Prepped for a Punchout in the Palmetto State
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Play for free at LuckyLandSlots.com. No purchase necessary. BGW Group. Void were prohibited by law. 18 plus. Terms and conditions apply. Welcome back to Beyond the Polls. This week we do a deep dive into Saturday's pivotal South Carolina GOP race, look at Nikki Haley's post-South Carolina future, and review another provocative ad of the week. Let's dive in.

The big news is obviously what's going on with the Republican race, that the Republican race seems to be winding down. There may be a knockout coming on Saturday, but the boxer isn't going to stay down on the canvas. That's what Nikki Haley told us, said she's staying in and she's already got newspaper and radio and television ads out. She's got people who are being announced as her state committee chairs and all the upcoming Super Tuesday states.

She's got a series of events all lined up between the Sunday after South Carolina all the way through to the Saturday before Super Tuesday. So what does this tell us? Is this the sign of hope? Is this a candidate who's refusing to see what's before her, or is it something in between? I think what I would argue is that it's something in between.

I think her travel schedule really reveals something, and that's what I want to go into here. It's a candidate who has recognized her limits, but also recognizes her appeal and is trying to make the most of what she's got in the time remaining to her. Now, what we have to understand is the basic dynamics, is that unless every poll is wrong and

There's no reason to think that because the polls were right in Iowa and the polls were largely right in New Hampshire. And the polls have been telling us the same thing, which is that if you're a Republican, particularly if you are a conservative Republican, you're extremely likely to vote for Donald Trump. That it's two to one or three to one among Republicans in all of these polls. And weeks of attacks in trying to create a contrast hasn't really changed that. People were...

Satisfied with Trump before, they're satisfied with Trump now. She's not making Republicans change their mind. So Haley's appeal continues to be among the moderate wing of the Republican Party, and it may be smaller than it was 15 years ago. In fact, there's no maybe to it. It's certainly smaller than it was 15 years ago, but it's not non-existent.

And many of these states, including South Carolina, either allow everyone to vote because there's no partisan registration or allow independents to vote, which means people who are not necessarily identifying themselves as Republican. So her hope has always been that she can get a minority of Republicans and a super majority of engaged non-Republicans to create a majority overall.

I think the hope that that was going to happen in South Carolina is gone, that there's no longer seemingly a sense that that can happen. In fact, I think the resignation has kind of set in. Again, maybe there's going to be something that even the campaign doesn't expect. But I think she's expecting for a double-digit loss. It may not be 25 to 30 points like some of the polls, but

But it's probably not going to be better than the 11-point loss that she had in New Hampshire, which is what she grudgingly set as her aspiration and her declaration of success when she was interviewed a couple of weeks ago. But she's going on. So what is her hope? Well...

You have to understand what states are coming up next. Michigan is coming up on the Tuesday after the Saturday primary, and this should be a decent state for her. Michigan has no partisan registration. It is an open primary. It is a more moderate state than South Carolina. So you should expect, in a general way, her to do better. Now, she will be held back in some sense because there is a Democratic race going on.

on the ballot, that Rashida Tlaib, the Detroit member of the squad, is urging Democrats to vote for the uncommitted slate because of Biden's Middle Eastern policies. And Dean Phillips is running ads. He's not blanketing the airwaves the way he did in New Hampshire, but he is actively campaigning. So Democrats, to some extent, have some reason to vote in the Democratic race. But of course, that leaves lots of people who

in a net annual year might go where the action is. Clearly, to the extent there's action, there's more action on the Republican side. So,

It's understandable why her first two events after South Carolina on the way to Super Tuesday are in Michigan. She's going to have a Sunday evening event in Oakland County, which is the upper income educated suburb area of Detroit. It is a place where John Kasich finished second to Donald Trump and won some towns there. Then she goes to Grand Rapids, which is the second largest media market in the state.

