Monthly Archives: July 2012

Are Voters Rational? Bain, Three-Legged Jackasses, and Viewer Mail

Another day, another poll indicating that the devastating Bain attack ad and the “go for the jugular” targeting of Romney’s tax returns  are, as yet, still not resonating nationally with likely voters. According to a USA Today/Gallup poll in the field from last Thursday through Sunday,  “by more than 2-1, 63%-29%, those surveyed say Romney’s background in business, including his tenure at the private equity firm Bain Capital, would cause him to make good decisions, not bad ones, in dealing with the nation’s economic problems over the next four years.”  The persistent polling results belie the oft-tweeted claim that the Obama ad campaign has “swift boated” Romney by turning his supposed strength into a weakness, much as the Bush campaign allegedly did to John Kerry’s Vietnam record in 2004.   It may be, however, that the ad campaign is resonating more strongly in specific swing states, like Ohio where Obama has been outspending Romney so far. Even here, however, the evidence is far from conclusive; the Pollster.com trend line for Ohio polls has Romney trailing Obama by 2.5%, 47.2%-44.7%.  On June 5th, just before the Bain attacks, Obama led Romney there by 3.3%.

In light of the evident failure of the Bain attacks to register so far, several readers have posted comments inquiring about the relative impact of “campaign effects” and election “fundamentals” more generally.  In that vein, Will asks, “So what, if anything, SHOULD I pay attention to that doesn’t have to do with the economy? If all that matters is the economy, a force which remains outside the control of either presidential candidate, would you say campaigns themselves are essentially useless?”

Let me be clear.  When it comes to influencing the presidential vote, campaigns are not “useless”.  In fact they do matter – but not in the way that journalists and partisan pundits often assume.   To begin, they are important for rallying the base and getting out the vote more generally.  One way they do this is by framing real world events in a way that appeals to their partisans – “Romney’s vulture capitalism contributed to the financial collapse” – but which also might convince independents to vote for a particular candidate.  Now, these sound like very important effects, just as many reporters would have us believe.  Indeed, as a counterfactual, let us imagine a world, as Carlisle Rainey contemplates, in which only one side bothers campaigning.  What, as JTTX asks me in a twitter comment, would our forecast models say about the relative impact of campaigns then?  The answer, I think, is that the side doing the campaigning would have an advantage (although perhaps not as large as one might think!)

But I don’t believe that counterfactual  is the correct way to think about campaign effects and, like John Sides, I  don’t think most reporters think this either.  The reality is that most journalists are interested in the net impact of campaigns in the real world, not a hypothetical one. However, because they cover campaigns on a daily basis, they tend to think those effects are quite large.  Most political scientists disagree.  They believe that in the world in which we live, campaign effects, such as the Bain ad or Romney’s tax returns, are much more limited for at least three reasons.

First, of course, both sides are struggling to frame the election in ways most favorable to their candidate.   So voters aren’t just hearing about Bain – they are hearing about unemployment on Obama’s watch as well.  There are dueling messages out there that voters hear and respond to.

Second, by the time campaigns are in full swing, most voters have already made up their minds based on longstanding predispositions guided by, for instance, an affinity to one party or the other.  Current polling suggests that up to 90% of voters are already committed to either Romney or Obama.  Many of the remaining undecideds are, at this point, not paying much attention to the campaign at all.  Given this, it’s no wonder Bain hasn’t moved the polls.

Third – and I can’t emphasize this enough – reality in the form of those “fundamentals” is the grist for candidates’ campaign mills.  Why is Obama targeting Romney’s record at Bain rather than, say, his foreign policy comments?  Why is Romney touting his business credentials?  It’s because the fundamental issue driving this race is the economy.   You can’t simply substitute a “virtual reality” through the skilled use of clever campaign visuals when voters have independent sources of information by which to assess what the ads are saying.

This brings me to Avery’s query. In taking issue with my notion of “collective rationality”, he notes:  “It was interesting to me that one of the key assumptions of the model you were propounding is that people sort of “fact check” political ads against reality. Given what I know about people, and what I’ve been learning in reading about behavioral econ and political psychology, it seems like people are often pretty bad at fact checking and very good at cherry-picking, especially when it comes to things they already have a well-formed opinion on like “Democrats are better than Republicans” or vice versa.”  Avery goes on to suggest that in a world populated by people exhibiting these cognitive tendencies, “collective rationality” is a misnomer.  Instead we should see the cognitive blind leading the cognitive blind. (Think Rush’s “ditto heads”, or Kos’ “Kossacks”.)

