Drill, Maybe Drill

The president would be in a stronger position to attack the GOP on offshore drilling if he had not said the following a month ago:

Given our energy needs, in order to sustain economic growth and produce jobs, and keep our businesses competitive, we are going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of new sources of renewable, homegrown energy.

So today we’re announcing the expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration, but in ways that balance the need to harness domestic energy resources and the need to protect America’s natural resources. Under the leadership of Secretary Salazar, we’ll employ new technologies that reduce the impact of oil exploration. We’ll protect areas that are vital to tourism, the environment, and our national security. And we’ll be guided not by political ideology, but by scientific evidence.

That's why my administration will consider potential areas for development in the mid and south Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, while studying and protecting sensitive areas in the Arctic.

Arizona Immigration Law

In The New Republic, William Galston writes:

Granted, in the long term, the politics of immigration will certainly work in favor of the Democrats. Look at California: Republicans have never recovered from the legislation and rhetoric of Pete Wilson's governorship. In the short term, however, the issue could push in the opposite direction. While the immigration debate of 2006-2007 divided Republicans, it also divided Democrats, and this year the issue will most hurt endangered Democrats in tough districts.

The data clearly suggest that opposition to the Arizona law is not a winning position with the general public.

From Rasmussen:

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer last week signed a new law into effect that authorizes local police to stop and verify the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that 60% of voters nationwide favor such a law, while 31% are opposed.

Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Republicans support the law along with 62% of voters not affiliated with either major party. Democratic voters are evenly divided on the measure.

At the same time, however, 58% of all voters are at least somewhat concerned that “efforts to identify and deport illegal immigrants will also end up violating the civil rights of some U.S. citizens.” That figure includes 29% who are Very Concerned about possible civil rights violations.

From Gallup:

More than three-quarters of Americans have heard about the state of Arizona's new immigration law, and of these, 51% say they favor it and 39% oppose it... Nationally, 62% of Republicans support the law (including 75% of Republicans who have heard about it). Democrats are more likely to oppose (45%) than favor (27%) the law, and a majority of Democrats familiar with the law (56%) oppose it. Independents are somewhat more likely to favor (37%) than oppose (29%) the law, with half of those who have heard about it in favor.

From Angus Reid:

Polling Data

As you may know, the Arizona Senate recently passed an immigration bill. Would you support enacting each one of these regulations included in the Arizona immigration bill in your own state?

	Support	Oppose	Not sure
Making it a crime to transport someone who is an illegal immigrant	76%	18%	6%
Requiring state and local police to determine the status of a person if there is "reasonable suspicion" that they are illegal immigrants	71%	22%	7%
Arresting people who are unable to provide documentation to prove they are in the U.S. legally	71%	23%	6%
Making it a crime to hire day labourers off the street	53%	39%	8%

Source: Angus Reid Public Opinion
Methodology: Online interviews with 1,002 American adults, conducted on Apr. 22 and Apr. 23, 2010. Margin of error is 3.1 per cent.

CA: Poizner, Whitman, and Schwarzenegger

In a Steve Poizner ad, Rep. Tom McClintock attacks Meg Whitman as Arnold Schwarzenegger's third term:

What is remarkable is that McClintock was Schwarzenegger's running mate in 2006. Though they ran on separate ballot lines, they endorsed each other. McClintock noted his fiscal differences with Schwarzenegger but still pleaded for party unity.

Enthusiasm Gap, continued

Gallup offers a new poll on the enthusiasm gap in the generic ballot. Among those "very enthusiastic" about voting, 57 percent prefer the Republican to 37 percent who prefer the Democrat.

There is also a gender and marital gap. Here are the percentages preferring the Republican:

.......................Men.............Women

Married.........57%...............51%

Unmarried....40%...............31%

CA: DeVore's Senate Bid

Chuck DeVore has the problem of being a state legislator:

"Ballot titles matter a lot in California," DeVore told a Family Action PAC luncheon at the Pacific Club in Newport Beach. "They called me a California state assemblyman. That's like saying Chuck DeVore's a thief. My actual title is assemblyman/military reservist. In our internal polling, that change alone doubled my support, when people found out I was not merely a scum-sucking politician."

The candidate saw a glimmer of hope in a recent poll that showed him in a statistical tie with Fiorina for second place. The Capitol Weekly poll, the first independent survey to use his approved ballot title "assemblyman/military reservist," showed Campbell leading with 31%, Fiorina with 17% and DeVore with 14%, a statistical tie once the margin of error is factored in. Some 37% are undecided.

But a big problem is that he does not have enough money for TV ads.

Vote 2010

From The Washington Post:

President Obama will declare his stake in the November midterm elections for the first time on Monday as his Democratic Party announces an ambitious strategy to appeal to independent voters in its quest to maintain control of Congress.

Obama plans to issue a call-to-action video message to his supporters on Monday, the first in a series of personal efforts designed to rekindle the grass-roots magic that propelled him to the presidency in service to his party's congressional and gubernatorial candidates, Democratic officials said.

At Politico, Ben Smith notes:

Obama speaks with unusual demographic frankness about his coalition in his appeal to "young people, African-Americans, Latinos, and women who powered our victory in 2008 [to] stand together once again."

Turning out those so-called "surge" voters -- who turned out for the first time to back Obama, but who sat out gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia last year -- has become the Democrats' central pre-occupation for the midterm elections, and the new Democratic effort to nationalize the election around Obama and his agenda mark an attempt to energize those voters.

GOP Online

Politico reports on potential 2012 candidates:

President Barack Obama’s prospective 2012 Republican rivals are investing heavily in the Internet, looking to cut into what was an overwhelming advantage for Obama in the 2008 campaign.

Through the first three months of the year, the political groups started by Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee have spent a total of nearly $600,000 building their web operations, according to reports filed this month with the Federal Election Commission and the Internal Revenue Service.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36300.html#ixzz0m7EdH9ed

At The Weekly Standard, Mary Katharine Ham writes of "Techno-GOP," with TX governor Rick Perry as a prime example:

On March 2, Perry beat Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison by more than 20 points with a largely paperless campaign that used no direct mail and almost no yard signs (they were available for purchase upon request). The campaign also did no robo-calls and no newspaper editorial board meetings and focused instead on Internet ads, social networking websites, and person-to-person campaigning.

Perry is just the latest Republican to make headway using technology on the campaign trail, as the party out of power finally learns its way around the Internet. Virginia governor Bob McDonnell’s campaign was designed with a nod to Barack Obama’s online successes. And Scott Brown’s insurgent campaign for the Senate in Massachusetts showed how potent technology can be for a team that’s low on money but high on energy.

Jim Gimpel made a similar point several weeks ago:

Based on the mounting evidence for the effectiveness of personal contact, they invested in building a field operation of unprecedented size that would eventually situate nearly 40,000 Perry Home Headquarters locations across the state, each charged with mobilizing a targeted number of voters. This was about ten times the number of volunteers they had activated during the 2006 campaign.

Building on what was learned from the 2008 presidential election, their contacts with supporters and prospects were routed entirely through social media, e-mail, and website updates. To be sure, the jury is still out on just how effective some of these new strategies are — anecdotes abound but experimental tests are still in the works — but some of the old strategies that have been proved ineffective are clearly gone.