Monthly Archives: July 2011

Obama, Public Opinion and the Debt Crisis: Winning, Duh! (Or Is He?)

Who is winning the public debate on how to end the debt impasse? According to a story by Jennifer Epstein at Politico headlined “Obama Winning Debt Spin War”: “President Barack Obama is winning the battle for public opinion in the negotiations to raise the debt ceiling, with the overwhelming majority disapproving of the way Republicans are handling it – even most GOP voters, according to a new poll on Monday.”

Epstein’s story is based on a CBS survey released today. If Epstein is right it suggests that Obama’s recent media blitz, including two press conferences within a week, are having a favorable impact on public opinion. However, if you look at the actual CBS poll cited by the story, the survey results aren’t quite as favorable to Obama as the Politico headline suggests. (The poll was in the field July 15-17, and has a margin of error of +/- 4% – remember that margin is higher for subgroups).

To begin, while it is true that Obama fares better than both congressional Democrats and especially Republicans in the poll, it is still the case that a plurality of respondents disapprove of Obama’s handling of the debt ceiling negotiations.

Handling of Debt Ceiling Negotiations

	Approve	Disapprove
President Obama	43%	48%
Democrats in Congress	31%	58%
Republicans in Congress	21%	71%

Still, he might take some comfort in knowing that more people approve of his handling of the debt negotiations than they do the Republicans’. However, this gap seems less impressive when one remembers that presidents are generally always rated more highly than Congress. Right now the RealClear politics composite approval/disapproval rating of Congress stands at 19.2/73.4, while Obama’s approval/disapproval is at 46.3/47.3. In short, the response to this particular survey question regarding the handling of the debt crisis aligns with attitudes toward Obama and Congress more generally. This makes it difficult to tell just how much of the overall ratings of both institutions are influencing the response to this specific question.

Note as well that CBS has weighted the original sample in a way that slightly increases the number of Democrats responses in the final tally; they increase by 10 from the actual unweighted sample, while Republicans lose 21 respondents.

Without knowing the demographics of the survey I can’t cast any judgment on the particular choice to weight this way – it could very well be necessary to increase the accuracy of the reported polling results . But it does make a potential difference in how we judge the results because there is a sharp partisan skew in the responses, with most Democrats (69%) approving of Obama’s handling of the negotiations, while a strong majority of Republicans (81%) disapprove.

Perhaps most disturbing for Obama, however, is that a majority of independents (52%) disapprove of his handling of the negotiations, with another 11% unsure. Only 37% of independents approve. Independents are, of course, the group that Democrats lost in the 2010 midterm, after Obama had won them in 2008.

So it is unclear if, as Epstein claims, Obama is really winning the public debate regarding the debt limit. But it might not matter anyway. Longtime readers will remember that, when it comes to disputes between the Congress and the President, broad-gauge approval/disapproval numbers tell us very little about the popular dynamics driving the debate from Congress’ perspective. This is in part because members of Congress care less about national opinion, and much more about state or district-level attitudes, particular among core voters (although there is some evidence that national factors are looming larger in recent years). For most Republicans, when 81% of your party and 52% of independents oppose the President’s handling of negotiations, that doesn’t provide much incentive to give ground.

Of more interest than these approval/disapproval surveys, I think, are surveys gauging the public’s attitudes toward specific options for solving the debt crisis. You’ll recall that President Obama, in his press conference a week ago, suggested that most Americans weren’t paying close attention to the details of the various options being debated to end the debt impasse. His view was echoed by his press secretary Jay Carney at the end of Carney’s July 13th press briefing in response to a question about a Gallup poll indicating that a majority of Americans did not want their representative to raise the debt ceiling. Carney responded in a way that suggested Americans might not fully understand the implications of not raising the debt ceiling:

“So I think it’s easy to understand why most Americans don’t have a lot of time to focus on what is a debt ceiling. I mean, honestly, did anybody in this room, before they had to cover issues like this, have any idea what a debt ceiling was? Any understanding of the fact that a vote by Congress to increase our ability to borrow was simply a vote to allow the United States of America to pay the bills that it incurred in the past?

