4 years as Governor
6 years as Senator

and how many millions has he spent on ads in the past few weeks?

and still only 48?

I'm not spinning to say Webb will win.

I'm just saying Allen is pathetic.

His biggest accomplishment in the Senate is National Cowboy Day or whatever.  Oh, and blocking crucial embryonic stem cell research.  Yee-ha!!!

I have been hearing it since the primary and it rings truer everyday.  If Webb loses it will not be because Allen beat him but because he and his team lost the race themselves.  Everybody including the whole Allen camp knows their numbers are crap, but he is going to spend even more of those millions doing what he does best...winning elections, and if Webb does not start building the field program and raising the money to match the media buys they will be blown out of the water after labor day.

the field program and raising the money?  Do you have inside information about the campaign that the rest of us don't have?

I think Lowell you can tell us best what is going on inside the campaign, All I can tell you is what I see and that is a campaign with a lot of big fundraisers on the horizon but not enough money in the door yet, and more volunteers then they know what to do with.  That is a great problem to have, I just hope that we start to see the Webb vol. army marching to a unified messege and taking it to a well targeted universe and soon..there is barely more then a 100 days to the election.  ????

Seriously, wars have been fought and won in less time.  Presidents have gone from respectable to hated in less time.  Walter Huddleston went from Senator to private citizen in a turnaround that took maybe 1/4 the time.

Advertise too soon, and yer out of money early, the public forgets, and you lose.

I understand that the doldrums of summer can seem awfully slow and uneventful, but any challenger that spends his precious little money before the last week in August is probably a fool, because nobody but us politics junkies is watching this early.

Plus, it's not like Allen is exactly flooding us with ads and leaflets.

20% undecided.  This is a good bit higher than the other recent polls and, in all honesty, is probably several points higher than reality.  I still think this race has settled into the 10+ point range in Allen's favor.

The question becomes what will drive the numbers going forward.  I don't yet share Lowell's optimism but I'm hoping.  My opinion has been and continues to be that Webb needs to get into the mid-40s and be within about 7% of Allen by Labor Day for the money come in, the national attention to continue and for Webb to have a shot.  16% is a little discouraging, regardless of Allen being below 50%

I think this earlier in the game could benefit Webb, but if it stays mostly unchanged only a week or so before the election then it'll benefit Allen. Undecided voters normally pick the incumbent the closer and closer it gets to Election Day.

I love your tag line at the end about the Titantic, a very good comparison to current times. My observation of the day was that I saw a crusty old man driving down the road in a car with a big American flag on the bumper and one of those flag banners you wave from a car...he had a Fresh Allen bumper sticker on it...of course I passed him and showed him my bumper stickers...and said,"See You later dude" Allen followers are like sticks in the mud--You could just see hate coming out this guy.

Haha  that's classic! I'm thankful I haven't seen hardly any Allen stickers/lawn signs here in SWVa.

The coalfields and the rest of Southwest Virgina is a great place to pick up votes.  Lot's of Reagan Democrats up there who have taken a economic beating in the last 6 years.  This area could really turn hard for Webb if you do your field work. Probably not that strong in the netroots area, but they'll respond to the traditional grassroots ground game--just the kind of thing volunteers can do cheaply.  Jim Webb's roots are in SWVA.  And it's an area when roots and kin still mean something. Jim's populist message will really speak to them and you can get that message out there--one voter at a time. 

After Labor Day is when you start spending big money.  Now's the time where volunteers can step into the gap.

...(Survey USA and Rasmussen) which showed a 9-11 point lead, Allen is about at the same level, but Webb is about 5-7 points below.  Since Webb has not been caught with a live boy or a dead girl (and I doubt last week's debate was reported widely enough to cost him that much support) I think this result is an outlier and/or influenced by how the question was put.

What worries me is not the predictive value of the poll but what effect it will have on morale, and especially fundraising.  Are donors now going to conclude their money can be better spent elsewhere?

help to get his message out.  I find it hard to believe that one poll would make anyone less likely to give to Jim in this critically important race.  Quite the contrary, I think this shows that we need to redouble our efforts on all levels, ASAP.  House parties, anyone? 

I live in a solidly Republican neighborhood and wear my Jim Webb t-shirt and have Webb signs on the cars. The thing I am running into is that none of these people know who Jim Webb is. The best I can do is tell them that there is another choice out there, and his name is Jim Webb.

In 57 years, I have never actively participated in any campaign.  Due to the nausea I get everytime I think about George Allen, I am ready to participate and offered help. It took 3 offerings (some by phone, some by the Jim Webb for Senate website) before I received a phone call letting me know I would be contacted when a Roanoke office was put in place.

Maybe, being the neophite I am at campaigns, I was expecting too much to think that I would be called sooner. In fact, the campaign can have me as a volunteer to return calls to prospective volunteers to at least thank them for calling.

I know the money is a strong issue, and I have donated what limited funds I have, and ordered extra shirts to give to people. Is there any value in what could happen from a grass roots level? I work long hours, but I have more time than money.

Keep on keeping on, Fred. The value of a whole lot of people talking with their friends and neighbors is worth at least as much or more than air-time on TV.

The Webb campaign's greatest strength is that there are thousands of ordinary people who want to make a difference, because we believe that we have a stake in this fight. It's an uneven fight of ordinary people like you and me against a machine with tons of corporate money and inside help everywhere. Our campaign came out of nowhere late in the game, and has been playing catch up all the way. I'm impressed by the fact that there are so many new volunteers that it is hard for the staff and volunteer leaders keep up with them and to provide them with the direction and resources that they need.

I suggest that while you're fired up, don't spend too much time waiting for someone to tell you what to do. You can begin to take action now. Start small, and work up to bigger things. Even though you are new to campaigning, you can help to prime the campaign in the Roanoke area prior to the big push between Labor Day and the end of October.

Introduce as many people as you can to Jim Webb. In the WebbforSenate website, under the take action menu, there's a button labeled tell a friend, and a canned letter. It's a tool for sending info to a whole bunch of people at once. If you and every one of us were to reach a dozen people who didn't know about Webb, we'd make a big difference.  Most people don't even know that there's a better alternative that Allen. Heck, some of them don't even know there's an election this year!

Write a letter to the editor of your local paper.

Check in with your local Democratic Party headquarters, and let them know your a Webb volunteer and you want to help with Democratic efforts in the Roanoke area. 

Help the campaign research the local events in the Roanoke area where we can promote Jim Webb.

Believe me, as a dedicated volunteer you are worth your weight in gold for this campaign. Keep plugging away at it-- you'll definitely get support.

 

Your suggestions helped me navigate to a real person who called me back. I spoke with the Chairman for the Roanoke County Democrats.

I'm up and running.