Maybe Republicans Should Be Using Aerosmith Songs

With Van Halen, Heart, the songwriter of "Independence Day" and the estate of the man who wrote the Broadway hit "Big Spender" all mad at Republicans using their music for rallies or ads, perhaps they should peruse the catalog of Aerosmith.  Turns out Joe Perry has been a "hardcore Republican (his) whole life."

Will Obama Make a Return Halloween Appearance?

Last year when my son emptied his Halloween bag he found an Obama '08 sticker amidst the Snickers and Laffy Taffy.  He was disappointed it wasn't something "cooler," while I thought it was kind of an odd way of campaigning.  Obviously, in retrospect, it showed the intensity of Obama's supporters a full year out.  I'm sure this Halloween that person is feeling pretty good.

$200,000 Bounty for LA Times' Khalidi Video

It seems kind of sad bloggers have to offer cash for a major newspaper to release a tape they admit they have possession of.  If the Barack Obama/Rashid Khalidi video is explosive, as some conservatives believe (or, more accurately, hope) it is beyond unethical to not release it.

Even if it is just a dull account of a party with little excitement, and no "bombshells," why stoke the fires of perceived media bias by not putting it up on YouTube or somewhere.  What's the harm in it?  Instead you open yourself up to charges like "If it was McCain, you now it would be above the fold," or "Another liberal newspaper in the tank."

As for the bounty, I sure hope it is more legitimate than the one NVPoliticker recently put up.  (Those welching bastards wouldn't even donate it to charity.)

Some More "Road to the White House" Posts

If you are interested, here some recent stories Ryan Jerz and I have posted over at Swift Communications' "Road to the White House" blog.

• Will Fraud Really Play a Role in This Election?

•  How To Vote Your Conscience in Three Easy Steps 

• Presidential Influence On Nevada's Energy Business 

•  Is the Press Biased this Presidential Election? 

•  The Liberal's Case for John McCain 

• Should the Media Let Users Know Who They Are Voting For? 

Political Book Buying Habits and YouTube Video Viewing Value

Since every aspect possible has been analyzed in this presidential race, we decided to add to the info overload with a couple studies that probably mean nothing at all in the bigger scheme of things but make for an interesting read if you are a political junkie.  Naturally, both are from techPresident.

• Ever wonder how much all those viewings of political videos on YouTube are worth in a monetary sense.  Whether you agree or not with the premise, they came up with $43.9 million in value for Barack Obama and about $1.5 for John McCain.  The real interesting figure is the staggering amount of hours people have spent watching these videos -- 14,548,809.05 for Obama; 488,093.01 for McCain.

• Even Amazon.com political book buyers are polarized.  Actually that's not surprising.  Check out who is buying what in this chart.

The Super-Secret Observers of Washoe County's Election

I had to stop by a bank yesterday, so popped over to the local Scolari's to hit the ATM.  It also had an early voting precinct.  You could tell because of the guy sitting just outside the "No Electioneering within 100 feet" sign.  I think he was reading a book.  His name tag, though, said "Observer."

Once inside I came across two more individuals seated in lawn chairs behind the equivalent of the "velvet rope."  They, too, had name tags stating they were observers.  Figuring I'd make a little conversation I asked if it had been an uneventful day.  The young man said it was.  The older woman glared ahead. Then, curious, I asked if they were with a specific group.  No answer from either.  The man just smiled, while the older woman continued to angrily stare ahead.  She must have been from MoveOn.

That Obama Redistribution of Wealth Tape

Although it's only been up for a day or so on YouTube, the "Obama Redistribution of Wealth" 2001 radio interview has logged over 1.63 million views (thanks to the Drudge Report).  Those are impressive numbers, but do you think any of those clicking over to listen are the type of people who are going to change their minds about anything?

I'm betting the numbers break down about like this:

1.1 million viewers are conservatives yelling, "I knew that S.O.B. was a damn socialist all along!"

533,000 viewers are Daily Kos denizens who, on the one hand, are fretting this is the dreaded October Surprise, while on the other are yelling, "Damn straight, make those rich bastards pay!"

And about 300 open-minded folks who gave up and said, "Dang, this is a boring interview."

2,000 Posts and the Other Presidential Race

My other site, Campaign Emails, reached its 2,000th post Thursday evening with an "I am Joe" John McCain letter.  It was the 10th email that day from our presidential candidates.  Number 155 for October.  Number 238 for McCain.

