An unusually newsy week -- if I had to select out one thing, it's probably the economic news including the jobs report, but there's also the debate, developments in Libya, Syria, and Georgia (among others), and don't miss that report on Homeland Security.
I'm not sure what I have that didn't matter....ah, I've got it: reports of Obama's huge fundraising haul in September and Romney's money surge after the debate. I'm just not believing that even another $100M in the presidential race is going to make any difference at this point.
What do you have? What do you think mattered this week?
Jack Welch's public implosion didn't really "matter" but it certainly was interesting. This guy has been treated as this super smart savvy businessman for decades now, and then he opens his mouth and the equivalent of economic birtherism comes out. Even more interesting was how he seemed to have no idea how economic data is actually compiled at the BLS which is amazing considering how everyone seems to think he's some kind of genius. It's like something out of Chris Hayes' "The Twilight of the Elites."
ReplyDeleteAlso the new way that debates work and how they are covered seemed to emerge. Pundits and journalists reach shared conclusions in a sort of twitter powered group-think which is not that new, but now they do it in real time with the debates, which does seem like a new development. I mean even looking at the post debate polls you still have small but not insignificant groups of voters (about a third) who thought it was a tie. But other than Brendan Nyhan I didn't see anyone who who wrote that online. We have more information than ever before because of the internet but at the same time less diversity of opinion too. Very strange.
The revisions in jobs numbers showing better than reported job growth over the summer mattered in the sense that the recovery is stronger than we thought.
ReplyDeleteThe debate helped to finally evened up the race. Probably Thursday was the good morning conservatives are going to have for the next few months.
In the Venezuelan election, The HCR mini-surge might have mattered. At the very least it has the potential to influence the reaction of either the Chavistas or the opposition regardless of the official results.
ReplyDeleteDomestically, Id say the PA voter ID law ruling mattered some. Not necessarily electorally, but in the larger battle over voter fraud and voting rights.
The money makes a huge difference, in that it allows the Dems to maintain parity, probably even with the Rove-Koch Empire, or at least not fall too far out of parity, like 2 or 3 to 1 down. That would be very dangerous territory. As it is, they're still going to have to triage a bunch of House races, which diminishes their small chances of winning it back.
ReplyDeleteIf you've read anything about the numbers of commercials aired by the two sides, you'll see that Obama & crew are running slightly more ads than Romney et al. The lower ad prices available to the candidates themselves have made a huge difference in Obama's favor. Also, he reserved a lot of his ad time before the Republican primary finished, which also helped.
Deleteyes, I know, but that's not going to be a solid advantage that lasts through this month. this huge haul helps keep it close to even, and will also help downballot.
DeleteThe court decisions this week against voter suppression laws mattered.
ReplyDeleteFor the first time, the Presidential debate loses sponsors over the preferential treatment given to major party candidates.
ReplyDeleteThe debate lets a big chunk of the political media crank up the "Obama's in trouble" machine. This cycle, that meme fell apart when Romney screwed something up or when the depth of the president's support was undeniable, such as at the DNC. There's not a lot of time left for those things. That debate was an absolute disaster. The first is the worst to screw up too because now he has to do really well. Ugh. Seriously, how did they not anticipate that Romney was going to be aggressive? How did they not get O ready to give two minute answers? I still think Romney is awwwful, but in politics, bad usually gets worse.
ReplyDeletePA Politico, I know folks guffawed at the notion of altitude, but I think that was a big part of it. My sweetie used to work on Mt. Washington, in NH, about the same altitude as Denver. First day up was tough. It was common to see folks get out of their cars after driving up and collapse climbing the stairs. And I know I always feel rough first day in Denver when I've travelled there.
DeleteI imagine future debates will allow time to acclimate or pick lower locations.
Because Obama's fatigue looked like altitude fatigue to me.
zic, When there's a lull in an ice storm and the winds drop below hurricane force, Gary Johnson likes to climb and ski Mt. Washington:
Deletehttp://www.outsideonline.com/blog/outdoor-adventure/gary-johnson-smokes-new-hampshires-tuckerman-ravine.html
Zic, even if it's true, it doesn't help. In politics, excuses just don't.
DeleteAnon, Couves, yes; it's just an excuse. But in the 'what mattered' basket; it will shape where debates are held or what acclimation time candidates have in the future. Next time Denver's on the list; both candidates will do their barnstorming before, not after, the debate to allow the time to adapt.
DeleteObviously jobs report, perhaps the debate, though I think that matters mostly to the media's horse-race entertainment narrative.
