Race For The Seats

As any people who are politically aware know, there are midterm elections during the month of November for seats in both houses of Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Surveys have predicted that the Republican will have a big night in the Tuesdays elections however the Republican party themselves have attempted to lower these expectations, whether it be because they don’t think they will do well or they just don’t want there to be a lot of hype about it. Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee does not believe his party can take the House this year still thinks that winning 37 or 39 seats would be a success. His position is interesting as he believes that although this amount of seats wouldn’t give them the majority it would be a step in the right direction. He realizes that last year his party was a, “party out of power.” I think this a very respectable position as one, or a party must realize they can’t get everything they want when they want it.

However while there may be a slight chance that the Republican party can take over the House of Representatives many realize that they have no chance at taking over the Senate. Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi expresses this same belief as he stated how he would be surprised if there was not a Republican majority in the House after Tuesday, but how seizing control of the Senate would be “harder.” While the Republicans think they have a chance in one House of Congress the Democrats think they will keep a hold on both houses. Tim Kaine, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee displayed his confidence in his party when he predicted on “Meet the Press” that Democrats would hang onto control of both chambers. As leaders in both Houses of Congress I think it is very understandable that the Democratic Party admit no nervousness about the election. The race for the seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate are very intense and in reality, no one knows how either will turn out, and it will be interesting to find out.

Obama's Multiple Personality Disorder

It seems as though Two President Obamas have come out this week as he the President has traveled all along the West Coast, attending rallies in Portland, backyard chats in Seattle and fund-raisers in Palo Alto. The first Obama, Obama One, is the high energy campaigner from 2008, yelling “Yes, we can!” and starting chants in the crowd as they hoped for a better tomorrow. The second Obama who came out, Obama Two looks like the president, we as the American people have seen in the past two years, who holds talks about innovation and new forms of energy. Obama One does big events to fire up the Democratic base, that core group of African-Americans, young people and women who ushered Mr. Obama into office two years ago. Obama Two does small gatherings to fill the last of the democratic funds and $30,000-a-plate dinners attended by the richest of the rich of his supporters. Despite the two different personalities, it is the same guy playing both parts. The reason for the difference is the audience. The president feels the need to appeal to two vastly disparate audiences as its part of his and the White House’s last efforts to avoid a Democratic wipeout at the polls.

I find it interesting that Obama has to have these two completely different personalities to win the votes that he needs. His changing of his style and the way he approaches a group is almost misleading. The person he is with a group in Portland may be entirely different than the person he is with a group in Seattle. It’s a very smart political strategy by I find it sad that a political candidate cannot be the same person 100% of the time and still win a election. However by being these two people he does in fact enable himself to appeal to and satisfy the different audiences in which he is presenting himself to. In the end politics is all about saying what the audience wants to hear, not what they should hear. Politics is a game, and president Obama is doing whatever he can to win it.

The Problem With Advertisements

I’ve written about the media aspect of politics such as candidates’ use of television advertisements and the extreme influence that those advertisements have on voters. Advertisements are a big part of politics and recently in the mid-term election race democrats are trying to get every advantage they can get as the election nears, with only three weeks to go. House Democrats said they will have about $10 million more than their Republican counterparts to spend on television advertising in these final weeks before Election Day. This conclusion comes from numbers provided by both parties. Officials at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said Thursday that they had $40 million to invest in advertisements while officials at the National Republican Congressional Committee said they expected to spend about $30 million. However this lead that the democrats believe themselves to have may be dwindling down in the near future as the House Republican committee is getting considerable additional help from outside groups. Several third party groups are spending millions of dollars raised from anonymous donors to bash Democrats.

This situation is all about competition between the two parties on who can raise the most money for advertisement. Advertisements would not be important had it not been proven that the more advertisements, the more likely someone is to win. This is what seems too absurd to me as I can’t believe the number of voters who are swayed one way or another by these advertisements. The Republican and Democratic parties have realized the power and influence of advertisements which is why they continue to spend millions of dollars each year on advertising. Advertisements are simply 30 second commercials on TV that provide facts that often the voter doesn’t take the time to go verify or validate. My opinion is often never swayed by these advertisements and I believe it never will be. I think that advertising would be good had it not always been filled with false facts. I also have a problem with the fact that so many advertisements attack the competition party rather than uplift the party sponsoring the advertisement. Political advertisements are something which I am highly disappointed by and disapprove of.

