Were Angelides' Ads Tested?

Earlier this week I spoke with Roger Salazar, a political consultant working for the Steve Westly campaign. He attended a Westly-paid-for focus group this Tuesday and wanted to share the results. For the uninitiated, focus groups are small samples of people gathered together who are questioned and probed for their responses to new information about candidates, a piece of mail, a television ad…etc. Salazar said that the focus groups, which took place in San Francisco, showed an surprisingly negative response to Angelides’ first televised ad spot. There were four separate groups (two male groups of eight, two female groups of eight). At first, the focus groups were shown a series of Westly ads, presumably for the Westly to see which played best. Then, they were shown Angelides’ spot. In three of the groups, only one person gave Angelides’ ad above a 5 on a 1-10 scale (with ten being the highest). Salazar said the most common grade was a 4—which is fairly pretty low for a tested-ad. The audience wanted to know what “standing up to Arnold” meant and who Angelides was. “One group can be an aberration,” said Salazar, who suggested the Angelides’ camp rushed to get an ad on the air after Westly announced he was doing so. “but when you have all four, it is saying something.” Of course, this could all be campaign spin, but it’s still worth sharing.