ReplyDeleteThe study demonstrating giving women access to free birth control lowers the abortion rate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/us/study-finds-free-contraceptives-cut-abortion-rate.html
I know I said this last week, too. But I think the election will turn on wether or not younger women turn out to vote. News like this demonstrates, yet again, that Obamacare is already helping. Combined with Ronney's aggressiveness at the debate (that's not how women like to do things) and killing Big Bird?
I expect to see the gender gap increase; and I expect an increase in women voting in November.
I also think that the Obama $181 million in Sept. matters, especially given the first debate. The air war will now continue but that money is also to finance the ground war, already underway in early voting states. The PA and Ohio voter suppression decisions were crucial, but it takes people on the ground to inform voters of what they mean, and to get people to the polls. That the Obama campaign passed 10 million total donors this year may also matter.
ReplyDeleteI think the debate has the potential to matter a lot. It's funny you don't mention that, except tangentially as part of your point about fundraising.
ReplyDeleteOver the past few weeks I've been reading various pieces by bloggers I respect, arguing that presidential debates "don't matter." Most of these pieces end up suggesting the very opposite.
What I've found most baffling is how many commentators dismiss the importance of the 2004 debates. Kerry's poll numbers rose substantially after the first debate, and although Bush did later make up some of lost ground and did go on to win the election (with, I should note, a narrower popular-vote margin of victory than any other incumbent president in history), Kerry's numbers never returned to anywhere near pre-debate levels.
On Sep. 30, the day of the first debate, the RCP average had Bush leading by six percentage points (49.5 to 43.5). Six days later, the lead had shrunk to 1.6 points (47.5 to 45.9). Bush went on to regain some of that lost ground and ended up winning the election by 2.4 points. But that was still 3.6 points less than his RCP average before the first debate. If Obama loses the same amount of points now, then barring some bizarre Electoral College scenario he'll lose the election.
Now, there are caveats to this analysis, as has been pointed out to me by people I've been arguing this with over the past few days. Perhaps Kerry's low poll numbers before the debate were a temporary dip caused by a rough patch in his campaign, and his later rise was simply a reversion to the mean. I'm willing to believe that factors other than the debates contributed to his rising poll numbers, though I don't believe the debate had no positive effect on his campaign at all. Still, these are all plausible points.
The problem is that most of the bloggers I've been reading don't make any of these points; they simply dismiss the Kerry example out of hand on the grounds that since he lost the election, that proves the debate didn't matter. For example, according to Jamelle Bouie in his post "Romney Wins...and It Won't Matter," Kerry "came away from the debates with momentum and a boost in the polls.... Twenty-two days after the final debate, Bush won reelection with 50.7 percent of the vote."
This argument is rooted in a fundamental fallacy I've seen in lots of post-election commentary, and not just in reference to debates. There seems to be this assumption that once a candidate loses, then you can't learn anything positive from anything he did during the campaign--as if all his actions were part of some inevitable road to defeat.
One commentator who did not commit this fallacy was Steve Kornacki. In an article from Sep. 19, Kornacki specifically references Kerry as a model of how a presidential candidate who seems to be losing can make a comeback. Kerry's defeat in the end doesn't prove he didn't make an impressive comeback; the fact is that he went from what looked like a near-certain defeat to a near-win. His defeat wasn't inevitable. It was very close and could have gone either way. And he rose from a position in the polls that, before the first debate, looked much worse than Romney's has for the past month.
I'm not trying to draw too many parallels between Kerry's debate victory and Romney's (there were important substantive differences at the very least; Romney won through egregious lying that Obama failed to debunk, whereas Kerry won in part by forcefully cutting through Bush's misleading statements implying Iraq had attacked us on 9/11). I just think we need to be clear on one thing: presidential debates, while certainly overhyped, have quite a big potential to make a difference in electoral outcomes.
This is an interesting argument, Kylopod, and while you probably didn't want to see my handle darkening your door in reply, from here in the cheap seats there seems to be one additional, potentially relevant comparison between Romney and Kerry wrt the debates:
DeleteBoth candidates were probably perceived (correctly, imho, fwiw) as particularly craven and crass opportunists, who used the debate(s) to present something resembling POTUS gravitas. To a low-involvement independent, that reframing potentially mattered a lot, perhaps allowing Kerry to close that gap and Romney...?
You can surely discount my $.02 by 1.999 (repeating) cents. If any value remains, I can see your point and, perhaps, an important similarity between Romney and Kerry wrt the debates.