When I started the blog back on July 28, 2007, more out of curiosity than anything else, for some strange reason I didn't figure it would become so massive.  But considering the low cost of email and the neverending pursuit of money it shouldn't have been a surprise.

Probably a full half of these have been out and out beg letters, and most of the rest had some fundraising elements in them too. A lot were your garden variety "send us money" requests, some came with specific reasons (GOTV or an ad campaign), but the new one seemed to be the "politics of outrage" fundraiser.  Any perceived slight from an opponent would guarantee a "show [fill in the blank] and give us money" plea in the in-box within hours.  (John Edwards was the master, as I think Ann Coulter's insults alone kept his campaign alive for months.)

Although we didn't start until almost August, a full 1,005 emails were logged in 2007.  Of course you had the likes of Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul, Joe Biden, etc. all gearing up for the January and February contests. Once they fell by the wayside, things slowed down to mainly Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and McCain.  We added third-party candidates a few months ago and Ralph Nader and Bob Barr have proven to be prolific emailers, something one would expect from the more shoe-string campaigns.

Interestingly, while the real poll numbers for Obama and McCain may or may not be close, in the land of Campaign Emails the race for most mailings is most definitely knotted (having finally overtaken Clinton, who specialized in a lot of Nevada-specific emails).  After almost 15 months of online campaigning the two were tied at exactly 238 emails apiece Thursday. 

Thankfully it should come to an end in the next week or so. And when all is said and done, I'll probably end up having read some 2,100 campaign emails from 22 different individuals who wanted to be our president.

So was there any great insight gleaned from all those letters, you might ask?

Not what you would think.  What I really came away with was the sense that all the campaigns really just view you as a base commodity to mine (either for cash or time, but mainly cash).  And not too bright of one either.  The "politics of outrage" fundraisers were particularly insulting and frequent.  Rarely was there anything beyond the most simplistic of talking points or attacks in the text.  The "insider" details they mailed you were already on the 6 o'clock news yesterday and even the fundraising contests, and all seemed to run them, became tiring after the third and fourth times.  Nowhere was there ever a real discussion on issues.

Plain and simple, no matter who the candidate, once you gave them your email you became just another wallet to exploit.

Money, Local So-and-So and Chads

Conservatism, cash and chads all caught our eye recently.

• Local So-and-So, who has been putting out some great stuff, asks the question "What is Conservatism?"  (Make sure you check out his response to Texex in the comments.)

• Taxpayers taking it in the shorts example #768.  While average folks looking at their recent 401K and IRA statements (and those third quarter numbers are probably worse now, I'm down 40% for the year at Vanguard) are probably wondering if they will have enough for retirement, California public employees apparently won't have to worry.  Calpers is contemplating raising employer contributions by 2 to 4 percent of payroll (the current average is 13%) if the market doesn't recover sufficiently.  And since those employers are public agencies, it's safe to say California taxpayers will end up footing the bill.
  

• ABC's Jake Tapper looks at the Obama money advantage.

• Remember those chads and Florida voting machines from 2000?  One man does and bought over a thousand of them a few years back.  After selling most of the machines, which were filled with punched chads, he is now concentrating on the infamous pieces of paper themselves.  Twenty bucks, or maybe less this holiday season, will get you a bag of 10.

Do You Think He Wishes His Last Name Wasn't Gibbons?

Thanks to a close primary race and all the corresponding mailers and TV spots, I'd like to think that most all Nevadans are at least aware of the Nevada Supreme Court Seat B race between Kris Pickering and Deborah Schumacher.  But did you know there were two Supreme Court contests this year?

Until a mailer arrived in our mailbox this past week, I haven't heard a peep about the race for Seat D.  I'm betting most haven't.  Unlike the above race, this one has an incumbent running.  The good news for him is that he is the current Chief Justice.  The bad news is his name ends in Gibbons.

So in a mostly unpublicized race, will Mark Gibbons last name be a drag on the ballot in a state where about three-quarters of the voting public aren't too keen on the other Gibbons in office?  Thomas Frank Christensen supporters are probably hoping so.

Media Pulling Hard for Obama?

Historically a majority of people tend to believe the media has a liberal bias.  Granted some see a left-wing boogeyman behind every page, but for most I'm assuming it is more the occasional news story that seems to look like an editorial with a Democratic bent.  In fact, a Pew Research poll out this week found a whopping 70 percent of the public think "most journalists want to see Barack Obama win."  Only nine percent thought the Fourth Estate was pulling for John McCain.

