Posted on 10/09/2006 6:48:55 PM PDT by RWR8189
Over the weekend, a few articles were published that argued that the GOP stands a chance in FL 16. Do they? This is an interesting question, one worth taking a second to investigate.
First off, most proponents only argue for the possibility that Republican state representative Joe Negron, the man the state party selected to "accept" Foley votes, has a chance. Their objections seem to be against the argument that a Mahoney win is a foregone conclusion. So -- it is not as though they are giving Negron better than even odds. They are just asserting that the odds are non-zero.
The best argument to this effect is district partisanship. Bush carried FL 16 easily in both 2004 (by 8%) and 2000 (by 6%). Republicans outnumber Democrats by a wide margin in this South-Central district. However, even though it is an extremely powerful determinant, partisanship is not really an immediate determinant of congressional vote choice. Most people don't vote for a guy they dislike because he caucuses with the correct party. Partisanship seems to help form the context that helps create evaluations of the candidates on the ballot. Another background determinant, more powerful than district partisanship, is level of political information. Political information is one reason you often see Republicans voting for Democratic incumbents, and vice-versa. They simply do not know anything about the other person on the ballot -- and, for most voters, the choice is ultimately based upon evaluations of the two candidates.
In other words, candidate evaluation is the immediate cause of vote choice -- what the voter thinks of the two candidates is usually how he will vote. Personal partisanship is one factor that goes into the evaluation - people are inclined to evaluate positively those who share their party ID. But so also is information - people cannot fully evaluate those about whom they know nothing.
My feeling is that while district partisanship is indeed an asset for Negron, voter information is a huge and decisive liability. Negron is simply "asking too much" of voters in the district.
For voters in Florida's 16th Congressional District to cast a ballot for him, they are going to have to possess unique information to even begin to evaluate him as a candidate. Not only do they need to know things about him to develop sufficiently positive opinions of him, they also need to know that he is actually on the ballot. This forms a prerequisite for Negron's victory because -- in a Foley v. Mahoney match-up -- Mahoney wins in a walk. This is Negron's major problem, and I would estimate that it is a decisive one. There will be a lot of voters on Election Day who do not know of the situation, or at least know of it sufficiently well enough to be able to vote for "Foley." They will walk into the voting booth, perhaps knowing a little bit about Negron from advertisements or mailings, perhaps knowing enough to intend to vote for him, but will be surprised to see Foley's name on the ballot next to Mahoney's. As ultimately their choice boils down to which man they prefer more, they will vote for Mahoney.
Why is this the case? It is not because average voters are stupid, mind you. It is because they just do not know as much about politics as you do. Their store of political knowledge is much smaller. If you are reading this post, it probably means that you can be counted as a political elite - so defined by partisanship, issue salience, level of information, etc. You, therefore, are not like the average voter. Unfortunately, the pundit class usually fails to make the proper distinctions between the elite voter and the average voter - but the differences are very important. The latter know much less about politics than the former. As information is a prerequisite for vote choice, Negron has a huge disadvantage.
(Side note: for those who might be inclined to think I am being condescending, I assure you that I am not. The issue here is knowledge base, not intelligence. I think that the media/pundit class is actually condescending when it comes to the average voter. Compare our arguments about FL 16. Which is more condescending: to argue that voters will not know what a vote for "Foley" means; or to argue that they will know, but that they are so shallow and focused on symbolism that they cannot "hold their noses" long enough to vote for their political interests, and instead vote against those interests?)
For Negron, the way to overcome this is to get the message out. Theoretically, he could overcome it. The problem is a lack of political information - which could be supplied with a sufficient number of dollars spent on advertising run for a sufficient length of time. His task would be to make sure that his minimal winning voting coalition understands the situation - that half-plus-one of the partisan electorate (a) knows that a vote for "Foley" is a vote for Negron and (b) prefers Negron over Mahoney. At most, district partisanship inclines the electorate in FL 16 toward (b). It does not speak to (a), which is a necessary condition - and a hard one to meet.
So -- I would say that the answer to the title question is "No." Negron might have district partisanship aiding him, but a vote for him requires a level of information that is just too great for the average voter to acquire just 4 weeks before Election Day.
