Mike Baselice, Perry's highly skilled pollster, acknowledged Wednesday at a public forum sponsored by The Texas Tribune that the campaign asked primary voters in Texas whether a newspaper endorsement would make them more or less likely to vote for Perry. Only 6 percent said an endorsement would make them more likely to support Perry, while an eye-popping 37 percent said it would make them less likely (56 percent said it made no difference).I have heard a lot about this poll but this may be the first time I have seen the actual numbers published...
Getting a newspaper endorsement was 6 times more likely to hurt a candidate than to help in a Republican primary in Texas...
Although more than half say it makes no difference...
You have to think that Rick's peeps did some polling on this in the general election too and found similar results... although I have not seen or heard any numbers...
You also have to think Rick's peeps were patting themselves on the back as both Kay and Bill White based television commercials on how they had newspaper endorsements and Rick didn't... probably laughing to themselves... they knew something the others didn't...
Really a far more effective ad would be to take 100 normal "Republicans" who say they voted for Rick in the past but supported Bill White this year... assuming they existed... and put them in one room and have them talk about their problems with Rick. Having them saying the same exact things would have been a lot more powerful than newspaper mastheads floating across the screen... newspapers automatically give the statements less credibility.
My bet is that you will still see "I have more newspaper endorsements" commercials like that for years to come despite these poll numbers... you will still see Republicans worked up about getting or not getting newspaper endorsements... and who knows maybe one day newspapers will be back in favor but right now they are a reviled institution and rightfully so... just look at Politifact Texas if you need a reason to hate the msm...
I hate the TX Tribune too! That hour "interview" with Perry and White was nothing more than, "cut Rick's nuts off, act like Bill is super awesome" it was BS!!
ReplyDeleteI can't think of a single media outlet in TX that is worth a darn. They don't exist and hopefully that will be a reality and not just wishful thinking on my part.