Perhaps part of the reason was a pair of recent studies showing decidedly more favorable coverage for Obama. 

Pew released a report showing 57 percent of stories on McCain following the convention were negative, while only 14 percent were positive.  By contrast, Obama stories were negative only 29 percent of the time.  The study looked at 2,412 campaign pieces from 48 news outlets.

When it came to network news coverage the story remained the same.  George Mason University's nonpartisan Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) found 65 percent of the stories on Obama were positive, while only 36 percent were for McCain.

Life of a Presidential Campaign Reporter

Somewhere out there right now, perhaps on a college campus near you, is a communications major dreaming of how glamorous it must be to be a reporter on the presidential campaign trail. 

They need to read Michael Hastings' story first.

Who Knew AARP Could Be Cool?

This is actually kind of cool.  And it's from AARP of all places.

Put your name in a video that's fairly funny.  Here's ours.

"Road to the White House" Blog Launches

Last week the Nevada Appeal launched "Road to the White House," a look at the presidential race from the point of view of a pair of bloggers.  The project will run posts up until election day, where it will then live-blog all the news and results as they come in.

Now the reason we mention this, well besides that it is local, is that the two bloggers happen to be Ryan Jerz and, yes, The Anon Guy.  So if you like us, you might want to check out "Road to the White House."

Some recent posts:

• What Do You Expect The President To Do?
• The Joe the Plumber Debate
• Why Debates Should Be Useless 
• The Problem With Early Voting

As of today, the blog is also running on the Tahoe Daily Tribune, Sierra Sun, Lahontan Valley News, North Lake Tahoe Bonanza, The Record Courier and the Grand Junction Free Press websites.  It's hoped the project will roll out to 20+ newspapers in the Swift Communications stable.

Reuters Political Headlines All Bad for GOP

Maybe it was just the time of day, but on my Yahoo page all the political news from Reuters wasn't pretty if you're a Republican.

Is Early Voting Smart Voting?

With the Reno and Carson City media trumpeting record opening day early voting, I have to wonder how many of these people are actually making fully-informed choices.  And I'm not talking about the "what if something changes in the next two weeks" scenario which, frankly, is a valid one.  I'm talking about the whole ballot.

While each and every one of those punching a touch screen Saturday may have known for months they were voting for Barack Obama or John McCain, what about the Linda Gardner vs. Roger Harada race (District Court Judge, District 14) or Dan Carne vs. Celana Wasson for School Board Trustee (District A)?  Did they know the pro and con arguments for Question 3?  Did they know there even was a Question 3?

I don't know about the rest of Nevada's voters, but we didn't receive our sample ballots until Friday evening.  I've got a total of 16 contested races and nine ballot questions, for which the descriptions and arguments run 37 pages.

Do you think all those people actually took the time to sit down and read each of the ballot questions, or tried to Google information to determine the differences between Mark Gibbons and Thomas Christensen (Supreme Court Justice, Seat D), in the hours before rushing to Scolari's to vote early?

I don't think so.

Washoe County GOP's Sunday RGJ Insert

Usually if you are going to insert something in your Sunday paper you got to realize you are competing with Target, Sears, Home Depot and a myriad of other circulars and coupon sheets.  So a stand-alone realistically needs to at least be 8.5" x 11" and, preferably, of a heavy paper stock.  If not, you run a big risk of being lost in the shuffle.

So it was a minor miracle that today's Washoe County Republican's "Vote Early" insert in the Reno Gazette-Journal actually survived the culling that one quickly does with the ads.  At 5.5" x 8.5" and a fairly thin stock I suspect it will hit a lot of dumpsters unread.

The front listed early voting locations, while the flipside (below) featured all the Republican candidates running for office in Washoe County.

How Utterly Stupid Must This GOP Group Leader Be

I mean really.  Fried chicken and watermelon jokes?

How dense do you have to be to put this kind of racist garbage in anything, let alone a mainstream political group's newsletter.

Yet, apparently nobody told the leader of the Chaffey Community Republican Women that these images aren't exactly consider kosher nowadays. So, incredibly, Diane Fedele included these "Obama Bucks" in their monthly newsletter.

Even more mind-boggling was her defense. "I didn't see it the way that it's being taken. I never connected," she told The Press-Enterprise.  "It was just food to me. It didn't mean anything else."

Probably the lone black woman in the group summed it up best.  "This is what keeps African-Americans from joining the Republican Party," she said. "I'm really hurt. I cried for 45 minutes."

