Media Bistro reported that the Wednesday night Republican debate had 4.29 million viewers. To appreciate where this fits compared with other television watching, consider the following ratings data from the week of November 19th - courtesy of Nielsen. These are the top ten network shows, and number of viewers over age two:

1. Dancing with the Stars (ABC): 22,849,000 Viewers

2. NBC Sunday Night Football (NBC): 21,810,000 Viewers

3. Dancing with the Stars (ABC): 20,955,000 Viewers

4. Desperate Housewives (ABC): 18,638,000 Viewers

5. NCIS (CBS): 17,341,000 Viewers

6. 60 Minutes (CBS): 16,134,000 Viewers

7. CSI: Miami (CBS) 15,832,000 Viewers

8. House (Fox): 16,877,000 Viewers

9. Criminal Minds (CBS): 15,884,000 Viewers

10. Samantha Who? (ABC): 14,384,000 Viewers

So - where exactly does the debate fit in? Here are the top ten shows for cable for the same week:

1. Titans v. Broncos (ESPN): 9,619,000 Viewers

2. Spongebob (Nickelodeon): 5,717,000 Viewers

3. Santa Clause 2 (Disney): 6,115,000 Viewers

4. Spongebob (Nickelodeon): 5,448,000 Viewers

5. WWE Raw (USA): 5,075,000 Viewers

6. WWE Raw (USA): 5,075,000 Viewers

7. USC v. Arizona State (ESPN): 5,134,000 Viewers

8. I Love New York 2 (VH1): 4,394,000 Viewers

9. Shot at Love: Tila Tequila (MTV): 4,198,000 Viewers

10. The Hills (MTV): 4,292,000 Viewers

So - the most watched debate of the primary campaign did about as well as the original programming on MTV and VH1. What's the lesson?

Is it that the debate changed no minds? Not necessarily. The number of primary and caucus voters in Iowa and New Hampshire is very small relative to the whole nation - and I have never seen ratings data that speaks to those sub-totals. Their numbers could be important. If 5,000 undecided New Hampshire voters were among the total viewers - that would be significant, as they would have amounted to 2% of the 2000 Republican primary electorate. In a five-way race, 2% is a big deal.

The lesson is that the number of "political junkies" in this country is very small relative to the total population. At least this week, we barely outnumber the fans of Tila Tequila. However - everybody at or over the age of 18 gets a vote, regardless of whether they were watching the debate or WWE Raw. If we want to get an advance read on this election, we must understand this context. We must understand that the average voter interacts with politics differently than we do. They are - as these numbers illustrate - exposed to a great deal less political information than we are.

Because of their numbers, they decide elections. We don't.

We amount to little more than a subculture in this country. We do ourselves a disservice if we forget this. The only way we can understand electoral politics is if we understand our place in it. So, let's remember that - while Wednesday's debate might have been consequential in some way - it was not watched by the average voter. He was watching Criminal Minds.

Posted by Jay Cost at 09:37 AM | Permalink

I have to say that I enjoyed this debate. It must have been because journalists were not asking the questions. And so - the discussion was geared toward giving voters information about the candidates' policy positions. CNN did, of course, allow a few questions to go through that were either not designed to help the Republican electorate make their choices (e.g. will Ron Paul run as an indy?), or designed to trap the candidates (e.g. is the Bible literally true?). Nevertheless, they did not play too heavy a hand - and the debate was better off for it.

As I have said time and again, it is ridiculous to score these debates - to identify who won on debating points, and to infer from that who helped their electoral fortunes. But one thing that we can do is note who attacked whom. The reason this activity can have value is that it can give us a sense of what these candidates perceive their relative positions to be. As the primary process is essentially a war of attrition, this is valuable information indeed - especially for a race as complicated as the Republican one is (on the Democratic side...it is kind of obvious!).

This kind of count is all the more salient because CNN did relatively little to induce candidates to hit one another.

I kept rough track of the hits (defined as a specific critique of another candidate, indicated either by name or by a clear gesture) in the debate. This is what I observed.

(1) There was a total of seventeen "hits" on one candidate against another. All of them were policy based, i.e. designed to highlight issue contrasts between candidates. In particular, all of the hits were designed to indicate that a given candidate deviates from the GOP's median position, i.e. where the average Republican stands.