Avery is right, of course, in that individuals’ typical cognitive processes often cause them to engage in selective exposure to campaign ads in a way designed to reinforce existing attitudes.  (As evidence, see almost any partisan blog!)  That doesn’t sound like the world I describe consisting of rational voters who objectively sift through the campaign ads to choose the “best” candidate.

But I am making a less heroic assumption regarding voters’ rationality.  By collective rationality, all I ask is that most voters can distinguish one candidate from the other ideologically, and choose the one closest to their own political views.  And most studies suggest voters are very good at doing this, particularly in an information-rich environment that is a presidential campaign.  So, Joe Sixpack may not understand the intricacies of off-shore tax shelters, and he may stubbornly insist that Obama is not a U.S. citizen, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  But generally speaking, he knows that Obama is a stronger supporter of an activist government, greater business regulation and higher taxes on the wealthy than is Romney.  He knows this from talking with others on Facebook (ok, that would be Joe Brandy Snifter), hanging out at the ball field and maybe even glancing at the evening news – that’s where the “collective” process comes in.   And in deciding how to cast his vote, after absorbing this information, Joe Sixpack chooses – in the context of an economic downturn – which set of views is closest to his.   I  think most voters do this quite well.

The reason why the best forecast models are so accurate is that they essentially distill this process down into a few key variables that measure “reality” – the state of the economy, perhaps presidential approval, whether the nation is at war – and assume the rest of it – the campaign ads, etc. – play off this reality.  Now, as Stuart correctly notes (and as I have said many times before), when reality does not clearly differentiate one candidate from the other, any of these other factors – debates, the V.P. choice, – even the Bain ad! – can conceivably make a difference.   Journalists, who must file a story every day, have to focus on something, and so they emphasize this aspect of the horse race, as viewed through the daily prism of campaign stops, messaging, gaffes, etc.   But if you insist on accepting the horse race metaphor, then at least realize this:  the candidates aren’t always riding equally talented horses.  Sometimes one candidate starts on Secretariat, while the other is riding a three-legged jackass.

Even then, however, it is possible something dramatic might happen.  That’s why we run the race!

[youtube  /watch?v=XWkL2gcXNuY&feature=player_detailpage]

Meanwhile, keep  those comments coming!

A Turning Point In The Election?

The reaction – or lack thereof – among voters to the Bain controversy once again illustrates an important distinction between how partisan pundits (you know to whom I’m referring) and political scientists analyze what drives election results.  As the controversy over when and to what degree Romney severed his connection with Bain dominated the news, Romney’s partisan critics were convinced that the story would negatively impact Mitt’s electoral support.  The Daily Dish’s Andrew Sullivan, tweeting the link to his longer analysis, wondered: “The GOP’s current candidate is an obvious perjurer and thereby a felon. How long will it take before this sinks in?”  Jonathan Cohn, citing the Obama campaign’s “devastating ad” [based on the Bain controversy], concluded that “substantively speaking, this controversy is largely telling us something we already knew: That Romney helped develop and then employed business practices that generated large profits for investors, made companies more efficient, and frequently led to layoffs.”  TPM’s Josh Marshall confidently opined “We can spin these out forever. But beyond all the specific accusations, they’re painting a picture that makes Romney look ridiculous, like a joke. They’re making Romney look stupid and powerless on the front where he believes he’s one of the standouts of his generation. And that’s plain lethal for a presidential candidate. But how does it come into play? Simple. Mitt Romney has two claims on the presidency: successful governor of major state and captain of industry. He’s largely written off the first by disavowing a genuine and perhaps far-reaching accomplishment: health care reform. Which leaves him with Bain Capital.”

Regular readers of these partisan blogs could be excused for expecting that the fallout from Bain would have a significant effect on Romney’s standing in the polls. (I trust I need not give you a Kevin Drum quote?) And, in fact, polls indicate the Bain controversy had some negative impact on whether voters viewed Romney’s business record as a reason to vote for him. But while Romney’s critics were touting this finding, they were generally ignoring the bigger polling picture, which is that the Bain controversy did not seem to affect the candidates’ relative standing in the national polls at all, much as I suspected it wouldn’t. Indeed – and I wouldn’t make too much of  this given the rampant polling fluctuations to date – the Real Clear Politics aggregate poll suggests that Mitt may have gained ground during the time of the Bain/income tax debate.

