Best Campaign Ad Ever

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/lindsey-graham-praises-joe-biden-in-what-might-be-the-best-campaign-ad-ever-according-to-harvard-prof-2020-06-14

STANV said:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/lindsey-graham-praises-joe-biden-in-what-might-be-the-best-campaign-ad-ever-according-to-harvard-prof-2020-06-14

 That is a classic.

well done 

STANV said:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/lindsey-graham-praises-joe-biden-in-what-might-be-the-best-campaign-ad-ever-according-to-harvard-prof-2020-06-14

 I have to disagree. Who is the target for this ad?  Republicans, among whom Trump still has at least 85% approval?  Independents? Lapsed Republicans? Are there any true independents or lapsed Republicans at this point who don't think of Lindsay Graham as a spineless, cowardly, hypocritical lickspittle?  

I think it's a really stupid ad and a waste of media dollars to run it.

What sort of ad do you think won't be a waste of money to sway Trump voters?  Do you have any example?

I think showing the hypocrisy of one of Trump's top soldiers is a good start.

Seriously - I will happily edit together an ad with suggestions from everyone.  

ml1 said:

STANV said:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/lindsey-graham-praises-joe-biden-in-what-might-be-the-best-campaign-ad-ever-according-to-harvard-prof-2020-06-14

 I have to disagree. Who is the target for this ad?  Republicans, among whom Trump still has at least 85% approval? 

Down seven points from a month earlier, and the lowest in two years. It has been as low as 78 percent.

Maybe they’re not convinced that 85 is as low as it can go, and that even only another seven points or so makes a difference.

DaveSchmidt said:

Down seven points from a month earlier, and the lowest in two years. It has been as low as 78 percent.

Maybe they’re not convinced that 85 is as low as it can go, and that even only another seven points or so makes a difference.

 Or maybe they looked at Trump's margin of victory in three states in 2016.  Even 1.5% of Trump voters could make a difference.

jamie said:

What sort of ad do you think won't be a waste of money to sway Trump voters?  Do you have any example?

I think showing the hypocrisy of one of Trump's top soldiers is a good start.

Seriously - I will happily edit together an ad with suggestions from everyone.  

I think the problem is Lindsay Graham.  I'd amend my earlier statement to include Trump supporters as well.  Does anyone who can identify Lindsay Graham not think of him as a spineless, cowardly, hypocritical lickspittle?

I OBJECT TO THE ALL CAPS THREAD TITLE.

AGAIN.

drummerboy said:

I OBJECT TO THE ALL CAPS THREAD TITLE.

AGAIN.

 seriously.

The caps made me think it was truly going to be an awesome ad.  Instead it turns out it's an ad that a guy from the W. Bush admin thinks is the "best evah!"

ml1 said:

STANV said:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/lindsey-graham-praises-joe-biden-in-what-might-be-the-best-campaign-ad-ever-according-to-harvard-prof-2020-06-14

 I have to disagree. Who is the target for this ad?  Republicans, among whom Trump still has at least 85% approval?  Independents? Lapsed Republicans? Are there any true independents or lapsed Republicans at this point who don't think of Lindsay Graham as a spineless, cowardly, hypocritical lickspittle?  

I think it's a really stupid ad and a waste of media dollars to run it.

 For a specific population...my SC neighbors...it is a powerful indictment of both Trump, and most importantly, Lindsey Graham. That might be what we need to elect Jaime Harrison to the Senate.

and all those anti-Trump quotes are also being used in an anti-Graham ad:

Lindsey Graham featured front and center in new anti-Trump attack ad

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is getting hit with a new attack ad that throws the senator's own words back in his face.

The ad, which was produced by a super PAC called "Lindsey Must Go," shows all the times that Graham attacked President Donald Trump before abruptly changing to becoming a major supporter of the president.

Not buying that the new ad is anything close to the best ever.  Maybe more like the worst ever.

Dennis_Seelbach said:

ml1 said:

STANV said:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/lindsey-graham-praises-joe-biden-in-what-might-be-the-best-campaign-ad-ever-according-to-harvard-prof-2020-06-14

 I have to disagree. Who is the target for this ad?  Republicans, among whom Trump still has at least 85% approval?  Independents? Lapsed Republicans? Are there any true independents or lapsed Republicans at this point who don't think of Lindsay Graham as a spineless, cowardly, hypocritical lickspittle?  

I think it's a really stupid ad and a waste of media dollars to run it.

 For a specific population...my SC neighbors...it is a powerful indictment of both Trump, and most importantly, Lindsey Graham. That might be what we need to elect Jaime Harrison to the Senate.

 totally.  If it's an anti-Graham ad (like the one I referenced above), it a GREAT ad.  If it's a pro-Biden ad?  Meh.

ml1 said:

Does anyone who can identify Lindsay Graham not think of him as a spineless, cowardly, hypocritical lickspittle?

I don’t know, but 55 percent of voters in South Carolina re-elected him in 2014 regardless. With some evidence that Graham’s race this year may be tightening, a national ad on Fox News might not be completely ineffectual there, even if that effect wasn’t its intent. (Which I suppose would reinforce the conclusion that it was a stupid ad.)

