thoughts on it? It's just over two weeks away, this one is pretty important, more so than past years of course. Thoughts on the outcome? Issues?
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thoughts on it? It's just over two weeks away, this one is pretty important, more so than past years of course. Thoughts on the outcome? Issues?
I would really like to see more from both people in some ads about where they stand instead of where the others trash is. I think there some issue with Griffith not actually living in the district, but being about 100 yards away from it, but he does have ties to the area being an E&H graduate, and possibly redistricting will put his home in the 9th next year. That part is hard to tell though.
I don't completely agree with either one. I also don't agree with the talk of we need to leave Boucher in just because of his tenure. That may be one of the worst arguements ever IMO. You don't change for the sake of change. Also, the question is, how much has Boucher really done for this area in his 28 years? Job creation is basically a farce IMO. I have had a feeling for quite a few years (not just since the recession) that theres fewer jobs around then there used to be.
On some of the big topics he has been a part of recently, Boucher helped himself in the area IMO by voting against "Obamacare". The stimulus vote probably is a 50-50 deal to many in the area, but I am surprised they have polished that turd as well as they have when it comes to cap and trade in this area. He and Cecil are real tight, and I think that has buff that turd as well as it can be.
Right now CNNs poll shows Boucher up 10 points, and I expect him to win again to be honest. I am kind of interested in how Heaton polls, and who he may actually take votes away from, if he does at all.
You must be talking about Griffith, there are no attack ads of Bouchers to my knowledge, the closest thing I know of is the lady saying "he's not from here" in a 28 sec ad...that's it. The rest are pro-Boucher ads by him, the UMWA or Mr. Jim McGolthin of United, on top of that, I don't think I've seen Griffith with anything else besides attack ads on Boucher the cap and trade issue and trying to link him with Obama/Pelosi, those are annoying as hell.Quote:
Originally Posted by 1inStripes
The problem isn't him being so many feet out of the district, which gerrymandering will more than likely go past his home, it's the fact that he's out of touch of what the citizens of the 9th need and want.
I do know that the Showcasing Southwest VA has brought in over 5000 alone since it's been going, that's excluding future projects that are already in progress and excluding other projects of Bouchers.
I'd say in my time working with the campaign, which has been for a week since I've signed on as an intern, 85-90% of the voters against Boucher is based on one issue and that's cap and trade. But I have learned quite a bit about it now, well his reasoning for his vote. Boucher negotiated major changes to the bill that goes a long way in protecting the coal companies from the EPA regulations - due to this Duke Energy, Dominion Energy and American Electric Power all endorsed the bill. And since he added an amendment, House rules required him to vote in favor of the bill, which is why he did...so he could get his changes made. It was passing regardless by many votes, instead of Boucher voting no on the original bill, he made changes for the coal industry that ended in a YES vote.
Even if none of that was known, why wouldn't someone vote for Griffith based on that? No matter what Griffith says, he can not do anything to change it, the bill has already passed the House and is in the Senate - so I don't get why people are believing him when he says he's going to do something about it. He's not and he can't.
Boucher should win easily, but it needs to be decisive. From talking with some people in the campaign, he should pull votes from both sides but from Griffith more. I don't know a thing about the man, but from what I've heard, he'd be more aligned with the tea-party - not that he has done that to my knowledge, just based on his positions...but again, what I've heard, I don't really know anything about him.
I kind of doubt he gets aligned with the Tea Party. I have looked over his voting record some and he tends to fall in the more moderate area in his history as a state delegate. Tends to fall in line with gun control for one, which led to the NRA backing Boucher instead. He has been against cutting funding for programs for kids and at risk families it looks like as well. For a recent topic you brought up, he voted against In-state tuition for undocumented persons.
Also for that "Showcasing SWVA" hasn't that been going on since around 87? Im afraid the numbers would fall on the negative side if we done a comparison of what it has gained versus what we have lost. It averages a little less than 220 jobs a year, or 15 jobs per county in the 9th from my math. Thats not exactly setting the woods on fire. Russell and Scott County have done okay in that department in recent years, but Smyth County has been hit hard by job losses, as has Patrick and Henry County (Henry is partially in the 9th) and I am really not sure about the NE part of our district.
He's already done it. Remember that Tea Party Rally that was supposed to be at the Wise Fairgrounds but was moved to Zion Family Ministries? Griffith was the central political character in it. From all reports I heard, it was basically a rally to gain him support and donations...and to trash Boucher while they were at it.Quote:
I kind of doubt he gets aligned with the Tea Party.
If you're the central political face at a Tea Party Rally, then to me--you're aligned w/the Tea Party, regardless of past voting records.
I had forgotten about that rally.
Of course, talking to a specific group of people doesnt necessarily mean you are a part of that group of people. Although many in that group may support you.