(2) More than half of these hits - nine of seventeen - were on immigration. Few of these were actually prompted by CNN. This is a sign that these candidates recognize the salience of the issue to the Republican electorate. Again - all of these attacks were designed to indicate that the candidate deviated from the median Republican position on the issue.

(3) Giuliani seemed like the frontrunner, at least in terms of attacks. He was attacked more than any candidate - six times. And he attacked only attacked Romney twice (as many times as he attacked Hillary Clinton). Both hits regarded immigration.

(4) Romney acted like more of a challenger tonight. He made five hits - against Rudy (twice) and Huckabee (thrice). Thus, we saw pretty clearly here that Romney perceives both Huckabee and Giuliani to be threats to his candidacy. What is more, all of Romney's hits occurred during the immigration exchanges at the beginning of the debate.

(5) Huckabee launched only one attack - against Romney. This was done in response to one of Romney's hits.

(6) Thompson was on the attack tonight - indicating that he sees the other major candidates as a challenge. He hit Romney twice, Rudy twice, and Huckabee once.

(7) No candidate attacked Thompson.

(8) McCain was also on the attack. He hit Romney and Rudy, though (quite obviously) not on immigration. Interestingly, he also hit Paul twice. I wondered about this. Was it just because McCain could not resist the low-hanging fruit? Or, on the other hand, perhaps McCain senses that Paul could steal independents in New Hampshire. It is hard to say. Paul is probably a problem for McCain in New Hampshire. But then again, McCain seems to me to be the type of guy who could not resist smacking Paul around.

(9) No candidate attacked McCain.

(10) One thing I did not mention in yesterday's column was that would-be spoiler candidates tend not to launch attacks. True to form - Paul, Tancredo, and Hunter did not attack any of the five major candidates.

All in all - the debate seemed to me to be consistent with the observations that we have made with the mediated attacks. To summarize:

(i) Romney seems to perceive Giuliani and Huckabee - but not McCain or Thompson - as threats.
(ii) Giuliani seems to perceive Romney as a threat. He saved his attacks for him.
(iii) Huckabee seems to perceive Romney as a threat - or, maybe better put, as a target. Like Giuliani, he saved his attacks for him.
(iv) Thompson and McCain seem not to threaten the major candidates. Nevertheless, both perceive others as threats.

Posted by Jay Cost at 12:00 AM | Permalink

As most of us have observed this week, the Republican presidential contest is starting to get negative - although some candidates seem to be avoiding one another. This is from the New York Sun:

As the Republican presidential race devolves into a five-man free-for-all of sustained attacks and sharp rejoinders, one pair of candidates, Mayor Giuliani and Michael Huckabee, has avoided direct conflict, exchanging more compliments than criticism.

Mr. Huckabee, who has leapt to second in the Iowa polls, has drawn increasing fire from GOP contenders Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson, but not from Mr. Giuliani, who has described him as "wonderful."

The former Arkansas governor seemed to respond in kind yesterday when he took Mr. Giuliani's side in the former New York mayor's bitter fight with Mr. Romney over their respective records as a mayor and governor.

"I think Mitt was the one who went after Rudy more than Rudy went after Mitt," Mr. Huckabee told reporters in a conference call, when asked for his thoughts on the dispute that has played out in New Hampshire in recent days. Messrs. Romney and Giuliani have taken harsh shots at each other on a range of issues, including spending, taxes, immigration, and executive appointments.

Meanwhile, nobody thinks enough of John McCain to attack him. This is from the Politico:

'The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about," Oscar Wilde once said, and that is the problem the John McCain campaign is now grappling with.

Over the past few days, Mitt Romney has been attacking Rudy Giuliani (and vice versa), and Fred Thompson has been attacking Mike Huckabee (and vice versa), but who has been attacking McCain?

None of this is surprising. In fact - these candidates are doing what presidential candidates usually do.

First, note that these attacks are not coming through paid media. Instead, they are coming through the press. What happens is that one campaign puts out a negative press release, or makes itself available for questions so that it can slap another candidate around. The press reports the "story" - and presto! A free negative advertisement. Not only are they free of charge, they also carry with them real benefits. Scholars who have looked at these types of attacks have speculated that voters take them more seriously than negative ads because the attacks are packaged as news. Furthermore, the fact that they are on the news might inoculate the attacker from the blow back that can come from going negative.