It's also home to the Dutch Reformed population. And those of you who've been listening to the show know that Dutch Reformed were next to Mormons, the most resistant religious group to Trump in 2016. Ted Cruz carried the Dutch country around Grand Rapids. So again, this is no accident.

What she's doing is going to an educated area to signal to moderates and independents that she should be their candidate. And then she's going to the Dutch reformed area to say, if you didn't like Donald Trump before and you still don't like him, I'm your choice. Now, she may not say it that directly and boldly, but that's the signal that she's going to send.

So she could very well, if she loses South Carolina by 15 or 18, she could very well lose Michigan by single digits, and she can pray for an upset. But then it starts to get very tough.

Idaho has caucuses, but those are caucuses, not a primary. It's a 50% winner-take-all. And even though the state has a substantial Mormon population that did not like Trump in 2016, there's probably no chance that she's going to get 50% there. She's not going to Idaho.

Then we have her next event after Michigan is in Minnesota. Minnesota has a no partisan registration, open primary, much more moderate state. And Marco Rubio won the caucuses there in 2016. She's going to go to Minneapolis, which is also the area where Rubio did best, but it's also the largest media market in the state easily. Again, she's got limited time, but she's going to touch down in this moderate state.

to hope to signal to the coalition that she's available. Then she goes to Colorado. Why Colorado, you ask?

Well, Colorado is a state that allows independents to vote in its primary. Again, Colorado is a liberal blue state. To the extent that independents want to play in the presidential primaries, the action is going to be there, not on the Democratic side. And she's touching down in a place called Centennial. Centennial is one of the wealthiest places in Colorado. Median income for a household of $125,000 a year. 61% of its residents have a college degree or more.

This is a signal to a certain type of voter. This is not the median Republican voter, but it is a very large niche. And it's also a niche of independent voters. She's touching down to try and say,

I'm your choice, not that guy. Then she goes to Utah. Well, Utah was a state where Donald Trump did so poorly in 2016 that independent Mormon candidate Evan McMullin got almost a quarter of the vote. She's touching down in Utah County, which is south of Salt Lake City. So, of course, she'll be in the Salt Lake media market, which dominates the state. But it's also the county that gave Trump only 9% of the vote. She could have chosen a lot of places to go. She's going to be at a university.

in a heavily Mormon place that gave Trump 9% of the vote. Again, the signal is going to be clear. If you don't want him, turn out in droves. Now, Utah is a closed primary, but it's a closed primary in a state where there's a lot of Republicans who are not happy with the drift of Trumpist Republicanism. That's her hope. Then she jets off to North Carolina. North Carolina is a state that allows independents to vote.

It's a state that Ted Cruz did very well in when he was the only person running against Donald Trump with a chance to win. She's going to touch down on the two largest media markets there. Again, it's going to be an appeal for this voter. She's not going to go to the places that she's been going to in South Carolina. She's not going to try and go to Wilmington. She's not going to try and go to Fayetteville. She's not going to try and go to Winston-Salem, places that are more downscale, places that would probably be better for Trump.

than the places that she's going for. Then she goes to Virginia. Virginia is a state with no partisan registration. It was a state where Marco Rubio came closest to on Super Tuesday, losing by only three points. And she's going to go to two places. She's going to go to Richmond and she's going to go to Northern Virginia.

Would it shock you to learn that the Richmond metropolitan area, the two suburban counties in Richmond, voted for Rubio in 2016? Would it shock you to learn that Northern Virginia was the Rubio heartland in the 2016 primary, and that with John Kasich tagging along, hoovering up votes that could have helped him, that they got between 60 and over 70 percent of the vote in every Northern Virginia jurisdiction? No, it shouldn't.

Nikki Haley stopped trying to compete for the median Trump voter. She's competing for the person who's part of the non-Trump resistance in the Republican Party, not anti-Trump necessarily, but non-Trump, and trying to encourage people who are independent to come along for the ride. Then she goes to D.C., which is a state that Rubio did win. If there's any group of Republicans that remain part of

the non-Trump Republican wing. It's the very heart of the swamp if I was going to channel my MAGUS instincts. She could very well win D.C. and all of its 19 delegates, but having an event in D.C. is, again, you're applying time.