While true, it doesn't mean you're not a part of them either. We don't know for sure, but I always say follow the $$$ and you'll get to at least part of the truth.Quote:
Originally Posted by 1inStripes
I actually meant Heaton and the Tea-Party, I don't know if he would put himself with that group, but I've heard his positions are in line with them - but I don't have a clue honestly. There's not a doubt in my mind he would jump on that wagon if it were bigger around here, he's a political opportunist 100%. He's running for the 9th to try and beef up some support in this area for a future run for possibly governor - he's pretty well known up there, but not around here. I'd guarantee if he were to somehow win, he'd be out of here in about 6 years at the most. He can't even get elected in the 6th though, so he'll just fade away.
What gets me is there is quite a few supporters around here from talking to a lot of people, but it's nothing but a strictly partisan vote. I can say that no level-headed person without a deep hatred for anything dem. that blinds them, would never cast a vote for Griffith. He's not known around here, he's never done anything for us and actually voted to take money away from the area, he stands on a dishonest campaign with no substance behind his own and is running against a man that has did a lot for this area on larger scales to individually. There's just no reason whatsoever to cast a vote for Griffith, none whatsoever, it's nothing but partisan views and misinformation(fueled mostly by Griffith) and just people casting a very uneducated vote.
I was just referring to Showcasing SWVA as a particular program that created quite a bit of jobs, but altogether I believe there has been 28k created for this district since he came in.
Boucher is still pro-coal 100%, that cap and trade vote still solidifies that after you find out why he did it. But after interacting with this man more and more, listening to him speak at events and answer questions, watching him actually ask for a persons number/address to help them with a particular problem - my respect for him couldn't be higher, he truly cares about us and you'd be hard pressed to find a man in congress who works harder than he does. You don't find that just anywhere, we are fortunate to have him as our congressman. I feel pretty lucky to be working for him even as just an intern, of course when making calls or something of that nature it's about the election, but there's been several cases I've gotten to "help" a few people with their problems from something like SS/Medicare to a lady today who's husband was abused in a local nursing home..I'm not doing much, but just getting them in contact with the right people in his office is rewarding for me. Take everything away and just his helping of individuals like this has gained ultimate respect from me and I'll give him praise whenever and where ever I can to let people know what he does for us.
There's a few events coming up by the way, there's two dinners next week for the public, good food and Boucher will be speaking. One on the 25th at Duffield Elementary at 6 and the 27th at Jonesville middleschool I believe at 6 pm also.
Back to cap and trade, you mentioned it passed by several votes, but he was able to make amendments and then had to vote YES because of those votes. Didn't C&T only pass by 8 votes?
Yes it did, but what do you mean? They had the votes without a doubt, Waxman was poised to make several breaks for more votes. But for Boucher instead of voting NO on it in a meaningless protest vote, added his amendment and voted YES on it(by rule he had to if he wanted his amendment to be added).
Im just saying that he bought into cap and trade for his party. It may not make a major effect on the coal business now, but long term it will.
I did go to Rick's website to try and find more info on Showcasing SWVA (maybe they could do a better job of mentioning that, with actual data of what it has done if its a big focus point for him). The only numbers I could find stated that it has led to 5,000 technilogical jobs in recent years. I don't know how long recent is determined by that, but it would be nice to have a link with info of each year in what it has created.
He didn't really IMO. He doesn't agree with the taxing of emissions at all, he's said specifically that he'd like to see that SC decision(from 07 I believe) to be overturned that said the gov. can and will regulate emissions. The bill isn't all cap and trade btw, it has some good stuff in it to protect the environment other than carbon capturing.
With cap and trade, it would cap carbon emissions of course, but to soften the blow of it on industries, the bill would provide coal-dependent companies with trade able emissions allowances. The original legislation would require those companies to buy the allowances at "auction", then that money goes to clean-coal energy research. What Boucher did was propose giving electric utilities 90% of those allowances they would be required to purchase, for free. Then on top of that, he'd introduce another bill to delay the regulations altogether for two years - there's not enough votes for a full ban, Obama would veto is regardless. Then during those two years, he and others in congress would try to work something permanent out in a compromise for the coal companies.
That second legislative measure is all assuming this even gets out of the Senate, which that isn't looking too good of happening.
Here's a good article that I read last month btw, didn't get around to posting it, but I found the link.
http://www.kentucky.com/2010/09/20/1...rylink=addthis
He doesn't in your opinion, but his amendment that gives a 2 year leeway, says otherwise. As with any bill, theres always side stuff put on them. Sometimes thats a big reason something gets voted down or voted up.
I probably worded that wrong, but the 2 year part was with the second legislative measure he is going to push, had nothing to do with the amendment he added to the bill.