I think every American, or certainly a vast majority of Americans, would accept the principle, if asked, that the United States should pay its bills, just like they’re asked to pay their bills.” on the issue.”

In last Friday’s press conference, however, Obama switched gears to suggest that polls indicated strong support for a balanced approach to solve the debt crisis. “You have 80 percent of the American people who support a balanced approach,” Obama said. “Eighty percent of the American people support an approach that includes revenues and includes cuts. So the notion that somehow the American people aren’t sold is not the problem. The problem is members of Congress are dug in ideologically into various positions because they boxed themselves in with previous statements.”

I’ll put aside for the moment the potential tension between his dismissing polls gauging the public’s knowledge of the policy options on Monday while citing their support of the “balanced approach” as indicated in polls on Friday. The more important issue is: when it comes to addressing the debt crisis, is he right? Do most Americans want a “balanced” approach? And what does that mean, exactly?

I’ll address that in my next post.

The Mediator-In-Chief Says: “Split Your Peas!”

The headline of today’s David Ignatius column in the Washington Post reads: “Obama’s Communications Gap.” In the column Ignatius repeats a now common media theme: that Obama has lost his communications mojo. Echoing the sentiments of a former Bush adviser, Ignatius asks, “[W]hy isn’t he projecting his goals and philosophy more clearly to the country? Why does he so often seem to react rather than lead?” Whether it is the budget talks, or his Mideast policy, Obama’s policies “are pretty solid” but his ability to implement them is hampered by a “communications gap.”

Ignatius’ complaint strikes me as reversing the problem. The President’s difficulties are not caused by a failure to communicate his policies, it’s that the policy agenda he adopts seems not to be driven by any unifying or overarching principle or theme. He is, as I have stressed since before his election, a pragmatist, one who is uncomfortable with extremes, and one who is by nature a splitter-of-differences. His lawyerly approach to leadership inclines him to want to settle disputes.

He is the Mediator-in-Chief.

And, if you read Ignatius carefully, he actually recognizes this, even if he does not seem to fully grasp its implications for perceptions regarding Obama’s leadership. Consider the debt limit controversy. It is not the case that Obama has gone into radio silence while the Congress debates the issues. In fact, Obama has held two press conferences within a week to lay out his views regarding the current impasse. Given his disdain for holding press conferences, this counts as a media blitz. But if you watched the press conferences, or read the transcripts (see here and here) two observations stand out. First, he is as articulate, measured, and unflappable as always. It is the same no-drama Obama that wowed the chattering class on the campaign trail. When the press conferences were over, however, one struggles to remember what his policy positions were, exactly. He spoke in themes, but without making choices. For example, Obama opened yesterday’s conference by reiterating the reasons why a debt default would be disastrous, and emphasizing the need for both parties to make sacrifices, in both spending and regarding revenue, in order to strike a budget deal. “If we take that approach, then I am confident that we can not only impress the financial markets, but more importantly, we can actually impress the American people that this town can actually get something done once in a while.”

It’s hard to take issue with this sentiment – but that’s all it is: a sentiment. Obama is emphasizing process here, not policy choices. Consider his last comment before taking questions: “The last point I’ll make and then I’ll take questions — we are obviously running out of time. And so what I’ve said to the members of Congress is that you need, over the next 24 to 36 hours, to give me some sense of what your plan is to get the debt ceiling raised through whatever mechanisms they can think about, and show me a plan in terms of what you’re doing for deficit and debt reduction.

If they show me a serious plan, I’m ready to move, even if requires some tough decisions on my part.”

