People in South Carolina's First Congressional District like Elizabeth Colbert Busch and dislike Mark Sanford -- but Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi are Hiler and Eva Braun, and so...
PPP's final poll of the special election in South Carolina's 1st Congressional District finds a race that's too close to call, with Republican Mark Sanford leading Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch 47-46. The 1 point lead for Sanford represents a 10 point reversal from PPP's poll of the race two weeks ago, when Colbert Busch led by 9 points at 50-41....We snickered when Mark Sanford began "debating" a cardboard cutout of Pelosi on the campaign trail. But it's working.
If SC-1 voters went to the polls on Tuesday and voted for the candidate they personally liked better, Colbert Busch would be the definite winner. That's why Sanford's campaign has tried to shift the focus toward national Democrats who are unpopular in the district, and that's been a key in helping him to make this race competitive again. Nancy Pelosi has a 24/61 approval rating in SC-1 and although voters don't like Sanford, they do like him better than Pelosi by a 53/37 margin. President Obama doesn't fare a whole lot better in the district. His approval is 39/54, and voters say they have a higher opinion of Sanford than him by a 48/44 spread....
And, well, of course it's working. Remember Saul Alinsky's thirteenth Rule for Radicls: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Right-wingers rail against Alinskyite Democrats, but really, how often do Democrats ever actually go Alinsky? Whereas Republicans go Alinsky every hour of every day, in D.C. and (especially) in the right-wing media. Republicans turn every prominent Democrat into an Antichrist. Republicans carefully cultivate the hatred of Democratic Antichrists even when what supposedly makes them evil isn't front-page news. This gives every Republican a set of off-the-shelf demonization targets for every campaign.
If the special Senate election in Massachusetts remains tight, is Ed Markey going to be able to go after Gabriel Gomez by tying him to Mitch McConnell? Nearly 30% of the country doesn't know who the hell Mitch McConnell is, and I'm sure the numbers in Massachusetts are similar. By contrast, only about 10% of the country is unfamiliar with Pelosi, and half the country dislikes her. And no, this isn't because McConnell is in the minority party in the Senate -- nearly a third of the country doesn't know enough about Paul Ryan to form an opinion, and he was the damn VP candidate. Unfamiliarity with Eric Cantor is extremely high, and even John Boehner is unfamiliar to about one in five Americans.
They hate. They cultivate hate. And they win. Maybe even Mark Sanford can win.
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