On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 9:33 AM, Tom Wolper <[email protected]> wrote:
> (SNIP) If Obama wins, > campaign managers and political scientists will conclude that more may > not be better in negative political ads and the vast amounts of money > a national campaign brings in should be used in a more nuanced way. If > Romney wins campaign managers will want to bring that result to their > clients and the new rule might be to go negative and never stop. > > For moving convention dates earlier, that becomes a slippery slope > akin to moving primary dates earlier. I am afraid we will eventually > see conventions moved up earlier and earlier. > Your nice description of the traditional playbook for implementing negative ads, and why that is being violated this cycle, is consistent with what I have been reading, though I think many professional political consultants are already concluding that going straight to the negative, without first building on the positive "get-to-know" you ads, has been a mistake for Romney, given his lack of traction over the summer and post-convention. Even if the expected onslaught of negative ads in the battleground states materializes (perhaps it already has, we are somewhat insulated out here in the Blue) and helps Romney win, I don't think it will be interpreted as validating the earlier go-negative strategy. I don't think moving the conventions earlier would be similar to the slippery (and silly) slope of moving the primaries back. The scheduling of both conventions back to back in late August is a very recent phenomenon. Since 1936 the party that is in power in the White House has always had its convention second. Until 2008, the challenging party's convention started no later than August 12, and usually in mod July. It was just with Obama in 2004 that we started the practice of the challenging convention being held a week before the incumbent, at the end of August. Every description I have read about that decision includes the same quote from the DNC about it: they wanted to "maximize momentum for our Democratic ticket in the final months of the Presidential election". But that did not work out very well for Obama, as his very successful convention got swallowed up by McCain's announcement of his VP the Friday morning after Obama's acceptance speech, and Obama got a very small post-convention bounce. I am not sure why the Republican's repeated the same schedule this year - the fact that it also led to a very small bounce is one reason some experts are predicting a return to the old normal in the future. >From what I can infer, there seem to be two main reasons that the recent elections have seen the compression of the two conventions in late August. One is that the challenging party has felt that going before the Olympics (which of course is always also held that same summer, and no convention wants to compete with that) means that there are two major national media events after their convention (the Olympics and the incumbent Convention), erasing the memory of the challenging convention from the national consciousness by the time the fall campaign begins. The other reason is that campaign finance laws kick in after the convention - prior to that they can spend more money on advertising without effecting the fall limit. But Obama in 2004 refused to accept matching funds, which exempted him from those limits (that decision was made late in the process, once they saw how effective they were at raising their own money; I suspect they might have scheduled the convention earlier if they had known they were not going to take matching money). Also, the late convention works against them too. There are limits on how much individuals and groups can donate to campaigns, but these are separate for the primaries and the fall election. It is common for candidates to solicit maximum donations for both limits early in the campaign - but these funds have to be deposited in separate accounts, and there is strict scrutiny over when the funds are spent. Because Romney was forced to spend a lot of money during the primary season (all those negative Santorum and Gingrich ads), he was running dry in his primary accounts over the summer; meanwhile Obama, who had no primary opposition, had lots of primary money in his account, and was able to go after Romney hard all summer, hitting the "what's he hiding" in his tax return theme hard. If the Republicans had held their Convention earlier, Romney could have started using this fall campaign funds earlier to fight back - though I guess that could potentially lead to candidates running low on funds by the end of the fall. I know there is an ocean of other funds available for ads, and these will be a factor, but it still is true that the campaigns value most highly the funds under their direct control. I am not sure, but I think the London Olympics were held earlier in the summer than usual, which may also have played a role in the timing of this year's conventions. In any case, I expect the Republican Convention in 2016 to be moved back to its usual spot in mid to late July. Here are the dates for the challengers convention from 1968 to 2012 (just because I went to the bother of looking them up, I might as well submit them here for inclusion in the record): 1968: August 5-8 1972: July 10-13 1976: July 12-15 1980: July 14-17 1984: July 16-19 1988: July 18-21 1992: July 13-16 1996: August 12-15 2000: July 31-August 3 2004: July 26-29 2008: August 25-28 2012: August 27-30 (Note: The Republican Convention was officially gaveled into session on Monday 8-27, then immediately ended the first session due to Hurricane Issac). -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. 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