ETA: Urk, cross-posted.

DaveSchmidt said:

I don’t know, but 55 percent of voters in South Carolina re-elected him in 2014 regardless. With some evidence that Graham’s race this year may be tightening, a national ad on Fox News might not be completely ineffectual there, even if that effect wasn’t its intent. (Which I suppose would reinforce the conclusion that it was a stupid ad.)

 seems like you, Dennis and I are all on that same page together. 

ml1 said:

DaveSchmidt said:

I don’t know, but 55 percent of voters in South Carolina re-elected him in 2014 regardless. With some evidence that Graham’s race this year may be tightening, a national ad on Fox News might not be completely ineffectual there, even if that effect wasn’t its intent. (Which I suppose would reinforce the conclusion that it was a stupid ad.)

 seems like you, Dennis and I are all on that same page together. 

 I might add that various polls over the past 2-3 months show the race dead even, or even with Jaime ahead by a couple. I think it's safe to say it's a bit more than "tightening". Lindsey seems to worn out his welcome with some of his most ardent supporters.

ml1 said:

drummerboy said:

I OBJECT TO THE ALL CAPS THREAD TITLE.

AGAIN.

 seriously.

The caps made me think it was truly going to be an awesome ad.  Instead it turns out it's an ad that a guy from the W. Bush admin thinks is the "best evah!"

 Fixed

First, I have no idea how some voters think. Who were the ones who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 and voted for Trump in 2016? Did they just not like Hillary?

Second, who are the people whose first choice was Bernie and now say they are considering supporting Trump? One guy told the NY Times that.

Third, If it pisses off Trump it's a positive.

STANV said:

First, I have no idea how some voters think. Who were the ones who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 and voted for Trump in 2016? Did they just not like Hillary?

Second, who are the people whose first choice was Bernie and now say they are considering supporting Trump? One guy told the NY Times that.

Third, If it pisses off Trump it's a positive.

 I don't know the answer to your questions. But consider this for a moment :

The second serious problem with voting in America is shown by how the news media relies on the State Department to certify foreign elections. The State Department uses exit polls to determine the veracity of an election. But in this country, we have seen a phenomenon in the past few presidential elections where exit polls report that the Democratic candidates won.

For example, in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, exit polls show that Hillary Clinton won a huge victory over Trump. But the official count shows Trump squeaking by in those states. If such a thing happened in Ukraine or Peru or Serbia — I cite those three countries because exit polls there conflicted with the official tally and the United States refused to recognize those governments. Our government actually declared those victories to be phony. Yet in 2016, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Iowa, and several other states showed Donald Trump losing in the exit polls. By the State Department's own rules regarding elections, Donald Trump lost.

Investigative journalist Greg Palast: Here's how Trump will steal the 2020 election

Exit polls show how people think they voted. And many of them don't realize their provisional or mail in ballots were never counted. In some states the GOP is able to disqualify countless numbers of ballots. 

To win this year, Biden is going to need huge turnout to get past the institutional roadblocks thrown in front of voters in several states. 

ml1 said:

STANV said:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/lindsey-graham-praises-joe-biden-in-what-might-be-the-best-campaign-ad-ever-according-to-harvard-prof-2020-06-14

 I have to disagree. Who is the target for this ad?  Republicans, among whom Trump still has at least 85% approval?  Independents? Lapsed Republicans? Are there any true independents or lapsed Republicans at this point who don't think of Lindsay Graham as a spineless, cowardly, hypocritical lickspittle?  

I think it's a really stupid ad and a waste of media dollars to run it.

It is targeted at independents and moderate republicans, especially in SC. And I think it could be really effective actually, because it shows how fake and hypocritical conservative support for trump really is, so it may give them just enough push to vote democrat this november.

basil said:

It is targeted at independents and moderate republicans, especially in SC.

Why would Republican Voters Against Trump target South Carolina, whose senator up for re-election helps their party control the Senate?

It's a good ad. It's not the only ad that will be out there. Many groups will be targeted. I did think of Jaime Harrison when I watched it. 

Bottom line is we will have to use an assortment of targeted ads. This is just one and I guess some of us want to get excited. But of course we are all scared too. I'm hoping when the VP pick is announced, there will be something designed to appeal to female voters. That would be a fun contest. I could get excited about brainstorming those ads. But for now, I'm ready to get enthusiastic for whatever bounces out there.

What I got out of it, beyond the obvious, over illustrated Graham flip flop, are the kind words about Biden.

Taking a step back from the flaws that we all like to dissect, there is a perception among his colleagues that he is a decent guy. This needs to be played up for most of America particularly in this era of Trump. As much as many Republicans think Democrats are crazy liberals, who are neither patriotic nor religious, Joe had a different image, a regular guy from a modest background, who was a family man who suffered the loss of his wife and daughter and recently his son.  Worth a shot appealing to our better angels. 

I love it. Great ad. Very unorthodox, but it works. I don’t expect voters to listen to Lindsey graham, but the ad should remind people how some Republicans really saw trump when they were free to say what they wanted about him, ie when their political careers didn’t depend on Trump’s approval. 

ml1 said:

STANV said:

First, I have no idea how some voters think. Who were the ones who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 and voted for Trump in 2016? Did they just not like Hillary?

