WASHINGTON – Here’s the latest evidence that Florida – and Tampa, especially – is a key presidential battleground: the amount of money Barack Obama and John McCain continue to spend on TV ads.
“Advertising represents reality,” said Ken Goldstein, a professor with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project.
Hereâ??s the latest evidence that Virginia and North Carolina have joined states such as Florida as presidential battlegrounds: Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain continue to spend significantly on TV ads there.
â??Advertising represents reality,â? said Ken Goldstein, a professor with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project.
MADISON â?? Donkeys and elephants have something in common with Badgers, Gophers and Wildcats. A poll released Thursday shows that winning Big Ten states likely is key to winning the White House.
The poll, conducted by a group of Big Ten Conference universities, indicates that Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain are in a statistical dead heat in seven of the eight Big Ten states, including Wisconsin, where McCain campaigned Thursday.
MADISON, Wis. – Barack Obama and John McCain are statistically tied in their race for the presidency in seven of the eight states that are home to Big Ten universities, according to a poll released Thursday.
The race is within the Big Ten Battleground Poll’s margin of error in Ohio, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana and Pennsylvania. Obama has a 16-point lead in his home state of Illinois, a Democratic stronghold he represents in the U.S. Senate.
MADISON, Wis. — A new poll of voters in the eight states home to Big Ten universities shows Barack Obama and John McCain in an extraordinarily tight race for the presidency.
The first Big Ten Battleground Poll shows the candidates are in a statistical tie in seven of the states — Ohio, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana and Pennsylvania. Obama leads comfortably in his home state of Illinois.
MADISON – In the inaugural Big Ten Battleground Poll taken as the nation’s financial crisis worsened this week, John McCain and Barack Obama were in a statistical dead heat in seven of the eight Midwest states included in the survey.
The individual surveys of 600 randomly selected registered voters in each of the states were conducted by phone from Sept. 14-17 and were co-directed by University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientists Charles Franklin and Ken Goldstein and colleagues from participating universities. The polls each have a margin of error of 4 percentage points. The states included in the poll were Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Minnesota.
The Big Ten Network will unveil a unique regional poll of the presidential election on a 90-minute show â??Big Ten Battleground: Campaign 2008,â? airing today at 3 p.m.
“Virtual” colonoscopies are about as reliable as more invasive procedures for finding cancer and polyps, according to the largest study of its kind, published in today’s New England Journal of Medicine.
Photo from UW-Madison accompanies story.
Tom Heberlein is the former chair of the Department of Rural Sociology at UW-Madison and is currently a professor in the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. He divides his time between Sweden and Wisconsin.
The presidential nominees have poured more than $15 million into television advertising since the end of the partiesâ?? national political conventions, mostly in a handful of battleground states in the Midwest, according to a study released Wednesday by the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project.
Congress is considering a bill that would create a National Center on Campus Public Safety , which would be responsible for training schools in public safety techniques.
The bill was introduced Sept. 8 by Rep. Bobby Scott, D-VA. Scott stressed it wouldnâ??t be a regulatory center, and schools could choose whether they want to participate.
Susan Riseling , associate vice-chancellor and chief of police at the University of Wisconsin, was a member of the summit and said she was pleased to see the center was on the table.
Even though it took almost four years for the recommendation to be brought before Congress, Riseling said the timeframe wasnâ??t a problem.
Quoted: But Rob Seltzer, director of admissions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said class rank is important information in the college admission process, even in high-achieving districts. He said it still matters if a student has a lower ranking at their school, even if their grade-point average is above 4.0.
The Obama and McCain presidential campaigns, along with both political party organizations, have flooded the airways with more than $15 million in television advertising since the convention and, despite early predictions of an “expanded playing field,” the key states targeted look very much like the same battleground states of 2004, according to an analysis released today by the Wisconsin Advertising Project.
Quoted: Ken Goldstein, who directed the study by the Wisconsin Advertising Project, based at the University of Wisconsin, says the pattern was a reversal from earlier months, in which McCain’s advertising was consistently more negative than Obama’s.
Quoted: “Car loans would’ve become more expensive, home equity lines of credit become more expensive, the cost of borrowing for regular homeowners would’ve been expensive, even more so,” said Morris Davis, a University of Wisconsin-Madison economics professor.
Quoted: “Where the campaigns advertise tells us a great deal about the candidates’ electoral strategies,” according to professor Ken Goldstein of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project.
Quoted: Ken Goldstein, the University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who directs the ad-tracking project. “Post-convention ad buys give us insights into the campaigns’ assessments of where they think they are competitive.”
Quoted: Where candidates spend money on ads sheds light on where they think they will be competitive, said Ken Goldstein, University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor and director of the Advertising Project.
UW-Madison scientists have successfully slowed the progression of Lou Gehrigâ??s disease in rats by using modified adult stem cells to deliver a growth hormone to atrophied muscles, according to the current issue of Molecular Therapy.
University of Wisconsin researchers have discovered a breakthrough in the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrigâ??s Disease.
Quoted: The language of this week’s statement, said University of Wisconsin bioethicist R. Alta Charo, “is a close echo of Bush’s language used to support the ban on funding for work with newer lines.”
Quoted: Mark Ready, J. Diermeier chairman of finance for the UW-Madison School of Business.
The California Supreme Court recently ruled against two doctors who allegedly refused to provide artificial insemination services to lesbians. President Bush has proposed stronger protections for heath care workers who cite religious beliefs as basis for refusing service. Guests include R. Alta Charo, professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Quoted: UW Madison School of Business professor Morris Davis.
