2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forum" Inside the Democrats' Plan to Save Arkansas—and the Senate"
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/inside-the-democrats-plan-to-save-arkansasand-the-senate/379028/2/"But the Republicans' effort pales in comparison to what the Democrats have built: Democrats are spending more than five times as much money in Arkansas, and have four times as many field offices and triple the number of staff. In the month of July alone, the Arkansas Democratic Party reported nearly $900,000 in federal campaign spending, while Arkansas Republicans reported $155,000. (Most of the money the Democrats are spending has come directly from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.) Democrats listed 64 staffers on their payroll; Republicans listed 22. The RNC claims it has 50 people on the payroll in Arkansas, including some being paid by other GOP committees, but I could not find a record of them and staffers on the ground were not aware of them. According to public records, there are Democratic staffers in places like Cabot (population 24,000), Marion (12,000), Arkadelphia (11,000), and Dardanelle, Tom Cotton's hometown, with fewer than 5,000 residents."
VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)Not with those figures. Holy cow that is a fortune.
rtracey
(2,062 posts)Democrats want a fair playing field.. Democrats understand it takes money to run campaigns. We want it to be fair. Citizens United is NOT fair. US politics should not allow foreign money.....PERIOD, of any kind. If the democrats didnt spend that money, where would this country be in 5 years.....right wing run, not a bit of assistance anywhere, no AFFORDABLE healthcare, Koch bros influence running the govt. etc, etc, etc.
Kingofalldems
(38,361 posts)Democrats are not going to surrender to GOP money.
Your post is like something one would read on free republic or the cave.
Hestia
(3,818 posts)Party putting staffers in there - they are also college towns, which will help the Democratic Party there too. At least the legislature hasn't taken away college students right to vote at their college. Early voting has been curtailed though.
Kingofalldems
(38,361 posts)cheapdate
(3,811 posts)Radio and television were blanketed with political ads for the two senate candidates -- almost all of it deeply negative. Who "started it" is beside the point, neither candidate can afford to withdraw from the field (the field being non-stop television and radio advertising) and allow his opponents attacks to run on and on and on unchallenged in any equitable way.
If all a person hears, over and over again, is how a person is dishonest, untrustworthy, dangerous, and unprincipled, it has an effect on voting behavior.
Democrats have to commit money to compete in places where the GOP is doing the same.
There is no contradiction in doing so while working simultaneously to change the rules of the game.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)Bash city around here between the two candidates. The only AG commercials I have seen though is a pro-Bundy commercial that I see average twice a day. I guess she is running by herself.
Cracklin Charlie
(12,904 posts)Until I was 21, I knew exactly two people who admitted that they were Republicans. I moved away in 1984, and have never been able to figure out how/when Arkansas became a "red" state.
Can anyone explain that to me?
VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)Hestia
(3,818 posts)VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)Most of the South was Democrats until then....
Hestia
(3,818 posts)Control the votes, control the outcome.
I wish there was a group who would sue to change the machines from "proprietary" to state controlled. If I knew how to go about it, I would. Media says we are red, but boy, you talk to people are they are up on their news! They are more liberal than I am! Maybe 1 in 10 is a true republican and these people are ardent voters, so you chalk all that up and it has to be the machines. It's the only thing to explain it.
As much as I abhor the state newspaper, they do state on top of issues like this once they become a suit or bill - they are pretty dogged about it and won't let it drop. But they will not initiate investigations like this because they are wholly republican as far as "good" political stories go.
craigmatic
(4,510 posts)Hestia
(3,818 posts)By ANDREW DEMILLO The Associated Press
This article was published September 17, 2014 at 7:16 a.m.
ITTLE ROCK The National Rifle Association on Tuesday said it's launching a $1.3 million television ad campaign to promote Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton's bid to unseat Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor, a little over a year after the group ran radio ads defending Pryor's record on guns.
The NRA said the 30-second spot will begin running in Little Rock and Jonesboro starting Wednesday and will run for at least four weeks. The ad touts the group's endorsement of Cotton and doesn't mention Pryor. The group is also spending six figures to run radio ads in the state and has been sending direct mail pieces promoting Cotton's bid, spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said.
"Tom Cotton protected your rights in Congress, and abroad as a combat veteran," a narrator says in the ad. "In the Senate, Cotton will stand up to President Obama's extreme gun control agenda."
The spot is the latest in an increasingly expensive Senate fight that Republican says is key to their goal of winning a majority in that chamber. Combined, the two candidates and outside groups have spent more than $23.7 million on the race, according to the nonprofit Sunlight Foundation. Pryor was first elected in 2002 and is the only Democrat in Arkansas' congressional delegation. Cotton is a freshman congressman representing the 4th District in southern Arkansas.
More at link but most likely behind a paywall.
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More ads - great.