According to Paul Herrnson successful candidates in a campaign are those who "craft a message with broad appeal, set the agenda that defines voters' choices, and get thier voters to the polls on election day. So this week i've decided to apply this formula to the candidates Rodriquez and Canseco and see which one of them, tends to do an overall better job in this three separate categories.

       In terms of craft a message with a broad appeal, Ciro Rodriquez didn't really have a very  memorable overall theme throughout his election. Instead he tended to talk about his past accomplishments and what he had done so far as congressman. His main message seemed to be to encourage people to support and vote for him so that he could then continue to work on the issues that he claimed to be working on. I don't think that this was a very effective strategy for Rodriquez because it's not something that can really stick in people's minds, and of course every politician will claim that they have done everything that they set out to do from the very beginning. The American people however seem to be pretty disillusioned in regards to the idea of "honest politicians". And this is something that Canseco was very aware of and integrated into his main idea for his campaign. Canseco's main message was clearly to let the 23rd district know that his mission was to not only win his individual election but also for the republicans as a whole to take control, and kick out Nancy Pelosi because according to him the Democrats and President Obama were to blame for a lot of the unsatisfactory progress that was being done in the country.

       In regards to "setting an agenda that defines voters' choices". I personally feel that Rodriquez tends to do a slightly better job than Canseco in this aspect because since he is the incumbent he is knowledgeable of the issues that were a problem when he was being elected, and how those have played out during his terms, as well as how his constituents feel about his representation. So Rodriquez tended to talk more about individual issues, that he personally knew were important to his district. Canseco on the other hand obviously came in with a lot less knowledge especially since he wasn't very political before this campaign anyways. his agenda to me was very self-centered and seemed to revolve around doing whatever he had to do to get into office. 

     And finally, in terms of getting your voters to the polls on election day, it's hard to say who was more responsible for the turnout. I would say both candidates contributed into making this a closely watched race and therefore a high turnout. 

An Overview on Redistricting

       Redistricting is known as the process that happens every ten years to districts because of our growth and other general changes in our country's population. This is to ensure that the districts try and remain as fair and equally represented as they possibly can. However redistricting is not always as simple as it may seem and has a fair amount of guidelines and rules that are necessary to follow.

       The first and most likely biggest important piece of criteria for redistricting would have to be making sure that everyone has fair and equal population. Most people would probably think that this would be a basic commonsensical rule for everyone to abide by, but it wasn't actually until the ruling of Baker vs. Carr that the supreme court intervened in the redistricting realm and started to mandate certain critical rules be followed. If this rule had not been mandated then some districts would be allowed to grow unchecked thereby having a much higher amount population than other counties and messing up the idea of "equal representation".

      Another important aspect of redistricting is making sure that the district map lines actually look normal. Or in other words, these lines can't look peculiar or as an obvious way to "cheat the system". Sometimes district lines can be drawn so that certain parts of the district are very far apart from each other, and therefore tend to not even have a clear line of communication, this would allow people to use sheer numbers of that district's population for votes, but obviously this is not a fair way to do things.

    Another large factor taken into account that may have more of an effect on some districts than others, is the  issue of race. The supreme court declared that race must be taken into account when redistricting in order to assure that minorities are some-what represented.

      Redistricting criteria also sometimes involves aspects beyond land and population size such as overall Incumbent protection. The reasons for this rule are first so that, they can receive seniority in Congress which of course helps their party in the long run to accomplish the things that they want to do. Another benefit to this is that the incumbent might actually be popular and a good representative anyways. Out of all the rules, I tend to not agree with this one the strongest because I think that reasoning such as "seniority" just solidifies the tendency of politicians to do things for their own personal gain, instead of purely for the good of the people.