This raises the obvious question: does he also have a plan? Is there a policy option he is pushing, behind the scenes? If so, it’s not coming through in the press conference. Both sides clearly recognize the need to sacrifice by making hard choices, but what are those sacrifices, exactly? I did not see Obama lay down any policy markers; he didn’t stake out a negotiating position – instead, he explicitly looked to Congress for direction. And that may in fact be a wise decision – why lock oneself publicly into a position that in the end will be negotiated away? But then why hold a press conference if one is only going to state the obvious? Neither conference, as far as I can see, did anything to explain to the public how Obama proposed to move the negotiating process along. Instead, he laid it all on Congress’ shoulders.

When pressed to be more specific, Obama demurred. For example, Jake Tapper pressed him on entitlement reform, noting “[B]ut we don’t yet know what you specifically are willing to do when it comes to entitlement spending. In the interest of transparency, leadership, and also showing the American people that you have been negotiating in good faith, can you tell us one structural reform that you are willing to make to one of these entitlement programs that would have a major impact on the deficit? Would you be willing to raise the retirement age? Would you be willing to means test Social Security or Medicare?”

Obama’s answer? He begins with: “We’ve said that we are willing to look at all those approaches. I’ve laid out some criteria in terms of what would be acceptable. So, for example, I’ve said very clearly that we should make sure that current beneficiaries as much as possible are not affected. But we should look at what can we do in the out-years, so that over time some of these programs are more sustainable.” He then goes on to suggest a number of “modest modifications” to make these programs sustainable, but does not clearly endorse any of them. This happens repeatedly throughout the conference – a reporter pushes for specifics, Obama lays out potential options, but doesn’t publicly throw his weight behind any of them.

This decision not to decide, at least publicly, is not just apparent in the budget debate. As Ignatius notes, in Afghanistan Obama’s preferred strategy was to build up U.S. forces in order to draw them down more quickly. To be sure, there is a logic to this strategy, but it is not a logic that fits easily into an overarching foreign policy doctrine, or that lends itself to easy explanation to a public trying to understand why we are in Afghanistan. Are we preparing to leave, or are we staying the course? For that matter, why did we intervene in Libya and why are we still there (or are we)? What is our policy regarding the Syrian uprising?

In the President’s defense, he may be articulating a much more detailed policy agenda behind close doors and, mindful of what happened to his predecessor’s effort to reform social security, he believes it more efficacious to hold his negotiating cards very close to his chest. He said as much when rebuffing a reporter during Monday’s press conference who pressed him to be more specific regarding his preferred policy options. And he has put down one marker of sorts: during Monday’s conference he said he will not accept another short-term raise in the debt limit.

But this strategy has potential costs. It can create the impression that there is a leadership vacuum in this debate. And, by failing to signal a focal point or end game, it may actually hinder negotiations, rather than move them forward.

My broader point, however, is that many of the qualities that supporters found so admirable in Obama on the campaign trail are now viewed as evidence that he has a communications problem. I disagree. Instead, what we are seeing is that in some ways Obama’s preferred mode of leading, with its emphasis on process and mediation, carries its own risks that cannot be alleviated by better communication. This does not mean it’s an ineffective strategy. Indeed, one can argue that it has led to significant policies, including health care legislation and a stimulus bill. It remains to be seen whether it will also produce a solution to the debt impasse, and on what terms.

Does Obama want Republicans and Democrats to “eat their peas”, or is he content to split them? In either case, no one yet seems willing to bite.

Forgive Us Our Debts

In anticipation of the president’s scheduled 11 a.m. news conference (coming up in a few moments), let me briefly break radio silence regarding the debt crisis to make several points:

First, I’ve been reluctant to post on the issue primarily because it’s not clear to me that the political science literature has any more to say about the specific negotiations and related policies issues (although John Sides is always useful to read) than do the usual policy talking heads.