Unbelievable.

Those Obama and McCain Comedy Bits

Even in the heat of battle I think it's nice to see John McCain and Barack Obama show they can still make and take a joke. Their stuff at Thursday's Al Smith Dinner was damn funny.  Yeah, I know it was scripted, but either one could work the Roast circuit in retirement.

Obama


McCain

Bill Clinton and Sarah Palin Set to Visit Reno

It will be dueling political party stars next week in Reno as former President Bill Clinton and current GOP Veep pick Sarah Palin look to rally the troops.

Clinton is set to descend on Truckee Meadows Community College Monday morning. Doors open at 10:30, but considering the former Prez has a rally in Elko earlier that morning (their doors open at 8:00) and will have spent the prior night in Vegas, it's probably safe to say there will be a long wait before he appears. Tickets are not required but an RSVP is encouraged.

Palin will follow on Tuesday with a morning rally at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center. Doors open at 7:00 (yikes!) and tickets are required. One will need to RSVP (maximum four tickets per party) and pick up their tickets at county GOP offices.

Interestingly, the Palin rally includes a chance at VIP tickets for preferred seating. But the kicker, and it's a humongous one, is that you need to "knock 200 doors or make 500 phone calls this weekend AND sign up for two 72-hour shifts". Two 72-hour shifts! That's 18 eight-hour days with, well, 18 days to go. Hell, for that they better include photo ops, lunch, a chance to hold Trig and a hunting trip in Alaska to be named later.

Update (10/18): After receiving another email with the "two 72-hour shifts" requirement I had to call and find out what was going on. Turns out it wasn't "good phraseology" and the requirement is actually two "THREE-hour shifts". That's much more manageable. Though, now that I think about it, that 500 calls in a weekend could be a bear. Let's see, one call a minute would take, what, over 8 hours. And heaven help the volunteer that got stuck with a Ron Paul supporter wanting to debate the finer points of returning to the gold standard.

Perhaps Not Everybody Should be Voting

Maybe people shouldn't be so worried about those phony Tony Romo voter registrations and instead look at some of the people who actually can place a vote in this year's election.

You'd think with all the cable news channels, local news, blogs, newspapers, etc. out there people would, you know, have some basic information on who our politicians are and what they tend to stand for.  But, apparently, a lot just don't.  For example, listen to this on Howard Stern.  Granted there probably was a lot of cherry-picking, but to actually find people who think Barack Obama made a good choice in selecting Sarah Palin as his VP is unbelievable.

Then you had John Stossel on 20/20 last week showing pictures of candidates to people.  While it appears only one recognized poor Joe Biden, virtually everyone knew Judge Judy.  Even better, or sadder actually, was watching newly registered college kids struggle to guess how many states there are.

Hell, we've even stumbled across people who probably should be blacklisted.  It's not like we're asking you to know every amendment to the Constitution off the top of your head, or the name of the local cemetery board member, but for God sakes is too much to ask that you should recognize Biden and know that he is Obama's Veep?

Here's Stossel discussing his "Vote or Die" story.

What's Going On With These Presidential Polls?

Obama opens up 14% lead, says CBS News/New York Times poll.

McCain closes to within four points, answers the Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll.

And that was on the same day.

I guess we know which polls the party flacks will be spinning for tonight's debate.

Is It Something In Florida's Water?

What is it about Florida's 16th congressional district that turns their representatives into horndogs?

First Republican Mark Foley steps down in 2006 after it turns out that the Congressman had a thing for teenage boys and apparently grabbing the "one-eyed snake" while instant messaging them.

Now we find his replacement, Democrat Tim Mahoney, was, as my son likes to say (thank you Simpsons), "getting busy" with a campaign aide all the while running on a platform with the tagline "Restoring America's Values Begins at Home."

Of course, at first blush Floridians might be tempted to say "At least it was with a woman.  And a woman of legal age too!"  But then it turns out the married Mahoney paid $121,000 in hush money and is kind of a bully on the phone in a series of calls to his ex-mistress.  Calls, we might add, that he apparently taped ... and are now, surprise, featured in a GOP campaign spot.

KRNV's Nevada Decision 2008 Site

Lately we've been noticing ads for some site called NevadaDecision.com.  They've even invaded our Gmail page (see below) with promises of delivering the "Latest NV Political News".  Thinking it was some enterprising blogger with a little money to burn we clicked.  Alas, it is the brainchild of Reno's NBC affiliate, KRNV-4.  Though heavy on AP feeds (actually, it's almost entirely AP feeds) it does have a contribution page for any enterprising cameraman.

