Wednesday, July 11, 2012

What Still Matters

John Sides beat me to this one, but I might as well take a crack at it. The question, from Ezra Klein, is:
[W]e’ve still got four months until the election. Four months in which we’re going to be covering the campaign also nonstop. So help me out here: What’s going to matter between now and then?
To begin with: what John said about House and Senate and some downballot campaigns. The outcomes are important, the campaigns are meaningful, and as a bonus they're often excellent fun. We're going to get events that change things -- within the last few days, the Nevada Senate contest tipped, perhaps decisively, against the Democrats, while in Arkansas a Democratic House candidate dropped out with scandal whirling around him.

About the presidential campaign, the first point I'd make is that things will happen that have nothing to do with electoral outcomes but are still important, especially for whichever side wins. Both candidates have already made a number of policy commitments. They'll make more. They'll also make choices about which ones to emphasize, and the more visible a commitment is, the more it tends to constrain the winner after the election. Think Barack Obama's threshold for tax increases -- or his choice to push for health care. Politicians can break those types of promises, but there are costs, and so what happens in the campaign tends to set up what they actually do in office.

That's not all. Representation also includes non-policy promises: politicians promise how they'll behave, and even in a way who they will be. Those promises, too, constrain candidates once they get elected. For example, Bill Clinton promised a style very different from what he claimed was an out-of-touch George H.W. Bush, and he spend a fair amount of time and energy after the election attempting to keep that promise. A lot of those sorts of promises have already been made, but again the more visible during the fall campaign, the more it will be remembered afterwards.

But I suppose what the question was really about was the outcome of the election, so I'll get to that too, although John covered most of it. Here's how I'd break it down:

Potentially major effects: those would be things that would change the fundamentals of the race. Most likely that would mean either a major surge or a major disaster in the economy. It's also possible, however, that a national security event or even some wildcard event could change things.

Potentially minor but real effects: see, this is where it gets tricky, because there are lots of them. John mentioned ad campaigns and organized mobilization. I'd add that a good VP pick could help Romney a point or two in his or her home state; a disastrous pick could cost a couple of points nationwide. Aggressive voter purges, voter ID laws, and other such measures may or may not be enforced harshly (and some of these are still in the courts or otherwise still contested), and that could mean a chunk of voters, which might be significant in very close states. If the election winds up very close, it's possible that one of the parties will open up an electoral college advantage, although I wouldn't even think about that until the last few weeks -- Nate Silver is great at tracking that sort of thing. Late-breaking campaign events might make a small difference, just the way that TV ads might make a difference; a good example was the late-breaking campaign finance scandal in 1996, which may have cost Bill Clinton a couple of percentage points.

Less likely to have even marginal importance on election outcomes: convention speeches; the debates; gaffes, ads, and campaign events before the last few weeks of the campaign.

I'll toss in one wildcard. Ideological extremism hurts candidates. Perceptions of extremism seem to be showing up in polling of the Republican Party, and as expected hurting them. However, so far Mitt Romney seems to have created a perception of moderation that is, I would say, fairly removed from his issue positions. If that was to really change, that could be make a real difference, it seems to me. However, I think it's unlikely that it will change; Romney has every incentive to portray himself as a non-ideological technocrat, and it's unlikely that his issue positions would be sufficient to change general perceptions. Still, it's something worth keeping an eye on, I suppose.

3 comments:

  1. what matters -- and always did -- is turnout.

    Black art, political scientests can't figure it out, and however can motivate turnout will do well.

    And we've got two candidates that are very lukewarm with the base....

    ReplyDelete
  2. There also is the "on the ground" aspect of the campaigns that can matter a great deal in very close elections. Well run get out the vote efforts (GOTV) have been shown to increase voting by a side by 1-2% which won't change a 1984 or 1972 election but can mean a lot a in nail bitter (which i suspect we will have). Unfortunately reporters rarely report on things like door knocking or phonebanks so its difficult to know whats going on out there but I have yet to hear anything about Romney having a big on the ground presence. Foreign news organizations tend to be better at reporting on this stuff and I did see an article in the Guardian back in May about how Romney shut down all his offices in important states after the primaries there. According to that article no one was answering the phone at Romney Florida HQ and the voice mails for the field organizers were all turned off, not a good sign. This could be something that will matter, McCain had a similar situation to a large degree and Bush in 2004 had a huge grassroots effort, something a lot of people forget today. Has anyone else heard anything from news sources or first hand experience?

    ReplyDelete
  3. That is exactly the problem.

    GOTV is very hard to measure and track. But in an election like this it is everything.

    A couple points:

    1. Like Kerry in 04, he is coming in late and going to take a while longer to ID voters. Obama has been doing that for a long time.

    2. Coordination issues with outside groups. Kerry was very scrupulous about not coordinating. Will Romney be?

    3. Obama has been pissing on the Democratic base for 4 years. Last minute policy shifts gestures (gay marriage, amnesty) help but don't create real enthusiasm. Not talking to the NAACP? Bigger deal than you might think. remember, real politics is about people. New leadership want to go home and tell people they met Obama, have pictures, what not.

    4. GOTV requires getting your state and local parties excited. Take Virginia -- I am tempted to not vote because that means voting for that jackass Tim Kaine.

    5. Obama has used up a lot of firepower. His 22+ visits to Cleveland don't generate much more votes. He still isn't connecting with Parma vs. Shaker Heights.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Who links to my website?