Here are some shots of the Romney Family (I include myself because Mitt told me in Dubuque, IA a couple of months back: "Jeff, you're part of the family" . . . OK, Mitt, so why haven't I received the adoption papers yet? And I'd REALLY like to see where I've been WRITTEN INTO THE WILL!!!!!!!!!!!).
On this first photo Mitt is writing "Jeff: To my #1 Man, Mitt Romney" on my shirt (love the Catholic priest in the background who is a Romney supporter): Josh scaling the rock wall: Ben and Andy on the wall:
Me sporting my unique (only one there today) "Vote for Mitt" shirt with signatures of Mitt, Ann, and all 5 boys!: The extended family that flew in to help with the event (couldn't vote though):
Craig's wife and boy (I should know names, eh?): Craig Romney with media director Eric Fennestrom: Two Ophthalmologists Hanging Out (Me and Jim Davies--Ann's Brother): Me with Ben and Andy Romney: Tagg and Jen Romney:
Mitt and Clan after the results are in: One of the local bands . . . the drummer is David Kochel who has been a long time "advance man" for Romney here in Iowa (didn't know he could BANG like that!): David Yepsen preparing his next Des Moines Register article: The Stage: Mr. Pogo stick (I'm pretty sure this guy is a cousin to the Romney boys . . . and boy could he FLY on this supercharged appuratus!): Romney Campaign Photographer climbed up on top of the Mitt Mobile to get better shots (somebody give here a raise!): Former Senator (MO) Jim Talent is jazzed about Romney: This couple gets the award for the "most original" Romney get up: Romney and fellow Iowans for Romney blogger Keith Steurer: Laura Ingraham was the MC for the program:
The food was good (hard to be BBQ): Ron Paul folks kept lining up with their large signs wherever Romney buses dropped off and, at times, tried to form barriers to impede them from getting to the tents: Romney in the morning greeting some of the first arriving buses: I VOTED! THIS IS THE INDELIBLE INK MARK: For rival campaigns that complained that they couldn't compete with the stellar organizing by Romney . . . :) (Just a personal rule, but I never follow someone with an upside down sign that says "Follow Me"): The Five Brothers hold the stage while the bands switch out:
Focus Groups, in my opinion, are the untold story of this campaign so far . . . and help explain the motives behind the early, constant, and repeated attacks on Romney by rival campaigns and the mainstream media (MSM). I'll argue this claim below after presenting some of the focus group findings from the most recent debate.
Focus Group #1 run by Frank Luntz (results generally shared on various Fox News programs):
While the Luntz Focus group showed Mike Huckabee making the strongest impression (full write-up here at The Politico) , it is still telling that Romney was the only other candidate to hold or improve his support.
"At the session’s start, only one participant picked Huckabee as the candidate he or she wanted to win. Nine chose former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, eight were for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, five were for the absent Fred Thompson, two were for McCain, and the remaining candidates were picked by one or none.
But when it was over, Huckabee had 14 votes, compared with 10 for Romney, three for Giuliani, one for Fred Thompson and one for Rep. Duncan Hunter of California."
So Mitt remained strong from 9/29 to 10/29 despite a huge "love factor" for the Huckster who soared from 1/29 to 14/29 (but can Mike translate these good debate performances into actual masses of supporters . . . hasn't happened so far despite great debate performances throughout the process).
But those results are really bad for Rudy who went from 8/29 to 3/29 and Fred Thompson who went from 5/29 to 1/29. Even McCain went from 2/29 to 0/29 . . .
These strong findings for Huckabee are similar to the outpouring of favorability for Romney following his NH debate performance (which many pundits claimed was his worst performance . . .) See some details about that in the YouTube's below:
In the next below be sure to watch starting at 4:00 where Luntz says that Romney is "almost like a Rockstar" and went from 7 out of 29 support at the start to "the low to mid 20s/29" support at the end. He also explains why he thinks Romney is so effective:
This brings up that there may be something odd about how Luntz does his pre-/ post- debate support polling. I remember the recent S.C. Democratic debate where Obama had far over 50% of the group's support by the end. I know Luntz lets his participants have sufficient time to voice their opinions and who they liked (he generally shows clips of these). Maybe he has them make a final vote after this banter, where support is more likely to consolidate around one person? Who knows, but it's an interesting trend (and good for headlines), that one candidate seem to dominate in each of his recent focus groups.
AUGUST 5 GOP DEBATE: Pre- vs. Post-Debate Dial Test “Candidate Comfort Scale”: “How comfortable would you be with each candidate as your President, on a scale from zero to 10?”
