The pledge Bev Perdue made today to eschew negative advertising for the rest of the primary is bold and admirable. It's also politically risky.
Richard Moore has climbed back in the polls in good measure because of his effective ads attacking Perdue's record. If he doesn't make the same move in response to Perdue's announcement today she faces the risk of continuing to be hurt by his withering attacks without being able to respond in kind. She's backed herself into a bit of a corner.
Nonetheless it is a very impressive gesture. I wrote Sunday that the only way there would be any lessening of the negativity in this race would be a mutual disarmament pact between the candidates. Perdue has gone out on a limb by making that choice without any parallel guarantee from Moore and as a Democrat I respect that.
We'll probably put something on the tracking poll this weekend, without naming either Moore or Perdue, to see what percentage of likely voters have heard that one of the candidates has pledged to end negative campaigning between now and the primary. It'll be interesting to see how much attention this gets, and how the Moore/Perdue vote breaks down among voters who have heard about it.
How much would it cost to do a poll of:
ReplyDeletea) 400 likely voters?
b) 625 likely voters?
I'm talking about a one off and assuming that the client was select the methodology and timescale that minimised costs. I'd just be curious about a ballpark figure.
Tom,
ReplyDeleteYou should do Name IDs on the candidates to see how the negative ads have effected the public's perception of the candidates.
JB