Polinaut: February 21, 2006 Archive

Briefing - Tuesday February 21, 2006

Posted at 7:40 AM on February 21, 2006 by Bob Collins

A couple of political guests to call your attention to today. Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, who wants to be president someday, is Gary Eichten's 11 a.m. guest on MPR's Midday. And Becky Lourey, the DFLer who wants to be governor is on the show's Meet the Candidates series at noon. Where can you find the previous episodes? On the individual candidate pages on our Campaign 2006 Web site.

Are we -- Minnesota -- more purple than blue? City Pages thinks so, noting that support for President Bush is higher in Minnesota than any other blue state.

Issue watch: Roll Call (subscription required) is fielding a story today looking at the environment as a political issue in the age of Iraq and the war on terror as the dominants. In some states, Roll Call suggests, it could be significant.

Is Hatch's heart in it?

Posted at 11:14 AM on February 21, 2006 by Bob Collins

Mike Hatch has played his candidacy for governor pretty low-key so far, skipping several DFL gubernatorial candidate forums, the latest one was a week ago in Virginia.

Is his heart in it or what? MPR's Tom Scheck asked him about it Friday. He says, basically, he's waiting until the March 7 caucuses.

Meanwhile, he says, he's got AG work to do. "The best campaigning is doing your job," he told Tom.

Listen (RealAudio required)

Things to help you recover from ice-dancing withdrawal

Posted at 3:12 PM on February 21, 2006 by Bob Collins

This item just crossed the inbox:

The Center for the Study of Politics and Governance New Research on American Politics and Governance A series of in-depth talks by prominent experts.

Presents:

"Why Political Ads Matter: Voting Turnout, Public Preferences, and the Effects of the Paid Media"

Dr. Donald Green
A. Whitney Griswold Professor of Political Science Director, Institution for Social and Policy Studies Yale University

What difference do paid advertisements make in elections? Candidates spend millions on them and the press watches them. But do they matter to voters? Perhaps dueling ads offset each other or voters gets so burned out that they tune out the ads. Dr. Green will report on a series of new experiments that investigate the impacts of political advertisements on the policy preferences of voters and their decisions on whether to turnout to vote or to stay at home.

Monday, February 27, 2006
10:00am - 11:30am

Wilkins Room 215
Hubert H. Humphrey Center
301 19th Ave. S., Minneapolis (U of M West Bank) No cost, but advance registration is appreciated ( * Please e-mail cspg@hhh.umn.edu with the title of "RSVP for Donald Green's Lecture".)