{"id":2269,"date":"2007-12-25T23:31:57","date_gmt":"2007-12-26T04:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2007\/12\/the_holidays_an\/"},"modified":"2007-12-25T23:31:57","modified_gmt":"2007-12-26T04:31:57","slug":"the_holidays_an","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2007\/12\/the_holidays_an\/","title":{"rendered":"The Holidays And Early Primaries\/Caucuses"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to TV news, one of the weighty questions political experts are wrestling with is the impact that the holiday season will have on the early state primaries\/caucuses. Because election calendar has been crammed forward this season, we have an unusually short gap between Christmas, New Year’s Day, and the first elections. In the reports I’ve seen the issue is typically framed in terms of the candidate’s campaigns: How do the holidays alter how the candidates run their campaigns? Will voters pay attention to their messages the last week of December.
\nMy sense is the holiday break may have a marginal impact on the Iowa outcome, but won’t make a difference for the later states. The primary reason I think it might<\/em> have an impact on the Iowa caucuses is because they come just two days after New Year’s Day. Hence some potential voters (e.g., college students) are still going to be on vacation instead of voting. That could make a difference in a real tight contest.
\nAs for the holidays affect on the candidates connecting with voters, I don’t think that’s a significant issue. Think about it–many of the candidates have all but lived in Iowa for the past six months. If a voter is still undecided at this point, it’s not because he or she hasn’t had a chance to become familiar with the candidates–it’s because he or she doesn’t want to commit to someone. A few more campaign stops isn’t going to make a difference. The “undecideds” simply need to get off the fence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to TV news, one of the weighty questions political experts are wrestling with is the impact that the holiday season will have on the early state primaries\/caucuses. Because election calendar has been crammed forward this season, we have an unusually short gap between Christmas, New Year’s Day, and the first elections. In the reports […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2269","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2269\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}