    

Realigning Election

        It's no secret that Fransisco Canseco was able to easily defeat his opponent incumbent Ciro Rodriquez, thereby shifting the control of Texas's 23rd district from Democratic control to Republican control. However Canseco's victory was not only a small personal victory for himself but also part of a larger victory for Republicans overall, because they were able to take over the house from the previous Democrat holders, making this congressional election one of the biggest realigning elections that we haven't seen since the time of "The New Deal"with their net gain of approximately 65 seats in the house.

        In regards to realigning elections there are mainly two types: Critical elections and Secular realignment elections. Critical elections are characterized by voters who are deeply concerned about the issues at hand, electoral involvement tends to be very high and voter behavior gradually changes over time. Secular realignment on the other hand has changes in voter behavior changing gradually over a period of time. 

        In my personal opinion I feel that this election could be categorized as a critical election realignment, because even though voter participation in congressional elections tends to be a lot less compared to an actual presidential election. I feel that Americans overall had a lot of concern about the democratic party in general and the way that they were running the country. There had been a lot of bad press about them and especially President Obama that was making the american people discontent with their progress or lack there of. Because of the concern over our growing problems with the country's economy and financial issues, it comes as no surprise to me that people would feel that the Democrats are the ones to blame and therefore think that in order to get things back to the way they used to be, cause a realigning election by booting out the Democrats and reinstating the Republicans.

    This is exactly what the republicans wanted to happen of course, now all we can do is wait and see how difficult Obama's job now becomes, and whether or not the Republicans hold of the house will somehow make things better than they were previously. 

    

CANSECO OVERTAKES RODRIQUEZ!!!!

It has been a long hard fight for both candidates Canseco and Rodriquez. This election has come to be known as one of the tightest races in the country but it has finally all come to an end with Canseco easily defeating his opponent Rodriquez. Canseco placed a solid lead over Rodriquez beginning in Bexar county and after that, Rodriquez simply wasn't able to shake that lead off. Canseco has said since day one that the 23rd district race was about "taking the gavel out of Nancy Pelosi's hand". And it seems like that dream has actually become a reality. I must say that i'm not surprised that Canseco won, because from the way the early campaigning was going I did feel like it was going to go in his favor. However i'm a little surprised that it wasn't a closer race. It will be interesting to see how where the republicans take the country from this point on.

Final Days Before the Election

It's finally the final days before the election and predictions are beginning to be made about the final outcome between Canseco and Rodriquez. In Paul Herrnson's chapter nine, he outlines what he feels are the major predictors for an election in tables (pg. 247-252). Through use of these tables, Herrnson is able to "mathematically" predict who has a better shot at taking the election, either Incumbent Rodriquez or challenger Canseco. However there is some uncertainty about how solid these "mathematical" solutions are, because if done fully out, it would Pitt Rodriquez as the clear winner, however according to some polls Canseco may still be taking the lead.


Ever since the beginning there have been statements about the 23rd district race and how close of an election it was to be. However despite the "closeness" of the race Canseco and his people have been reporting that according to their polls, he's had a lead over incumbent Rodriquez since the start. http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/eyeon2010/2010/08/texas-canseco-rodriguez-poll.html 


This was surprising to me in regards to Herrnson's theory about incumbency vs. challengers, especially since new reports show that Rodriquez was actually leading Canseco in funding, as well as in support from known big name goverment officials, such as former president Bill Clinton who vouched for Rodriquez as well as Democrats in general at a fundraising event claiming "“I know (Rodriguez’s) mind, I know his heart, I know his record,” Clinton said early in his nearly 50-minute speech. “Under normal circumstances, he would be easily re-elected.” 

As if this election wasn't complicated enough, there is even more doubt that his arisen as to whether Canseco's poll taking which placed him in the lead were even accurate! Apparently Canseco had been using the same  "partisan" firm polls repeatedly  that always put him first. But according to recent polling from The New York Times, the 23rd district has been leaning Democratic with Ciro ahead with 49.5 of the vote.http://74.220.219.63/~cirodrod/featured/quico-canseco%E2%80%99s-running-scared/

Either way, this seems to have been a very shifty campaign, and we will find out the truth to this election in a few days.