I think if RATs in Missouri can educate themselves enough to vote for a dead man and thus elect the Widow Carnahan, the Republicans can figure out that Negron is running in place of Foley. A RNC advertising blitz wouldn't hurt anything though.
Jay is a great analyst--he's telling the party this one is harder than they think, and they can win only with an impossibly hard campaign over the next 4 weeks.
This is a very unique situation,but one that we are excited to make go our way. We are pumped,Joe Is pumped,and is more than up to the Job. Joe Is more Conservative than Mark,and is a pragmatic environmentalist. He is Cuban and can relate to a lot of Spanish Dems that have been told by the local fraudulent Demorat Party that they could not vote for Pubbies unless they were registered as Pubbies. Lying Ba$tards got away with it for a long time,but we are changing that. We not only have quite a few Latins here in my County, we have more than a handful of Gay Republicans and Dems that do not like being trashed as pedophiles by the DNC/DBM. This County is very diverse,and People get along and are friendly. Charlotte County(western edge of district 16) is typical of SW Florida,it is Conservative Pubbie. we have Farming and Ranching areas in two middle counties in the district and they are Dems but vote Pubbie. In the Eastern area of the District Negron is well known and liked because he was/is the term limited State Rep for that Area. Foley/Negron opponent Mahoney did Push Polling twice starting last year hinting that Mark was gay,and thinking they could get Pubbies to not vote for him for that liefstyle. They were wrong,we really like Mark and already knew about his Gayness, and appreciatd the job he did for us as our Rep. We are really upset at Mahoney,and we went from ignoring him to really hating him with a passion. His deceit,lies,underhandedness are why we do not have access to the employees that we knew,trusted and could be counted on that worked for Mark. One gal worked for the last three 16CD congressmen,and is fantastic. we blame Mahoney for this attempted hijacking of a CD. You cannot get much more pumped than we are in this CD. We are upset with Mark,but he is getting needed help and we wish him the best,we will always care for him and his Family. He did the right thing,and we have moved on .
I think Jay is discounting the GOP "Get Out the Vote" efforts a little too much. I don't know what the situation in that District is, but in many places the GOP has plenty of phone volunteers who call the voters registered as GOP to make sure they know what the situation is.
This seat is by no means a given for the Dem.
I think I heard somewhere that the RATs are protesting and opposing this???
All these talking heads think that all us (R's) totally stupid and are not able to think for ourselves!!!
Don't quite get this. Someone sufficiently uninformed about the Negron replacing of Foley probably also never heard of Foley's resignation in disgrace. They'll vote Foley anyway. Negron still wins.
I think that there might be a law that says that political postings can't be within a certain distance of the polling places, but regardless of whether there is such a law or not the dems are protesting the signs because the claim that it gives Negron an unfair advantage. (Kind of ironic if you consider the unfair advantage that the Dems have right now. Not only is Negron's name not the ballot, in order to vote for Negron you have to cast your vote to an infamous name on the ballot. And then the Dems have the nerve to talk about an unfair advantage.)
Yeah, there might be a few dogs and cats around here who don't know about this.- but they are Democrats, anyway.
Yes. By Florida law, it must remain.
Wait, the dems are opposed to educating voters that a vote for Foley is for Negron but want ballots in 10 different lanquages???
If I was a Floridian living in the 16th District, I'd be offended at his insinuation that I am stupid.
Since WWII there have been, I think 17 federal elections won by write-in candidates.
The Republicans CAN win both TX 22 and FL 16.
Now, as to whether they will or not, that depends on GOTV, to include the presence at polling places of Republican volunteers.
The entire focus of the Democrats, smartly, is on depressing Republican enthusiasm. In spite of this, Republicans will have to fight the good fight to win what they CAN win this election cycle.
"I thought the Fl. Election board just ruled that the precincts should post signs everywhere saying that in order to vote for Negron, vote for Foley."
"He is Cuban and can relate to a lot of Spanish Dems that have been told by the local fraudulent Demorat Party that they could not vote for Pubbies unless they were registered as Pubbies."
I trust the Republican voters to know what's going on, but it's the large number of independent voters who tend to vote Republican who won't have a clue and will recoil at voting for Foley.
This should be the simple message in FL 16:
A vote for Foley is a vote for Negron, and a vote for Mahoney is a vote to install liberal Democrat Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House.
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