Press
Buzzword: Modeling
By Jeremy P. Jacobs
Politics Magazine, October 2009
Let’s say you’re developing your campaign’s get out the vote strategy. Your team breaks down the voter file by election history: Voters who have cast ballots in each of the last four elections; voters who have cast absentee ballots; and voters who have turned out for similar elections to the one you’re in.
But that only yields more questions. What, for example, about voters with no voter history? Are there groups within that block who are more likely to vote than others? Would some of those be more receptive to an absentee ballot program? Are there individuals who voted in two of the last four elections but are more likely to vote this time than those who voted in three of the last four?
The answer to all of the above may be voter modeling—a term that came into vogue with President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign and has dominated strategy discussions since. Think of it as the next phase of microtargeting.
Politics Magazine Features MSHC’s Early Vote Strategies
MSHC Partners has long been at the forefront of vote-by-mail research for our institutional organizations and candidate campaigns. As early vote strategies have become key tools in the GOTV arsenal, our research has helped candidates and issue advocates nationwide to turn out supporters and get to victory on Election Day.
In the May issue of Politics magazine, MSHC’s work is featured as a how-to in vote-by-mail execution.
MSHC Partners Wins Yahoo!’s Prestigious “Big Idea Chair” and 24 Pollie Awards
MSHC Partners has won Yahoo!’s “Big Idea Chair” Award, and the trophy that comes with it: a big purple chair. The award recognizes our outstanding work in interactive marketing in 2007. We are the first political firm to receive this prestigious award, and the first firm of any kind to be recognized for an entire body of work (as opposed to just a single creative idea).
Presented by Yahoo! along with the American Association of Political Consultants at the 2008 Pollie Awards, the “Big Idea Chair” means that “your hard work is more than exemplary; you’ve broken the mold and shaken up the industry as a whole.” 25 of our colleagues – “the brightest minds and toughest critics in advertising” – decided that MSHC Partners displayed that kind of rare genius.
MSHC Partners Congratulates 2007 General Election Winners!
2007 was our busiest “off-year” ever, and MSHC Partners is proud of our many victorious clients in November’s elections.
In Virginia, the election of our client John Miller to the State Senate in a Republican district flipping the Senate from Republican to Democrat was the first time for a Southern legislature, and we helped continue the House Democratic Caucus’s winning streak with the election of Margi Vanderhye in a Republican seat and the re-election of Del. Paula Miller.
MSHC client Jeff Berding won a tough re-election to the Cincinnati City Council, making a strong showing in a crowded field.
We were proud to help the AFL-CIO make its voice for working families heard in the election of Kentucky’s new Governor, Steve Beshear.
Wrapping Up the 2007 Votes for the 2008 Race
The Washington Post
By Chris Cillizza And Shailagh Murray
Sunday, May 27, 2007; Page A02
Here's a presidential pop quiz: Which state will cast the first votes of the 2008 presidential race?
Iowa? Wrong. New Hampshire? Nope.
Try North Carolina, where early voting begins on Dec. 17.
The Tar Heel State will be followed by New Jersey on Dec. 27, California on Jan. 2, and Florida and Illinois on Jan. 14. All told, seven states and the District of Columbia will be voting by the time the Jan. 14 Iowa caucuses roll around, according to a report compiled by MSHC Partners, a Democratic direct-mail firm.
Lost amid the hubbub of mega-states moving up their presidential primaries to late January and early February are the effects that absentee voting -- originally developed to allow those serving in the military to cast votes -- and polling places that will be open well in advance of their voting day might have on the nomination fight.
Access to absentee voting has been loosened dramatically in recent cycles as election officials try any means necessary to involve citizens in the electoral process.
Global Warming Debate Over, Time to Act Now: Report
The Washington Post
By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent, Reuters
Tuesday, February 27, 2007; 1:14 PM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Declaring the global warming debate over, an international team of scientists urged the world's nations on Tuesday to act now to keep climate change from becoming a catastrophe.
Satire in Speedos
The Sydney Morning Herald
By Dylan Welch
March 7, 2007 - 2:16PM
Not everybody has had enough of NSW Opposition Leader Peter Debnam in his skimpy swimwear.
The NSW section of the National Union of Workers has slapped together an Internet animation www.videosendups.com that casts Mr. Debnam as the lead singer in "In the Liberals" - a parody of the "In The Navy" by 1970s gay icons, the Village People.
He Finds His Veritas in Vino and in Politics
The Politico
By Aoife McCarthy
January 24, 2007 06:23 PM EST
Rich Schlackman has two labels. Politicos know him well as one of the country's premier direct mail consultants. But it is also no secret that he is a connoisseur of wine.
Schlackman, a partner in the firm MSHC Partners, is a member of the American Association of Political Consultants and also serves on the Great Capital Wine Network of San Francisco. MSHC's client list includes four Democratic presidential hopefuls and the Napa Valley Vintners Association.
City Council Passes Smoking Ban
Nine voted for law that could take effect Jan. 1; momentum for state law grows
The Baltimore Sun
By John Fritze
Sun Reporter
February 26, 2007, 10:45 PM EST
Baltimore will join hundreds of communities across the nation that prohibit smoking in bars after the City Council approved a controversial smoking ban Monday night with a margin of support that swelled in the hours leading up to the final vote.
