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September 24, 2004
Abandon All Hope
Talk around town says that Kerry is pretty much giving up on Arkansas, as is Bush.
But today, campaign advisors for John Kerry said their candidate hasn`t done well enough here to justify the cost of running new political ads.
Meanwhile, the Republican party has moved eight campaign workers from Arkansas to other states.
Kerry stopped running tv ads here a month or so ago, best I can tell. The polls still show it's a close race here, but I suppose our paltry 6 or so electoral votes don't seem too important in the overall scheme of things.
The local parties are still going full-bore. An amazing number of Kerry yard signs sprouted while we were out of town last weekend. (As did the ragweed. Coincidence? I think not.) I noticed just about every yard in the historical district on Lafayette St. was filled with 'em, with only a couple of Bush holdouts. (Cracked me up, because that's a upper-class yuppie SUV-driving tree-hugging neighborhood, with strict requirements that all houses remain 'historically accurate'....even down to the colors of paint that can be used. Yet somehow cardboard & wood signs along the sidewalk every 6 inches or so are ok.)
So politics are still pretty lively in this corner of the state. I even got a phone call the other day from a staffer of one of the state senate candidates. I would've liked to have heard his pitch, since I don't particularly like either candidate in that race, but I was a little too busy at the time. WildChild's computer had suddenly lost the ability to find an image file for one of his games, and he was insistent that I 'fix it Ma, right now!'
Tech support for a 3 1/2 yr. old pretty much demands all your attention, you know.
Posted by Rita at September 24, 2004 10:40 AM
Comments
He's so demanding! And he sounds so cute!
Posted by: yayaempress at September 24, 2004 03:10 PM
I find myself increasingly wondering how much local campaign dollars mean anyway. Besides for Get Out The Vote efforts, so many people watch cable TV ad use the Internet for their info... it would seem there's probably a law of diminishing returns in most states.
Posted by: Dean Esmay at September 24, 2004 05:46 PM
It's sure been fun watching him order his dad around this week.
Dean, the big Arkansas-'Bama game is this weekend, which will mean an extra 50,000 or so in town. All the candidates will get quite a bit of exposure from their signs for relatively small cost, so it was prolly money well spent.
I think the tv ads are still a good investment here. There's still a large part of the state that doesn't even have cable access, let alone internet. Still lots of folks like my parents, who can only pick up NBC, CBS & PBS, and that's only if the weather's good.
Posted by: rita at September 24, 2004 09:41 PM
Smiling over your last sentence.
Posted by: Da Goddess at September 24, 2004 11:38 PM