Posted on 08/17/2012 7:08:12 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Today marks one full week since presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney named Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate in the battle of 2012. Trying to figure out precisely what effect this is having on the race seems to be an increasingly difficult task for the traditional media, who largely perform their research on such things by asking each other for dueling, ten second sound bites. With so little to go on, perhaps we should turn to our old friend mathematics. Today, Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades released a memo bring everyone up to date on some of the key campaign figures over the past week.
First up ... donations.
Online Fundraising
The Obama campaign doesn't seem to release their fundraising numbers on such a granular level these days, but if there had been some sort of massive, anti-Ryan backlash flood of donations I think Axlerod or Cutter would have let us know by now.
How's Mitt faring in the social media and web world since the Ryan announcement?
You can go out on all the Sunday shows and spin the headlines however you like, but that’s got to be a pretty encouraging set of numbers for America’s Comeback Team. But what explains them in terms of the reality on the ground? If Paul Ryan is so scary and radical, where is this surge of support coming from?
Kirsten Powers thinks she may have the answer. She seems to believe that younger voters of Ryan’s era – which she calls “Generation Screwed” – are open to his message of long term solutions.
Unfortunately, the future looks as bleak for today’s young people. No amount of coddling by their well-provided-for Boomer parents can save Generation Y and the Millennials from the dire economic conditions they face, including criminal levels of educational debt. Pensions have gone the way of the horse and buggy. You want to retire with health-care benefits, as both my professor parents did? Good luck. As the 1994 movie turned Gen-X mantra has it: Reality Bites…
A Zogby/JZ Analytics poll Tuesday showed increased support among voters 18-29 for the Romney ticket, which pollster John Zogby attributed to the Ryan pick. President Obama received just 49 percent of the youth vote, versus Romney’s 41 percent. (Obama took home 66 percent of the youth vote against McCain in 2008.)
81 days to go. The convention is only a little more than a week away. Let’s get a batch of popcorn going, folks. Things are just starting to get interesting.
Update (Ed): It’s 81 days to go, not 88. I’ve fixed it above, and here’s a handy countdown clock:
Facts don’t matter. The pick of Biden hurt Obama in the polls, the pick of Palin helped McCain in the polls. I even joked on FR right after the election that they will try and convince us that Palin hurt the ticket. It was so laughable I took some heat for it. Now its repeated as fact over and over again in any article about picking a VP.
If Romney loses it will not be because he was a rino that did not attract enough support from the conservative base-it will be because Ryan was a horrible pick of an ideologue and the GOP must moderate.
New Peter Gabriel song in 5....4....3....2....
Intrade line up 4 pts. since the Ryan pick.
President Axelrod and his minions are hard at work trying to invent a bimbo or racist connection to Ryan. Remember what happened to Cain?
Speaking the truth.
Man, FR is abou the only place the truth exists these days.
Remember that show “Jericho”.....While I’d never wish that horror on any nation, a government functioning out of Cheyanne (sp?) would likely be much better than D.C.
That's lovely but irrelevant. The meaningful question is: How do those numbers compare with the week before Ryan was announced? I'm not saying Ryan was a bad choice - he's an amazingly capable choice that I would not have expected from Romney. These numbers just don't tell us whether the Ryan pick is actually helping. For that, Intrade is probably the best current information - so, yes, the Ryan pick is working so far.
Except every sign points to an INCREASE in the Romney support as the base coalesces around him as was planned.
What many don't understand is Romney is a very, very successful business man and one thing a successful business must have is the ability to think both tactically and strategically. In the case of Ryan as his VP choice he has done both as it generated an instant charge to the campaign which the Left has been unable to diffuse. This is the tactical reason for the choice.
Strategically, the hoped for and I believe realized effect will be to carry the torch for reform in our quickly failing Social programs.
I don't know for sure of course who will win in Nov. At least not now but I do believe Ryan was not just a good choice but a brilliant one.
It would be helpful to know the actual cash increase in this week after the pick of Ryan, versus the previous week or the same week in the previous month.
Thanks.
Do we know the average after his pick of Ryan?
I haven’t seen anything official. I do recall hearing a report that the Romney campaign raised over $3 million in the 24 hours after the naming of Ryan. If that’s true, then the pick is a wash WRT the previous month’s daily average.
I would say, that's lovely but irrelevant. If those Facebookers are interested or even supportive of Ryan, that's fine, but if they're from Georgia, South Carolina, and Wyoming, they aren't important. The Presidency is won or lost in the Electoral College. Activity on Facebook and Twitter (which BTW is really a medium only for real wonks) does not translate into Electoral College votes.
They raised something like 7 million online on that weekend.
Prior to that, Romney’s large numbers had been coming from big money donors and fundraisers, not online small donations. So it is a big bump, because they weren’t raising anywhere near that amount online.
I believe the point well made is the obama campaign has had no comment on how the Ryan choice has impacted their own fund raising. Had it caused any increase whatsoever it would have led every news cast of the lib networks.
Similar numbers were rung up when Palin was announced as VP candidate in 2008, and she was unable to drag a lackluster top of the ticket into the winners circle.
>> Remember what happened to Cain?
Fortunately, Ryan is not a horndog with Clintonesque appetites like Cain was (is?).
RE: and she was unable to drag a lackluster top of the ticket into the winners circle.
OK, I’ll bite, if this suggests that Paul Ryan might not be able to drag a lackluster Romney into the winner’s circle, WHO CAN?
Or are you saying that as long as Romney’s the POTUS candidate, the GOP cannot win?
As Don Meredith used to sing “Turn out the lights, the party’s over”.
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