The fact that potential voters could change their attitude toward the relative worth of Mitt’s business experience, but not whether they are likely to vote for him drives home a point I’ve made repeatedly, but one which partisan pundits overlook: this election will be largely a referendum on President Obama’s handling of the economy. For most undecided voters, the choice whether to vote for Romney will turn less on his Bain record, or how far back he goes in releasing tax forms, and more on Obama’s economic record.

In that vein, the topic of this Wall St. Journal story is likely to have a bigger impact on the November election than are any of Mitt’s tax documents.  Less than a week before the first estimate of second quarter GDP growth figures are released this Friday, a survey of economists indicates that they believe the numbers will show worse growth – close to 1.2% – than the 1.9% in the previous quarter, and the slowest rate of growth since the first quarter of 2011.

As I’ve discussed previously,  GDP growth is an important variable in many of the economy-driven econometric presidential forecast models (see here and here and here).  If these GDP numbers hold in the less-than-1.5% growth range, most of those models suggest Obama will get less than a 50% share of the two-party vote come November, although how much less varies by model – and by what the third quarter GDP number – and the final number before the election – shows. Of course these models are not foolproof, and there is always the chance that the election will turn on some idiosyncratic factor that may prove determinative.  Karl Rove has always insisted that the last minute release of court papers documenting George W. Bush’s DUI arrest on the eve of the 2000 presidential election cost Bush close to 2% of the popular vote through a combination of reduced turnout and the loss of some independents to Gore, as well four states in the Electoral College. Had the arrest not been publicized, he argues, Florida would not have mattered.  Whether Rove is correct or not, I have said repeatedly that in a close election there is room for an “October surprise” to make a difference.

But it is far more likely, I think, that the outcome will turn on perceptions regarding the state of the economy, as measured by GDP growth, among other factors.  Which makes Friday’s release of the first estimate of the second quarter GDP figure potentially far more important than Mitt’s tax returns. And if that number suggests growth is slowing, and the third quarter GDP number that will come out in October shows even slower growth, the President may have to pin his reelection hopes on an October surprise – and a very big one, at that.  This is not, of course, what partisan pundits will have you believe.  But it is what the historical record suggests to be true.

4:10 P.M.  Consistent with some of my earlier posts, Rasmussen finds that among undecided voters, only 13% are paying attention to the campaign – another reason why  Bain and the tax documents simply aren’t having the impact partisan pundits had predicted.

The VP Pick: Fool Me Once….

If history is a reliable guide, the media’s self-flagellation for chasing after the vice presidential rumor proffered by Matt Drudge is richly deserved – but probably not for the reason media sources cite.  As you may recall on July 12 Drudge flashed the headline on his Drudge Report site trumpeting  “ROMNEY NARROWS VP CHOICES; CONDI EMERGES AS FRONTRUNNER”.   The Daily Beast’s Lauren Ashburn recounts what happened next: “[I]in typical fashion, the media—knowing the claim had little basis in reality—went along for the ride. The Today show, Good Morning America, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, even The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, along with plenty of others, took the bait and devoted countless minutes and column inches to the tale.

The speculation spread like wildfire across the web, with The Daily Beast and Politico taking the “scoop” and running with it, spicing up the summer’s otherwise ennui-inducing campaign with titillating, but meaningless catnip journalism.”

In the end, most journalists concluded that Drudge’s “scoop” was unfounded, with some suggesting it may have been a plant by the Romney campaign to divert attention from the ongoing debate regarding when Romney actually left Bain Capital as CEO.  That triggered the round of media self-reproach and recriminations, as the “respectable” members of the fourth estate analyzed why Drudge was able, once again, to lead them on a merry chase to pin down false information.  As more than one journalist pointed out, there was almost no chance Rice would get the nomination; her pro-choice views and foreign policy role during the Bush presidency made her politically unpalatable to Romney and many voters.

I think the media was right, but for the wrong reasons.  In fact, Rice is a viable, albeit probably a riskier, vice presidential choice for several reasons.  First, I don’t think her pro-choice views are nearly as debilitating, now that Mitt has clinched the nomination, as critics suggest.  Heck, Mitt was pro-choice at one point, so he certainly can sympathize with that perspective. And excuse me if I don’t think Mitt’s “promise” not to select a pro-choice vice president candidate is ironclad. In fact, Condi’s views are closer to most independents on this issue than are Mitt’s. More importantly, however, abortion is simply not a very important issue for most voters in this election cycle.

