BEST ad of the midterms- 1 to REMEMBER- Harry Reid's paean to healthcare reform, according to Republican pollster

[ProgressiveEconomist]

BEST ad of the midterms- 1 to REMEMBER- Harry Reid's paean to healthcare reform, according to Republ...

according to Republican pollster Frank Luntz. Based on focus-group testing, he rates a Harry Reid healthcare reform ad BEST of this cycle. Luntz was on O'Lielly last night with dynamic focus-group rating curves superimposed on various election ads of this season. Each ad had two moving average rating lines rising and falling in real time as it ran--blue for Democrats, red for Republicans.

Neither Democrats nor Republicans liked Kentucky Senate candidate Conway's anti-Ron-Paul "Aqua Buddha" ad. But both parties' focus groups LOVED a Reid ad focusing on how healthcare reform has helped one Nevada woman in her struggle to pay thousands of dollars in prescription cancer drug costs. As Reid tells the woman's story, both lines climb steeply--blue up to 80 percent favorable, red up to 60 percent. The lines climb again when Reid talks about "58,000 seniors" getting help with the Medicare prescription drug donut-hole this year, with the reform scheduled eventually to eliminate the donut-hole entirely.

Like Jerry Brown, Harry Reid evidently had EXCELLENT simple and direct campaign ads. And those ads evidently turned the tide for both of them. Brown's ads had Meg Whitman indirectly endorsing his performance as governor 30 years ago and parroting archived tapes of Ahhnold.

But I agree with Luntz (for the first time) about the Reid ad. It took guts--or a desperation gamble--to run TOWARD healthcare reform when most everyone else was running away from it.

The beauty of Reid's ad is that, unlike Brown's ads, it's easy for ANY Democrat to reproduce. (I don't know whether Luntz ran Brown's ads for his focus groups.) Just find one sick constituent who's been helped by health care reform and tell her story, focusing only on that one person, not on legislative details. As we move toward the 2012 election, finding people who will have been helped will get easier and easier, as long as the President doesn't fail to veto any Republican repeal attempts. I predict this weill by no means be the last time we'll see versions of Reid's healthcare reform ad.

I've never understood how Obama's superb achievements on health care and on the economy got to be so disparaged by right-wing lies that Democrats decided to run away from them, rather than finding simple convincing ways to run TOWARD them.

What if Feingold in WI, Lincoln in AR, Sestak in PA, Gianoulis in IL, Ellsworth in IN, and Potter in ND had run versions of the same ad? Surely we would have lost fewer than six seats in the Senate.

And what if Meek in FL, Fisher in OH, Conway in KY, McAdams in AK, and Hodes in NH had run versions of Reid's health reform ad? Maybe we would have even picked up some Republican seats.

And what if incumbent Democrats who lost their House seats had run versions of Reid's ad? Maybe we even would have kept the House.

WHAT'S YOUR OPINION?

[mucifer]

1. Nah best ad was Jerry Brown's ad where meg whitman was so stupid she

endorsed him and didn't realize it.

"This state was better off 30 years ago"

Guess who was governor 30 years ago.

:rofl:

[lame54]

3. That's got my vote

[ProgressiveEconomist]

6. My favorite Brown ad has Meg Whitman parroting Ahhnold on carefully chosen archive tapes

Make your opponent sound just like somebody who has 20 percent approval, and her approval will head down toward that level too.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

5. But has that ad got legs? Could it be reproduced easily by any other Democratic

candidate, say for the 2012 elections? Read down in the OP--I anticipated questions about Jerry Brown's excellent ads.

[treestar]

9. OMG!

:rofl:

How did they let that one pass! It proves incompetence right there!

[StandingInLeftField]

2. Under the stop-gap State-run insurance pool I'll pay $1200 per month for insurance.

It also appears that I will be just slightly over the cap for pro-rated coverage, so the insurance companies may charge me whatever they like, but just can't deny me. So, since I can't afford $1200 for stop-gap, and the likelyhood of finding anything cheaper after 2014 appears unlikely, then I have to say that health care "reform" has done me no good.

Now, if I'm totally wrong on how this will work, then the problem appears to be one of educating the public on the actual benefits and procedures of the new "reform" package. Finding "one sick constituent" may help someone get elected, but it does me no good whatsoever.

Rant over. Sorry from straying from the original post. I just can't find anything personally to get excited about. I'm certainly happy that the legislation will help some people though.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

4. Not everyone can be helped much; they can't deny you anymore, but now you can't afford

it!

I'm no expert, but google "community rating". As I understand it--and I'm no expert, so take what I say with several grains of salt--there are some companies out there who will put sick people into groups with the entire community, not just with other sick people.

Have you thought of asking your rcongressman for help? Maybe in a public healthcare forum? What have you got to lose?

[StandingInLeftField]

7. I live in South Carolina.

What's a public healthcare forum? I'm pretty sure my congressman doesn't really care what I have to say, and to him, "public" and "healthcare" do not belong in the same sentence.

Thanks for the tip on the community rating. I'll look into that.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

8. You're asking healthcare questions in the wrong forum, buddy. Try these googles to

find a better one. And please don't post here at DU any further details about your personal situation, if you value your privacy.

IMO the better search path for you is to do some googling, find some healthcare forums, and register at a few of the best ones with a unique new username at each forum before you spill your personal data.

Here are a couple of googles to get you started:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%2B%22health+insurance%22+%2B%22community+rating%22+%2B%22+SC+%22

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%2B%22health+insurance%22+%2B%22community+rating%22+%2B%22+SC+%22+blog&btnG=Search

and http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%2B%22health+insurance%22+%2B%22community+rating%22+%2B%22+SC+%22+forum&btnG=Search

Good luck, buddy!

[joeybee12]

10. It worked because it put a human face on HCR...nt

[ProgressiveEconomist]

11. In his SOTU speeches, Bill Clinton mastered the art of telling uplifting stories about individual p...

who've been helped by Administration policies. Carefully-chosen constituents would be flown to Washington and seated next to the First Lady, standing up on cue when the President's SOTU speech got to the policy that helped them.

If President Obama's SOTU early next year doesn't do this with healthcare, stimulus funding for teachers and firefighters, the largest middle-class tax cut in history, GM's resurgence, etc, then he and his staff are fools.

[joeybee12]

12. I know...they can turn this whole mess around...

but they don't seem to be able to figure out the obvious.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

13. Give the WH time. Dubya rode 9/11 to re-election with "3 homeland security photo-ops a month"

according to a Newsweek article some years ago. President Obama can buid up his political capital again with a similar PR campaign.

But first he must show some "contrition" to appease the Fox-driven media. After he comes back from India and Asia, I look for a "photo op" campaign to begin--slowly but surely. Facts about his accomplishments slowly will overtake successful Republican advance lies about them.