Incumbency Factor vs. Strong Contender...David vs. Goliath?

One of the most important factors that dictates the outcome of any political race is the incumbency factor. According to Herrnson, most of these incumbents "begin the general election campaign organization with higher name recognition and voter approval levels, greater political experience, more money and a baetter campaign organization than thier opponent". (246) Strictly going by this,  I would predict Ciro to beat his opponent Canseco, however due to unpopularity with Democrats overall in the nation as well as a very agressive campaign by Canseco, this is a race that could easily go either way.

In the past Ciro has proven that he is a strong contender and has many years of previous political experience. This would ensure that he has high name recognition not only among the people in his district but also among the "political elites" in Washington who willlook at him and assume he'll win. In terms of money, Rodriquez seems to be running a fairly modest amount of funds of 702,422 dollars. The only criteria that I could say Rodriquez doesn't follow from Hernson's theory would be "better campaign organization." This is based solely off th fact that Canseeco just seems to be making himself more heard and more visible than Rodriquez at the moment.

No in regards to Canseco he is currently slightly leading in th polls, however this lead is not a great one and could change at any moment. As stated in the previous paragraph Rodriquez has several advantages over Canseco that he'll need to overcome in order to win. Such as the fact that Canseco only has 453,370 in remaining funds as of early October. However Canseco seems to be putting in all his efforts in trying to not only get higher name recognition among voters through door to door campaigning but also to slander Rodriquez's name with television ads in which he makes false claims of Rodriquez voting for the bank bailouts in 2008.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkIMd_UuSUk

Overall this is on the of th tightest races in not only Texas but in the entire nation. I personally feel that it coul really swing in either direction, however if i had to pick someone to  win it, it would be Canseco simply because he's already leading in the polls against all odds. Which tells me that an aggressive campaign may just win over the incumbency factor in this hot race.

Campaign Funds

FundraThis week we learned a little about Interest Groups and the effect that they have on political parties. Interest groups are important to campaigning and political parties because they raise a lot of awareness and fundraising for the candidate they feel will help their cause. The level of fundraising for Canseco and Rodriquez seem to be on two completely different levels, with Canseco easily leading.

When you visit Canseco's facebook, he has lots of posts updating people on various fundraising goals and how much he has raised. He also has people actually asking him where they can go to donate money in order for him to have more money for his campaign. Although whether or not these individuals are part of interest groups, they do comment on certain topics such as "border control" and claim they will fund raise because they believe Canseco can help the issue. Another interesting aspect of Canseco's fundraising is that not only does he ask for money for his own campaign,  but he also asks for money to be able to bring more awareness to Ciro's faults by exposing his temper tantrums through the media.

Ciro's fundraising on the other hand seems to be quite lackluster. Based off on the little information I can find about him on the internet, it seems like his fundraising or campaigning is virtually non-existent. I would love to get in contact with him, and ask him about how he feels about this. I wonder if because of his general unpopularity and losing in the polls to Canseco, maybe he's finding that it's difficult to garner any support for him. The one thing that Ciro seems to be consistent with is, updating his website as to what he has voted on in Washington.

So, it will be very interesting to see if this like many other campaigns will be heavily impacted by the amount of funds raised by each candidate. According to the Huntington Post Canseco has raised about 50,000$ whilst Rodriquez's fundraising is so insignificant it doesn't even come up on the website. Fundraising Funds

I wonder if theres a correlation between this and the fact that Canseco's leading in the polls.

Local vs. National

According to Paul S. Herrnson "congressional elections are usually fought on local issues" (p.88). Which is why I find it especially interesting that National issues seem to be coming up frequently in this campaign between Rodriquez and Canseco.

