An Exciting Presidential Campaign
Michael Barone calls the 2008 presidential campaign, in his latest column for Real Clear Politics, ‘unstable.’ According to the experts, this election is Barack Obama’s to lose. According to the experts, Clinton should have won the Democratic nomination. According to the experts, McCain’s campaign was dead last year. According to the experts, McCain’s national campaign was doomed from the start, simply because he’s a Republican.
But Clinton did not win her party’s nomination, while McCain did. What’s more, talking about the national elections, McCain and Obama are virtually tied in the polls. One gets the impression that it’s not going to be the walkover for Obama ‘the experts’ thought it would be.
Still, the basic dynamics of the race haven’t changed. Obama appears to have a small lead. But he doesn’t come close to maximizing the Democratic vote. And there is some evidence that the balance of enthusiasm has shifted and that young people — who seemed to turn out and vote for Obama in unusually high numbers in the primaries and caucuses — are no long so enthusiastic about him.
The first bit of evidence comes from the July 10-13 ABC/Washington Post poll. It asked registered voters if they were “certain” to vote. Only 46 percent of voters under 30 said they were — substantially lower than the 66 percent who said so in the ABC/Washington Post poll taken Feb. 28-March 2, at a time when Obama was enjoying a string of primary and caucus victories and before the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright were circulated on youtube.com on March 13. The 46 percent of young voters saying in July they were certain to vote was far lower than the 79 percent of 65 and over voters who said they were.
The second bit of evidence comes from the Gallup/USAToday poll taken July 25-27. This poll showed that when you narrowed the base of respondents down from registered voters to likely voters, John McCain was ahead 49 percent to 45 percent. That’s a vivid contrast from the contemporaneous Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls, and it was the first national poll since May showing McCain ahead.
If there’s anything we have learned from the first couple of months of this year, however, it is that things can change fast. They may be virtually tied today, but that could be completely different tomorrow. Young voters may not be very enthusiastic now, in August, but they could get their enthusiasm back in November. A controversy may once again arise, and the dynamics will change.
That is, to me, the main story of this year’s election(s). It is also what fascinates me so much about them. I have learned more about American politics in the past couple of months, than in the years before. About the people, about the attitudes, about the dynamics, about polls, about… everything.
And my guess is that American journalists and bloggers can recognize themselves in the above; they too have learned a lot.
The presidential campaign is ‘unstable,’ but it’s also ‘exciting.’
I’d just refer everyone to Jerome Armstrong’s blog, MyDD, which has repeatedly dealt with the idea that the race is "tight" and that McCain and Obama are "virtually tied".
It might make exciting reading, but it’s really not true. It only makes sense if you don’t understand the concept of "margin of error" and only consider the polls in isolation from each other and ignore the state polls and electoral college.
But I’m not getting into all that, so you can go to FiveThirtyEight, Mystery Pollster, or MyDD and see how they put it (which is better than I could ever explain).
The race may be potentially unstable. But what is fascinating to me is just how stable it has actually been in reality. Yes, it is very close. On the other hand, it is close to the same degree that it has been for weeks, months even. The numbers for the candidates are close to (and usually within) the margin of error for any given poll. BUT, Obama is always ahead (bar one or two ties). Which says to me that the margin of error, over the long term, is a lot smaller than any individual poll would have it — and Obama is leading.
You are, of course, correct that things could change. Both quickly and substantially. More than once even. But isn’t it interesting that it keeps not doing so?
The only problem with the election being Obama’s to lose (just as it was Gore’s and Kerry’s), is that when he does lose it, the Democrats will refuse to accept that and instead claim that somehow the evil Republicans stole the election again.
Or the Puma’s will be blamed. Check out my protest postcards at http://www.POSTCARD-BRIGADE.comYou can learn more about the protest movement at http://www.PROTEST-POSTCARDS.com
"claim that somehow the evil Republicans stole the election again."
Somehow? The how is already figured out.
I agree that Obama needs to start appealing to the undecided ones, because they need to be swept of their feet and become Obama supporters before Schmidt’s tactics can whittle away at them. What I do remember is some poll that had third-party candidates (like Barr) available for choice as well, resulting in McCain falling desperately behind. I haven’t heard much on it lately – has it been dismissed as a fluke?
Yes, utsu, you are right but not in the way you think. The "how" on the election being stolen HAS been figured out….as a fiction concocted by the left.
A review of all ballot-counting scenarios by a consortium of media outlets found that under 46 of 48 possible ways of counting disputed ballots in Florida in 2000, BUSH WON ANYWAY. The 2 possible ways that would have led to a Gore victory were never even advocated by the Gore campaign and would have involved politically untenable prospects like excluding military absentee ballots.