Why are you applying time and a place with such free delegates? She needs a win, and this is a place that she can get it. And then she finally ends up what her published tour is by going to Massachusetts. Massachusetts is another state which allows independents. Independents are overwhelmingly the largest number of people who vote there. And it's a state where even though Trump did very well in 2016, there are obviously a lot of moderates and liberals who are in the state who are not necessarily registered as Democrats.

Where is she having her one announced Massachusetts rally? A town called Needham.

where 81% of the people have college degrees, where the median family income is over $200,000 a year. This is a niche campaign at this point. This is a campaign to win influence, win delegates, maybe win enough states that she can have her name placed in nomination. She needs to win a plurality of at least five states under RNC rules in order to do that. And these are her best shots. Now, what's not on the list?

Well, Texas is not on the list. It's voting on Super Tuesday. It has no partisan registration. She had two events there to her credit before South Carolina. She had fundraising events and built two rallies around them, but she's not going back. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that if you get 50 percent of the vote, you get 100 percent of the delegates by congressional district. Maybe she doesn't think she can get 50 percent anywhere in the second largest state to vote.

There's no visits in California, which is the largest state that's sending delegates on this Super Tuesday. It's a primary closed to registered Republicans. She doesn't have a prayer with registered Republicans. She's not going to make a visit to the most important state that's on the ballot on Super Tuesday. No visit to Tennessee. No partisan registration. You need to have two-thirds of the vote to win all the delegates in Tennessee, but apparently...

That's not good enough. She's not going to Arkansas, which is another open primary. She's not going to Alabama, which is yet another open primary. She's not going to Oklahoma, a place where Trump didn't do all that great eight years ago, but which is closed to registered Republicans. In other words, any state that looks remotely like South Carolina, she doesn't have on her travel schedule. That's the state of the race. That's what you need to be looking at.

If Nikki Haley pulls off a miracle on Saturday and gets within 10 points, if she hits her benchmark, even though all the polls say that she's falling short and all of the instincts that people have about this race say she'll fall short, maybe things will change. But right now, what I think you're looking at is a campaign that is slowly fading away.

that's trying to do the best that it can to wage influence within a Trump-dominated Republican Party, and that that's what we're talking about going into March 5th, rather than a serious effort to actually wrest the nomination away from Donald James Trump.

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Well, the eyes of the American and in some ways the global political world is going to be on South Carolina on Saturday as Republicans turn out in droves to vote for president.

Will Nikki Haley have an unprecedented comeback? Will the polls be right and Donald Trump waltzes to a landslide victory? Here to tell us everything South Carolina is Skylar Croft, politics editor of the Charleston Post and Courier and observer extraordinaire of all things Palmetto State. Welcome back to Beyond the Polls. Thank you. It's good to be here.

Well, what's your overall take on things? Nikki's been spending a lot of time on the attack. She's been spending a lot of time down there. Has it paid off? Has it mattered? She is picking up here and there, but not enough to overcome the lead that Donald Trump has had from the outset.

She's doing what you do in a good campaign, say, if you were running a governor. She's on a bus. She's going to every small town and crossroads. She's getting out and making a speech. She's trying to land punches about her husband's war record, what's going on in Russia. She's doing all the right things that any other year or any other Republican Party might be successful, but it's just not in the age of Trump.

So what is it that explains the whole Trump thing down there in South Carolina? You know, he did win, but it was not one of his best states in 2016. This is not as conservative of a state as others that will be voting later on Super Tuesday. But yet he seems to be beloved. What explains this? I think it is as conservative. I think, you know, having South Carolina,

um be the first in the south was by design that went back to the days of our former governor carol campbell um and so we've led the way all throughout and you really can't win the white house without winning the south carolina primary so it's really a picture of where the electorate has gone um he is in the vein of tim scott in terms of popularity here um it just he is

basically controlling the state. They like his views on the border. They like his views on spending, rightly or wrongly. He's just got his religious affiliations, the upstate Christianity churches like him. So it's just that they've aligned with him through his four years, and that's kind of continued on now as he's just regressed to being a candidate again.