Latest Presidential Polls Slipping Away From McCain

With John McCain's post-convention bounce long gone and a score of polls showing Barack Obama pulling away, it's getting close to the point where the media will no longer be asking "Who will win?" but, instead, "By how much?"

• Today's release of the Washington Post/ABC News poll shows Obama up by 10 over McCain nationally.  And, perhaps most importantly, Obama over the halfway mark with 53%.

• Newsweek's latest gave Obama an 11-point advantage, 52 to 41.

• Rasmussen Reports has Obama winning 51-45.

• Diageo/Hotline 49-41 for Obama.

• Gallup provided the lone good news for McCain as they saw the gap narrowed somewhat, but Obama still had a strong 50% to 43% lead.

Schumacher Banner Flies Over Reno

You have to give it to Kris Pickering and Deborah Schumacher, they are leaving no advertising opportunity unturned in their race for the Nevada State Supreme Court Seat-B.

Both candidates have done the traditional mailings, bought TV spots and have even run online Google Adword campaigns.  But now, Schumacher has borrowed a page from Democratic congressional candidate Jill Derby and taken to the skies with an old-style airplane banner.  Unlike Derby's, however, Schumacher's banner was longer and more readable in the Sunday afternoon sky over Reno.

Where's The Five Bucks Wally Edge?

What's going on Wally?

You'd think if you are going to publicly offer five bucks in "cold, hard cash" to the first person to come up with Assemblywoman Francis O. Allen's middle name you would actually cough up the dough.  I mean, what's a five-spot compared to all that big New York City money PolitickerNV has to be rolling in?

But alas, after discovering the "O" is for "Oh", and posting the evidence (more below), no fiver has found its way to the Dullard Mush coffers.  Call me paranoid, but I bet if I was RGJ's Anjeanette Damon a Lincoln would be appearing awfully fast (see Wally Edge's stalkerish Damon mentions here, here, here and, well, you get the idea).

Now to make it easy on you, seeing how we're a couple anonymous guys, you can go ahead and donate the bounty to the American Diabetes Association.  But, much like Reagan famously said, while I might be able to trust you, I'll still need verification.

So I'll be looking for that ADA donation e-card Wally.  Heck, I'll even post it.

Apparently They Don't Read The Idiots Over At Daily Kos and HuffPo

Apparently the new meme among pundits is the "hate" crowds that McCain and Palin are firing up.  And by hate crowds, they actually mean a handful of morons, in a sea of others, shouting "terrorist" or something to that effect.  But no matter, it is an outrage of epic proportions to Glenn Greenwald and Joe Klein.

"The rallies at John McCain and Sarah Palin’s events are rabid, drooling lynch mobs spouting the most vile and extreme accusations against Barack Obama personally that can be imagined," cries Greenwald in a story blasting The Washington Times' Dan Balz for having the temerity to point out that both sides are making character attacks.  The most "vile and extreme" imagined?  Please.

Meanwhile Time's Klein is "beginning to worry about the level of craziness on the Republican side."

Gee, where was all this concern when all those idiots over on DailyKos and HuffPo were floating conspiracies that Sarah Palin's child was actually her daughter's or the usual hate-spewing crap that passes for commentary on many blogs.

The fact is anytime you have a crowd of political partisans (of any persuasion), or any crowd really, you are going to have a handful of morons spouting some crap.  It doesn't represent the crowd as a whole, just like the insanely partisan world of political blogging doesn't come close to representing the real electorate.

NewsBusters Lauds LVRJ's Molly Ball On ACORN Story, Rips CNN

In a post ripping a CNN story for failing to mention the name of the organization raided in Vegas, or its ties with Barack Obama, NewsBusters.org (part of the conservative Media Research Center) uses Molly Ball's Las Vegas Review-Journal article on the ACORN raids as an example of fair and accurate reporting.

NewsBusters noted that Ball not only mentioned Obama's history with ACORN and the organization's "liberal political agenda" but also pointed out Secretary of State Ross Miller was a Democrat.

Eric Odom Floats "Did 'An American Carol' Tank Because of Liberal Theaters?" Conspiracy

Conservative activist and former Reno blogger Eric Odom wonders if the poor box office for An American Carol was due to "possible theater fraud" with the implication that it might have been some sort of liberal conspiracy.

It wasn't.