Second, who are the people whose first choice was Bernie and now say they are considering supporting Trump? One guy told the NY Times that.

Third, If it pisses off Trump it's a positive.

 I don't know the answer to your questions. But consider this for a moment :

The second serious problem with voting in America is shown by how the news media relies on the State Department to certify foreign elections. The State Department uses exit polls to determine the veracity of an election. But in this country, we have seen a phenomenon in the past few presidential elections where exit polls report that the Democratic candidates won.

For example, in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, exit polls show that Hillary Clinton won a huge victory over Trump. But the official count shows Trump squeaking by in those states. If such a thing happened in Ukraine or Peru or Serbia — I cite those three countries because exit polls there conflicted with the official tally and the United States refused to recognize those governments. Our government actually declared those victories to be phony. Yet in 2016, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Iowa, and several other states showed Donald Trump losing in the exit polls. By the State Department's own rules regarding elections, Donald Trump lost.

Investigative journalist Greg Palast: Here's how Trump will steal the 2020 election

Exit polls show how people think they voted. And many of them don't realize their provisional or mail in ballots were never counted. In some states the GOP is able to disqualify countless numbers of ballots. 

To win this year, Biden is going to need huge turnout to get past the institutional roadblocks thrown in front of voters in several states. 

I've heard this exit poll argument before (nan used to raise it a lot), but it's my understanding that the way they do exit polls in the U.S. is different from how they're done in UN monitored elections, so it's not really comparable. Unfortunately I don't have a link for where I first saw that. I'll take another look.

Unfortunately, Slate didn’t ask Greg Palast where he saw those aggregate exit polls from Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Usually just the demographic breakdowns are released, because the actual vote makes an exit poll’s overall result moot. But somehow Palast knows Clinton had a “huge,” presumably statistically significant edge in the exit polls in those states. Sure, if he says so.

I don't bother reading Palast any more. Too unreliable.

DaveSchmidt said:

Unfortunately, Slate didn’t ask Greg Palast where he saw those aggregate exit polls from Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Usually just the demographic breakdowns are released, because the actual vote makes an exit poll’s overall result moot. But somehow Palast knows Clinton had a “huge,” presumably statistically significant edge in the exit polls in those states. Sure, if he says so.

 the exit polls in three states that Clinton lost had discrepancies of greater than the MoE. There are valid possibilities for it, and the author acknowledges one possibility is Palast's explanation. It can't be discounted out of hand just because it's a "nan" theory. 

https://heavy.com/news/2016/11/2016-exit-polls-did-hillaty-clinton-win-presidential-election-voter-fraud-donald-trump-lose-rigged/

This much is true -- the possibility of substantial GOP voter suppression is very real in November. Democrats would do well to take it very seriously and not dismiss it as a goofball conspiracy theory. They can start by listening to Stacey Abrams. 

ml1 said:

 the exit polls in three states that Clinton lost had discrepancies of greater than the MoE. 

OK, so Theodore de Macedo Soares reverse-engineered the overall percentages from the published gender breakdowns. Sounds plausible, but since he says “all the other categories would have approximately the same result,” that tells me there’s some wiggle room. More curiously, he applies the margin of error to the 2.1-point gap in the exit/reported results:

The margin of error (MOE) in an exit poll is a mathematical function mainly dependent on how many people you sample. In North Carolina, a very large number of people (3,947) filled out the anonymous exit poll questionnaire and the margin of error is calculated to be +-3%.

The exit poll for NC indicated a 2% Clinton win. A vote count within the MOE would fall between a Clinton win of 5% and a Trump win of 1%. The unverified computer vote count came up with a Trump win by 3.8%. This result therefore is 2.8% greater than the MOE for this state.

I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to work. Do you? (Applying the MOE to only one number, the gap, instead of two numbers, the totals, dilutes its effect.) Using N.C., like de Macedo Soares, for an example:

Exit poll: Clinton 48.6, Trump 46.5, MOE plus or minus 3. 

Reported vote: Trump 49.8, Clinton 46.2.

According to the exit poll, Trump could have been as high as 49.5 and Clinton as low as 45.6. Unless someone wants to rest a “See there!” on the 0.3 excess in Trump’s number, the exit poll and reported results are congruent.

DaveSchmidt said:

I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to work. Do you? (Applying the MOE to only one number, the gap, instead of two numbers, the totals, dilutes its effect.) Using N.C., like de Macedo Soares, for an example:

Exit poll: Clinton 48.6, Trump 46.5, MOE plus or minus 3. 

Reported vote: Trump 49.8, Clinton 46.2.

According to the exit poll, Trump could have been as high as 49.5 and Clinton as low as 45.6. Unless someone wants to rest a “See there!” on the 0.3 excess in Trump’s number, the exit poll and reported results are congruent.

a MoE for the difference between two numbers is a valid metric.

ml1 said:

a MoE for the difference between two numbers is a valid metric.

Is the MOE for the difference between two numbers the same as the MOE for the totals? And did the math I used to show congruence between the N.C. exit poll and the reported result mislead me?