What kind of impact have we been having on members of Congress

[Legislurker]

A 20 person focus group on remote gaming from a random sample could have so many widely different opinions. Im not sure I want them doing focus groups on it. Unless its rigged in our favor Absolute Poker style.

[Berge20]

Not on remote gambling, but on the KY election and why people did what they did. It's more polling than focus group in this instance anyway. I'm done derailing [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[DeadMoneyDad]

[ QUOTE ]
Gotcha

I still think they could do that more effectively with some polls and focus group testing, but perhaps I'm just a polling whore. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Politicans are cheap as hell when it comes to spending campaign resources, but spend like drunken trillionaires with tax dollars. It is one of the things that drives me nuts about this town.

A campaign penny wise pound foolish, government pound foolish penny wise just the nature of the beast.


D$D

[DeadMoneyDad]

[ QUOTE ]
Not on remote gambling, but on the KY election and why people did what they did. It's more polling than focus group in this instance anyway. I'm done derailing [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Exit polls are not hard to do.

If TE has pored over the KY election map I'm sure we can come up with a valid set of questions and hit enough polling stations to make a satistically sound case. Even carpetbaggers could do this job.

Heck Zogby or someone might allow you to tag a few questions on to theirs for next to nothing or for a favor or two. All it takes is the right words in the right ears.


D$D

[Legislurker]

Could we keep a lid on the numbers if they were bad?

[oldbookguy]

[ QUOTE ]
Could we keep a lid on the numbers if they were bad?

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, the numbers could be quit small impact wise for a victory.

Example: Fletcher loses by 6. 15% voted for him / against Casinos. 22% voted AGAINST him favoring casinos.

Net 7%, lose by 6, we win by 1.

The other 63% voted for other reasons......

WE claim victory.

obg

[DeadMoneyDad]

[ QUOTE ]
Could we keep a lid on the numbers if they were bad?

[/ QUOTE ]

My personal fear is the anti-gambling forces are organized and have the potential to capitalize on the traditional voting paterns of KYians, tightening of races that happen after Labor Day, and any mistake Beshair might make and make a claim of victory.

We have many sound reasons for a real effort in KY. I am not privy to all of the PPA's current plans nor future plans. All of my personal suggestions have been met with "I'll think about it." To be completely fair this could mean anything from we are already doing or planning this, to we don't think you have a clue what you are talking about and everything in between.

My personal feel I've sort of expressed. In campaigns time is so critical, every minute so valuible, my personal clock tends to tick louder than most. This is because my reputation was built on comming in late to a campaign and "saving the day". Like my feelings on government tax dollars, campaigns squandering the most valuible asset TIME, drives me nuts. You can always get more money, you can always get more volunteers, you can even fix past mistakes and lost opportunities, you can NEVER get a minute more. Well unless you get a re-count, then you get a chance at a do-over...........

So yeah we can keep our personal exit polling numbers a secret, what will never be a secret is the actual effort we put forward when compared to any credible claim of victory.


D$D

[TheEngineer]

[ QUOTE ]

Exit polls are not hard to do.

If TE has pored over the KY election map I'm sure we can come up with a valid set of questions and hit enough polling stations to make a satistically sound case. Even carpetbaggers could do this job.

[/ QUOTE ]

We've been discussing exit polling. Recall that PPA made use of exit polling after Leach lost. Here's the post-election article from the Des Moines Register posted here back when Leach lost:


Poker players: We helped beat Leach
Online gambling fans were angry about his role in passing a new ban

November 17, 2006
BY: Jane Norman

Washington, D.C. - Advocates of online gaming are taking credit for playing a role in the Nov. 7 defeat of longtime Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa, a chief backer of a new law that effectively outlawed gambling on the Internet.

Leach, a Republican from Iowa City, lost his bid for a 16th term in a stunning upset to Democrat David Loebsack of Mount Vernon, as Democrats swept offices across the country and took control of the U.S. House and Senate.

Leach's defeat by 2 percentage points came less than a month after President Bush signed a law making it illegal for financial institutions and credit card companies to process payments on Internet wagers. Aides to Leach dismissed the suggestion that online gaming advocates had anything to do with his defeat.

John Pappas, a spokesman for the Poker Players Alliance, said Thursday that his non-profit organization blasted out e-mails to 150,000 poker fans across the country with instructions on how to register to vote, as well as a scorecard on how members of Congress voted on the gambling bill.

While the alliance did not specifically target Leach, Pappas said he believes motivated poker players in eastern Iowa's 2nd District turned out to vote, and word quickly spread online about Leach's work on the new law.

"There were lots of stories in the publications online gamers read," he said, such as CardPlayer, Bluff and Wicked Chops Poker.

While the alliance can't take credit for Leach's loss, "I can certainly say it played a very significant role in his defeat," Pappas said.

Online gaming sites gloated after the election. "Online Gambling Ban Proponent Leach Booted," was one headline. "A victory for Internet gambling as Jim Leach gets voted out," said Gambling911.

In addition, following the election the poker group commissioned an automated poll of 1,033 voters in the 2nd District, asking how the poker issue influenced their decisions.

Among those who knew about the law, 15 percent said it influenced them to support Loebsack. Another 10 percent said that it influenced them to support Leach.

Online poker advocates contend that was enough to doom Leach in a race lost by just 5,711 votes.

"There's enough evidence here to suggest it didn't help him," said Thomas Riehle of RT Strategies, a partner in the firm that conducted the poll Sunday through Monday. It had a margin of error of 3 percentage points, Riehle said.

However, Greg Wierzynski, Leach's chief of staff, scoffed at the notion that the gaming ban was Leach's undoing. "As we all know, when poker players have weak hands, they bluff," he said.

Wierzynski said Leach's congressional office received "a bunch of angry phone calls" from opponents of the gambling bill, but couldn't tell whether any were from Iowans because the callers refused to identify themselves. The calls were "laced with four-letter words," added Wierzynski.

Leach for years has pushed for an end to Internet gambling, saying large losses by gamblers destroy families, and Internet gambling was bound to spread.

"If Congress had not acted, gamblers would soon be able to place bets not just from home computers but from their cell phones while they drive home from work or their Blackberrys as they wait in line at the movies," Leach said in September.

With Leach gone, the gaming lobby now is hoping to obtain an exemption from the new law for online poker.

Pappas conceded that Leach listened to poker players' arguments, even sitting down for a hand of poker in his office earlier this year with three of the world's top professional players so they could make the case it is a game of skill, not chance. "I wasn't in the room, but I think one of the pros won," Pappas said.