Second, while most of the media focus on the geographical and coalitional impact of the VP choice, there is another dimension to that selection that is often underplayed: how well the VP compensates for the presidential candidate’s perceived weaknesses. Dick Cheney wasn’t tapped by George Bush to swing Wyoming, and its three Electoral College votes, into the Republican column. He was chosen for his foreign policy credentials as a way of balancing Bush’s lack of expertise in this area.  Condi could serve a similar role for Romney – she brings both foreign policy expertise and a wealth of inside connections in the foreign policy establishment to the table.  These are assets Romney could utilize once in the Oval Office, much as Obama has benefitted from Joe Biden’s knowledge of Senate personalities and procedures.  And, of course, there is the obvious benefit of placing an African-American woman on the ticket.

This is not to say selecting Rice is without risk. Rob Portman or Mitch Daniels or even (yawn) Tim Pawlenty, are safer picks.  But if Mitt wants to think big, Rice should be in the running.

So was the Drudge rumor viable?  No, but because the timing for announcing a VP selection was wrong.  It is one thing to tease a vice presidential pick some six weeks before the party’s nominating convention, but it would be unprecedented to announce it!  Peter Cahill dug up  the dates on which presidents in the modern post-McGovern Fraser selection era, going back to Jimmy Carter in 1976, announced their vice presidential choices. The dates are shown in the following table.

 Year Candidate VP Pick Date Before Convention
1976 Jimmy Carter Walter Mondale 7/15/1976 0
1976 Gerald Ford Bob Dole 8/19/1976 0
1980 Ronald Reagan George H.W. Bush 7/17/1980 0
1980 Jimmy Carter Walter Mondale Incumbent .
1984 Ronald Reagan George H. W. Bush Incumbent .
1984 Walter Mondale Geraldine Ferraro 7/12/1984 4
1988 George H. W. Bush Dan Quayle 8/17/1988 0
1988 Michael Dukakis Lloyd Bentsen 7/12/1988 6
1992 Bill Clinton Al Gore 7/9/1992 4
1992 George H.W. Bush Dan Quayle Incumbent .
1996 Bill Clinton Al Gore Incumbent .
1996 Bob Dole Jack Kemp 8/10/1996 2
2000 George W. Bush Dick Cheney 7/25/2000 6
2000 Al Gore Joe Lieberman 8/8/2000 6
2004 George W. Bush Dick Cheney Incumbent .
2004 John Kerry John Edwards 7/6/2004 20
2008 Barack Obama Joe Biden 8/23/2008 2
2008 John McCain Sarah Palin 8/29/2008 2
2012 Barack Obama Joe Biden Incumbent .
2012 Mitt Romney ????????? ?

As you can see, with the exception of John Kerry in 2004, who announced John Edwards as his pick some 20 days before the Democratic convention, every other candidate has waited almost until his party’s nominating convention to formally announce his pick. The reason, of course, is that by unveiling the vice president nominee during or shortly before the convention, the candidate is trying maximize the suspense and heighten the audience for the convention itself, which is now viewed as the kickoff for the general election campaign.  Some of you may recall the absolutely electrifying speech Sarah Palin gave at her unveiling as McCain’s running mate in 2008.  Not coincidentally, her speech triggered the only post-Labor Day period in which McCain led Obama in the aggregate polling data.

Given this purpose, it didn’t make much sense for Romney to waste the one-shot and limited impact of the VP announcement by pulling the trigger in mid-July, six weeks before the Republican convention in Tampa.  This doesn’t preclude teasing the announcement, and even describing it as imminent. But to actually announce the choice?  Bain controversy notwithstanding, it almost certainly wasn’t going to happen, despite Drudge’s rumormongering.  Indeed, my best guess is that Romney won’t announce his pick until late August.  This will also give his team more time to vet the prospective nominee and, if necessary, float some trial balloons as a way of gauging public reaction. Who knows?  It might even be Condi!

(My apologies for the initial formatting problems with the table – Excel was misbehaving.  I think the errors are all fixed.)

