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Chris Cillizza:
Chris Cillizza Talked a lot about The Martha Coakley VS. Scott Brown campaign. He said that when opponents take shots at each other it looks like panic. He is right.
The most important part of a campaign according to Cillizza is to have a “consistent message”. People want to be able to watch how someone gets from point A to point B.
Cillizza believes that Coakley ran a bad campaign and that democrats are going to anything they can to keep a seat. Cillizza also said politics change very quickly.
The one quote that stood out most to me was “politicians are just like you and I they are human beings”. Cillizza said this referring to Coakley’s speech.
Cillizza believes that voters have a “bs” detector. People want to know the person behind the writing. He also said there is a difference in bias and opinion.
Cillizza never saw him self doing journalism. He never wanted to work for a paper. John Harris hired him and now this is what he does. This reminds me of what all of our guest speakers say, take every opportunity.
More of Chris Cillizza can be found at his blog, The Fix.

Marjorie Hershey:
Marjorie Hershey said “republicans and democrats make the rules and they aren’t going away”. This is true and also scary. She also said that we cannot live without political parties because we cannot agree with each other. It isn’t possible to say OK this is the plan and everyone except it.
Hershey said parties allow us alternatives. Just because parties have lost the role in campaigns they are still needed in the government. She doesn’t like spending a lot of time on politics but they are a big issue in today’s society.
Hershey like many know that money is what makes the world go round. She said that money is a big part of winning a campaign. She said the supreme court would say money is a way to express opinion.
The thing she said that stood out the most to me was the fact that a sponsored by group can be anyone who comes up with a name. She also said that online journalism has influenced political journalism a great deal.
Hershey believes that the president is trying to get back to what worked for him when he ran for presidency. She said let the big corporations spend money but make them pay taxes. When the people in the middle don’t take action the extremes will take over.
She ended with four main factors in a campaign: party ID, incompetency, money, and consistent and efficient methods.
Information on the background of Marjorie Hershey!

Dick Morris
Our Video Conference with Dick Morris was interesting to say the least. Dick was full of energy and used a lot of we’s and Him and I when referring to Bill Clinton.
Morris said the reason he changed his political views was because of his views on nuclear war. Poverty, and Rights also played a role in his change of heart. Morris said he believes the United States should use nuclear power more and that he wants to help end poverty and give more rights.
Morris is not a fan of Obama. He believes the only reason Obama won the election is because McCain killed himself with he voted on the tarp for the banks. He also believes that Obama didn’t change people minds in the election he just gained more voters by getting the minorities to vote. Morris said he hopes Obama is not the president next term.
Morris said that Hillary killed herself by spending all of her money on the big states. Although she won the big states she only gain few points that Obama would get by winning all of the small states. He also said that Obama was smarter by having money because without money you don’t have an election.
Morris believes that we are not suffering from Busch’s recession but more from Obama’s cure. I’m not sure where he gets his numbers from or how his time line works. Morris confused me by skipping years in his time line of why we are in the state we are in.
The one quote that Morris said that I will hold onto is ” Use your own tools to fix someones car”. Out of all the things he said this is the one thing I fully agree with. Morris may be out of his mind but he was entertaining.