First of all, I don’t think I have ever heard of a campaign issuing a press release for the express purpose of addressing poll results. Second, if you are the candidate whose numbers have slipped, why in the world would you want to call attention to that fact? Why would you turn a one day story into a two day story? Why would you let people know that you are focused on the polls and worried enough to formally address them? Why look panicked?
This release sends some pretty interesting signals and none of them are beneficial to Patrick. The fact that Adam Reilly was prompted to write a blog entry in response to the release is an example of its potential to prolong, rather than mitigate, the issue. Adam Reilly has been pretty good to the Patrick camp, so it says something when he concludes that “they are reaching a bit.” I support Tom Reilly, but I would be interested in hearing the opinions of others because this seems like poor political judgment IMHO.
I think this press release is addressed to the insiders, to his current and potential supporters and funders, i.e. the only ones really paying attention at this point (all BMG folks included). These people are going to know about the poll whether he issues a press release about it or not, and my guess he wants to assure them that everything’s alright. If it were August and fewer people were paying attention, I’d agree with you that the press release could do more damage than good.
but putting out a press release for mass consumption is an odd way of sending a message to a select group of people. By definition a press release is just that: a release for the media. It just seems like it is an invitation (and reminder) to the media to write about the polls, which only helps Reilly and Gabrieli.
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You may be right about their motivation, but does it really make sense? Do current supporters/donors require this kind of affirmation? And if they do, do you want to put the media on notice?
Campaigns respond to polls with press releases all the time. It’s very unremarkable. But as a Patrick supporter, I downplay polls because it’s true, not because it is good for Patrick. That’s why I equally downplay polls that are good for Patrick.
I thought the same thing when I got the email and press statement. A bad poll — especially a predictable one, in the context Gabrielli’s widespread media campaign, and the certain knowlege that Gabrielli’s is going after Patrick supporters as his primary targets — shouldn’t send a campaign into flailing free fall. I for one always expected that polling would show Gabrielli taking support from Patrick. Certainly in my own home territory on Cape Cod, both campaigns are targeting activists, progressives, and change agent types. So, certainly I can’t be the only person who saw these poll numbers coming, am I? The Patrick campaign was a little too sharp and quick to respond, rebut, explain. It brought much too much attention to the issue.
I was out with a couple friends this weekend and we began to talk about the gubernatorial race, and one of my friends was like: “Yeah that Gabrielli guy seems really great and trust worthy. I think he’ll beat the Republican, whats-her-name.” I responded by asking if he knew that there were other Democratics in the race. He said no, and I asked how he knew about Gabrielli then? He responded that he had seen the TV ads, and that he hadn’t heard anything about other candidates.
Being the good friend I am, I debriefed him about Patrick & Reilly.
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Guess that is what money & TV can do for a candidate who enters the race late . . .
it’s what money and TV can do for any candidate, late entrant or not!
Which is exactly one of the problems with the way we use polls. Polls are useful for a lot of things. You can poll people to find out what messages do and don’t resonate with them; you can poll for name recognition and positive/negative feelings and correlate them to campaign events to see what effect they’re having; you can poll people to find out what they want to hear… but that’s not what the media tends focus on, nor blogs like this one.
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No. We obsess over polls that pretend to measure support for a candidate, and we pretend they indicate support for those candidates on election day. We treat it like sports stats, we go “ooh candidate foo is now ahead of candidate bar, he’s more likely to win now!” BS.
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Every candidate knows when election day is, and their strategies are aimed at that. If one candidate does a media buy one week, and another one does a media buy three weeks later, polls may show the first candidate with more “support” that first week, and the next one, but three weeks later, polls may show them even again. Was the first candidate ever actually “ahead” in any meaningful sense? No.
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I think our unhealthy obsession with polls pretending to measure support for the candidates is ridiculous, and a distraction from thinking about these races based on what we actually know about the candidates and the voters.
Gabrielli is going to be a long-term problem for Patrick, so the Patrick campaign needs to develop a long-range strategy and the tactics to support it. Because they’re both looking to the same voter demographic for support. The Patrick campaign better figure out a better way to handle this day-to-day friction and guerilla warfare. Or else. I remember telling the Tolman people early on that Reich was stealing his support at the grassroots and activist level. But, they did nothing to stop or reverse the slide, and the results, as they say, are history.
If it’s within the standard deviation of recent previous polls, what’s the point of concern? Gabrieli just pumped in some of his vast wealth into a marketing blitz in May: that’s the reason the polls have swung. Gabrieli may be rich, but not even he can keep up spending at this rate. Eventually, he’s going to have to express a message and express a confidence that he can run the state. So far, I’m not so against his message (it’s pretty similar to Patrick’s), but I just don’t think he could lead Massachusetts with nearly as much charisma – the type of bold leadership that can create unique coalitions that will get the job done.