Now, is that why he's only, by my count, since the turn of the new year, he's only been in South Carolina twice. He did a rally in Conway, which is in Horry County, which for my listeners is one of his best states from 2016, counties from one of 2016. He did one in North Charleston. And other than that, he hasn't seen much. He was in Greenville yesterday, and then he's doing a closing rally in Rock Hill,

which is not too far from Charlotte on the North Carolina border tomorrow. Plus his, uh,

too will be here. So he really doesn't need to be here that often. You're right. I mean, he's done minimal TV advertising where Governor Haley upped her buy here from $4 million to $6 million. So the rallies she's had, he's just gotten bigger audiences than the governor has. So it's just the way he campaigns. He likes those big rallies with a couple thousand people there where the governor's hitting maybe a couple hundred at a time.

So how is it being played out on local TV news? You know, if I was down there and I was watching the morning local news or the evening local news, is this race getting covered a lot? And what would people be seeing? They'd be seeing mainly Governor Haley because she is hitting two or three towns a day. And, you know, one advantage of South Carolina, it's a very small and cheap media market.

So you can go from place to place and pick up one channel and then the next. So Charleston is its own area. Beaufort's its own area. Myrtle Beach is its own area. Columbia is. These are places that you can really reach after no more than a two-hour drive.

And are stations, well, you're in Charleston, so you'd be able to speak to this. When she's out of Charleston, do the Charleston television stations talk about what she's saying elsewhere in the state, or is it kind of like out of sight, out of mind?

No, it's dominant. I mean, there's coverage with her now, especially this being the last week. So people want to be there and hear her and that sort of thing, too. So it's a dominant thing. And, you know, there is that gap on the days that Trump is not here. And the other thing that's kind of good to know about here is this may be the last place that Governor Haley and President Trump are going to be in the same state at the same time.

There are 17 states coming together on Super Tuesday.

take your pick. Where do you want to campaign? I mean, there's really no guarantee that they'll be in the same statewide market again. You know, I believe, you know, Michigan is going to be important to both of them. So you might see that overlap there. But, you know, one might be in Texas, while the other is in Oklahoma for Super Tuesday. So, you know, this in Michigan may be the last time you have them in the same states. Yeah, certainly coincidentally. I mean, they could, as you said, coincidentally be in the same state. But

but Michigan votes on Tuesday and it doesn't award many delegates, but it is a statewide primary and she's going to be there at least what she's announced twice. And maybe Trump will be there as well over the weekend. But,

So what do you see? Are you hearing much of a ground game? You know, that when you're in Iowa, you hear everyone talk about organizing the caucuses. And when you're in New Hampshire, you hear people talking about all the little town halls and the volunteer organizations. Do you see much of a ground game at evidence in South Carolina? Yes.

Maybe from the Trump folks. We know they're doing a lot more phone calling and banking. They have the power of they have a large number of surrogates. Ramaswamy is coming in for Trump. His family members are coming in. He's got our popular Senator Tim Scott stumping on his behalf. Lindsey Graham is stumping on his behalf.

Marjorie Taylor Greene will be in the upstate, I believe, tomorrow. But Nikki does not have that wealth of a bench to come in there. And there's no former New Hampshire governor or South Carolina governor that's holding her hand and going around saying, this is my candidate. She just doesn't have that. I mean, the rally she's doing, she's doing by herself. She's controlling the floor.

