Critz vs. Burns for PA-12
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  Critz vs. Burns for PA-12
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Author Topic: Critz vs. Burns for PA-12  (Read 31785 times)
Landslide Lyndon
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« Reply #150 on: May 19, 2010, 12:46:06 AM »

The only question is how big does the GOP win by.

I'd make this my sig if I had something against Beet, but of course I don't.

Well in lieu thereof, you could find my post where I said I would be "amazed" if Critz won. Tongue

I need a new crystal ball!

Torie, you are the forum's elder statesman. You can say whatever you want with impunity.
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #151 on: May 19, 2010, 03:45:23 AM »

The Dems were marginally favored here the second they picked the W PA D version of a good ole boy (Hafer would have lost. Probably quite badly). After that, the race never moved anywhere. The primary probably added a point or three. *shrugs*

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Badger
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« Reply #152 on: May 19, 2010, 08:21:20 AM »

I predict a Democratic hold.  Why?  The Sestak-Specter primary is the same day as election day, meaning high Democratic turnout.

Kudos to Lunar and Brandon. IMHO that alone doesn't explain Critz's winning by a full 9 points, but was undoubtedly a substantial part of it.

Good prognostication 3 months beforehand!
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Grumpier Than Uncle Joe
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« Reply #153 on: May 19, 2010, 08:33:29 AM »

I predict a Democratic hold.  Why?  The Sestak-Specter primary is the same day as election day, meaning high Democratic turnout.

Kudos to Lunar and Brandon. IMHO that alone doesn't explain Critz's winning by a full 9 points, but was undoubtedly a substantial part of it.

Good prognostication 3 months beforehand!

Badger, I think it's clear that Murtha's district wanted more Murtha, thereby electing what would have been his hand-picked successor. 

Also, his ads always started "Millionaire Tim Burns........"   Very effective in a District that's not well off.

Critz to me is scum, but he doesn't have enough power in the House yet to do serious harm.
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Franzl
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« Reply #154 on: May 19, 2010, 08:34:44 AM »

I don't think the primary being on the same day explains the impressive margin of victory....although it certainly didn't hurt.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #155 on: May 19, 2010, 10:41:31 AM »

The Dems were marginally favored here the second they picked the W PA D version of a good ole boy (Hafer would have lost. Probably quite badly). After that, the race never moved anywhere. The primary probably added a point or three. *shrugs*

Yeah, that sounds about right.
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Lunar
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« Reply #156 on: May 19, 2010, 10:46:20 AM »

I predict a Democratic hold.  Why?  The Sestak-Specter primary is the same day as election day, meaning high Democratic turnout.

Kudos to Lunar and Brandon. IMHO that alone doesn't explain Critz's winning by a full 9 points, but was undoubtedly a substantial part of it.

Good prognostication 3 months beforehand!

Obviously Critz was helped somewhat by running a fantastic campaign.
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Grumpier Than Uncle Joe
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« Reply #157 on: May 19, 2010, 10:47:26 AM »

Obviously Critz was helped somewhat by running a fantastic campaign.

Lying is fantastic?
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Lunar
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« Reply #158 on: May 19, 2010, 10:50:59 AM »

Obviously Critz was helped somewhat by running a fantastic campaign.

Lying is fantastic?

The tax thing?  Yeah that's a lie.  ("So and so wants to INSTITUTE A NATIONAL SALES TAX" [and remove the income tax])


But he had an effective messaging of opposing health care, being pro-life and pro-gun, but without antagonizing his union supporters etc.
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Grumpier Than Uncle Joe
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« Reply #159 on: May 19, 2010, 10:53:34 AM »

Obviously Critz was helped somewhat by running a fantastic campaign.

Lying is fantastic?

The tax thing?  Yeah that's a lie.  ("So and so wants to INSTITUTE A NATIONAL SALES TAX" [and remove the income tax])


But he had an effective messaging of opposing health care, being pro-life and pro-gun, but without antagonizing his union supporters etc.

Oh he learned well from Murtha.  Tongue
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #160 on: May 19, 2010, 11:19:05 AM »

Areas like this are very insular. National trends and the 2008 Presidential election or not we'll have to see who the candidates are before we can start to think about calling this one.

