Is there a defensible argument to be made
For voting for Obama and Tiberi on the same ballot? Any at all? Republicans scared of a President Palin, perhaps. Otherwise? I'm usually pretty good at understanding both sides of an argument before I make a case, but I'm at a loss, here. Obama will win in the 12th District. I'm gonna guess by 3-5 points. Robinson has yet to show up on the radar of any of the major Congressional Race raters. This would seem to indicate that they believe a substantial portion of the electorate will make this particular ticket split. They're the professionals, so I'll give them some credit.
The problem remains, I can't make an argument against voting an Obama/Tiberi ballot until I can understand why anyone in their right mind would do such a thing. Little help here?
3 comments:
Sorry I posted this in wrong tred:
First there will be a big under vote in the 12th. Undervoteing is When someone goes in and votes for Obama than walks out. The av % of undervote is around 6% I feel it could run as high as 20% in some areas. In March the undervote in some areas of the 12th was as high as 50% on the Dem side in Robinsons race. Also some Rep will vote Obama but still vote repu down ticket. Robinson is a hard worker and has tryed to get his name out to the voters in the best way he can.....but as I said before its the money and Tiberi has it and Robinson does not. Unless the DCCC put up some TV ads for Robinson I feel it will go Tiberi's way. Bottom line is about 80% of the people in the 12th do not know who Robinson is and you know the DCCC is polling and seeing the numbers as well as the repus. Wish it was the other way around and I do wish the DCCC would wake up.
Ike,
You're right about the undervote. Maybe not in degree (20% is really high), and there will be some McCain votes skipping the down-ticket races as well, but your point is well-taken.
As for the polling, etc. I'm not confident that there has been reliable polling on our side, but I'll certainly concede that name-rec seems really really low for October. I realize that the DCCC helps those who help themselves, but they aimed too low in 2006 and they're aiming too low right now.
Bottom line is that Robinson's floor is Ed Brown's numbers in 2004 (38%) and his ceiling is probably Obama's numbers (we'll say 54%). So there's 84% of the vote that's basically off the table.
In 2006, Bob Shamansky's campaign spent more than a million dollars, primarily from the candidate's savings with some help from the Dtrips, and Bob got 39% of the vote, or 1 tick above the floor. My guess is that those are the numbers that are holding the money back this year.
Shamansky was a former congressman with some well-connected friends and deep pockets. On paper he looked like a great candidate. Robinson came out of nowhere. The people who count haven't realized that Robinson is the more appealing candidate.
I'm maintaining more optimism than you are, but the money gap is huge, and dollars are the alternative fuel of the ballot engine.
I am staying with the 20% undervote in some areas. I do hold out some hope; however facts or facts and TV is king in this area.....
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