tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post5437715676546413193..comments2023-10-16T07:13:12.123-05:00Comments on A plain blog about politics: Late Changes and the Rally EffectJonathan Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15931039630306253241noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-29727756893230010982012-09-20T22:58:51.717-05:002012-09-20T22:58:51.717-05:00"Of course it was also terrible luck for Cart..."Of course it was also terrible luck for Carter that Election Day was around the first anniversary of the hostage-taking and the media concentrated on it enormously."<br /><br />Well, that's not exactly luck, is it? The media focusing on it is a decision that someone made.purushanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-91950173925241399732012-09-20T19:00:36.894-05:002012-09-20T19:00:36.894-05:00One thing which may have changed the 1980 election...One thing which may have changed the 1980 election from a fairly close Reagan victory to a Reagan landslide (at least in terms of percentage of the two party vote) was the fact that there was a lot of last-minute talk about the hostages being freed--followed by Iran saying it would not release them.<br /><br />Of course it was also terrible luck for Carter that Election Day was around the first anniversary of the hostage-taking and the media concentrated on it enormously.<br /><br />Carter would have lost anyway but the increased attention to the hostages issue probably cost the Democrats control of the Senate (a number of the GOP victories were extremely narrow).<br /><br />Admittedly, this was not strictly speaking a foreign "crisis" but the sudden dramatization of a long-standing foriegn policy failure.<br /><br />David Tnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-24288733051370674632012-09-20T17:29:39.295-05:002012-09-20T17:29:39.295-05:00Fair enough on Iran-Contra, but it's just the ...Fair enough on Iran-Contra, but it's just the extreme example...also in Brody's database (1947-1986) with initial negative rallies are Soviet A bomb announced, Inchon, China over the Yalu, Gulf of Tonkin, the Pueblo, Tet, the Christmas bombing, Cambodia goes Communist, US shoots down Libyan fighters, and Beirut truck bomb (plus some summits and a couple of other obscure ones). Sometimes there's the pattern of positive initial reaction and then long-term damage, but sometimes the initial reaction is negative.Jonathan Bernsteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15931039630306253241noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-74267682989209325072012-09-20T17:18:10.350-05:002012-09-20T17:18:10.350-05:00Hopefully, this comes across from my email (I have...Hopefully, this comes across from my email (I have too many emails). <br /><br />I think I phrased it incorrectly. What I meant to say was NOT that there would be a rally around the flag effect. Rather that a situation that would cause an incumbent to get blamed eventually would get a rally around first. <br /><br />Second, I wasn't thinking of Iran-Contra when I wrote fiasco. I think of that as a scandal. Yes, a scandal would hurt Obama. I meant a war or a terrorist attack (or something along those lines), and the response to that. I get that foreign policy is larger than that, but it was what I was thinking. <br /><br />And I'm a fan of yours and appreciate you keeping me honest as they might say :).Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05995093774950096154noreply@blogger.com