2008 Primaries, Views on News, public relations • September 11th, 2008

HAVA hubbub

by Chris Lato

JB Van Hollen’s Justice Department is taking action and charging that Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board (GAB) failed to properly check voter registration records as required by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

It’s easy to see where the critics will come down on this one. Van Hollen will be accused of partisanship – that’s no surprise, particularly considering the fact that the state GOP has led the charge in highlighting Wisconsin’s failure to meet HAVA regulations.

However, it should be noted that Wisconsin was more than two and a half years late in getting its database up and running.

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2008 Primaries, Events, Views on News • September 10th, 2008

Post-election potpourri

by Chris Lato

It looks as though Rep. Jeff Wood, the Libertarian-turned-Republican-turned-Independent in the 67^th district in western Wisconsin, will have a GOP challenge in the November general election.

Republican Don Moga has surfaced with little time to spare, and garnered enough write-in votes Tuesday to get on the November ballot.

To which I say, good. Anyone who pulls a last-minute switcharoo on voters and his party in an effort to coast to re-election deserves a challenge and should have to answer for the reasons behind those moves. Hopefully Moga will provide vigorous opposition in the weeks to come.

Any other surprises? Not really. In the Milwaukee area, Assembly incumbents all successfully beat back primary challenges. No major shakeups in the Congressional races either.  

Meanwhile, the presidential race just keeps on tightening up, if you believe the numbers from Strategic Vision. The race is a statistical dead heat. Reading through the numbers, one thing does leap out: Sarah Palin enjoys the highest favorables and the lowest unfavorables of all four major party candidates (along with the highest undecideds). How much of that is a convention bump, how much of that will erode as Palin undergoes attacks, etc. all remain to be seen. But it’s becoming clear that the choice of Palin is about the smartest thing John McCain has done in this campaign.

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2008 Primaries, Views on News • September 9th, 2008

Primary election day

by Chris Lato

Turnout is expected to be a dismal 15% statewide, and there are few hugely exciting races on the ballot. However, plenty of local contests are going on throughout Wisconsin today – therefore you should do your civic duty, educate yourself on the candidates if you haven’t already, and get out to vote before 8 tonite when the polls close on this partisan primary election day.

Here’s a place to get more info on polling locations, registration, etc.

The races you will find on the ballot are the kinds of contests that impact your communities – so it’s worth it to get involved.

In fact, I plan to take my six-year-old daughter to the polls so she can get an idea of how the whole thing works.

 By the way, she has informed me that she is an Obama supporter.

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2008 Primaries, Views on News • September 8th, 2008

It’s over?

by Chris Lato

Talking to an Obama-supporting co-worker this morning, he expressed the opinion that ‘it’s over’- meaning, McCain/Palin will win in November.

The co-worker is engaged and pays attention and felt the selection of Joe Biden as a running mate was a big mistake – and that for a change, a vice presidential pick will make a real impact on an election.

Late last week, I was speaking to a pro-McCain client who talked about how Republicans in his state are going bananas for Palin – an upcoming fundraiser was raking in the cash and enjoying a level of enthusiasm that he’d never seen before.

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2008 Primaries, Strategic Blueprints, Views on News • September 5th, 2008

A taxing question in Milwaukee County

by Chris Lato

This November 4, voters in Milwaukee County will have their say on whether the county should triple the county sales tax to 1.5% ‘to fund parks, transit and provide property tax relief.’ Hmmm……

This article lays out the issue. Essentially, County Executive Scott Walker fought the tax idea but was outgunned by the County Board. Walker has positioned himself as a fiscal conservative, and there’s no way he could be seen as endorsing this tax hike. He was criticized by some for ‘denying the voters a choice.’

(BTW - maybe I’m crazy, but in the middle of an economic downturn, does a sales tax hike really have a snowball’s chance in H-E-double-hockey-sticks of actually getting voter approval?)

We all know the economy is going to be one of the driving issues this November. The voters will now get their say and the tax referendum will be a red-hot issue. It will likely drive turnout even higher than already-high expectations.

And that has the potential to benefit John McCain.

With a tax hike referendum on the ballot, there will undoubtedly be voters spurred to go to the polls to defeat this referendum. And, since McCain is positioned as the tax-cutter compared to Barack Obama, the perceived tax-hiker, can McCain enjoy some boost in Wisconsin’s biggest county? For those voters who are compelled to vote based on their frustration over high taxes alone, the tax referendum could ding Obama’s vote tally in Milwaukee County.

If McCain’s team moves taxes right to the top of the issues being discussed in that county, and bundles it up with the tax referendum issue, then that offers one way to move numbers in their direction.

As an aside, McCain and running mate Sarah Palin are in Wisconsin this morning, the night after McCain delivered his convention-closing speech at the RNC. It’s fun to be a state in play, isn’t it?

As for McCain’s speech, I spent a chunk of it feeling underwhelmed. A lot of the address sounded like GOP boilerplate, and the efforts to single out American families that McCain would be ‘fighting for’ felt ham-fisted. No home runs, but no errors either. Safe and middle of the road, for the most part.