It's nice to get something right for once.
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J. J.
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« Reply #161 on: May 19, 2010, 11:41:17 AM »

Critzmentum in PA-12 !

New poll by Susquehanna Polling & Research (R) shows Critz now ahead of Burns by 6:

Critz (D): 44%
Burns (R): 38%

Obama:

40% Approve
51% Disapprove

The poll of 400 likely voters took place Monday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/westmoreland/s_680706.html

Susquehanna is in the running for the "Its Zogby" Award in 2010.

Harr-Harr ... Wink

Even Zogby gets it right occasionally.

And you get it wrong every time.

Continue to believe Susquehanna.  I think they had McCain down by one in PA.
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War on Want
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« Reply #162 on: May 19, 2010, 07:15:26 PM »

My prediction wasn't even remotely close. Pessimism does bad things to your thought process.
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J. J.
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« Reply #163 on: May 19, 2010, 08:39:52 PM »

I was expecting it to be closer.

Prediction is now that the House stays Democrat.
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memphis
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« Reply #164 on: May 19, 2010, 10:25:10 PM »

Critzmentum in PA-12 !

New poll by Susquehanna Polling & Research (R) shows Critz now ahead of Burns by 6:

Critz (D): 44%
Burns (R): 38%

Obama:

40% Approve
51% Disapprove

The poll of 400 likely voters took place Monday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/westmoreland/s_680706.html

Susquehanna is in the running for the "Its Zogby" Award in 2010.

Harr-Harr ... Wink

Even Zogby gets it right occasionally.

And you get it wrong every time.

Continue to believe Susquehanna.  I think they had McCain down by one in PA.
Which I believe was your prediction as well Tongue
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Eraserhead
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« Reply #165 on: May 19, 2010, 10:36:49 PM »

I was expecting it to be closer.

Prediction is now that the House stays Democrat.

Why are you basing your prediction on one race?
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12th Doctor
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« Reply #166 on: May 20, 2010, 10:23:08 PM »

I'm hardly an expert in what went wrong in this race, but as someone who worked on it every single day for the last four weeks, I'll offer some of my thoughts:

1) The national media is billing this as a "loss for the Tea Party" which makes me wonder if the national media is in any way engaged with the facts of the reality on the ground here.  Tim Burns was not the Tea Party candidate... Bill Russell was the candidate that most of the Tea Party fell behind.  Many of them voted for Russell in the primary and in the special, or simply refused to vote for any candidate in the general.  Eitherway, they lifted not a finger to help Burns in the election and did nothing but sow discord in the Republican Party.  We don't have the figures yet, but I assume that the undervote played a significant role in the results. 

The undervote wasn't the only thing that hurt us, though, Russell's presence in the race acted to confuse the conservative Democrats that we needed to have vote for us in order to win.  His presence in the primary, while many still supported him in the Special, blurred the line for a number of voters who then simply defaulted to the party they were registered with.  Republican turn out was 6 percent higher than Democrat turnout, but we failed to win over the register Democrats we would need to win, and failed to sure up our own base... the real political effect of the Tea Party on this race.

Russell did turn around and endorse Burns in the Special at the 11th hour, but to me it seems more like he did it to be seen doing it, as the endorsement came far too late, and with far too little publicity to make a difference.  The handful of people he had out at the polls passing out "Vote Burns in the Special, Russell in the Primary" cards probably only helped to confuse voters even more... but he comes out getting to say that he tried to be a team player.

2) The Burns campaign proper responded far too slowly to the ads that Critz and his backers were running against Burns.  Even after Critz was forced to admit, in the debate, that the ads being run in his name contained false information about Tim Burns, they still failed to hit back in a timely fashion.  I won't get into the inside baseball reasons for why this happened, as I don't want to throw anyone under the bus, but the ad, which was patently false, stating that Burns pledged an addition 23 percent sales tax on top of the current tax system was patently false, and extremely damaging, and the Burns people didn't even bother to address it until three days before the election.

