Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Mitts on TV, Thune picks a team, Thompson snags a Dix

Former state legislator and failed candidate for the GOP nomination in the 1st congressional district Bill Dix signed on as Tommy Thompson's statewide chair. Dix recently came up short in a bid to become Republican Party of Iowa Chairman. On the surface the announcement seemed suprising given Dix's ties to the two Iowa frontrunners. His 2 political staffers in the 1st District primary both work for McCain and his consultant was McCain campaign manager Terry Nelson. His longtime fundraiser (Dix's strength was always in his fundraising) works for Romney. The conventional wisdom around the gang of 50 is that his decision to join Tommy Thompson had a lot to do with the retirement of his substantial campaign debt. Regardless, Dix is a nice pick-up for a 2nd tier candidate like Thompson and will help him in Des Moines as well as eastern Iowa.

Mitt Romney is going to start running ads this week. This decision has left the Cooler staff torn. On one hand, he'll have free and clear airwaves which gives him the potential to increase his pollnumbers which increases fundraising which increases poll numbers again. On the other hand the general rule about these things is to maximize exposure you should never "go dark" once you've been up on the air. While Governor Romney has vast personal wealth (we believe the figure is well in excess of 1 gazillion dollars) there is still no way he plans to run ads non-stop for the next 11 (or 21) months. The ad is a 60 second spot where he describes himself as a "business legend" that turned around a Democratic state. Then Romney says, "this is not a time for more talk and dithering (dithering??) in Washington. It's a time for action" The ad will run here in the Hawkeye, as well as New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan, and Florida.

And this has been around for a couple of days but it is worth noting that McCain added Sen. John Thune. Thune runs ads and is covered on the nightly news in the Sioux City media market which would make him a good surrogate for McCain in that neck of the woords.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Cooler continues to show their bias. No post on the great Romney event in Orange City. There were a 100 people there! We are very pleased.

8:35 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's early for tv, and Romney will be fighting the wave of press on the implementation of his signature issue this summer. Implementing anything "healthcare" is never easy or neat. You guys might think about that messy press, and go back to the one voter at a time, but to do that successfully you need to remember people. We already know we're nobodies that answer phones, make photo copies and take terrible pictures, but if you meet someone three times you sort of expect them to have at least a glimmer of an "oh yeah, right, we've met". It's work, but if you need the field staff to take pictures and right notes on who these quasi-important county people are -- do it. It's the oldest trick in any practicing professionals rep: remember the face, make notes about a few details, a day in the life type stuff, and keep it in the chart.

9:54 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

10:23 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh, wow. Now McCain will have one person to vote for him in the all-important primary of South Dakota.

11:22 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Does it occur to anyone that Dix may have gone with Thompson because he believes in the cause? I keep hearing Dix doesn't have any bills to pay.

I personally am having a hard time getting excited about the so-called "front runners" and this make me pause. I'm taking a closer look at Thompson.

3:47 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

3:47

You have been hearing incorrectly.

11:10 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

  • Caucus Coolerisms
  • The Cooler Line

    Mike Huckabee 10-9
    Mitt Romney 3-1
    Fred Thompson 9-1
    John McCain 9-1
    Rudy Giuliani 12-1
    Ron Paul 12-1
    Duncan Hunter 98-1
    The Cooler line is an exclusive creation of Caucus Cooler and will be updated as the political environment changes.
    It is an unscientific assessment of the Iowa Caucus (not the Presidential race as a whole) from an insiders view at the given time. The line IS NOW mathematically accurate but is NOT intended for gambling purposes. Information may only be reproduced with credit to the Caucus Cooler.