Second, far too much of the media coverage has focused on the strategic dimensions of the on-going negotiations (who is bluffing?), and on the political implications of the various potential outcomes. While not denying that the current debate is driven in part by partisan and personal calculations, it seems to me that one cannot evaluate those dimensions without some discussion of what’s on the table. What is each side proposing? Alas, beyond some aggregate numbers and broad policy outlines, there’s been very little detail provided regarding the various options under discussion. Ultimately, however, what gets negotiated will largely determine who gets credit, and blame.

Third, there will be no default come August 2. Whether it is a “grand bargain” (highly unlikely) or some short-term fix that involves a combination of accounting tricks, a short-term extension of the limit, or even the political gimmick floated by Senator McConnell, in which he in effect offered to give Obama the power to raise the nation’s borrowing authority – provided Republicans get to vote against it – the debt limit will be raised. It is too late, of course, to actually write legislation to solve the debt crisis before the default deadline, so a permanent fix is unlikely, unless it comes in the form of a broad outline of a legislative agreement.

Finally, assuming a quick fix that addresses the debt issue in stop-gap fashion (that is, in a way that gets us through the next election), I don’t think this current debate will prove very salient in the runup to 2012. It will be trumped by the jobs issue and a debate over the economy more generally.

I’ll try to devote a more extended discussion of the issue after hearing what the President has to say.

Misery Loves Company: Incumbents, Inflation and Unemployment

I want to follow my last post regarding unemployment and reelection by discussing a few other economic measures that are often referenced as useful indicators regarding a president’s reelection chances. One of the most frequently cited is the “misery index”, which is simply a combination of the unemployment and inflation rates. Anna Esten has put together some more charts documenting the relationship between the misery index and the electoral fortunes of incumbent presidents dating back to Truman in 1948. The following chart shows the misery index for each incumbent president in the October before the presidential election. Red indicates the incumbent lost his bid for reelection.

Not surprisingly, incumbents (Ford, Carter and Bush I) lost in three of the four highest misery index years. The exception is Reagan in 1984, but the explanation for his win becomes clear when you look at the index level four years previous, when he beat Carter. Carter lost when the October misery index was a horrendous 20.27, the highest any post-World War II incumbent faced in the month before election. In the intervening four years, however, it came down nearly 9 points, and voters rewarded Reagan for that drop.

Reagan excepted, it appears that incumbents are in dangerous waters when the October misery index is hovering near double figures in an election year. Where does this put Obama? As of this past May, the misery index, driven mostly by high unemployment, was at 12.7 – clearly dangerous territory. But, of course, we are a long way from October, 2012. Moreover, one might be tempted to argue, citing the Reagan exception, that the trend in the index come next October is more important than the actual number. However, the historical record does not necessarily support this. As the following chart shows, the misery index was going down in the third quarter leading up to the elections in 1980 and 1992, but not enough to prevent Carter and George H. W. Bush from losing their reelection bids. Truman’s experience in 1948 suggests that presidents need to see a significant drop in the index to benefit. If you start in double figures, and only begin to come down as the election draws nigh, it may be too little too late.

Of course, inflation has not been a major concern during Obama’s presidency – as yet. So we might think that it is the trend in the unemployment rate that will be most crucial come November 2012. But again, history does not provide Obama much solace, as this chart showing third quarter changes in unemployment rates (actually, it’s the change from July’s rate to October’s) indicates.

As we can see, a drop in unemployment was not enough to save Carter, Bush I or Ford. To be sure, Carter and Ford were combating “stagflation” – high unemployment and inflation. Jobs alone couldn’t save them. Truman, on the other hand, presumably survived the jump in the jobless rate in 1948 because it was combined with a steep drop in prices, which sent the overall misery index down. But Bush lost mainly because of concerns about jobs, even though the job picture was actually improving. It was Clinton, however, who benefited.

The more general conclusion is that perceptions about the economy seem to lag reality. That means the window of opportunity for changing voters’ attitudes regarding Obama and the unemployment rate may be shorter than we think.