3) All the turnout models we had showed us winning this race.  All the polls we had showed us winning this race.  Problem is, there has never been a competitive race in the district proper, and no one has any clue what an accurate turnout model looks like for the PA-12.  All the numbers we had were simply untrue.  I, and everyone around me, believed that we would win up until the time that 50 percent of the precincts reported... and we were simply stunned.
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12th Doctor
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« Reply #167 on: May 20, 2010, 10:36:32 PM »

It also didn't help that, aside from the competitive U.S. Senate and Governor's races, there were also competitive State House and Senate races on the Democrat side in large areas of the district.  Heavily Democratic areas of the district that did not have this, and from where we derived our early returns (just because that's where we had volunteers), were all highly favorable to us, with almost half our vote coming from Democrats.  In the areas with other competitive races, they pretty much voted straight ticket.
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Torie
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« Reply #168 on: May 20, 2010, 10:44:11 PM »
« Edited: May 20, 2010, 10:45:43 PM by Torie »

FWIW, I suspected Burns was potentially in deep trouble when I saw the first few precinct returns from Greene County, with very few other numbers. Later, with about 25% of the vote in, it was clear to me he was probably going to lose, unless the way votes were counted was heavily favorable to the Dem early on. The result did not so much surprise me as the margin. I suspect part of it was a late turn generically to the Dems which made a close race, not so close. But that is just an instinct.
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12th Doctor
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« Reply #169 on: May 20, 2010, 11:10:29 PM »

I just can't tell you enough how pissed off I am at how the National Media is portraying this.  MSNBC is saying that this is proof that Tea Party backed candidates can't win in a real competitive race, Fox is trying play this as a strong showing for the Tea Party in race that Republicans weren't supposed to win anyway, neither side gets the fact that the Tea Party abandoned Burns for "their guy" Russell, who is a total charlatan and a Peg Luksik lacky, who, like Critz, isn't even from the district, simply because he ran as anti-establishment and more "ideologically pure" than Burns.

The Tea Party jackasses cost us the race, by not supporting Tim Burns.  JJ is right, and this is only proof of what I have been saying for a long time... if this is a trend, then we are in big trouble in the Fall.  The Tea Party people also loved Peg Luksik, even though Toomey is a true blue conservative, simply because she is a shrieking dumbass who couldn't win party backing because there is no way she could win a race for dog catcher.
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Grumpier Than Uncle Joe
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« Reply #170 on: May 21, 2010, 08:34:05 AM »

The rematch in the fall will be interesting, I think.
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12th Doctor
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« Reply #171 on: May 21, 2010, 01:12:53 PM »
« Edited: May 21, 2010, 03:36:43 PM by Supersoulty »

I almost forgot my absolute favorite ad; the one charging that Tim Burns' company sent jobs overseas.  It was a total fabrication.  It absolutely did not happen.  But it played well in the 12th where class warfare is at it's height and people were deeply concerned that Tim Burns was a millionaire.  Nevermind that he grew up poor and was totally self-made.

Edit: That was supposed to say "12th" not "14th."
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Brittain33
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« Reply #172 on: May 21, 2010, 02:31:11 PM »

I almost forgot my absolute favorite ad; the one charging that Tim Burns' company sent jobs overseas.  It was a total fabrication.  It absolutely did not happen.  But it played well in the 14th where class warfare is at it's height and people were deeply concerned that Tim Burns was a millionaire.  Nevermind that he grew up poor and was totally self-made.

If I were a Republican, I'd probably be angriest at the repeated Democratic attack of the last several years that "X voted to cut taxes on companies that sent jobs overseas." It's deadly but very misleading.
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J. J.
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« Reply #173 on: May 21, 2010, 05:29:09 PM »

I was expecting it to be closer.

Prediction is now that the House stays Democrat.

Why are you basing your prediction on one race?

I was looking for a real bell weather.  PA-12 was the kind of district that would provide it. 

There will an anti-incumbency effect in this race, but not a swing to the Republicans directly.  The GOP will gain, and I'd expect 30-35 seats in the House, but not control.

I think the only thing that could change that is if the financial markets collapse.
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