Third Party Power

One will find that in most races, whether it is a race for Senate or for the position of President, the main parties and the only ones usually discussed are the Democratic and Republican parties. In most cases the smaller party’s, known as third parties, such as the Green party are disregarded and often forgot about. However in some races these smaller parties do hold some political power and influence. This is the case in the Illinois race for Senate. In this race there seems to be an unusual number of voters committed to minor-party candidates. For example there are many voters committed to the Green Party’s nominee, LeAlan Jones as well as the Libertarian nominee, Mike Labno. There also seems to be a significant number of voters who haven’t committed to a candidate at all yet. Collectively, the third-party candidates have held between 5 and 11 percent of the vote in recent polls, while about 10 to 15 percent of voters remain undecided. This is a rare case as two groups of people, the third-party voters and the undecided voters, who usually hold little power in a race, hold a significant amount of power in this senate race.

This situation brings up an interesting fact and that is in some cases the third-party voters and the undecided voters can hold power. People can also join these groups in opposition to the other two main parties. This is the case in Illinois as Illinois residents have some recent history of casting protest votes for third-party candidates when they are dissatisfied with the major-party nominees, as they appear to be this year. As there is not a clear trend in the race, both Mr. Kirk’s and Mr. Giannoulias’s campaigns have released their own polling in the state. The affects of these two groups of people on the Senate race in Illinois is great and it is very interesting to me how these groups have established their power.

The Republicans Draw Their Ad-Guns

It seems like any political campaign consists of speeches of promises which most often don’t get fulfilled and a lot of attack ads which seem to always state false facts. Now this article doesn’t cover the speeches which include unfulfilled promises but it does cover the attack ads which include false facts. The National Republican Congressional Committee spent $5.4 million on 30-second attack ads which began running this weekend. The 27, 30-second TV ads will air in 20 states and run for a week. These adds all have the same purpose, which is to portray the Democratic party as just another part of the Washington government that the United States disapprove of so much. In other words, they are all attack ads on the Democrats running for congress. These ads aim also aim to link the Democrats to the current House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, who is currently the black sheep of the Democratic Party. The N.R.C.C. hopes to single out Democrats in districts that the committee believes Republicans could win in November. One of the ads attacks the independence of Representative Frank Kratovil Jr., a Democrat from Maryland’s First District. The add claims that Representative Kratovil not only, “voted to make Nancy Pelosi speaker” but also “voted with Pelosi 84 percent of the time.” The Frank Kratovil campaign completely rejects and disapproves of this add. Jessica Klonsky, Mr. Kratovil’s campaign manager says, “The N.R.C.C. is twisting the facts in an attempt to mislead voters about Frank” and that the truth is, “he has voted against more than $6 trillion in spending and is ranked one of the 10 most independent members of Congress.”

In another attacking add filled with false facts and false messages, the N.R.C.C. goes after Representative Jim Marshall from Georgia’s Eighth District. The ad features an animated Ms. Pelosi cruising around the nation’s capital with Mr. Marshall in a red convertible. The ad claims that, “Jim voted with her almost 90 percent of the time.” Just as the Kratovil campaign refute the commercial by the N.R.C.C. the marshal campaign also refutes the figures presented in this commercial saying how they are “utterly false” and “not defensible.” In fact, a comparison of their records on roll call votes since January 2007 from OpenCongress, an independent, nonprofit, and most likely non-bias, Web site that tracks Congressional votes, puts their joint voting record at 66 percent. This number is far lower than those presented by N.R.C.C. on their ad, showing how false the claims in their ad were. These attacking commercials are just part of the never ending chain of attack ads by each of the parties. Whether it is a race for Senate, the House of Representative or for President, attack ads will always be out there and running. And I am sure that in no time the Democrats will have a stream of attack ads about the Republican candidates.