On Canseco main website there's a section which specifically speaks about "issues" And like the readings suggested, I too assumed that almost all of the issues discussed would be focused on district 23's most prioritized concerns. However, most of the concerns that come up are actually big national issues that have been very controversial in the past few months such as the health care reform , terrorism, illegal immigration etc. I find it interesting that when you read about these topics that Canseco posts he also frequently touches upon "the democrats in congress/Washington". Which directs the readers focus not only to larger national topics but also the two parties in general. Canseco Website

However, Ciro on the other hand according to his Facebook page seems to focus on talking mainly about the local issues and his voting in Washington and the effect of it on his district.Ciro Website

I find these differences between local and national very interesting But i also feel that there are logical reasons as to why each candidate chooses to focus on one. In regards to Ciro he is the incumbent and has already been in this position, therefore he has actual data and information that he can bring back to the people. Not to mention that once voted in people expect news from him as to what he's doing for their district. Whereas with Canseco, he hasn't been in Ciro's position before and he's trying to reel people in, so it's probably very strategic for him to talk about big issues that people will feel strongly about and align themselves with him.

I think it's going to be very interesting to see if both candidates continue to focus on different issues, or if they will meet on one common issue eventually.

Dirty Tactics?

This week of the congressional elections was kind of tame in Texas's 23rd district. However one thing that did catch my attention was how Fransisco Canseco decided to open up the "official" week of campaigning.

Fransisco Canseco much like President Obama is very active on trying to use all media resources available to him in order to reach out to most voters. One of his most popular ways of doing this is through having his own Facebook page in which he updates frequently on what he is currently doing.
His most current post told readers that this was the official start to the campaign to defeat incumbent Rodriquez and also remove Nancy Pelosi from her position as Speaker of House. The rest of his post goes on to him discussing how Rodriquez really felt the "heat" this summer from media coverage of an outburst he had with an audience member.

Although i understand Canseco's logic at trying to demonize Rodriquez in order for voters to not support him, its becoming a bit tiresome for me. I've always been one to believe that politicians should try and and run as clean and honest campaign as possible, I understand that sometimes it's foolish to not poke at the opponents flaws even a little bit, so i was willing to look past Canseco highlighting Rodriquez's flaws on his own homepage. But now it's become redundant. I would like to hear more about what Canseco think he can do that is so much better than Rodriquez. I'm also not a fan of politician blatantly hating on the other party. What does Nancy Pelosi have to anything with this congressional race? She is not his opponent therefore, her name should even enter his statements. I feel that he needs to focus on his district and what needs to be improved upon it, instead of simply gossiping.

Texas District 23

Ciro Rodriquez has been the democratic congressman of Texas's district 23 since 2007, he previously represented the 28th district from 1997 to 2005, and has been in public office for over 30 years. In 2006 Rodriquez defeated Republican representative David Bonilla, which was the second time a republican incumbent was defeated by a democratic challenger since 1988. I believe that this race will be interesting because of the growing unpopularity of democrats, i would love to see if Ciro will be able to keep his republican competition at bay.
Rodriquez's competition for representative is businessman Fransisco Quico Conseco. When asked about his chances of winning during the primary Canesco claimed that "You can't win this without being Latino, the 23rd is a Hispanic district and it is cut for a Hispanic candidate". It seems that Canesco may have been right because he easily beat his competition for the nomination. However Francisco has one disadvantage that Ciro does not, which is that he has never held any political positions before. Canseco claims that his business knowledge and an "anti-politics" campaign is exactly what will win him over with the people.

In Hernson's first chapter he states that one of the common features about congressional elections is a tendency to focus on the individual candidate rather than the their affiliated party. So far judging by Canesco's webpage it seems this may be true. On his homepage are the bolded words "CIRO IS OUT OF CONTROL" and beneath it is a video clip of Ciro being belligerent with an audience member at some kind of press conference. Canesco makes no mention of the democratic party but instead chooses to attack Ciro's character as a candidate proving Hernson right.

It will be interesting to see if Ciro uses these same "candidate focused" tactics in response to Canesco. And also whether Canesco will continue to low blow Ciro through out the race.