only with conservatives, they lost the moderates they needed to win an election."
You have GOT to be kidding me? Did you not learn ANYTHING last year??? The reason why Krinkie and LeClair lost is because their base was so PO'd at President Bush and so PO'd a Governor Pawlenty and SO PO'D AT THE MNGOP that they stayed home in droves. Take a look at the S.O.S numbers. Off year elections are general down (turn out wise) a few hundred voters. In Krinkie's district the GOP lost 2000 voters. My district had 4000 on the A side and 4000 on the B side that stayed home because REPUBLICANS WERE NOT ACTING LIKE REPUBLICANS.
As long as the wishy washy moderates LIKE YOU are running the party we will continue to be the minority party in this state. I mean why should I vote for a DFL poseur when I can vote for THE REAL THING!!!!!
LL
By
The Lady Logician, at 6:08 PM
Keep it up. The Democrats would love to have 2008 be another 2006.
By
Kevin from Minneapolis, at 11:23 AM
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