So, About That Bain Controversy…Surprise! (Not)

The results of the latest CBS/NY Times poll (hat tip to Lucia for bringing this to my attention), which was in the field July 11-16 during the heart of the Bain controversy, has attracted more than its fair share of attention primarily because it has Mitt Romney holding a slim 2 point lead over Barack Obama, 45%-43%. (If you throw in leaners Romney is up 47%-46%). This is the first time Romney has “led” in a CBS/Times poll since January when he was still locked in a fight for the Republican nomination. Whenever the relative positions of the two candidates appear to change, it gets the pundits’ attention.   In truth, however, given the poll’s margin of error, the survey is showing what just about every survey of the race taken this year has shown, which is that the two candidates are essentially deadlocked.

However, this may not be what you expected if you were closely following the pronouncements from the punditocracy during the last two weeks. Despite my warning that the Bain controversy would likely have little impact on the race, the Kevin Drums and Rush Limbaughs of the pundits’ world were engaged in hand-to-hand combat in an effort frame Bain most favorably for their preferred candidate – which, of course, is one reason why I didn’t think Bain would have much impact.

The bigger reason, however, is that most voters have already made up their mind regarding who they will support, and those that haven’t aren’t really paying close attention to Bain. According to the Times survey, 38% of those surveyed are paying “some” attention to the race, while another 14% are paying “not much” and 3% “none”.   At the risk of provoking another Kevin Drum seizure, this is exactly the point I was making in my (edited) comment to Jamelle Bouie, when I noted that most of the roughly 30% of voters yet to make up their mind aren’t paying close attention to the presidential race, including specific campaign ads, at all.  (For the record, the Times survey indicates 79% of voters have made up their minds – even higher than I estimated.)

You are going to hear this from me again and again in the next several weeks, so let me apologize in advance.  The media’s fixation on the horse-race aspect of the race means they are going to exaggerate the importance of relatively trivial events, like the Romney tax returns (don’t we have a debate over releasing tax returns every four years?) because pundits and journalists that quote them are in a narrative-driven business cued to daily and even hourly deadlines.  Journalists have to file a story or more every day, and they depend on quotes and “analysis” from pundits who feed them their talking points.  If you are a political junkie, however, as are many of my readers, it is easy to get sucked into this daily narrative and lose sight of what really moves voters.  After you’ve seen the 39th analysis of why Romney isn’t releasing his tax returns, it’s easy to think this must be an important issue to most voters.  After all, Drum can’t be wrong, can he?  (Ok, it’s a rhetorical question.)

But outside the pundits’ echo chamber it’s not a very important issue – at least not to Joe and Jane Sixpack.  Instead, they’ve got deeper concerns – concerns that will determine how they vote come November.  And the number one concern is the economy.   June’s unemployment numbers, as you know, were disappointing, with only about 80,000 jobs created and the official unemployment rate still hovering above 8%. The real unemployment number is actually worse, however; if we include those who have simply stopped looking for work, the rate is probably closer to 15%.  Meanwhile, the second quarter GDP numbers are likely to show anemic growth as well, even as the first-quarter number is adjusted slightly downward.   In short, the economic news of late has not been good.

And this is where the CBS/Times survey is more revealing.   To begin, for most voters, this fall’s election is going to be primarily a referendum on Obama – not on Romney.  Only 29% of Romney supporters look on him with a “strongly favorable” attitude – but 37% support him because they “dislike” Obama.  The corresponding numbers of Obama supporters are 41% “strongly favorable” and only 23% “dislike” Romney.  This is why Bain and the tax issue aren’t gaining as much polling traction nationwide as the pundits anticipated.  According to the Times’ survey, Romney’s favorability rating, which was at 29% in April, actually went up 3% during the Bain controversy.

Obama, on the other, saw his favorability/unfavorability ratio drop significantly – largely because of continued pessimism over the economy.   By a margin of 55%-39%, more respondents “disapprove” than “approve” of Obama’s handling of the economy.  Almost 40% of respondents rate the economy as “bad” – 32% say it is “very bad”.   Only 24% of respondents think the economy is getting better – with 30% saying it is getting worse.  These trends matter because 93% of voters say that the economy is “extremely” (54%) or “very” (39%) important in determining how they will vote this fall.

