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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (82191)	10/31/2004 8:57:23 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793838

KERRYSPOT - IS HAWAII GOING TO FLIP TO A RED STATE? [10/30 07:08 PM] Kerry Spot reader William sends in this report of the situation on the ground in Hawaii: In terms of presidential politics, [Al Gore's visit] was ALMOST a non-event. He appeared at pre-planned Filipino concert at a high school in a largely Filipino district of Oahu. The co-host was Dem. Cong. Neil Abercrombie. The Filipino community has traditionally been a Democrat stronghold in this state, and flexed its political muscle 10 year ago by electing Ben Cayetano as the first Filipino Governor of Hawaii, and re-electing him in 1998. The coalition of Filipinos and Japanese-Americans is the bedrock of the Demo. party establishment here. Kerry is in trouble in this state because recent polling shows the Pres. beating him by 15 points among Filipinos. Gore's appearance last night was an effort to bring some of these Filipino voters back to Kerry. But only 1200 people were on hand — it wasn't any better than a "B" level political event. And he was largely preaching to the convereted. This was a gathering of Filipinos that are committed to Kerry. The four local television stations all led their newscasts with it at 10:00 p.m., but the coverage was a little underwhelming. The real heart of each stations' story was that for the first time Hawaii's votes might matter — the electoral count may be close, and the outcome here is too close to call. They then covered Gore's appearance, but in the same story talked about the upcoming appearance of VP Cheney tomorrow. But, most importantly, immediately following the Gore appearance story, each station covered the Bin Laden video. Cheney is set to appear tomorrow at an event expected to draw 10,000 people. Rather than a local high school, he'll be in downtown Honolulu at the Convention Center. He's got a real chance to wipe the Gore appearance right off the map. Very curiously, the two Dem. candidates for Mayor of Honolulu did NOT show up at the event last night with Gore. Hmm. What do they know about the national race in their polling? I've been wondering how voting in Hawaii will be affected by the time difference. Will afternoon voters in the islands know who has won the East Coast states? If Kerry loses New Hampshire, or New Jersey looks close, or Bush picks up an electoral vote in Maine, will Hawaiians feel like they know the winner? WORD FROM SENIOR GOP CIRCLES [10/30 06:56 PM] I heard, once again, from an individual “familiar with internal discussions within the Bush campaign.” This information is what big cheeses in GOP circles are saying to middle cheeses in GOP circles. The big picture is, Bush has the momentum and is playing offense, while Kerry is on the defensive going into Election Day. A key panic button moment for Kerry campaign came on Friday, when the candidate lectured the American people to “wake up.” The 72-hour Get-Out-The-Vote Operation has been launched. Starting Friday and continuing through Tuesday, 150,000 volunteers in the most competitive states are mobilized and will contact 18 million voters to get the President’s supporters to the polls. This unprecedented voter turnout operation is built to negate the traditional advantage that Democrats enjoyed on turnout during the 1990s with unions and African-American churches. The Bush team believes the personal touch is going to make a big difference. The Bush-Cheney ‘04 turnout effort will be driven by volunteers, acting on their personal beliefs and enthusiasm for this President. The Kerry campaign has turned over their grassroots operation to 527 organizations that are relying on paid employees who do not know the voters they are contacting. Will a voter be more persuaded by contact from a neighbor or contact from a stranger who is being paid to do it? The lack of commentary yesterday about Ohio should not be interpreted as a lack of good news. The Bush team is pleased with the latest poll by the Cleveland Plain Dealer shows the President up by three points (pre-Arnie sample), and volunteers will contact over 1.2 million voters. Two-thirds of the president’s time is spent campaigning in states that Al Gore won in 2000, and the President leads the polls in Wisconsin, Iowa and New Mexico — all blue states set to turn red. Hawaii, New Jersey, Michigan and Pennsylvania are all close, too close for Kerry’s comfort. Maybe this is spin, and maybe this is happy talk. But if something is going wrong - like some red state looks like it’s going to flip - then I suspect the big cheeses would have an incentive to warn the middle cheeses and prepare them for the disappointment. Something along the lines of “Yes New Hampshire looks shaky, but we can afford to lose it, it’s only four electoral votes.” [That’s my speculation on the Granite State, not anything I’ve heard from this GOP insider.] Quite a few Kerry Spot readers are e-mailing on a Saturday, questioning the Fox poll showing Bush’s lead shrinking on Friday night, post-Osama tape. Here’s what Jay Cost has to say about it: Fox released its new poll about 45 minutes ago. Note that the poll uses the last day sample of the previous poll. This indicates that Fox is going to start doing a rolling average. As is typical of media organizations who do not know any better, they have junked the previous day's poll. This is quite stupid. If you average the two results out, taking in all the data collected in the four days thus far, Bush is ahead 49.2% to 45% with a margin of error of less than 3%. Apparently, Bush did not poll well in Friday's Fox sample. The Washington Post's polling director was on Fox just now and he said Kerry did very well on Friday, too. Look for that poll's margins to fall. Try not to let this upset you. They only sample about 200-300 people in any given day. Kerry had a blip last weekend in the WaPo tracking poll, too. It was just a blip. I would note that the evidence from last electiondoes not indicate that WaPo was pro-Gore on the weekends. This year, though, they are 3 for 3 pro-Kerry on the weekends, if the WaPo does the same now.