Somethings going on this big week before the election. There's two debates, first one tomorrow at 7 tomorrow, then another friday at 7 also. Boucher will also be having a dinner at Jonesville Middle School Wednesday starting at 6, then another this Halloween at MECC at Goodloe starting at 5 I believe.
Anybody possibly recording and placing those online?
Its online now, wdbj7 is streaming it live, it should be in the archive afterwords...so maybe check there, but I don't know for sure.
I'll be honest too, I think Heaton definitely leans right on most things, he's in the middle on a lot too...he's taken shots at both sides.
Wow, Heaton seriously lit Griffith up when he had the chance. He got onto Boucher, well really the dem party in the beginning, then during the second half he blasted the hell out of Griffith. Heaton is an asset I believe to Boucher, the last line of the debate was pretty epic. Heaton used his closing statement to blast Griffith not living here, Griffth repeated the same "I live a foot away" shit and Heaton said "You'd be out in baseball" which I lmao at. Loved it.
Heaton is definitely an asset to Boucher, just as Perot was to Clinton. Anytime you have an Independent running who deflected from another party, its going to make an impact on the vote.
I knew that, indy's usually pull votes from the GOP anyway. I'm talking about how fiery he was against Griffith, that surprised me majorly, but as Ive said I didn't even know anything about him. I did learn from it that he is a vet and owns a small business in damascus I believe?
I was surprised to see on WCYB this morning that a poll yesterday showed Griffith leading 47-46. They said who ran the poll, but I forgot who it was. 800 people via phone, so Im sure theres a margin for error, but was still a little surprised. Boucher really hasn't been taken to the wire in a long long time.
Found it. SurveyUSA done the poll.
SurveyUSA Election Poll #17527
I was surprised too, so surprised that I don't believe it. It's basically impossible for a candidate to fall 11 points in that amount of time without a major catastrophe in the campaign. SurveyUSA also doesn't use a call center, it's all automated, which means it has a pretty high margin of error from what even they let on - probably clicking 5. That coupled with our internal polls that have boucher up quite a bit really leave me puzzled as to how in the hell they get this number. But with that said, this is a good thing, it fires voters up and if Boucher supporters just show up on election day than we win by a landslide. He made mention of it last night at the Jonesville dinner, which I loved. Also mentioned Heaton too and said he liked him now heh. - which I do too, he not only pulls votes from Griffith, he says what Boucher can't really say in these debates.
Some reminders, there's the last debate tomorrow at 7. Then the rally Sunday at MECC at the Goodloe Center, a lot of other officials will be there too and special guest including Mr. Cecil Roberts, starts at 5. Last chance to really talk with Congressman Boucher before the election, he'll gladly sit down and answer any personal question, he's done it at every event I've worked.
How influential is Cecil Roberts nowadays? The Union isn't huge in SWVA I don't believe anymore. I may be wrong. Not like it was 20 years ago. WV maybe, but not so much SWVA.
He's still pretty big, considering most voters are older, they very well remember how big it was 20 years ago. But with younger people, you're right, he's not as influential...but he's still pretty popular from those I've talked to making calls when I tell them about the event. Pretty sure Griffith was in Norton today, I think so anyway, there was a little event right in town.
I also learned of a voter suppression issue at a local factory, the workers were told that if they voted for Boucher, they would lose their job. This is one of the dirtiest and misleading campaigns I've ever seen ran, Boucher hasn't stooped to that level one time, though I wish he'd throw some shit right back at that piece of shit.
That just sounds a little fishy and stupid.
What is? We had to actually go to the plant and talk to the workers several times during the day(shift changes at the place). I'll just say the place is in Duffield, really wasn't supposed to say as much as I did, but that's as far as I'll go as to say where it was. I've learned it's not the only place that it has happened, but the other cases were less subtle than what happened here and weren't against the law.
Temper or Joy then I guess. Joy more than likely since its a mining manufacturing company. I still find that hard to believe, because theres no way that they can find out who you actually voted for.
BTW, as I was typing this I got a phone call from one of Bouchers reps looking to speak with my wife. Why single out a specific individual in a household if both are registered to vote? I did speak with the lady, and told her I haven't made up my mind, and I cannot speak for my wife. Maybe I am reading too much into it, but it seemed kind of like maybe a target to women the day before the election?
I didn't say it wasn't stupid on their part 1) telling them that and 2) them believing it...it wasn't a company message, it was several supervisors and it got spread everywhere within the place. It wasn't believed by everyone, a lot knew they can't do that, but it was significant enough for us to have to go there and for it to be looked into - voter intimidation is some serious stuff too.