But here’s the kicker, and why Obama is so vulnerable.  Fully 51% of those surveyed believe the condition of the national economy “is something the president can do a lot about”!  That’s up 10% from last September!  That is, as the economic downturn persists, people increasingly believe the President can do something about it.   Why do people hold to this belief?  Because those running for president claim that they can turn the economy around – Barack Obama said so in 2008, and Mitt Romney is making the same claim now.  Once in office, of course, no President is going to announce that he was fooling everyone, and that in fact the economy is driven by factors largely out of his control!   And so Obama is stuck facing unrealistic expectations partly fueled by his own campaign promises.

At this point, it is evident that the economy is not going to turn around quickly enough and to the degree necessary to insure Obama’s reelection.  Hence his effort to try to link Romney, by portraying him as a “vulture capitalist”, to the policies that contributed to the current economic malaise.   In truth, the President has very little choice in the matter, given the few cards he has to play.   By a margin of 49%-41%, more voters believe Romney will do a better job than Obama in handling the economy.  If he is to win reelection, Obama has to persuade enough voters that this is not true.   But he is facing an uphill climb; 64% of respondents think Obama holds “a lot” (34%) or “some” (30%) of the responsibility for the current state of the economy.  Although Obama supporters point out that those same respondents hold George W. Bush more responsible for the current economic woes, Bush isn’t on the ballot come November – Obama is.

Until then, we have almost four months of punditry to go. So, sit back and enjoy the daily food fight as the pundits debate Mitt’s tax returns and what Obama meant when he said, “If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that” and whatever other story dominates the latest news cycle.  Just remember – most of these debates are about peripheral issues that aren’t likely to have any lasting impact.  Distilled to its essence, November’s election will largely be a referendum on Obama’s handling of the economy. That means the next big campaign event is likely to take place on July 27th, when the first estimate of the second quarter GDP will be released.  In the interim, cue the pundits!

A Fable: What Kim, Kris and Kanye Can Teach Us About Campaign Advertising

Kevin Drum’s evident confusion regarding how advertising works in political campaigns got me thinking that there has to be a simple way to convey why political scientists generally discount the impact of individual campaign ads on election results.  So, in the teaching spirit, let me try to put it in story form, using characters with which most Americans are familiar.  (Many thanks to Pete Cahill for providing the illustrative links.) Now, keep in mind that this is a fictional story designed by me to illustrate some basic political science findings.   The lessons are real – but the story is not.  Got that?  (I don’t want to deal with any lawyer types.) Ok, now pay attention.

Let’s start with the typical American voter – Kim Kardashian.

Like most Americans, Kim wants what is best for the country: a good reality show, unlimited clothing allowance, extended hours for dance clubs and, most important, money to pay for this along with all the free publicity she can get.

Now, assume there are two candidates vying for her heart….er….vote.  There’s the Republican, professional basketball player Kris Humphries, and the Democrat, recording artist Kanye West.  Both make the case that if selected they can get her all the free pub she could ever need and keep her living in the style to which she is accustomed.  As evidence, Humphries releases the following campaign ad, a compilation of his on-court highlights.

With a skill set like this, he argues, he will be a perennial all-star who will attract mega-endorsement money and, not insignificantly, a bushel of publicity.  Who wouldn’t want to hang with this guy?  This is an effective highlight reel, and Humphries makes sure to play it wherever Kim “America” hangs out.  The media takes note of this, and agrees that Kris has all the “momentum” in this campaign due to his skilled campaign tactics.

But wait!  Kanye is no fool.  He puts together his  own campaign video highlighting his knowledge of “power”, part of an all-out publicity effort designed to familiarize Kim America with his impressive track  record of chart-topping hip-hop hits and music awards .  With these awards, of course, comes a very lucrative recording career.

Note two important aspects of these “campaign ads”.  First, Kris focuses on his record as a basketball player, and Kanye on his hip-hop accomplishments.  That is, neither attempts to create an artificial version of himself by highlighting nonexistent accomplishments – Kris doesn’t pretend to sing and Kanye avoids dunking highlights.   There’s a reality out there – their actual career records – that serves as a limiting factor on what they can put in their ads. Second, both campaign spots are designed to activate latent predispositions within Kim America.  That is, they don’t try to persuade her to adopt the lifestyle of a convent nun who has taken a vow of poverty.  They aren’t trying to change her views – to make her think differently – so much as they are framing their own record in a way that is designed to show how it addresses Kim’s existing attitudes. Kim, they know, craves free pub and a certain lifestyle – and so they sell themselves accordingly.  Again, reality – Kim’s preexisting views and needs – constrains what they can do with their campaign advertising.

