There are just weeks before the primary. It's crunch time. The Ross and Bryant campaigns have been in meetings all week trying to figure out how much of their war chests they're going to spend trying to pull this out.
In this two part post, I'm going to try to put ya'll in the room. I'll break down the campaigns, their financial situations, their strategic capabilities and concerns, and their likely courses of action. This round, it's Charlie Ross, the effective Challenger for the nomination.
In February, Charlie had lower name recognition, and a smaller statewide network. I haven't seen any more recent numbers.
They've been up on state wide radio for at least six weeks with their "Conservative Mississippi Minute". It's a little policy wonkish. It works to boost the name rec and they've gotten some good press. They also continue to release "Charlie's Plan for This and That", which again plays great with the wonks, who tend to vote in primaries.
Rhetorically Ross owns the traditional Republican territory. His stump speech includes lines bashing urban areas, singing the praises of low taxes, and ridding the entire nation of abortion by "testing Roe vs. Wade". If he got traction, he'd own "value voters" and "economic conservatives". The only complaint I have is that there's no propulsion. I'd have made a bigger media buy early and put some distance between the two.
The Ross campaign has continually had a significant cash advantage (they're at least a statewide media buy ahead) and have run a much better campaign, both in the press and on the stump.
So this is my suspicion about how this will play out: Sometime in the last week or in the next one, there'll be a poll back that says he's at 28-36 among likely R. primary voters over half of whom are undecided. 58-64 will say they know who he is. The kicker will be that of those who know who he is, over 2/3 will have no opinion.
In light of this information, within a month the Ross campaign will go up on TV statewide with an ad that says " I'm Charlie Ross, I served in the Air Force. I passed the legislation that helps lower your insurance premiums and healthcare costs. I've got a program that will reduce crime around the state and a plan to deal with the influx of illegal immigration. I'd like to be your Lt. Governor." It'll be a statewide, 350k-500k buy. The sort of massive, crippling buy that Phil Bryant has to respond to. It'll boost Charlie's name rec, positive perception, and support.
After that, it starts to get interesting, a matter of the call and response.
Up next, the same game, played by Phil Bryant.
i can't wait to watch the repubs eat their own...heh heh.
ReplyDeleteand i can't wait to LMAO at a charlie ross add =D
Hey, are these the Feb numbers you reference?
ReplyDeleteIt is one of the numbers I saw around that time. I saw some others around the same time. Because that's a push button number, I'm a little suspicious, but it is inline with the rest of the data that I saw at that time.
ReplyDelete-m
I have a question.
ReplyDeleteWould it be illegal if a consultant told a campaign to put downloadable pictures of a candidate on his or her website so another group could do mail with the pictures, considering the consultant has ties to the other group as well as the candidate?
Would that be considered coordination of 'independent expenditures'?
I thought you might know since you are an experienced political opperative.
Thanks for the help.
I have seen many candidates put professional pictures in downloadable format on their website in the media section so that people could use it. The campaign can't be held responsible for what someone else may do with those publicly available photos then. It would be best if those photos were also posted on Flickr and designated as free use so that anyone could use them. There shouldn't be any problems.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I don't believe there are any laws in this state that say a candidate can't coordinate with independent groups anyway.
Someone at the state party could best answer the question of legality.
Thanks for the answer. I guess, if there is coordination between a candidate and an outside group, it just has to be reported as an inkind contribution.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. I guess I was just wondering if there would be problems if there was a direct link between a group, a candidate, and a consultant.
I guess if that was the case, they would just have to report it.
Kind of like the situation that happened in 2004 with Jamie Franks' opponent.
Thanks for the quick answer.
Let me guess. Someone is doing some nefarious to undermine Phil Bryant.
ReplyDeleteAm I close?
Well Jack, I don't actually know who the candidate is or who fair and balanced is so your guess is as good as mine. :)
ReplyDeleteState campaign finance laws don't prohibit anything like that in Mississippi, and don't in most places.
ReplyDelete"Independent Expenditures" and "527 groups" exist in every election. In the state races I've worked, they weren't really regulated in the sense that we think of with federal elections. McCain Feingold created those regulations, the ones that say campaigns can't directly confer with people who are making IE's, and since it's a federal statute, it only applies to Federal elections. I hear that a couple of the states that have their own election economy (think california) that they're enacting BCFRA lock stock and barrel. But that's just a rumor.