Second, note the timing. I have written before about how pundits wrongly think it is a good idea to launch negative attacks months and months before an election. It is not. Usually, candidates save this kind of attack for when (a) there is a delegate rich state having an election soon, or (b) there is a "high stakes" event coming soon. These particular attacks are happening in advance of Iowa and New Hampshire - the events with the highest stakes.

Third, note the directions of the attacks. We have Thompson and Romney attacking Huckabee. We have Romney attacking Giuliani, and vice-versa. We have Giuliani and Huckabee explicitly laying off each other. We have nobody attacking McCain, but McCain is going after Giuliani and Romney. What explains this pattern - especially the strange détente between Giuliani and Huckabee? Some have suggested that it is because Giuliani and Huckabee are appealing to different voters. There is thus no reason for them to attack one another. Others have suggested that Giuliani and Huckabee do not see each other as electoral competitors. Giuliani is weak where Huckabee is strong, and vice-versa.

These explanations are not mutually exclusive - they may even be causally related to one another, and I would not be surprised if both were motivating the two campaigns. Both speak to the idea that the primary campaign is a war of attrition in which each candidate's goal is to eliminate his opponents. However, the research that I have seen indicates that ideological proximity does not explain why candidates attack through the media. Instead - it has to do with where they are in the polls. Researchers have found a few basic features of mediated attacks:

(a) Frontrunners tend to avoid negative attacks, except when (i) they are attacked by somebody, or (ii) a challenger is on the rise and is now threatening their position.

(b) Challengers attack frontrunners (or those who are ahead of them in the polls).

(c) Challengers are more likely to attack when given the opportunity (e.g. debates); frontrunners are neither more nor less likely.

With these generalities in mind, the direction of the attacks starts to make a lot of sense. Giuliani and Romney see each other as electoral threats, presumably because both of them want to do well in New Hampshire. In particular, the fact that Romney persists in attacking Giuliani may be a sign that the former expects the latter to close the gap. This is also why McCain is attacking Romney and Giuliani - they are in front of him in the Granite State. The fact that Huckabee is on the rise in Iowa is what has precipitated the attacks on him from Thompson and Romney. They see him as a threat in the Hawkeye State.

Meanwhile, the fact that Giuliani is not attacking Huckabee is an indication that Giuliani does not mind finishing behind Huckabee - so long as Huckabee damages Romney. Giuliani would probably not mind finishing third in Iowa if it means that Romney finishes second, or barely finishes first. Relatedly, the fact that Huckabee has remained mum on Giuliani - who is strong in New Hampshire - indicates that Huckabee is not making a significant play for votes in the Granite State. In fact, Huckabee might intend to write off New Hampshire all together - and take a victory in Iowa down to South Carolina. At that point, we could expect Giuliani and Huckabee to go after one another.

Finally, the fact that nobody is attacking John McCain is a sign that nobody sees him as an electoral threat. While it is true that he is close behind Giuliani in the RCP average of New Hampshire, his trend line has been flat for five months. It may be the case that Giuliani and Romney expect him to fade as both increase their television advertisements beyond what the cash-strapped McCain campaign can do. If this is what Rudy and Mitt anticipate, there is no reason to slap McCain around.

Now - none of these are earth-shattering conclusions. Many people (myself included) have drawn similar inferences about the state of the Republican race independent of these negative attacks. However - because we know some general trends about negative attacks (i.e. who generally attacks whom, when do they generally attack, etc) - we can draw some inferences about how these candidates view the race. This is of great value because it can confirm or disconfirm our initial impressions. Candidates are the true experts on the horse race. And, insofar as we can infer what they think about the campaign, we can understand the race better.

As this campaign unfolds - and especially as the general election begins in earnest - you will see that this is a common analytical strategy of mine. Drawing inferences about candidate perceptions based upon candidate actions is possible if you know enough about how campaigns work. And, if you read candidates correctly, you can tease out some real insights.

So - I would suggest that, while tonight's Republican debate probably will not change many minds (and therefore cannot really be discussed in terms of winners and losers), it will offer us further confirmation on who views whom as a threat, and therefore who is really competing where. So, don't worry about who is winning the debate. Don't play the same meaningless game the press plays. Instead, watch to see how the five top candidates go after one another. Who attacks whom? What are the lines of attack? Do they wait until they are attacked by somebody else, until they are prompted by the moderators, or do they just go for it without provocation?

