Mary Katharine Ham has a very interesting post on the importance of staging and advance work in sending a message on television. She has posted two pictures of the Obama rally in NC held tonight - one the television shows and the other from a little more…uh, inclusive angle.

As Seen On TV:

As Seen In Real Life:

Now anyone in politics can tell you that every campaign in the world tries to master the angle the media depicts in photos and on television in addition t orchestrating countless other things to portray an bigger, more excited, all around better crowd than might actually be there. But Miss Ham (is it Miss or is she a Mrs.? I just don’t know) brings up an interesting point here about the lack of media scrutiny of such facts with the Obama campaign and an overzealousness to report them about Republicans like John McCain:

I realize it’s standard practice to rope off an area of a venue for crowd-wrangling and appearances, but this is a little drastic. McCain’s event at the Wait Chapel at Wake Forest today was nicely filled if not overflowing, but I imagine if he had held it at Groves Stadium and filled only the endzone seats, someone in the media might have said something about it. Obama doesn’t have such worries, I guess.

Indeed.

Karl Rove (CRNC alumnus) has shared some insight into the electoral map with Fox News, and I have decided to share it with you here as I prepare to fall asleep assuming that Barack Obama is going to get a bounce out of tonight’s Democratic primaries in Indiana and North Carolina.

The news is good and bad when we look at the maps Mr. Rove has constructed using polling data for general election match-ups with McCain v. Obama (shown below) and McCain v. Clinton. The good news is that the Dems seem to have nominated (presumptively, but they say never count the Clinton’s out ’til their out) the electorally weaker candidate:

The bad news is for College Republicans in those yellow states above - get ready for some serious GOTV work and a lotta attention this summer and fall…

But hey, it’s why we’re here right?!

Some interesting state results to note, both good and bad:

NY - We’re down only 4%!

NE - Up by 3%…

TX - 4%…

MI - Moving to our column!

OH - This is awesome. The GOP in OH has had some rough years for the brand name up there, but we are holding strong in 2008.

FL - If it stays this strong (performing better than state like Montana, South Dakota, and Nebraska for instance) it will be hard to call this a “swing state” in 2008. This speaks to the amazing reputation of former Gov. Bush and current Gov. Crist.

MO - See FL above. Traditionally a bellwether state, with an 8% victory, it will allow us to focus resources elsewhere.

IA - My home state is under-performing.

NM - Up by 2% in a close state from ‘00 and ‘04 with an important congressional and US Senate races.

Well, I could go on here, but those are some notables. Of course, this is all really for naught as it is way too early to be measuring in-state general election polls, but it paints an interesting starting picture. I should note too that states like MO and FL will probably remain incredibly important in the general election even if polls show them at decent margins now. I’m very, very confident we will win both states, but Barack’s say-anything-do-anything campaign will surely contest them with force and CRs will need to be prepared to add a little truth to the madness in states such as these.

If you notice something really striking that I have failed to mention, send it to csmith at crnc dot org and I’ll be happy to include them in a future post!

Charlie and I are in Albuquerque this week as guests with the RNC Chairmans Meeting. Up for discussion are potential plans to change the primary calendar schedule, as well as some presentations and speeches on the coming election.

The mood here is very positive. Party chairman and staff from all over the country are excited about Sen. McCain’s message. Enthusiasm about the campaign is palpable all over the hotel.

Every now and then, an inquiring reporter calls up the office and I’m able to give some answers about the direction of the GOP, the youth movement, or current events. I enjoy this because it gives me a channel as the representative of the organization to speak directly to thousands of people and, of course, I encourage all local and state CR leaders to seek out as much positive media attention as they can find.

Here’s a segment I did with XM Radio on their POTUS channel (dedicated to politicis in 2008 24/7) along with Chris Brooks from GWU and some of our friends across the aisle. You follow the link and then download the podcast for free through iTunes.

Plus, it’s fun to rag on the lefties with everyone listening…

He passes along some words of advice to our party and candidates on how to beat the “unstoppable” Hillary. The central messages is this:

“Criticizing her unites the party, stirs up the unsettled feelings many swing voters have toward her and allows each candidate to say why he is best able to beat her. For now, that’s enough. But when a GOP nominee emerges, he needs to remember no Republican is as well known as Hillary. The Republican has room to grow in the polls as voters get a better sense of who he is and what animates him. Here’s what he needs to do.”

Read the whole thing here: LINK

The opinions expressed here are the personal opinions of the poster and do not represent his views as an officer of the College Republican National Committee (CRNC) or the views of the CRNC.

…on you Democrats!

It’s exceptionally disgraceful that they would inject pure politics into a situation involving the very lives and safety of our soldiers. The Democrats have but days to change course to avoid putting stripping our soldiers of the tools they need to protect themselves from things like IED attacks in Iraq. HERE

Regardless of your opinion of the war, whether it was/is just, or whether we are winning or losing (talking to you Sen. “Dirty” Harry Reid), how can you rationalize denying funding to the troops to buy such basic things as bullets and jamming equipment for IEDS?! Sickening…

More, and probably better written commentary can be found at www.redstate.com

The opinions expressed here are the personal opinions of the poster and do not represent his/her views as an officer of the College Republican National Committee (CRNC) or the views of the CRNC.