WingRight

1. No more old senators as candidates (see also Dole, Bob).  Old senators have been in the bubble for too long and are out of touch with real people.  Because of the advantages of incumbency, old senators have forgotten how to run a real campaign.
2. Abolish the Republican queue for the presidential nomination. If good old whoever is familiar and has been around for a long time, but never been nominated, it means that he/she is not good enough, not that it’s his/her turn.
3. No more Boomer candidates (sorry Mitt).  The litmus test is whether the candidate becomes emotional over Vietnam.
4. No more inarticulate presidents
5. Every candidate must be post-racial. No more candidates who place an opponent or supporter/associate of an opponent off-limits for criticism because of race, etc.
6. Learn the lessons of Reagan well, but quit talking about him all the time.
7. Start highlighting competent and articulate governors and recruit more candidates of the same type - conservative populists (not a contradiction) who are articulate and can connect with people.  The Republican pipeline looks good in this respect - Sarah Palin (despite the political malpractice inflicted on her by McCain staffers) and Bobby Jindal are at the top of the list.  Congress is currently held in very low repute and that repute will drop even lower with an all-liberal government.  A governor can run against Congress and the Washington establishment much more effectively than someone currently serving in that establishment.

Tags: 2008 Election by Publius
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On the night before the election, I’m predicting that McCain will win by 5-10 electoral votes.

How can this be with Obama ahead in all major polls? The answer is the Spiral of Silence.

The Spiral of Silence was first propounded by German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann and, in short version, means that “a person is less likely to voice an opinion on a topic if one feels that one is in the minority for fear of reprisal or isolation from the majority.”

In more detail via Wikipedia:

The spiral of silence begins with fear of reprisal or isolation, and escalates from there. Individuals use what is described as “an innate ability” or quasi-statistical sense to gauge public opinion. Mass media plays a large part in determining what the dominant opinion is, since our direct observation is limited to a small percentage of the population. Mass media has such an enormous impact on how public opinion is portrayed, and can dramatically impact an individual’s perception about where public opinion lies, whether or not that portrayal is factual. Noelle-Neumann describes the spiral of silence as dynamic process, in which predictions about public opinion become fact as mass media’s coverage of the majority opinion becomes the status quo, and the minority becomes less likely to speak out. (Citations Omitted)

This is the downside of the MSM’s descent into acting as the propaganda wing of the Obama campaign. Those voters who dislike Obama or prefer McCaiin are either not talking to pollsters (some polls have a refusal rate of 80% or more recently) or they’re saying they support Obama while not doing so.

Obama’s injunction to his followers to “argue with your neighbors” and “get in their face” if they’re not voiting for Obama further accentuates the Spiral of Silence.

In Britain, the 1992 victory of John Major and the Conservative party in the face of unanimous polling that predicted a Labor win commenced a standard practice of UK pollsters to factor in the Spiral of Silence. US pollsters don’t do so. I predict that they will in 2012.

See more here and here.

UPDATE: See the Times of London

Tags: Elections, Liberal Media, Political Correctness by Publius
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