As you might know, yesterday the Globe rolled out a new weekly section devoted to politics. It’s called “Capital,” and features a little icon of the State House dome. It’s a good idea – it’ll be nice to know where to look for a weekly roundup as we slowly roll into election season. The first issue contains a lot of the usual political fodder, as well as some new stuff such as a look at who seems to be currently popular on Twitter.
Here are a couple of things I found especially noteworthy:
- Polling. One piece of good news is that the Globe will be polling every week between now and election day. Even more interesting is that the Globe has apparently ditched its long-time pollster, Andrew Smith of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, in favor of John Della Volpe, whose company is called SocialSphere Inc. I haven’t run across that pollster’s name before, but to be honest, Smith/UNH’s track record had gotten pretty spotty, and his work has been criticized here (for quite a long time) and elsewhere. A change was overdue. (FWIW: yesterday’s poll announced that Martha Coakley is ahead of Charlie Baker 37-32 in the horserace, which is a smaller margin than in a recent WBUR poll, and that Baker is ahead of all the other Dems, who remain largely unknown to most “likely voters.” These results are still mostly about name recognition, IMHO.)
- The advertising. This isn’t apparent from the online version of Capital, but the hard copy features three full-page ads (not cheap!) that I found interesting. Perhaps the most noteworthy was this one, from “Friends of Mohegan Sun” (click for larger view):
So, clearly, somebody thinks that this is a good way to reach the members of the Mass. Gaming Commission (minus the recused Steve Crosby) and persuade them that Mohegan Sun is better than Steve Wynn.Another interesting full-pager was this, from Steward Health Care (click for larger):
There’s less of an overt message in this one than in the Mohegan Sun ad, but it’s noteworthy nonetheless because Steward has been in the news around here lately, among other things as a big Martha Coakley supporter.Finally, there’s this, from an outfit called HumaneWatch.org (click for larger):
Tough stuff. Somebody really doesn’t like the Humane Society, and has the money to back it up. I wonder what that’s about.
Please share widely!
TERRIBLE name.
I thought it was about money management, etc. Basically, it’s a way for the Globe to promote a section to clients as “advertise HERE to catch the eyeballs of the movers and shakers of the Commonwealth”.
if the reference is to the state house rather than the city, as the dome logo suggests. In any case, I agree that the apparent reference to the economics concept is confusing at best.
with the U.S. Capitol Building.
Nobody refers to the Bullfinch Statehouse as the Capitol.
n/t
Bottom line, I think more people would have figured out Capitol as referriing to government than will now think of financial capital.
As it stands it reads like a cynical name.
I thought it would be more local. A lot of the twitter handles are national. Also no way to look up a name and see score/history.
by people who don’t really get social media.
Which is a lobby group for the food industry. Apparently they’d rather you donate to apolical shelters that don’t try to regulate their practices. Surprised?
Good digging.
to Repeal the Deal.
Sure, they have buckets o cash, but they wouldn’t pend any of it on adverts like this if they were not getting ready for a ballot fight.
PS Anyone else get their mailer?
This looks to me more like “choose us instead of Wynn,” not “don’t repeal the law.” But I’d love to see the mailer – can you upload?
I’ll check the recycle, but I think it was too long ago.
A glossy 8 (?) pager, all “choose us instead of Wynn.”
I figured if I got it everybody who was ever a convention delegate in their lives must have. Sorry!
So maybe not PR-ing up for the referendum, but what? People in my town are not going to write the Commission to choose Revere over Everett. Excess money? Kabuki theater?
So tired of polls of the Governor’s race. They come out all the time, and show roughly the same thing. But that’s all going to change once the real spending starts.
What about the downballot races? As far as I know there’s only been one poll of any of them, on the LG race in January (back when there was a candidate who’s no longer in). So I really hope if the Globe’s going to spend the money for weekly polling they actually make it interesting. Might be worth subscribing again if they do.
I don’t think polls serve much good purpose. There are only two that matter, and the rest of them largely serve to distort those. And sell newspapers, I guess.