A finance professor at UW Madison doesn’t think Wall Street’s woes are over yet. Prof. Jim Seward says Leman Brothers and Merill Lynch had different client bases, but similar problems. “In both cases, each of these firms ended up investing a lot of mortgage related securities, and financing a significant part of those investments with borrowings,” says Seward.
The nation’s economy has probably hit its low point and should start improving in the next six months.
That’s what speakers told about 80 people at the semi-annual Economic Outlook Conference at the Fluno Center on the UW-Madison campus Friday.
“I think improvement in the economy is imminent,” said Clare Zempel, founder of Zempel Strategic in Milwaukee and former chief economist for Robert W. Baird & Co. “The slowdown should be in the process of slowing down.”
Another catch for at-home parents in tough economic times is this: Rising prices not only make it harder to live off one income — it is also more riskier to put the family’s financial eggs in one basket.
“Dual-earner couples probably help to recession-proof the economy to some extent,” said Janet Hyde, UW-Madison professor of psychology. “If both parents are employed and one is laid off, the economic impact on the family is devastating, but less devastating than if the laid-off person were the sole earner. Families with a stay-at-home parent don’t have that economic cushion.”
Quoted: Campaign ads-that-aren’t are “the oldest trick going,” says Kenneth Goldstein, a University of Wisconsin political scientist who tracks political advertising.
Quoted: Paul Florsheim, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin.
Q. Compact fluorescent light bulbs are supposedly better for the environment because they use less electricity. But they also contain mercury, which can pollute water. Are they still better for the environment?
A. While it is true that compact fluorescent lights contain small amounts of the toxic metal mercury, using them actually contributes less mercury to the environment than using regular, incandescent bulbs, said Faramarz Vakili, associate director of the UW-Madison Physical Plant.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin at Madison political scientist Charles Franklin said long lines – and tempers – could develop at the polls as voters who have done nothing wrong but got red-flagged anyway try to sort everything out.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison Linguist Anja Wanner.
Quoted: Luanne Von Schneidemesser, an English professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor and a WISC-TV political analyst.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Ruth Olson. “It’s something that you’ve probably noticed a lot, too — that we don’t like making waves. We are a very polite group of people.”
Quoted: Thongchai Winichakul, a professor of Southeast Asian history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: UW-Madison dairy economist Bob Cropp.
Mentioned:
“University of Wisconsin researchers reported that when 16 Tibetan monks meditated inside an fMRI machine, the images showed “brain circuits used to detect emotions and feelings were dramatically changed in subjects who had extensive experience practicing compassion meditation.”
Story includes scans from Richard Davidson, director of the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior
Quoted: University of Wisconsin historian Thomas C. Reeves identifies the Enlightenment as a secular religion in which human pride (for Christians the most grievous of the seven deadly sins) has been transformed from vice to virtue.
Quoted: Kenneth Goldstein, a University of Wisconsin political scientist who tracks political advertising
Quoted: Diana Hess, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor in the School of Education.
Quoted: Kurt Squire, assistant professor of educational communications and technology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Quoted: Barry Gerhart, management professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Compensation.
Quoted: UW-Madison Dairy Economist Bob Cropp
Quoted: Thongchai Winichakul, a professor of Southeast Asian history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
History’s most ambitious science experiment was scheduled to begin this morning on the Swiss-Franco border in Europe in a giant underground particle smasher called the Large Hadron Collider.
As is true of many scientists, Terry Millar, UW-Madison’s associate dean for physical sciences, can hardly contain himself when he starts talking about the groundbreaking nature of the knowledge that could come from the 17-mile, $8 billion loop of steel and magnets and seven-story particle detectors.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison weather scientist Jon Martin admits he read the Farmer’s Almanac when he was young.
Quoted: Dr. Eric Heilgenstein of UW Health Services in Madison says without disincentives or available treatment, it’s likely to become a lifelong habit. (Sixth item.)
The government did the right thing by bailing out mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before their finances deteriorated any further, a UW-Madison School of Business professor says.
“If we learned anything from the savings and loan (crisis of the 1980s and 1990s), it’s that firms have incentives to take big risks if they’re near bankruptcy,” said Morris Davis, assistant professor of real estate and urban land economics.
Noted: Last year, a meta-analysis concluded that 3.2 grams a day of CLA “produces a modest loss in body fat.” The analysis, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, pooled results from 18 studies to conclude that subjects taking CLA lost an average of two-tenths of a pound of fat a week more than those taking a placebo.
“It’s not a wonder drug to make fat melt away from the body in a few weeks and drop 10 dress sizes,” says study author Leah D. Whigham, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. “What it is doing is resulting in a fat loss over time.”
Quoted: Andrew Reschovsky, a University of Wisconsin-Madison economics professor
Quoted: Janet Gilmore, a University of Wisconsin folklorist, has studied Wisconsin’s fish fry tradition.
Quoted: Vivian Littlefield, former dean and professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s College of Nursing.
Quoted: Ken Goldstein, director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin.
Quoted: Byron Shafer, political science chair at the University of Wisconsin.
Quoted: Morris Davis, a University of Wisconsin economist who focuses on real estate issues.
Quoted: Stanley I. Kutler, an emeritus professor and constitutional scholar at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Quoted: “The official categories aren’t really the way people live their lives,” says Edward Friedman, a professor of Chinese politics at the University of Wisconsin. “The Chinese state has an official set of categories and you shouldn’t take them seriously.”
Quoted: “The downsizing-turnover relationship suggests a sad irony in that employees are laid off by companies that may subsequently find themselves understaffed,” write the study’s authors, Charlie O. Trevor and Anthony J. Nyberg of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Quoted: Sara Goldrick-Rab, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has studied the path of modern students through what she calls “the complex educational pipeline.”