Posted by Jay Cost at 11:19 AM | Permalink

These days, electability is the talk of the town - if the town is Des Moines or Cedar Rapids. This is from yesterday's Washington Post:

Strategists for Obama said over the weekend that they see an opening for their candidate on the question of electability, and campaign manager David Plouffe also predicted a "relentlessly negative" barrage from the Clinton campaign in the days ahead.

Central to the new Clinton push will be the argument that only she can beat the eventual Republican nominee, a claim Obama is also seeking to make to voters here.

Advisers said her message will be: "You can't have change if you don't win." Her rivals, meanwhile, are moving aggressively to capitalize on Clinton's weaknesses in Iowa -- and, they hope, block her path to the nomination. [Snip]

"We're picking up a lot more on the ground on electability," Plouffe said. "What voters are looking at is: Who's got the best chance to win the election . . . and second, who can govern."

Also, Jason Zengerle offered an extended meditation in New York Magazine yesterday about electability and the 2008 primary contests. His conclusion is that the whole discussion is nothing more than a maddening puzzle with no solution. He writes:

Unlike political judgments that are based on concrete assessments of, say, a candidate's record or even something as grubby as his fund-raising prowess, those that are based on a candidate's supposed electability can change on a moment's notice. And then change again. Electability is completely ephemeral. Even those hoary and maddeningly indefinable political qualities like "character" and "authenticity" have more meat on their bones.

I think that Zengerle is on to something here - but like so many articles I read in Esquire, New York Magazine, the New Yorker or other such "upscale" mags where writers get 4,000 or more words to work with - he just ends up repeating the same basic point with different anecdotes. Zengerle never gets beyond the fact that electability is "squishy." Why is it squishy? Or, more specifically, why is it a squishy concept that we can't help but talk about? That's the question I would like to tackle today.

From a rational choice perspective - electability should be a critical factor in a voter's preference for the party's nomination. This is because winning the nomination brings about no changes in public policy. Only winning the general election will bring about such changes. So, a purely rational voter who is only concerned about public policy would have to calculate the expected policy benefits from a given candidate's election in something like the following manner:

Ideological Proximity of Candidate and Voter X Candidate's Chance of Winning Nomination X Candidate's Chance of Winning General Election

The latter two terms would combine to be a candidate's electability factor. So, electability is an important feature in the purely rational voter's preference for the nomination (although the purely rational actor might not even vote). We would call a calculation like this part of the act of strategic voting because it implicitly takes into account the choices that you expect other voters to make.

However, we confront here the problems that plagues all of us who make use of rational choice theory: people are not as good at acting "rationally" as mathematicians are at writing about it. Things get much more difficult when we are dealing with our subjective experience, and not the objectivity of a formal proof. In the real world, we might expect some interdependence between electability and ideological proximity. For instance, we might expect proximity to influence a voter's assessment of electability because, as everybody knows, what we want often gets in the way of our understanding what others want. We might also expect the causal arrow to run in the other direction: what others want can influence what we want. That would be a bandwagon effect. Princeton's Larry Bartels finds something like that in his Presidential Primaries and the Dynamics of Public Choice.

My intuition about electability is that it: (a) is an inevitable subject in a presidential primary campaign because the nomination is not an end, only a means; (b) contains some objective elements that would enable us to estimate who is more electable than who; (c) contains some subjective elements that would impede such estimates. This would explain why the conversation about it has been endless and fruitless. We can't help but discuss it because it is, after all, what a party's nomination is all about. We're also compelled to talk about it because there is something "real" to it - and so we are tantalized at the prospect of having an objective statement of who stands a better chance of winning. At the same time, we're confounded because, while there is something objective here, the subjectivity of it prevents any real consensus. Thus - we're left to debate endlessly (or, at least until the election!).

So, I have three basic assertions about electability: (a) inevitable, (b) partially objective, (c) partially subjective. Let me try to convince you that I am on to something here - for there is good evidence for each point. I think that (a) is essentially established. Common sense, rational choice theory, and polling data that shows voters are thinking about electability all conspire to put to rest any doubts of its importance. But what about (b) and (c)? Can we "unpack" the different elements that make up our conceptions of electability to see what in them is objective and what is subjective?

