: The story’s over…
I’ve been enjoying writing my experiential analyses of the Democratic debates this fall. But I think that schtick has run its course. I’ve posted a transcript on Presidential Campaign Rhetoric 2004.
Now that Howard Dean has taken a MoE lead in the national polls, I find myself not caring very much about these debates any longer. The Mayer predictive model of primary campaigns demonstrates that Dean will be the nominee. This illustrates one of the problems with good predictive models: They just kill any suspense.
And isn’t suspense important? What would an election be without it?
Hmmmmm…
I thought this moment was interesting:
YEPSEN: Congressman Kucinich, I talked to a lot of Democrats who say they really like what you have to say, but they don’t think you’re electable. What do you say to those Democrats?
KUCINICH: Well, you know, I’m electable if you vote for me.
His line got a laugh, but Kucinich makes an important point (as I interpret it): Voters should decide electability as independently as possible–have they done so? Another way to ask this question: What socio-political forces played a role in the decision by these unnamed Democrats that Kucinich is not electable? The simple, technical fact of the matter is that Kucinich is correct. He is 100 percent electable if citizens vote for him.
Here is a related question: Why does the Mayer model work?
I contend that electability is a narrative created by the press based on its own structural biases.
The suspense of this nominating process is over, or, rather, the climax has been reached. We are now reading a denouement although the breathless author is writing it like an extended climax. The real story happened over the past few months as a so-called insurgent candidate sprang from single digit polls to a solid lead using a new medium of grassroots campaigning. Howard Dean did something Mayer does not predict: He bested the early poll leader Joe Lieberman–something the model claims happens only two times out of ten.
Kucinich is technically correct about his electability. But we must add a caveat: He is correct only so long as voters do not, in the aggregate, validate the national polls by backing “winners” chosen by others.
Just when I start to think that think it’s all predictable:
‘The nature of these contests has changed over the years, of course, but the comparison of early national poll results with the eventual nomination outcome provides us with a track record of sorts in our attempt to answer the “prediction” question. And the answer is clear: there is no clear relationship between the candidate leading in Gallup’s national trial heat surveys among Democrats at the beginning of an election year and the eventual winner of the party’s nomination. In fact, in only 4 out of the 10 elections (Adlai Stevenson in 1952, John F. Kennedy in 1960, Walter Mondale in 1984, and Al Gore in 2000) did the front-runner in late December/early January win the Democratic Party’s nomination. In all other instances, someone else came from behind as the primary season unfolded.’
http://www.gallup.com/poll/releases/pr040106.asp
Does this conflict with Mayer or is it not applicable because of the front loaded primary?
Richard… The Mayer data concerns only contests since 1980 because he’s evaluating the McGovern Fraser reforms.
Nine out ten is quite significant. Why it is so is certainly up for debate. While Mayer does not speculate about cause and effect, it is my contention that the primaries act like one extended election rather than a series of discreet elections, i.e. people make up their minds independently of the outcomes of other elections.
This contention needs to be tested.