Before we write off Obama’s reelection chances, however, the obvious caveats remain: First, it’s July 2011 – not July 2012. Second, we are projecting results based on 10 data points whose historical relevance can be debated. I hope I made clear in the last post the great uncertainty surrounding any effort to extrapolate from such a small data set. On the other hand, we shouldn’t blind ourselves to the political reality of running for reelection when unemployment is among historically high post-war levels. Simply put, the economic fundamentals mean Obama is facing a difficult reelection challenge no matter which of the current Republican candidates he faces.

I’ve focused on very basic economic indicators here. Nonetheless, they do provide a good shorthand assessment of the fundamentals that drive elections. If I get the chance, however, I’ll present some additional economic indicators focusing on disposable income, and some more sophisticated analyses that have proved very useful in predicting past election outcomes.

Obama, Unemployment and Reelection: What I Think I Know…

Will persistent high unemployment doom Obama’s reelection chances? That question was debated anew in response to last Friday’s dismal economic report for June, which showed unemployment actually going up a tick, to 9.2% (and over 16% if one includes those who have stopped looking for work) and with the number of jobs created since May far less than what economists had predicted. The unemployment figures took on added significant in light of a much discussed NY Times article from last month which began, “No American president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has won a second term in office when the unemployment rate on Election Day topped 7.2 percent. Seventeen months before the next election, it is increasingly clear that President Obama must defy that trend to keep his job.” Based on the Times’ article, readers might conclude that if the unemployment trends holds and recent history is a reliable guide, Obama’s reelection prospects are dim to nonexistent.

However, in the aftermath of the Times’ article and again after Friday’s report, some analysts were quick to dispute that idea. Larry Sabato, who created the widely read Crystal Ball website, noted that there was no clear relationship between unemployment and the electoral fortunes of the president’s party. As evidence, he presented the following chart:

Green bars indicate that the incumbent president’s party won reelection while orange indicates that it went down to defeat. Based on this data, Sabato takes issue with the implications of the Times‘ piece, arguing instead that “No way is 7.2% the magic number.” As he notes, Ronald Reagan won reelection by a landslide in 1984 despite a November unemployment rate of 7.2%. Conversely, Vice President Hubert Humphrey lost his bid for the presidency in 1968 even though unemployment was only 3.4% (back when U.S. Steel was king, gas was a dime a gallon and Detroit ruled the automotive world). The reason for Humphrey’s loss is that voters were focused not on jobs but on the Vietnam War. Sabato’s broader point is that although the jobless rate is not meaningless, neither it is a foolproof predictor of election results. Indeed, it may make more sense to focus on the overall trend in unemployment numbers or changes in GDP or some other economic indicator.

Seth Masket, another political scientist and blogger, made a similar argument on his website in the aftermath of the Times‘ article. He presented a scatterplot graphing the relationship between annual unemployment and the share of the two-party vote won by the incumbent president’s party in a presidential election. The almost flat line in the chart is a regression estimate he fit to the data indicating that there is virtually no statistical relationship between unemployment and vote share based on presidential elections dating back to 1948:

Masket’s conclusion? “The fact is, as the above scatterplot demonstrates, the unemployment rate does not predict presidential elections at all. The Democrats failed to hold the White House in 1952 during the lowest unemployment on record. Parties have both lost and retained the White House during periods of high unemployment. And the biggest reelection margins have occurred with unemployment between five and six percent — right around the middle of its historic range.”

Are Sabato and Masket right? Can we discount unemployment as a predictor of election results? Not necessarily. To begin, neither of them has really addressed the New York Times’ claim: that no incumbent president since FDR has won reelection with unemployment over 7.2%. Instead, they focus on the electoral fate of the incumbent president’s party. If, however, per the New York Times piece we restrict our analysis to the winner of those elections involving an incumbent, and extend our timeline back to the first post-FDR president Harry Truman in 1948, here’s what we see:

This graphically illustrates the New York Times‘ claim. Based on this chart, it appears that if unemployment is above 9% come November, 2012, Obama is toast.