I think we can - but we'll have to do something that Zengerle does not: treat the work of political science with some care. He writes:

Political scientists, for their part, have taken a stab at gauging electability. At conferences and in journal articles, these academics have tried to suss out just what makes a candidate electable--or, at the very least, what makes voters perceive a candidate as electable. Physically attractive male candidates, one group of political scientists concluded, enjoy an electability advantage, but the same group could find no straightforward link between attractiveness and electability for female candidates. Similarly, some political scientists found that male politicians with hair tend to get elected more than balding ones. (There doesn't appear to be any research on the electability of balding female candidates.) And in 1994, two professors from William & Mary and the University of Colorado went so far as to come up with an actual electability formula, which looks like this:

Candidate electability = a + b1 (party) + b2 (evaluation of C) + b3 (C's proximity to R) + b4 (C's proximity to the average voter) + b5 (C's proximity to party) + b6 (C's nomination chances) + b7 (C's TV performance) + e

In my margin notes, I wrote next to this paragraph simply "Boo!" Maybe I am over-sensitive to the way that the work of political science is ignored by the punditocracy - but this seems to me to be downright rude. If you think enough of somebody's work to cite the work, you should also cite the somebody. Let me correct the oversight, and give some credit where it is due. The researchers who developed this idea are Walter J. Stone (formerly of the University of Colorado, now of UC-Irvine) and Ronald B. Rapoport of the College of William and Mary.

I also have to object to the obvious carelessness with which Zengerle read this article. It seems to me that he trolled it for a quickie rhetorical point - for he brings up this "formula" simply to compare its seeming over-complexity to the "straightforward approach" that pundits take. In so doing, he completely misunderstands what Stone and Rapoport are on about.

The point of Stone and Rapoport's equation is not an "electability formula" in the sense that Zengerle means it. This "formula" is an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression equation. OLS regression can be used for predictive purposes - a "formula." But - Stone and Rapoport would surely agree that their formula does a lousy job of predicting how electable a given voter views a given candidate. Their model has an accuracy rate of 25% to 57%. [When political scientists do use OLS regression to predict outcomes - say for congressional elections - they look for an accuracy rate of 80% to 90%].

OLS regression has another purpose, which is what they are actually utilizing in this article and which should not be characterized as the development of a "formula." What Stone and Rapoport do here is test whether some variables are significant causal factors in how voters perceive electability. The idea behind this equation is that you compare (for instance) a voter's evaluation of a candidate's television performance to a voter's evaluation of a candidate's electability. Are they related - and, if so, how strongly are they related? But you do this comparison in relation to comparisons between electability and the rest of the variables on the right hand side of the equation. That way, you can conclude whether any one of these factors influence electability controlling for the other factors. OLS regression, then, enables one to draw causal inferences in complicated situations where many variables interact with one another. This is what Stone and Rapoport are on about here.

In fact, they have a very specific question in mind. Do voters form assessments of electability based upon their perception of candidate moderation? As a candidate appears to be better able to appeal to the middle of the general electorate, will a primary voter view him as more electable? This question has great analytical importance, for obvious reasons. But it is also of civic importance as well. It would not be good for the country if small, unrepresentative primary electorates forced upon the broader public ideologically extreme nominees. So, Stone and Rapoport are interested in whether caucus goers in 1980 and 1984 perceived a link between ideological moderation and electability.

They do indeed find that proximity to the average voter is a factor in electability - but it is not as big a factor as other characteristics. They find that performance on television is a much stronger factor. That is, if we think a candidate performs well on television, we will be more likely to see him as being electable. Other factors influence perceptions of candidate electability more than ideological moderation: evaluations of candidates (the more we like a candidate, the more electable he will seem to us), nomination chances (the more we think a candidate will win the nomination, the more electable he will seem to us), and party (we are more likely to see candidates of our party as electable).

If we look at the list of variables that influence electability - we should appreciate the mixed bag that "electability" presents. On the one hand, there is a lot of subjectivity here. For instance, partisanship is a factor in evaluations of electability. Our perceptions of electability have a partisan skew to them. So also is our impression of the candidate: if we like him, we believe other people will, too. That is about as subjective as you can get! With electability being informed by such subjective evaluations - it is unsurprising that there is such disagreement among everybody about who is electable and who is not.