Candidate
Pre-debate score
Post-debate score
Change
Brownback
5.7
5.6
-0.1
Giuliani
5.1
6.6
+1.5
Huckabee
5.8
6.2
+0.4
Hunter
3.1
5.0
+1.9
McCain
4.3
6.6
+2.3
Paul
2.2
2.0
-0.2
Romney
7.1
7.8
+0.7
Tancredo
4.7
4.9
+0.2
T. Thompson
4.4
5.0
+0.6
Although it is always mathmatically/statistically difficult to maintain/increase a lead when you start out far in front, Romney almost did that, starting out with an overall 1.3 pt lead (over Huckabee) and ending with a 1.2 pt lead (over Giuliani and McCain.) In contrast to Luntz's findings, Huckabee didn't seem to impress these folks all that much.
Sometimes dial test results can be ambiguous, but today there was no question: Our “message jury” started off in favor of Romney, and the debate did nothing to soften their comfort level with him. In these two clips below, he showed two sides of his appeal. The first clip, featuring one of the highest scoring parts of the debate, demonstrated his direct appeal to three core GOP constituencies:
And this other clip showed he can deliver a partisan zinger (although one of our participants noted Romney had it at the ready):
Several other real-time dial testing videos of Romney and others are available at their website. (Actually, if you scroll down you can find stuff from the S.C. Democratic debate . . . and it's interesting to find that no Democrat candidate scored higher on the post-debate "comfort scale" than Romney at 7.8 . . . which is the same score as Obama and Edwards, and bested Hillary. Hard to draw any conclusions between different groups/studies, but still interesting)
The Des Moines Register also reported a little different twist on this same group of 9. After saying how McCain gained some support and that Huckabee had some good moments they reported:
When it came time to pick a winner of the debate, however, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney had the most votes. Some participants said his cool demeanor and articulate speaking set him apart. It's also a contrast from President Bush, who is notorious for his public speaking flubs, a few said.
"I just think we're more vulnerable right now. People are looking for a change, and I think people are bailing out, and if we have somebody who is well-spoken, that will do well for us," said Dorothy Pisarski, a test group participant.
David Yepsen, a moderator along with George, had this to say in his post-debate column:
Most of the Republican presidential candidates used Sunday's ABC-TV debate at Drake University to court the votes of social conservatives in Saturday's straw poll of Iowa GOP activists in Ames.
With that as a yardstick, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney came out on top. He leads in public opinion polls of Iowa Republicans and is expected to win the straw poll. Nothing that happened Sunday knocked him off that course.
He turned in his usual polished, executive-like debate performance. He also got off one of the best one-liners of the day when he attacked Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama. Romney said: "In one week, he went from saying he's going to sit down, you know, for tea, with our enemies, but then he's going to bomb our allies. I mean, he's gone from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove in one week."
Findings like these show why Romney has been hit early and often throughout and before his campaign. Believe me, all the major campaigns on both sides (and I'm sure some "lesser campaigns" on the GOP side), and major groups like MoveOn.org, the DNC (for evidence that Romney's target #1 for the DNC see here), etc . . . are all running there own focus groups in correlation with these debates. I'm sure they also tag these focus groups to watch different campaign commercials, major political speeches/townhalls by different candidates, etc . . . While I can't claim to be privy to the results of all these groups, it is well known to folks that Romney keeps building support and favorability with the more exposure he gets. In short, it is becoming conventional wisdom that Romney "wears well" on audiences, voters, viewers, etc . . . I'm pretty convinced that these groups have known for some time who they need to worry about and have been working overtime to "brand" him negatively. All the negativity against Romney makes a little more sense now, eh?
This is all a lede in to the Ames Straw Poll. The expectations game will be working against Romney as well . . . according to this recent survey of 30 key Iowa GOP activists (via Real Clear Politics), Romney should win it handily. Now he's got to deliver . . . and it's all up to us, his supporters. I'll be there and I hope every other Iowan Romney supporter will make it as well! See you there!
I had the amazing opportunity to attend the ABC presidential debate at Drake on Sunday morning. It was awesome! I have so much to write about it, so we'll see where I get tonight.
For starters, since the live broadcast started at 8 am, we had to be seated for the pre-program at 7 am, and we were asked to be there at 6 am. All this being said, I got up 4:45 am and drove over to the theatre where they held the debate. It was pouring rain, and parking was a good walk from the theatre. Needless to say, most of the audience members were soaked when they got there. There were no cameras or cell phones allowed in the theatre, so I have no photos from the event. I have a few others to share, though.
As the debate started, they went through a few recognitions of ABC vice presidents and producers, and then they brought in George Stephanopoulus wearing a cool tie. Then they had the candidates come in. They files in and the audience applauded. There was a bit of a pause and then Mitt Romney came in. As he did, a ton of people started cheering. I realized that I was in a great group of people.
As they stood on the stage, they had about 10 minutes to spare before the broadcast started. They all looked nervous, which was my first big realization : these men are all human after all. Despite their differences of opinion, or experience, or policies, they are all human after all. I think this set me up for a much better debate. It very quickly evened out the biases I had coming into the event.