First, distributors complaining about exhibitors is about as old in the movie biz as producers complaining about distributors.  There is always going to be a few theaters where the ticket taker or manager is going to skim a little cash for himself, that's why distributors do random audits.  Plus, since Vivendi is a new theatrical distributor they probably couldn't place the film in the best theaters and, without future blockbusters to hold over the occasional rogue venue, they might of had some isolated incidents.  But those would have been driven by money, not ideology.   

Second, some have complained that they received Beverly Hills Chihuahua tickets instead of Carol ones when they paid.  Since Chihuahua was by far and away the top movie of the weekend, it's safe to say that in multiplexes across America cashiers were punching that ticket out of habit.  Again, hardly a conspiracy.  In fact, one could argue the opposite as conservative activist (and Odom mentor) Chuck Muth told readers "Heck, if you really hate slapstick comedies, buy a ticket for An American Carol and then once inside, time it so you can sneak in to see Beverly Hills Chihuahua or an another movie instead."

Let's face it, the real reason Carol tanked wasn't politics but that it flat out stunk as a comedy.  It wasn't a vast left-wing movie theater conspiracy or a coalition of Nader-supporting ticket takers who added millions to a movie about a talking dog that doomed it.  It was a comedy script devoid of humor and, most damning of all, a trailer that was virtually laugh free.  It deserved to bomb.

"An American Carol" vs. "Religulous" Showdown Results

The much-hyped, well at least in the narrow world of hyper-politics, box office battle between the Right's An American Carol and the Left's Religulous was essentially a draw in one respect -- total box office ($3,656,000 to $3,409,653) .

But where it truly counts, per screen average, Religulous was the clear winner.  Debuting in 1,100+ fewer theaters, the Bill Maher documentary grossed a solid $6,792 per screen.  With a budget of just $2.5 million and the prospect of much longer box office legs, Religulous is all but guaranteed a profit for its backers.

The same can't be said for David Zucker's comedy.  Although it grossed about a quarter million more over the weekend, the critically-panned An American Carol had an anemic debut screen average of $2,231, which doesn't bode well for the following weeks.  With a $20 million budget and limited foreign market appeal, producers will have to count on video to limit their losses.

Update:  Apparently some conservative activists are claiming foul on Carol's poor box office showing and alleging a possible conspiracy among theater owners.

Why One Congressman Says Bye To DC

Peter Baker's NYT article on outgoing Virginia congressman Tom Davis is a fascinating read and look at how frustrating it is serving in Washington nowadays.  From the numerous pointless bill votes, to rampant partisanship and President Bush's deep-sixing of the GOP brand the seven-term Republican explains why he just called it quits this year.

Voter Fraud, Pointless Debate Analysis and Bad Citizen Journalism

CNN's citizen journalist project, iReport.com, gets a black eye while the endless parade of debate analysis reaches new depths.  Plus, full employment for political attorneys in November.

• Expert predicts "rampant' voter fraud this year.

• Have we really reached the point of debate analysis where we actually wonder what grade level the candidates were speaking in?  Apparently so. (BTW: Sarah Palin 10th grade, Joe Biden 8th)

• The problem with "citizen journalism"?  They rarely vet as Apple will attest to.

Obama Up By Seven In Latest Presidential Polls

It's pretty rare to get a clear consensus in polling anymore, but Sunday's releases by three outfits on the presidential election all said the same thing -- Barack Obama by seven points nationally.

Gallup Daily Tracking Poll -- Obama 50%, John McCain 43%

Rasmussen Reports -- Obama 51%, McCain 44%

Diageo/Hotline Tracking Poll -- Obama 48%, McCain 41%

All polling was done from October 2-4.

Pickering's Smart Online Advertising Strategy

When we noticed ads for both Nevada Supreme Court Seat-B candidates, Kris Pickering and Deborah Schumacher, showed up in the same banner here, we decided to see who was playing the Google Adwords game the best.  While some of the results changed a bit each day, when it comes to Google's search engine advertising Pickering is the winner.

Although we initially saw Pickering ads pop up on Google searches using variations of "Nevada State Supreme Court Seat B" those seemed to have disappeared in recent days.  However, where Pickering wins is with her campaign's decision to buy the keywords of her opponent.

While Pickering's site is first in the search engines for her name, Schumacher's is not.  Hence, Schumacher's decision to have a paid sponsored link for her campaign site show up whenever a person Google's "Deborah Schumacher".  The thing is, Pickering does the same thing as you can see below.