But our candidates don’t stop there. Kanye decides that in addition to highlighting his own accomplishments, it will help if he can denigrate Kris’.  So he puts  together a negative ad highlighting Humphries’ failures – here Dwight Howard eats Kris’ lunch with a monster block  and turns it into two points for the Magic:

Now let’s add a fourth character to our drama: Kay-Drum.  He’s a hip-hop pundit who strongly supports West in this bid for Kim America’s vote.  When he sees West’s negative ad, he describes it as “devastating” to Humphries’ chances.  The media takes note – Kay-Drum is an expert, after all, and he is quoted everywhere.  Poor Kris – he claims that this ad misrepresents his record and besides, the score was 2-2 at the time!  Too bad! The media decides Kris is a whiner.

But Humphries has his own attack machine, and he runs an ad revealing that President Obama, of all people, called Kanye West a jackass for interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at a video awards show.  When Kay-Drum sees this ad, however, rather than changing his views, he instead describes Humphries’ negative ad as “an act of moral depravity” by a “desperate” candidate who knows he can’t win Kim’s heart, er, vote.   The media, carefully reporting how the “experts” are responding, decide that Kris’ tactics aren’t working, and that Kanye has run the more effective campaign.

In the end, much to Kay-Drum’s delight, Kim ends up “voting” for Kanye, and they live out their lives as a happy, slightly hefty couple.  Humphries, meanwhile, ends up in Brooklyn on a loser team and fades into obscurity.   (Reminder:  this is a fable designed to teach – these events and characterizations are made up!)

What made the difference?  Why did Kim choose Kanye?  In the media post-mortem, leading journalists and experts like Kay-Drum make it clear that the more skilled advertising campaign run by Kanye made all the difference.  Specifically, many scribes cite the campaign ad in which Dwight Howard “Swiftboated” Kris’ attempted dunk as the turning point in the campaign.   It goes down in campaign lore alongside the Daisy and the Willie Horton ads and reinforces the media’s preoccupation with campaign strategy and tactics.

Now here’s the kicker: political scientists – long before any of the campaign ads came out, including the celebrated Howard “Swiftboat” rejection – predicted that Kim would, in the end, choose Kanye over Kris.  How did they know this?  By ignoring the campaign, and focusing on the fundamentals.  First, they started with the simple fact that Kim America’s vote would likely depend on one factor: which candidate could provide her with her the resources necessary to maintain a lavish lifestyle and, not incidentally, receive lots of pub. True, she talked about love and Kanye’s hidden talents and how Kris getting rejected really opened her eyes to his shortcomings, and clothing accessories too, but all of that, basically, was a rationalization of the reasons that really drove her choice: money and face time on TMZ.  Political scientists, having already constructed a simple formula based on previous campaigns that estimated the likely career earnings of a hip-hop star versus that of a basketball player, simply added a few variables to account for Kris’ and Kanye’s particular careers (any drug use, love of guns, weak knees, etc.) and came up with their prediction that Kanye was going to easily best Kris in the earnings and free pub categories, and that Kim would choose accordingly.

Note that in constructing this model, they didn’t worry that the campaign advertisements might skew the results.  Why were they so confident?  Because those ads couldn’t create an alternative universe – they could only frame the existing one.   By creating measures of that reality – the earning potential of the two candidates – and assuming both sides would effectively  frame their own earning potential, and denigrate the other person’s – political scientists assumed that the independent impact of the ads would largely cancel each other out, and that the final result would  reflect the fundamental earning disparity between Kris and Kanye.  A key assumption here is that both candidates run highly effective campaigns within the constraints imposed by reality.  A second key assumption is that in a high-information environment, with lots of alternative sources by which to evaluate both candidates’ claims, Kim America would recognize the earning disparity between Kris and Kanye.  This doesn’t mean she had to understand the economic intricacies of either profession – she just had to be reasonably confident that she knew which person would earn more. And in fact, by hanging out with friends at the clubs, and talking to members of her retinue and Khloe and Bruce and her hairdresser, and hobnobbing with Jay-Z and Beyoncé and Snooki, in my completely hypothetical universe she was able to come to a reasonably well-informed assessment.

And the rest is made-up history.  Don’t they look happy?  And well fed?

That my friends, is how political science works!

Any questions?