One of the things that's telling, I think, about this is that here's the former governor of South Carolina. She's got a couple of endorsements here and there, a couple of state representatives and, you know, person she defeated in the primary 14 years ago, Gresham Barrett. But pretty much the whole state establishment is lined up behind Donald Trump otherwise. Yeah, I think they see down the road. I mean, Senator Scott, you know, everyone is advising her to drop off. But she had a very strong position.

announced me yesterday that she's not dropping out whatever happens on Saturday. She's staying on until Super Tuesday and quite possibly beyond. I mean, she is kind of the del facto leader of the Never Trumper movement. I don't think she wants that label, but she is the one. So we'll see how far she can go. I know her donors like that. Yeah.

So you in Charleston are in the heart of the low country, which historically has voted for the more moderate, the more upscale candidate, which clearly seems to be Haley in this race, although no one would accuse her on an absolute scale of being a moderate. Is there a shot that she can win the first congressional district as kind of a consolation prize on the way out the door?

That might be difficult in that the district includes Berkeley County, which is a very rural area.

very hard white Republican county outside of Charleston and then Beaufort County, which is home to Hilton Head, which is a lot of, you know, Trump transplants that have moved in there to retire. So winning the district outright might be difficult. And, you know, that goes to how the state is going to award its convention delegates. I believe we have like 29 that come with

um, winning the state outright. And then a few more tossed in that come from the, um, the RNC. And then you can also win three delegates if you win a congressional district. Um, and so if you win all seven of the state's congressional districts, you get the extra 21 delegates. You know, if Haley does well and wins the coastal Charleston to Buford district and picks up those three, that might be the best she can do or hope for.

Which is certainly not what you would hope for if you're going to go on to be on Super Tuesday is...

being able to say I lost my home state handily and carried one of seven districts, the one I have moved to, because I believe she's a resident in Charleston County now. Yeah, she lives on Kiowa Island, which is kind of a barrier resort island, 40 miles south of town, a lot of retirees down there too. She grew up in Lexington, which is more in the midlands of South Carolina, very strong Republican territory, but she moved here to the coast several years back. Mm-hmm.

So if that's the best you can do, it's a little hard to claim that you've got momentum. Well, you've also got money, and who wants to be disappointed or kicking yourself for not spending all the money you have? So I think that's her logic, is she does not want to give up here with $10 million in the bank and say it's over. Maybe she wants to spend all of it. This week she did announce that her hires and who she has running

campaigns in some of these Super Tuesday states. Idaho, I don't know, but that really gets you a lot if you announce who your staffers are there. There's some in Texas and Vermont. The campaign is sending out the emails that they have to send out, gives you an idea that the campaign is moving and still in it.

Yeah, and she also said she's put up, although I haven't seen a word of the buy, she's got an ad running in Michigan, which is a direct-to-camera ad. So she's spending at least some of that money from the campaign on a television buy and some of the Michigan markets. Do you see much excitement? Are people looking forward to voting here? Is it kind of a resigned, I want to get it over with?

I think it's resigned. And maybe I could use the word fatigue. I mean, there, there's a, you know, three weeks have gone past since the last vote. I mean, I'm not counting Nevada, but, but, you know, once New Hampshire was over, you South Carolina is next. And it's just a long drawn out process of many, many days. Um,

The same stump speeches, things develop. There's really the meter on where the polls have the race have not moved all that much. So everyone's just waiting to see what happens. I mean, if your interest is in Governor Haley, you're watching religiously. If your interest is in President Trump, it's the same. But, you know, again, this is a Republican primary. The faith will take part. I'm not sure that everybody statewide is going to be out on Saturday.

Yeah, and that kind of gets to another question I've got, which is that

In New Hampshire, Haley did very well among the people who were not traditional Republican primary voters. That's why she lost big but didn't get annihilated. And of course, South Carolina has no partisan registration, so theoretically she would have even more of a pool to swim in with respect to that. Do you see any interest, tangible interest, of non-Republican voters saying, you know, I really want to stop Trump. I'm going to

enthusiastically or maybe hold my nose and go there and vote for Haley just to stop Trump.

