General
One Surprise…
Courtesy allows people who disagree – Liberals, Conservatives, Democrats, Republicans – to go on living together in one country; take it away and you live in a perpetual knife fight – like the one we watched the other night between Trump and Biden. It’s tempting to blame Trump – who’s the world champion name-caller. But…
Read MoreLearned Nothing, Forgot Nothing
Thirty years ago Jesse Helms’ campaign aired a negative TV ad about Harvey Gantt – three weeks later I found myself sitting in a room full of campaign consultants and pollsters saying, We just spent $180,000 to air an ad telling voters Harvey Gantt’s on the wrong side of an issue and it hardly moved…
Read MoreA Backfire…
I woke up this morning, turned on the TV, and there was an ad from Mitch McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund basically calling Cal Cunningham a no good low-life scumbag – it was immediately followed by an ad for Cal Cunningham with Cunningham in it talking sweet and grinning, saying he disagreed with Thom Tillis about…
Read MoreIs Tillis Losing the ‘Base?’
I got a call from a reporter who’d read a poll: Biden and Cal Cunningham each had 47% of the vote in North Carolina; Trump had 47% (tied with Biden) but Thom Tillis only had 40%, seven points behind Cunningham – the reporter asked, There’re a lot of people, a lot of Republicans, voting for…
Read MoreWho Wins Tonight?
Well, ‘Sleepy Joe’ and ‘Tacky Trump’ go head to head tonight with no holds barred and with courtesy all but gone the ratings of tonight’s debate should shoot through the roof! Every morning my inbox is filled with emails from old friends who say, Trump lies but… and, at the same time, when Biden floats…
Read MoreA Bad Sign?
In a political campaign signs can tell you who’s up or who’s down: A tremor in a candidate’s voice, an evasive campaign manager, and polls (though these days a lot of polls are silly). When one campaign cuts back its media buys, as the other ramps up, that’s another sign. I read a story in…
Read MoreLast Respects
Thirty-five years ago, the morning George Crile – a producer at 60 Minutes who later wrote the book Charlie Wilson’s War – called I thought, An interview with 60 Minutes – what’s the difference between that and sticking your head in a lion’s mouth? I said: ‘I reckon you know the chances of Tom Ellis…
Read MoreWhat a Poll Missed
During Ronald Reagan’s 1976 primary Tom Ellis and I sat in a room listening to Arthur Finkelstein explain his first poll for Reagan in North Carolina – forty years later, sitting in my office across the table from Arthur, I listened to him explain his polls for George Holding. Sadly, a year later, Arthur passed…
Read MorePolitics 101
Imagine for a moment that you’re a Republican candidate running in a down ballot race in a swing district: Your fate is in the hands of Donald Trump and Joe Biden. For example: Turnout. If Democrats vote and Republicans don’t your ship sinks – but there’s not much you can do about that. Biden and…
Read MoreAn Uncomfortable Question
The phone rang, a friend’s voice asked, ‘Do you believe John Bolton?’ ‘I do.’ ‘Why?’ ‘I’ve known him for 40 years.’ ‘So you think Trump smeared him?’ ‘Yes.’ Angry, Trump had branded John Bolton a liar, fool, washed up, whacko and a sick puppy. There’s no one quite like Trump when he’s on a tirade…
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