Whitman, Brown campaigns hone poll-tested messaging

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In his column Thursday, George Skelton writes about the attributes that voters say will make them more or less likely to vote for a political candidate. The Field Poll found Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown’s age is the biggest strike against him in most voters’ eyes.

More than half of all voters, meanwhile say the fact that Meg Whitman ‘hasn’t voted in many past statewide elections’ is a reason to vote for somebody else. That may be why a coalition of labor groups dubbed California Working Families 2010 focused on the issue in their first ad, which ran in Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento over the last three weeks.

The group spent $3.6 million pushing the 30-second spot about Whitman’s bad voting record into voters’ living rooms. Roger Salazar, a spokesman for the group, says the ads worked. A private poll conducted for the group showed the ads increased Whitman’s negatives by as much as 14 points in places where the ad ran the most.

Salazar says the voting issue on its own is not the real powerful message. Whitman’s campaign is using the age issue against Brown, albeit in a slightly more subtle way.

When asked about the effectiveness of using Brown’s age against him, Whitman adviser Rob Stutzman said: ‘If voters have problems with his age it’s going to be self-evident. The race is about incumbency. His age affirms in voters’ minds that he’s been doing this his entire life, and that’s a long time. It just affirms that he’s the ultimate career politician.’

--Anthony York in Sacramento