I've definitely noticed Kerry/Romney parallels in this race with regard to the "flip-flop" charge. For Kerry, it was his vote on the Iraq War, and for Romney it's Romneycare. Both involved their having to explain a vote that later became unpopular with their party, and in both cases they explained it through a hair-splitting distinction that was logically valid but unconvincing to most people (though Romney has gone way beyond the original argument about state vs. federal power and moved into outright misrepresenting the two bills to make them sound more different than they are).
DeleteBut this is where we have to be careful about the easy temptation to draw parallels between different presidential races. The weaknesses both candidates tried to make up for in the debates may look superficially similar, but on closer examination there are important differences. Kerry was made out to be not just opportunistic, but weak and indecisive (a charge that was enhanced by the Swift Boat attacks and the wind-surfing ads). The image was that he spinelessly rode the winds of fashion, whereas Bush was a bold, decisive leader (whether you agreed with his decisions or not). That's at least part of why I believe his strong debate performance helped, by countering that impression.
Romney, in last week's debate, was trying to counter a rather different impression: that he was an ideological extremist waging war against the middle class. That's the main charge the Obama campaign has been advancing against him all year. I think the Obama campaign has actually avoided the flip-flop charge, worrying it would lead some voters to assume Romney is "really" a moderate at heart who will revert to his moderate ways once he's elected. (I've personally met people who are under this mistaken impression, and I believe it's one of the most dangerous misconceptions about this race.) He definitely distanced himself from his extremist image during the debate, and Obama missed the opportunity to point out the patent falsity of this sudden makeover. But whether this strategy actually has a permanent positive effect on his poll numbers remains to be seen; we can't assume it just because of Kerry's post-debate bump.
Perhaps candidates experience polling bumps simply because the media says they won a debate, regardless of how it transpired--but even then I'd be hesitant to assume there are as many voters willing to be persuaded by this as there were eight years ago. There's still a lot of evidence that the number of undecided voters this year is unusually low.
Big bird + Romneys demonstratively lying + Obama making no gaffes = Romneys bounce is limited. He might even drop a little before the next debate.
Delete"I think the Obama campaign has actually avoided the flip-flop charge, worrying it would lead some voters to assume Romney is "really" a moderate at heart who will revert to his moderate ways once he's elected. ... He definitely distanced himself from his extremist image during the debate, and Obama missed the opportunity to point out the patent falsity of this sudden makeover."
DeleteCombining these thoughts together, it wouldn't even necessarily be helpful to point out that falsity (though Obama tried). Pointing out how Romney redefined himself gives him room to pretend that this is the RealRomney, that guy he was in the primary was just an act.
Of course, this is crap--Romney's still calling for the same policies, he's just lying about them (revenue, pre-existing conditions, etc). But it could work.
The job report could have a big impact on the upcoming debates. For Obama, more important than not look angry or "unpresidential", he wanted to avoid looking proud or smug. Anytime Obama looked too happy about any accomplishment he made, it would be extremely easy for Romney to shut him down by pointing at the unemployment rate. He didn't want to defend the stimulus, even popular stuff like green energy (even with Romney "Now, I like green energy as well") because Romney just turns around and asks where the jobs are. So he didn't want to look angry, and he didn't want to look happy.
ReplyDeleteBut with that jobs report, it's not hard to argue that things are looking better now than they were when he took office. Not only does that mean Obama isn't necessarily afraid of a Referendum (which in turn means that tacking to the center might not be good enough for Romney) but it changes the background music over every other economic policy fight. It might not have been a good idea for Obama to bring, for example, "let Detroit go bankrupt" in the first debate. Today, it probably would.
Here's some possible reason for optimism: The job numbers mattered in one way we haven't really applied- future debates. I'll bet there's a divide within Team Obama about whether to argue we're on the right path or simply argue Romney offers the wrong path. I think Obama prefers a mix of these that includes a little more of the former. At the first debate, Obama tended to offer long, uncompelling jabs based on the latter. The jobs numbers may allow him to make the argument he wants to make. I'm becoming convinced that Obama was prepared with soundbytes he himself wasn't really into.
ReplyDeleteHow much did the debate matter? I just did a quick survey of the website headlines on a handful of MSM websites (cnn,usa today, nbc, wall st. journal, abc, fox), only saw 2 headlines about Obama "losing" the debate (fox and wall st. journal). of course we need to wait a few more days for the head-to-head polls to give us an accurate sense of how the race has changed... but I'd be willing to bet that the only real change is that folks who were going to vote for Romney anyways are now fired up and ready to vote. That was going to happen regardless by the time Nov. 6 arrived.
ReplyDelete