You may see that. I mean, it's all the fact that we don't register by party in this state. Every election you hear crossovers or saboteurs or people coming in like that. That's almost rumored. The thing to take note of is the turnout for the Democratic primary that Joe Biden won on the 3rd of February, non-competitive, only drew out about 135,000 people. So that leaves a large number of the electorate that's free to come out should they want to.

Some groups have tried to get that going. Governor Haley has made note on the stump that, you know, it's an open primary. I mean, that's kind of her own coding saying, yeah, if you're not, you know, if you want to stop Donald Trump or if you're kind of a neutral, this is your opportunity to come out.

Yeah, I mean, her line of the last few days has been in a general election, you have a choice in the primary, you make a choice. Yes. And, you know, that's kind of a code as well to somebody saying, hey, if you don't want the choice that is for you, you have a choice. It's me. It's me or the outcome you say you don't want.

I look at the early voting and we're recording this on Wednesday, so I need to disclose to my listeners when these data are from. But through Tuesday, 135,000 or so mail and in-person votes had been recorded in the Republican primary with two days of early voting to go and a couple of days for some stray mail ballots to still be received.

Based on your experience, does that strike you as about right? A little high? A little low? This is the only tea leaf we have besides polls. Well, it's the first Republican presidential primary we've had since 2016. So...

That's as many people as voted in the entire state Democratic turnout two weeks ago. The Republicans believe they might get as many as a million people out to vote in this presidential primary, which is an incredible high number, which only tells me the count's going to go later into the evening than otherwise. So a million people voting in one day.

basically two people on the ballots. That could be a very high turnout. And, you know, if it goes Trump's way, it just shows you the motivation of his base.

Yeah, I mean, the turnout was a little under three quarters of a million in 2016, which was at the time a record high for a Republican presidential primary and populations up about 8% statewide. I looked those data up. So, you know, you might expect maybe an 800,000 turnout if you were going to have a similarly record high to say a million suggest you're going to get some of that crossover vote.

Quite possibly. Very easy. The state's growing. South Carolina is a state people are coming to. So eight years. The Charleston area, the last numbers I saw, we're getting 30 people a day come into this region. And it's people moving from other states. And we just did a recent report that

you know, post COVID when people can work remotely, the biggest States moving into South Carolina are from California and New York. And you wouldn't think they would come across the country like that, but California is a huge contributor now to South Carolina.

Wow. New York does not surprise me. California does, because I thought they were all going to like Nevada or Arizona or Boise or, you know, Idaho or Texas, all the way to South Carolina. That's quite a that's quite a haul. Yeah, I think it's the weather. And again, let me point out on Election Day, we're going to have heavy rains and winds on Friday. But all that should clear up on Saturday and we should be a good sunny day and boost the turnout.

So you'll be obviously following the results intensely. What are you going to be looking for? It's 7.05. The polls have just closed. The exits have been released. What is Skylar Croft going to be looking for as the votes get announced? Well, we rely on the network that the AP does in terms of what they do in calling a race. And my guess is that the races may call them.

right at seven or very close to after that. I don't think there's going to be a lot of intrigue that the state's going to be called early. In fact, I got the invitation to the governor's election night event, and she put out that she's going to be speaking at eight o'clock, which that might be for the networks, or that might be just an early admission that the state is over and it's time for her to move on to Michigan.

Yeah, 8 p.m., because I know she's got like a 6 p.m. thing in Troy in Oakland County the next day. So she's got to be on a plane either early or late, depending what she's going to be doing in the morning on Sunday.

So, Skylar, will you be active personally on the Post and Courier site on election night? Or are you going to be not doing live analysis and, you know, doing a piece or a couple of pieces for the paper the next morning? Well, I'm the editor, so I'm going to be more like an air traffic controller. I'll be bringing in stories and feeds and putting things together and making sure this is covered and editing copy and talking to the reporters in the field. So I'll be more directing than actually writing anything.

So you're not reserving the presidential primary for yourself, saying now you guys are going to get your pieces, but this is my time to come out and bogart a little bit. No, to our credit, we are a newspaper that's growing, so we have people all throughout the state. We have a number of state bureaus, and so I think I'm happy where we're going to be.