As the camera started rolling, George started off the debate by exposing Brownbacks dirty robo-dialer tactics. I am not sure if he was trying to cut down Brownback or Romney. Romney quickly spoke up to defend himself, as well as re-directing the entire debate. I am sure the ABC execs wanted to get the candidates to start arguing, and make fools out of themselves in order to belittle the republican candidates. All in the name of pushing the DNC. Romney suggested that instead of asking policy questions to their opponents, they should simply ask that specific candidate about his policies. What an incredible concept!! The media doesn't know how to do that per se, so I am glad Romney stepped up.
One highlight was when Tancredo got upset about being ignored on the stage and called out George for it. Another highlight was when Romney and Giuliani were both asking if Ron Paul had forgotten about 9-11. I think Ron Paul has been in trouble for his treatment of that issue in past debates! Nothing new.
As the debate went on, you could tell where the supporters were sitting in the audience. All the candidate's tickets were grouped together. We got a good feel for the support that was represented there. The McCain supporters were sitting in the row in front of us. They weren't very "outgoing" when it came to applause. The Paul supporters were to the left of us, and almost all of the hundred-or-so Drake students were Paul supporters. They somehow managed to rig the lottery on tickets. Either that or the other students didn't know about it. That being said, the Paul supporters were loud and a bit disrespectful to the other candidates, and at one point, I think an ABC rep. told them to tone it down. I also distinctly heard a cell phone RINGING in their section. (remember I previously stated that they weren't even allowed inside, let alone having the ringer turned up). There were 8 people there for Thompson sitting in the balcony under the spotlights. I couldn't really tell where the rest of the candidate's supporters were, except for maybe the Giuliani supporters in the first few rows. Despite the separatist statehood of the seating, there were Romney supporters scattered throughout, and of course in our couple rows of Romney tickets.
I noticed that Romney got along quite well with Giuliani. They were chatting it up quite a bit while they were not on camera. Maybe there will be a spot in Romney's cabinet for Giuliani!
The best moment of all was towards the end when the candidates were discussing the role of a vice president and ripping on Cheney. Romney took the conversation at that point and stated in more or less words "Let's remember, the current presidency has kept this country safe for almost 6 years since 9-11". After he said that, the entire audience broke into applause, and in my mind, sealed Mitt Romney as the winner of the debate. Wow.
After the debate they had the candidates bring their families on the stage, and it was a neat to see all of their significant others and kids. Again, this added a human element to all the candidates. As much as I don't like their policies, I feel like I can appreciate them as people. Except for maybe Brownback and his dirty campaign tactics.
OK, so here are some photos: First the Program from the debate. It has some interesting facts about the candidates, like the fact that Romney is listed as being "Mormon" rather than "Latter Day Saint". And that fact that Tancredo's favorite food is "Mexican". Seriously, who writes this stuff??
After the debate, I bumped into this guy waiting for his limo........ I love how George makes me look taller. Seriously though, that is a great tie he has on!! I also stopped by the campaign HQ and saw the Mitt Mobile.......... That;s all for now. What a weekend, and we still have the Straw poll to enjoy this weekend!
Please Join Governor Mitt Romney for a series of Events on Sunday, August 5, 2007. It is a great opportunity to meet Governor Romney and hear about his vision for America !
Sunday, August 5: 11:45 AM Dallas County “Ask Mitt Anything” Town Hall Meeting Location: Thymes Remembered Tea Room, 1020 Otley Avenue , Perry
1:15 PM Madrid “Meet-and-Greet” Location: Edgewood Park , One block south of 7th and Main Street , Madrid
2:30 PM Polk County Post Debate Rally! Location: Ankeny High School , 1302 North Ankeny Blvd. , Ankeny
No cost or obligation to attend. Governor Romney looks forward to meeting you and answering your questions.
I will actually be AT THE DEBATE!!! I managed to get a ticket from the coolest person ever, you know who you are ;-) and thanks again so much! I have to be there at the crack of dawn, but it is well worth it. We are not allowed to have cameras or other recording devices, so I will let my DVR do the work back at home for thememories and the post-debate analysis. I will, however, be taking plenty of notes for future blogging. Be sure to catch it ! ! !
Any predictions?? I'll start the conversation : McCain will talk about pork projects at least 4 times. Any other takers??
Josh scaling the rock wall:
Ben and Andy on the wall:
Me sporting my unique (only one there today) "Vote for Mitt" shirt with signatures of Mitt, Ann, and all 5 boys!:
Craig's wife and boy (I should know names, eh?):
Craig Romney with media director Eric Fennestrom:
Two Ophthalmologists Hanging Out (Me and Jim Davies--Ann's Brother):
Me with Ben and Andy Romney:
Tagg and Jen Romney:
