Corbett emphasizes TV ads on FoxNews to try to regain support of his base

[JPZenger]

http://www.politicspa.com/corbett-to-launch-tv-ads-wednesday/55234/

Excerpts:

"A source told PoliticsPA that the buy was only $109,000 for one week, which is a light buy and in Altoona and Scranton, he’s only buying FoxNews

“Most of Corbett’s cable TV buy is on FoxNews, which is an implicit acknowledgement that he has trouble in his conservative base,” a Democratic media consultant told PoliticsPA. “That’s been clear from several public polls, but now it’s confirmed by Corbett’s own ad-buying strategy.”

[Curmudgeoness]

1. It also acknowledges

that he doesn't give a rat's ass about anyone but his base. But what else is new.

[happyslug]

2. No, it means he is LOSING his base of support

You always reward your base to keep them voting, but you do NOT spend to much money on them for they will vote for you over anyone else. Political fights are for the votes of people NOT in your base, advertisements and other political actions in the public are more to get these votes then to hold on to your base.

One way your base undermines a politician is by NOT voting, generally on the grounds that no matter who they vote for, what they want will NOT happen. This happened to Bush in the 2004 election, his base did not come out. Bush won the 2004 election based on getting more votes from urban cores in 2004 then he did in 2000 (accusation of cheating in the vote counts were made, but no actual finding of such fraud, given you actually have to show how each person voted in those urban cores and that those numbers did not match the numbers actually counted, something impossible with the secret ballot). This increase in urban votes for Bush over came the drop in Rural Votes for Bush. It was not even suburban votes it was urban votes in key states.

The Secret ballot was first adopted for Federal Elections in 1896. In that election there was accusations of voter fraud, solid Democratic Districts gave to many votes to the Republican Candidate that year and even a person (H. L. Mencken) who hated the Democratic Candidate in 1896 (William Jennings Bryan) said the Democratic Candidate lost that election through voter's fraud, but since every vote was "Secret" you could not tell who voted for whom and thus became almost impossible to show fraud. At the time, one of the accusations made AGAINST the secret ballot, was it opened whole new areas of voting fraud by the simple method of not counting votes correctly.

Side Note:M.L. Mencken on Bryan:
http://www.thephora.net/forum/showthread.php?t=39549

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken

Mencken is often called a Liberal, and was if you use the definition of liberal as that term was used prior to the 1930s, which is more Libertarian then progressive. Thus he hated the whole progressive movement, opposed Bryan, who was the center of the progressive movement within the Democratic party prior to Bryan's death in 1925. Menchen also hated the New Deal as it was adopted in the 1930s (Herbert Hoover called the New Deal "Bryanism without Bryan&quot . Bryan was always willing to work with anyone to get progressive legislature passed. Menchen hated Bryan for that, Bryan refused to be the one dimensional fundamentalist Menchen could dismiss with ease. Menchen seems to have hated Hitler, but supported Germany in both WWI and WWII (Thus his columns were NOT published by his newspaper during those wars). His support for Germany during WWII is questionable, in that he died in 1946 and suffered serious depression after the dearth of his wife in 1935 (and Senility may have been kicking in during WWII). On the other hand he opposed FDR even during WWII. I bring this up for Menchen is the person who said Bryan lost the 1896 election do to voter fraud, a statement from someone who opposed Bryan rather then from a supporter (Please also note, Menchen would be called a DLC Democrat today, for he was a Democrat like Bryan but of the Libertarian wing of the party as opposed to the progressive wing of the party).

[Curmudgeoness]

3. Thanks for the little lesson.

I learned some new things today.

I guess that it is true that he is concerned about losing his base, and I do know that the base staying home on election day is a serious problem. And Corbett isn't popular with his base at this point. Good.