That's wonderful. In fact, so many of my listeners are probably former journalists. You might get a couple of resumes after this. Absolutely. Send them in. So, Skylar, generally, how can my listeners follow your work and the work of your team down in South Carolina? That's the Charleston Post and Courier. We have bureaus all over the state. Like I said, we cover the statehouse. We cover our delegation punches above its weight in terms of the influence that our lawmakers have on the state. So please follow the Post and Courier.

Well, Skylar, it's wonderful to have your insights, wonderful to have you back, and I hope you have a successful day landing those planes and avoiding crashes on Saturday night. That's great. I appreciate it. Thank you. You slept through your alarm, missed the train, and your breakfast sandwich, cold. Sounds like you could use some luck.

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Well, I've got another ad of the week for you to listen to as we try to understand why politicians say and do what they do. This week, we are going to a Republican candidate for Congress in North Carolina's 13th congressional district.

Let's listen.

Now, on the one hand, this is a generic introductory ad. This is a candidate who has not run for office before. This is a person who has a fair amount of money and isn't afraid to spend it. And he's doing a standard direct-to-camera introduction ad. That's Fred Von Cannon, who's looking at you on screen. He's not wearing anything fancy. He's wearing a collared shirt without a coat. Again, this

degree of studied informality that seems to have become the norm over the past decade as the culture becomes more informal.

Things I like about this ad, first of all, it has his name on the screen. One of the things that a lot of producers forget when they're putting ads together is people don't pay attention to these things rigorously. You have to grab their attention, or if you can't grab their attention, you have to have something that works on different levels in order to get your message apart.

If you're not listening intently, but you're seeing his name on the screen with the face and a tone of voice that's soothing, that can be an effective add, too. So the fact that you simply have...

Fred von Kannon, underneath him most of the time when he's talking, when the shots cut to pictures not of criminals or border problems or packets of cocaine, which it does flip to when he's criticizing Joe Biden and Joe Biden's alleged policies.

You'll have things like Fred Von Cannon defends Judeo-Christian values. So this is a way that if you're listening, you get a message. If you're just spacing and you're watching, you get a message. And I always like that in a bio ad.

The other thing that I want to point out here is the constant repetition about Judeo-Christian values. And this gets to your audience. When you're trying to break through in a multi-candidate primary, you have to have a group of people who not just think you're okay, but put you first.

And a lot of campaigns forget that. They look at their polls and everybody looks at the same polls. They see the same things and they run the same type of ads. If you're in any sort of state which has a primary coming up on March 5th or March 19th, and you're watching the Republican ads, a lot of people are concerned about the border. They want to stop the invasion. They want to support the wall. Everybody's saying the same thing.

So nobody's breaking through, necessarily. What does he do? He's talking about that, but he's also counter-programming. If you're interested in the moral issues, if you want somebody who will put Christian values or Judeo-Christian values first, well, he's identified with them. And that's not something that every candidate is.

is doing. So when you take a look at what's going on there, this is somebody who is trying to make a point. And since this is North Carolina with a strongly evangelical population, a large number of the people who will come out and vote in this district are

strongly religious Christians, he's making a play for that vote without going over the top. Now, he has some shots when he's talking about some of those values. You see a picture of the Bible, or you see a picture of people praying. Again, you're using the pictures along with the words to tell a message, and this is where

that Chiron that I mentioned says Fred von Kannon defends Judeo-Christian values pops onto the screen. This ad may not make Fred von Kannon president. I've seen better introductory bio ads in my career, but this is a pretty good one, and it helps you understand how someone who's trying to introduce themselves for the first time to a jaded and distracted electorate can possibly make an impact

And that's why it's this week's Out of the Week. Next week, I'll discuss what's left of the GOP contest and the future of the Republican Party with National Review's Rich Lowry. Until then, let's reach for the stars together as we journey beyond the polls.

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