To those of you who avidly consume the daily barrage of media stories about this presidential campaign, it may seem that the race has been filled with ups and downs, with the narrative changing on an almost daily moment. Did Obama really insinuate that Palin was the pig with lipstick? Will McCain take the conservative columnist’s advice to drop Palin from the ticket after the Couric interview? Each day, the Chuck Todds tell us which candidate had a good day, and which did not. But from a political scientist’s perspective, most of this is simply random noise that is peripheral to the fundamentals driving this campaign. When we step back from the daily “trees” of the media coverage to look at the forest that is the overall campaign, what is remarkable (and not unexpected) is just how few surprises there have been and how remarkably stable public opinion is. I can think of only two change points in the campaign public opinion dynamics since Sept. 1, the unofficial start of the general election campaign. The first occurred when Obama failed to put Clinton on the ticket, and McCain responded with the Palin appointment. That gave his campaign enough of a short-term bump to pull ahead of Obama in the daily tracking polls, and to draw roughly even in the electoral vote calculations. I said at the time, however, that – assuming Obama did not make any more mistakes – the Palin impact would likely recede as the economy reasserted itself as the primary campaign issue. I did not anticipate just how quickly that would happen, however, in the form of the credit crisis. That single-handedly put Obama back on message, reminded voters what this campaign is about, and eliminated the Palin bump. Today’s unemployment figures merely serve to drive this point home.
The credit crisis, then, is the second big event of this campaign season. How big was this second event, in terms of its impact on the polls? It was bigger than the Palin bump. On Sept. 8, at the height of the Palin-induced “surge”, McCain led Obama in the RCP tracking poll (remember my caveats about that poll) by about 3%, 48 to 45. That tracking poll reflected surveys done in the period Sept. 5-7. On Sept. 7, Uncle Sam announced that they would take over the troubled mortgage lenders Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and from that point on McCain’s lead began a slow downward trend that continues to this day. On Sept. 12, reports surfaced that insurance giant AIG was in trouble. McCain’s polling lead dropped to 2.3%. On Sept. 15, Lehman Brothers went belly up, followed shortly after by the government infusion of funds to rescue AIG. That day the Dow experienced its sharpest one-day drop since Sept. 11, 2001. Two days later, (remember the lag in the polls) McCain and Obama were tied in the polls. On Sept. 18, the Federal Reserve began pumping money into the financial system in a bid to avert a credit crunch and the following day the Bush administration announced a plan to purchase millions of dollars worth of bad mortgages. By Sept. 25, when McCain announced plans to suspend his campaign to return to Washington, he was trailing in the RCP average by 3%, 47.8 to 44.5. Although it appeared to me that he might have pulled a second “Palin” had he come out against the initial bailout plan which subsequently was rejected by the House, McCain did not take my advice. Today, almost a month after his Palin moment, McCain trails Obama in the tracking polls by almost 6%, 49.1-43.5. More importantly, he has lost ground among the undecided voters in several key battleground states. (I will look at the state of the Electoral College more closely in a later post.)
What we see here is a stark reminder that most of the events cited as important by the pundits – including the Couric interview, comments of a conservative regarding Palin getting out of the race, or the two debates, are primarily noise that do little to shape the dynamics of the campaign. Campaigns struggle to fashion the raw material that is reality into an effective campaign message, but there are real limits to their ability to do so. And usually their efforts negate one another. I’ve seen only two fundamental mistakes in this race so far. The first was Obama’s decision to put Biden, not Clinton, on the ticket. McCain capitalized on that with the Palin pick. The second was McCain’s failure to use the credit crunch to his advantage to seize the high ground on the economy. Obama did not really have to do much to capitalize on McCain’s mistake – he merely had to let the news coverage remind voters that the economy is a mess.
At the risk of repetition, this is why political scientists’ forecast models that are issued at the start of September, or earlier, can often accurately predict the outcome of the presidential race. In this election, the fundamentals – primarily the economy – favor the generic Democrat over the generic Republican candidate. And neither actual candidate has done anything to change those fundamentals. The final proof, of course, will be whether the forecast models prove accurate. Right now they are looking pretty darn good.
History suggests that with 30+ days left in a presidential campaign, the number of undecideds begin to dwindle, reducing the opportunity for a change in the campaign narrative. Last night’s debate will likely give McCain a small boost among the disaffected Clinton crowd, particularly women. But it is doubtful that it will push the financial news off the front pages for very long. I will be checking the polling data on women and undecideds in the key battleground states to see whether there is a Palin effect that the NY-Washington media elite is missing. But I don’t expect to find one.
Obama did not make a “mistake” by not picking Hillary. He had no choice. If she became VP, she and Bill would have set up a second White House at the Naval Observatory making it impossible for Obama to govern the way he would like to and the way we will need him to.
Obama picked someone who will help him govern. McCain picked someone who he hopes will get him elected. Again, the 47-year-old bests the 72-year-old on the issue of maturity. Tom Corwin
From all the political science literature I’ve read, Professor Dickinson’s blog, and the constant media punditry’s “analysis,” the fundamentals (e.g. the economy, the incumbent president’s net approval rating, etc.) are a driving force in this election.
However campaigns are important for no other reason than to, at a minimum, negate the other campaign’s efforts. The McCain campaign is missing opportunities meanwhile Obama has only made one mistake (not choosing Clinton–which I think wasn’t necessarily a mistake because Obama “A” probably didn’t want Clinton in the WH with him and “B” it led McCain to pick Palin; while Professor Dickinson asserts her pick has been to McCain’s benefit, her reassuring the conservative base of a McCain ticket is at the expense of constant blunders so much so that McCain is actively keeping her away from the press to prevent any more gaffes diverting campaign resources to clearing up Palin comments rather than conveying a coherent message).
Because Obama’s campaign has stayed on message and hammers at McCain on issues owned by Democrats while McCain is struggling to find a clear message all the while trying to do damage control on his maverick VP pick, I argue that the campaigns in this instance have a more-than-expected impact. This may all be a debate over how much effect the campaign matters in a competitive election, but in this particular instance it seems like Obama’s campaign is better managed and better disciplined allowing him to articulate his message while McCain is all over the place, unable to get his message out and therefore forfeiting any hope he might have had at winning in November.
The existence of mistakes being made by one campaign suggests that campaigns do matter. McCain’s political stunt by suspending his campaign in order to seem like he is ready to lead has been viewed by a majority of the public as wholly political and therefore another misstep. His request to postpone the first debate and then reluctant acquiescence makes Obama seem the decisive, steadfast candidate whereas McCain is a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants, risky candidate. McCain’s modus operandi throughout this campaign has seemed similar to “more of the same” and therefore another mistake in his campaign.
Overall the fundamentals are what frame an election but the campaigns are what decide the election (only in competitive elections that is).