If you guys on the left keep fantasizing about elections that you lost being "stolen", it will only continue to inhibit you from competing more effectively. All you do when you keep spinning these tales is convince any voters who believe you to not bother voting in the first place since "the election will be stolen anyway". You are indulging in an emotional fantasy that is both objectively wrong and contrary to your interests. That’s really stupid.
It is also really arrogant how many on the left believe their views to be so objectively superior that the only POSSIBLE reason for a loss must be fraud. That attitude is precisely what alienates so many people and makes trivial anti-intellectual garbage from the right sell far better than it should. When it comes to partisan competition in the American political culture, you lefties are your own worst enemies. You could change exactly ZERO of your substantive views on policy and change ONLY your attitudes and ways of presenting them and you would immediately be the dominant political party instead of a group that can’t poll above 50% even when everything from the economy to foreign affairs to the corruption of the other party makes 2008 practically an ideal gift-wrap for you.
In 1968, the excesses of the far left handed the election to Richard Nixon over a moderate Democrat, Hubert Humphrey. In 2004, a President who initiated a war far more difficult than he presented it to the people as nonetheless won reelection because his opponents were so feckless and irresponsible that they looked even worse by comparison. In 2006, it looked like the Democrats had found a winning strategy finally when they set aside extremist rhetoric and instead ran pragmatic, moderate candidates with simple, common-sense messages. Yet in 2008, your side has apparently learned NOTHING, at least judging from what I encounter online.
"A review of all ballot-counting scenarios by a consortium of media outlets found that under 46 of 48 possible ways of counting disputed ballots in Florida in 2000, BUSH WON ANYWAY."
GOP functionaries demanding ID from "specific" individuals outside voting areas during elections, Database Technologies mislabelling black people as felons prior to the election, voting machines (the manufacturers of which are GOP donors) malfunctioning continuously and never created to leave vote receipts after voting… The election was disqualified from the get-go. Election watch agencies rated the US somewhere along Kazakhstan in terms of accountability, credibility and fraud opportunities.
"You are indulging in an emotional fantasy that is both objectively wrong and contrary to your interests. "
No and maybe yes.
"It is also really arrogant how many on the left believe their views to be so objectively superior that the only POSSIBLE reason for a loss must be fraud."
Many. Some. A number. Quanta. A few, Two People. 49 %. Yeah. I get your point. But we seem to be called all number of things when we stop defending ourselves from frivolous rumors and start hating on the liars and outrage-peddlers.
" When it comes to partisan competition in the American political culture, you lefties are your own worst enemies."
Oh yeah, we have never heard that before. We need to change our tone because we alienate people. We Obama supporters need to do that or some other Obama supporters might just go for McCain. I agree the left need to alter some of their gameplan, but definitely not towards becoming more humble. They need to create media momentum of their own so that McCain can’t pull a windsurfing meme. They also need to offer more fact-based solutions that incorporate many sound approaches on energy and the economy. Voters are getting tired of ideology and the time to roll back Bush’s ideological excesses are not now.
"were so feckless and irresponsible that they looked even worse by comparison."
Made to look so feckless and irresponsible. Kerry tried substance, Bush did a Reagan and quipped a bit while his campaign created rumors and charges Kerry had to spend time on. Kerry was not weak, he was naive.
Democrats have to focus on tying McCain to the past when they can, but where he looks towards the future, they have to offer up a better deal and stop pretending he is completely useless just because his campaign has messed up. They guy can collect himself and start up the mainstream again. Obama has a lot of undeserved worries and trapdoors to deal with that McCain don’t have to worry about because he is a GOP goodoldboy and has automatic credibility on some issues. Also, his can point and scream "OJ OJ OJ Sharpton!!!!" the minute Obama claims they are peddling fear based on insubstantialities even after they put Obama’s face on a bill in an ad (would they have done that with Clinton?).
But we still have conventions, veep picks and debates on offer. Obama needs to make sure that when the debated come he doesn’t have to spend any time on defending himself over rumors and prejudices and that voters expect good marketing of sound ideas that mix the short-term patches with long-term healing. He should get out off the current muddiness and talk above McCain’s head and then curve it down to the people somehow.
It’s laughable to think state that Florida was not stolen in 2000. Of course it was. There were several simultaneous tactics that added up to several thousand lost votes for Al Gore.What is the most tragic of all however, was the ruling that it would take too long to count every vote in the state. In essence, the only true safeguard for determining the will of the people, could not be ever be used because of time limitations.That’s like a warranty that times out as you walk out the door of the store you purchased the item in.