There's no targeting of a gender, it's only really split up into two groups when we call and that's based on age. 18- 59 and 60 - to whatever. Those lists are printed off and called from, a lot of times couples will show up, but sometimes the names aren't beside each other and the person calling doesn't check to see if there's others in that household. I always check the numbers before I start and mark the couples(sometimes more, a son or daughter or someone else). But sometimes they don't show up in the list either, I've had plenty say "you can/can not count on me AND my husband/wife vote, even though they're not on my list). We just ask for the name on the list though.
I am sure I can find out how legitimate it was one way or the other. I have plenty of friends and family at both locations.
Honestly how many more times should I expect a call for my wife today from Rick Boucher's constitutes? I just received another from a different lady after I spoke for 10 minutes or so with the other lady. This time it ticked me off. This time it showed up as Abingdon, VA on my caller ID so I had an idea, the other said "Cell Phone TN", and I assumed it was my uncle calling. This is showing a lack of quality control/organizational skills on Bouchers office IMO.
Also, to set something straight that you mentioned in UTVols2 post the other day when you said Griffith, and Republican PACs have spent 2.4 million on this campaign, hasn't Bouchers budget alone been 2.1 mil? I am not sure about any Dem PACs allotments, but its not like we are talking apples and oranges between the 2. A little over 800k was all the contributions Griffith himself had funding for according to the KTN today, so apparently the PACs have been his biggest bidder.
I am sure everyone has seen the commercial with the coal miners backing Boucher by now. What about the last miner, named Barney Tiller from Honaker? According to him, Rick Boucher is the "honestest" person you will ever meet. This isn't meant to give kudos to either side, just that I think they could have gotten the guy to be correct in his pronunciation. Is that a word?
Dude, wtf? I explained to you how the calling works, it's easy to call someone twice accidentally. Then when you have several offices calling from lists that some of the same numbers on them, people are going to get called several times. We can't call another office and tell them "hey, we just called this guy, mark him off" every two seconds. Overlapping happens, mistakes happen, all part of the process when you're making thousands of calls.Quote:
Originally Posted by 1inStripes
It looks like everything you said was mostly right, I just don't get what you're asking or setting straight?
Wouldn't it make more sense for one office to get a certain group of numbers and another office get another set and so forth and so on instead of everyone getting the same thing. That just confirms for me poor planning and organization.
I just wanted to make sure that was accurate. You played it off like Griffith was trying to buy the election and spend way more than Boucher IMO in the post the other day.
It doesn't work like that. The site it is gotten from doesn't divide them up based on offices, you print off all available numbers(slowly narrowed down each time) and printed off. We are only responsible for Lee, Wise and Scott and that's what available to us. The Abingdon office for instance can print them off for where ever, some may be in our area too, there's nothing we can do about that and the names being printed off means they haven't been contacted during this tier of calls - or that the data hasn't been put into the comp yet to take (insert name) off of the list and we don't put every sheet in there at that time each time we're done with one. Nothing poorly run about it, it's run the only way it can be, the goal is to contact as many as we can, some fall through the cracks and get called twice.
No I didn't, it's not like I denied anything about Boucher. My whole point in that exchange was that all of that money, well most has been used for attack ads/negative campaigning - majority coming from pacs from untraceable money(to us) since the pacs don't have to release anything to us.
Then reality is that someone should be put in the Abingdon office early in the AM gathering this information and producing a distribution list of which offices get which numbers with a few people cross referencing. You are losing valuable time making sure the maximum number of contacts could be made without doubling up as does happen. It all goes back to organization. Almost any list should be able to be transferred into a Excel spreadsheet and reorganized by number or last name and be able to be cleaned up and divided out properly to multiple offices.
As long as we're talking about wasting time/resources and annoying me w/multiple contacts...I went to my PO box last night (I had checked it last Thursday, mind you), and there were 12 different mailers from the RNC either for Griffith or anti-Boucher/Dem. Why not send one with fact-checked information and cogent arguments for their candidates? Instead, I get one with "Are you happy voting for the most pro-abortion congressman in Virginia?" and that's the only stuff on it, other than the flipside talking about how much Griffith loves his family and if I love mine--I should vote for him.
C'mon, man. That's facking annoying.
There were two not-so flashy ones from Boucher's campaign that had more writing on them discussing issues than all the Griffith ones combined. So--on a 6-1 ratio, that may look like a success for Griffith, but the pure fact that I had to sift through the drek the RNC sent to me did enough to turn me off to the possibility of casting a vote for Griffith.
Its kind of amazing that everyone doesn't get the same stuff. I got about the same amount of propaganda from Griffith and his PACs as I did Boucher and his groups. I got one from the Democratic Party that I thought was a Griffith ad. Boucher was mentioned no where, it just had Griffith on it, and finally said Vote NO to Morgan Griffith.