Strategy: Issues, Speeches, Endorsements Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 Some strategic questions: 1. Say my opponent has made The Environment the #2 national issue (which 100% of the voters agree with him). What's the best was to lessen the importance? (a) Make my strongest issues more important through debates ( Make his less important by sending the appropriate operative to states where it's #1 or #2 (c) Anything else? 2. It seems that getting endorsements is very important. Does getting an endorsement provide a one-time bomus or a permanent bonus? Is it better to give speeches on, say, tax cuts first, and then get that endorsement, or the other way around? 3. Let's see if I have these straight: speeches change the importance of an issue, and ads increase (or decrease) the ratings (those thumbs) per person? So, if you have a state where the top 3 issues are "your" issues, you shouldn't waste your time on speeches, just do ads? 4. Will doing a negative speech raise the importance of an issue? Is there any way of "downplaying" an issue through speeches or ads? 5. Is there a change in the effectiveness of ads with time; for instance, do longer running ads provide less awareness/bonuses?