2012 Election Coverage

Herman Cain's election ad is an interesting subject. On one end, it's hilariously random and amateurish, and on the other, it's also effective. I mean that the add is effective in the fact that it's getting his name out there and making people think about his campaign and what the add means (the Huffington Post has aggregated analysis of the video by other sources). I can see the arguments regarding the issue of undermining public health, but I don't think the ad was an effective creative effort to address it. Nevertheless, if that was the concept or message behind the video, then Cain's team did a good job in opening up a discussion and gaining interest in his campaign.

In regards to polling numbers and newspaper endorsements: I don't think they're decisive or indicative of election results. Newspaper endorsements do create exposure for the candidates, but the deciding factor in voters' decisions are the candidates' stances on the issues. To try to correlate and attribute endorsement pages to results personally sounds disrespectful to the voting populace. Also, the New York Times piece explains the following:

"Newspaper endorsements, however, do not guarantee endorsements from electoral college voters. The winner of the most editorial approvals has lost the election three times since 1972 — in 1976, 1996 and 2004. The endorsement leader has matched the election winner in the seven other elections, but that may be because before 1992 it always favored the G.O.P., and those years happened to see a string of Republican presidents."


Furthermore, I don't believe early polling numbers matter. If we look back at the past election, it seems to only assert the notion that election results aren't dependent on beginning numbers. Hillary Clinton would have seemed the obvious choice if we looked at initial results, but clearly that turned to be untrue.  I think the public needs to first become acclimated to the campaigns before they make their final voting decision, and in the beginning it's a process of learning about the issues and the candidates' positions so voters opinions are definitely subject to change.