Or is he? Here I want to emphasize an important point: there is a great deal of uncertainty associated with electoral projections based on 10 (or 16) data points (depending on whether we focus only on incumbents or on the incumbent’s party). Indeed, Carlisle Rainey (a political science graduate student at Florida State) estimated the 90% confidence interval surrounding Masket’s regression analysis to test Masket’s claim that unemployment rates do not predict the two-party vote share. Think of the confidence interval as a measure indicating how confident we are that the “real” relationship between vote share and unemployment falls within a specified area. So, in the first graph below, we are reasonably confident that the “true” relationship between unemployment and vote share, based on 16 data points, lies somewhere between the two curved lines. You can see that the area between the curves is pretty substantial, meaning we aren’t really sure of the real relationship between unemployment and vote share. Even in the area of about 6% unemployment where there is the most data points there remains wide variation in the vote share won by the president’s party. Based on Rainey’s confidence interval, then, it is clear that there are many possible electoral outcomes associated with any particular level of unemployment. Indeed, as the second chart shows, Rainey suggests we can’t even be sure if the relationship is negative or positive – that is, whether an increase in unemployment decreases a party’s vote share or actually boosts it! (The upward sloping red lines in the second chart are regression simulations based on the data that indicate when unemployment goes up, so too does the incumbent party’s margin of victory – a counterintuitive finding, to be sure, but one that Rainey says we cannot discount based on 16 data points).

What does this mean? In contrast to Masket’s confident assertion that “the unemployment rate does not predict presidential elections at all”, we actually don’t know if that’s true, at least based on the data he cites. The job rate may very well be a key factor in explaining the vote share won by the president’s party. Similarly, we can’t be sure that Sabato is correct that there is “no magic number” of unemployment above which the president will lose the election. Maybe an unemployment rate above, say, 8% really is the kiss of death for any incumbent. Sixteen or 10 data points, however, isn’t enough to make a confident projection.

This is a subtle point I’m making, but it is an important one. The jobless rate may in fact be an important determinant of the 2012 election results. In fact, I strongly believe that, all other factors being equal, the higher the unemployment rate the lower Obama’s election chances. But my estimate is based primarily on intuition and my reading of electoral history, and not on any robust statistical relationship between unemployment and previous election results. That means I could very well be wrong. Based on the data alone, about all we know with some degree of confidence is that a slight change in unemployment, say 1% up or down, is not going to have a huge impact – say, as much as plus or minus 5% in the incumbent’s share of the two party vote. Instead, the impact will be much smaller. But in a close election, even if a 1% change in unemployment shaves (or adds!) 1 or 2% in the popular vote share, it could still be decisive.

The bottom line is that whenever you read an election prediction from a pundit, you should pay attention not only to the point estimate – the margin of victory, electoral votes, etc., she projects. You should also see whether the pundit gives you any measure of the confidence she has in her prediction. It doesn’t have to be a confidence interval. Just ask her how much of her own money she’d wager on the outcome! And be sure to collect your winnings!

In that regard, I can tell you that I disagree with Masket. I think unemployment does predict presidential elections – at least those in which the incumbent is running. Fairly or not, voters hold the incumbent president (more than the incumbent party) responsible for the nation’s jobless rate, and the higher the unemployment level, the less likely the president is to be elected. I also think Obama won’t win election in 2012 with a 9.2% unemployment rate come November. I’m even willing to wager money on it. But not very much. That’s because although I’m confident that when unemployment goes up the probability of reelection go down, I can’t tell you how much the probability decreases. There’s simply too much uncertainty surrounding my estimate. That means I don’t really know if 9.2% is the kiss of death for Obama in the current climate. Maybe it’s 10.2%, or 8.2% or 7.2%. But then, I don’t think anyone else knows either. We are all basically guessing, although it is not entirely a random guess.

All is not lost, however. In a future post I’ll discuss some research that indicates other factors that may be more reliable in predicting presidential election outcomes.