But as McCain discussed his life experience and his time as a POW, the speech really took hold. For those who were getting a sense of McCain for the first time, the closing minutes of the speech drew a connection between the man and the candidate, painting an affecting portrait of why he is in this race.

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2008 Primaries, Branding Politix, Speeches • September 4th, 2008

Palin hunting

by Chris Lato

Read this article. Does anything just leap out at you right out of the gate? How about referring to a teenage daughter of a vice-presidential candidate as ‘stupid?’ How about Palin’s ‘out of control home life’ will resonate with Americans if ‘they’re from Mars or perhaps on welfare’?

Have we really fallen that far in American news and comment when flat-out mean-spirited name-calling directed at a 17-year old girl passes as solid reportage? Or does it merely reflect the Daily Kos-ification of political news coverage?

Now check out this article. The gist of it is, a very slim majority of Americans believe the press is out to get Sarah Palin. That may be a troubling sign for Democrats.

Part of what makes Palin’s selection so brilliant, and that feeds into the McCain ‘maverick’ image, is that she is truly a Washington outsider. She hasn’t spent decades in Washington, or made a career of carefully calibrated choices with an eye on the biggest political prize she could score. The press doesn’t like to be kept out in the cold, and a decision like this one really shuts them out.

One thing McCain needed was a sense of energy and excitement around his campaign, something to rally around. It wasn’t there a week ago, but it’s there now. Democrats didn’t expect this choice and are struggling with how to respond. Some extremists are lashing out.

I’m not saying Palin is above criticism. Her record is absolutely fair game. The press can ask about her record on taxes, foreign policy inexperience, the Bridge to Nowhere, etc. She’d better have honest, straightforward answers.

But these vicious attacks on her family are truly offensive – and that would be true if it was a Democrat or a Republican. And it threatens to backfire as people believe Palin is being unfairly raked over the coals because she doesn’t fit the mold of what a Republican candidate for vice president ‘should’ or was expected to be.

Every time a member of the press goes after Palin with especially crass name-calling, or calls her teenage daughter ‘stupid,’ or her home life ‘out of control,’ it serves to validate long-held conservative beliefs that by and large, the press is in the tank for Democrats in general and Barack Obama in particular. Will that turn off some in middle America so much that McCain-Palin reap the benefits?

As for the speech before the RNC last night…impressive. She took it to the Obama/Biden ticket. The game is afoot.

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2008 Primaries, Branding Politix, Leadership, Messaging, Speeches • September 3rd, 2008

RNC: Day 1.5

by Chris Lato

It was an odd, and oddly compelling night of political theater in the Twin Cities.

Last night, I chose to watch PBS for the run-up to the prime time coverage, then tuned in to CBS and Katie Couric. Last week, NBC was my network of choice for the DNC.

Perhaps I should have watched the same network to conduct a fairer assessment of tone, but I was amazed as the persistence with which Couric pursued attack lines of questioning about VP nominee Sarah Palin. The DNC did not receive the same level of tough questioning from NBC in the coverage I saw. That is not an apples-to-apples comparison but it is now abundantly clear that certain segments of the press are really out to get Palin. The idea of Palin potentially being the next vice president is really riling some people up. We shall see whether she rises to the challenge as the top speaker tonight.

That said, the speeches Tuesday night were relatively low-key. President Bush delivered his address via satellite and focused on McCain, instead of trying to polish up his own record. Laura Bush, by all accounts a charming First Lady, offered a somewhat halting speech.

Then came Fred Thompson, which led me to wonder again why he flamed out in the primaries. I hadn’t made up my mind about who to vote for but was leaning toward Thompson, and his eloquent support of McCain was well done.

And then there was Joe Lieberman. I questioned the wisdom of putting Lieberman on in prime time, and I definitely think McCain dodged a bullet by not picking Lieberman as his running mate.

Initially, the crowd seemed understandably reluctant to embrace Lieberman. After all, this guy was (is?) a Democrat, the VP nominee in 2000 alongside Al Gore. He now calls himself independent, but also referred to himself as a Dem during the speech.

But what a speech. No one would accuse Lieberman of being a ball of fire on the stump, but his wholehearted embrace of McCain and repudiation of Obama’s candidacy had to have at least a few top Democrats reaching for the Pepto-Bismol. At the very least, Lieberman’s very direct appeals to the viewers at home had to touch a few fence-sitters out there. Democrats supporting Republicans…dogs and cats living together…mass hysteria!

All told, the RNC didn’t offer the same intensity level as the DNC in terms of rhetorical flourish, but the drama is there and there will be plenty more where that came from.

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2008 Primaries, Branding Politix, Messaging, Views on News • September 2nd, 2008

Pickin’ on Palin

by Chris Lato

While this will be picked over thoroughly in the weeks to come, on balance, John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin is a maverick move from someone who has positioned himself as a maverick candidate. If you want a real Washington outsider, they don’t get much more ‘outside’ than the governor of Alaska.

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