Specter has a shot at increasing his Dem numbers if he decides to be a Dem in action and not in name. He can really choose to consolidate Dem support by demonstrating strong support for President Obama's agenda on health care, EFCA, climate bill, etc. The ball is in his court.

Further illustration of how dominant framing and personality are over substance in elections.

Last December Specter was polled among Democrats against Matthews, Schwartz and Murphy, losing by 60, 42 and 43 points, respectively. Of course, he was a Republican, but that's the point - he's done nothing but change his team logo and garner the endorsement of Brand Obama. Ok, he may have gained some ground beforehand in supporting Obama's stimulus, but he also fought to water it down, and in the interim he's backstabbed labor on EFCA and voted against Obama's budget. EFCA is the only actual issue Specter has changed on, but that doesn't matter.

I would say the public relations industry must be ecstatic, except they'd have to be somewhat surprised and I doubt they are. And it's not because people are stupid.

This is not to say Specter is unbeatable. That's entirely up to us. It's a great opportunity.

"Elections are run by the same guys who sell toothpaste."

People who voted for Bush tended to assume that he was in favor of their views, even if the Republican Party platform was diametrically opposed to them. The same was largely true of Kerry voters.

The reason for this is that the parties try to exclude the population from participation. So they don’t present issues, policies, agendas, and so on. They project imagery, and people either don’t bother or they vote for the image. The Gallup Poll regularly asks, “Why are you voting?” One of the choices is, “I’m voting for the candidate’s stand on issues.” That was 6% for Bush, and 13% for Kerry—and most of those voters were deluded about the positions of the candidates. So what you have is essentially flipping a coin. Each candidate got approximately 30% of the electorate. Bush got 31%, Kerry got 29%.

The party managers know where the public stands on a whole list of issues. Their funders just don’t support them; the interests they represent don’t support them. So they project a different kind of image. [...]

The elections are run by the same guys who sell toothpaste. They show you an image of a sports hero, or a sexy model, or a car going up a sheer cliff or something, which has nothing to do with the commodity, but it’s intended to delude you into picking this one rather than another one. Same when they run elections. But they’re assigned that task in order to marginalize the public, and furthermore, people are pretty well aware of it.

For many years, election campaigns here have been run by the public relations industry and each time it’s with increasing sophistication. Quite naturally, the industry uses the same technique to sell candidates that it uses to sell toothpaste or lifestyle drugs. The point is to undermine markets by projecting imagery to delude and suppressing information—and similarly, to undermine democracy by the same method.