Thursday, July 22, 2004

Senate Campaign News 20040722 With 41 days until the primary, 44% of Florida Republicans are undecided according to Insider's Adavntage poll of 300 likely voters statewide. Bill McCollum leads with 19%, followed by Mel Martinez at 14%, Doug Gallagher at 11%, and Johnnie Byrd at 4%. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 6%. If you take the poll released by the Gallagher campaign, and subtract four percent from each of these candidates and then add it to the undecided, you get this poll. This may show that this poll was either less aggressive in getting people to select a candidate, or that the other poll asked the question in a less concrete manner. One odd thing in this poll is the 5% who say that they are voting for "someone else". GOP Senate race lacks voters attention (Miami Herald) Insider Advantage Senate Poll (Sayfie Review) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida Medical Association endorsed Bill McCollum, who supports a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases and the ballot initiative to cap attorney's fees' in medical malpractice cases. Doctors group endorses McCollum for Senate (St Petersburg Times) Florida Medical Association backs McCollum (campaign press release) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Richard Pinsky, political consultant for the Gallagher campaign, says that today will be the day Florida politicians remember as the start of Gallagher's rise from political obscurity to victory. That's because today a fifteen minute movie about the candidiate premeires in Miami's Little Havana Tower Theater. It will then be shown in independent movie theaters throughout the state. Senate candidate's film premieres tonight (Palm Beach Post) Gallagher makes political history tonight (campaign press release) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tying up a loose end from yesterday, the Coalition for a Fair Judicary relased its announcment of Johnnie Byrd signing the Fair Judiciary Oath. Martinez apparently signed it at a press conference with the organization, which is why they announced his signing first. (Martinez press release: Note that it incorrectly states that he is the only candidate to sign the oath. I asked the Byrd campaign about this and they believe it to be an honest mistake.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I didn't come across any news from any of the Democrats campaigns. Maybe I need to send out a press release outlining the evils of Flash!!! Florida Senate Campaign, Politics comment []8:34:14 AM   trackback []

Note to the Alex Penelas Campaign (Another website with Flash issues) Everything that I said in my note to the Deutsch campaign applies to you guys as well. To repeat: Not everyone has flash installed on their browsers. People browsing from public computers usually cannot opt to install Flash. Because of this, people looking at your website from the computers in the libraries here at Florida State see a bunch of brokeness and almost none of the site's content. Also, search engines cannot see the Flash links, therefore they miss most of your content as well. To demonstrate: Search Google for "Castor First Tv Ad". The third result found is to the Betty Castor website. Now do a search on "Penelas First Tv Ad". The first page of hits is all newspaper articles. On the second page, there are more newspaper articles, as well as a link to Betty Castor's website! The third page is more media articles, and on the fourth, yet more media stuff, plus a link to Doug Gallagher's website! NOT GOOD! If you search "penelas campaign broadcasts first tv ad" ,(which is the title of the press release on your website), you get eight hits, none of them to your website! Most of what Flash is being used for on your website could be done in HTML with minimal losses in quality of appearance. In return, you get a several-fold increase in usability and value. It's not too late to fix it. Florida Senate Campaign, Politics comment []12:02:08 AM   trackback []