But, on the other hand, there is also some objectivity here, which I think helps explain why pundits (and campaign strategists) so frequently try to quantify it. For instance, television is a factor in perceptions of electability. As television is a shared experience - it probably gives the concept of electability some objective leverage. If I think a candidate does well on television, other people probably will, too. Also, as a candidate must be nominated to be elected - the fact that the chances of being nominated is a factor in electability makes it somewhat objective for a similar reason: all of us can agree on who could and who could not be nominated.

Relatedly, Stone and Rapoport found some rough parity in ideological placements of candidates among Republican and Democratic caucus goers. For instance, in 1984 Democratic caucus goers placed Gary Hart closer to the ideological center than Republicans. However, both Republicans and Democrats identified Hart as being more liberal than the average voter and more conservative than Walter Mondale. The fact that ideological positioning is a factor in electability therefore infuses the latter with an objective element because we seem to view ideology in roughly similar terms.

So, maybe we have hit upon an explanation for what Zengerle has observed: there is a debate about electability that seems to have no end. The importance of electability and the objective elements of electability compel people to debate it. There seems to be something more than just our subjective evaluations that inform the concept. However, the concept itself is still so subjective that it is quite unlikely that we could ever agree.

All of this also means that perceptions of electability are probably manipulable. This would explain why candidates - and not just analysts - are participating in the conversation. These strategy memos are not designed to elucidate the true state of the race for us. They are designed to do what all campaign actions are designed to do: persuade voters. Candidates have an incentive in creating the impression that they are electable - and the subjectivity of electability means that they might be able to create that impression.

Posted by Jay Cost at 12:00 AM | Permalink

Kimberly Strassel had an interesting article on Friday that reviewed the weak spots of Hillary Clinton's campaign. It raised several points that I have wished to discuss for some time. She writes:

Until recently, the biggest thing going for Hillary is that she has appeared "inevitable." This is no accident. Mrs. Clinton may not be as naturally gifted as her husband, but she does have access to his playbook. One of Bill's more brilliant strategies when he ran in 1992 was to campaign as if he were already the nominee. It gave an otherwise little-known governor the legitimacy to sideline his opponents.

Mrs. Clinton has made this tactic a cornerstone of her campaign, and it had been working. During debates she frequently speaks on "behalf of everyone" on the stage. She chooses moments wisely to make statements no Democrat disagrees with ("George Bush is ruining this country"), leaving the competition nodding in miserable agreement. Her insistence that she and her Democratic colleagues should keep this race focused on their arch-enemy was equally savvy. With everyone piling on Dubya, nobody was piling on her.

Add to this Mrs. Clinton's stash of money, the vaunted infrastructure, the endorsements and her superstar status. The Clinton campaign has flogged all of these to leave the impression she's the only player in the game.

I agree with Strassel that this is what the Clinton campaign has done. I think that the strategy was a smart one. Research has shown that primary voters tend to view leading candidates more warmly because they are leading. They also tend to find reasons to support leading candidates. And so, campaigns have an interest in appearing to be in the lead. Mrs. Clinton's campaign has been as good as any non-incumbent campaign in the post-reform era at creating this impression.

Of course, I never thought much of the conclusion that Clinton was inevitable. It always seemed to me to require a false view of what those summer polling numbers really meant. It also seemed to be exactly the impression that Clinton campaign endeavored to create. Nevertheless, I was mightily impressed that it was able to construct such an artifice. It had most pundits convinced that a man who raised $80,000,000 was not even going to make it interesting. That was quite a feat.

Strassel notes another tactic that Clinton has used to great effect. She has endeavored to diminish the perceptions of disagreement - between herself, her fellow candidates, and the Democratic electorate. This is a common ploy with frontrunner campaigns. The fewer areas of contrast, the fewer reasons voters have for switching their support from one candidate to another. So, research has shown - unsurprisingly - that front running candidates tend to offer fewer substantive policy proposals. Why give voters a reason to disagree with you? Clinton does something akin to this every time she agrees with her opponents and pours it on Bush. Rudy Giuliani has done a very good job of this on the Republican side. He has explicitly praised some of his opponents - Huckabee and McCain, for instance - and he has taken every opportunity to attack Clinton.

What, then, should Clinton's challengers do about her? Strassel has some suggestions:

Mrs. Clinton's opponents have also got wise to her "inevitability" game, and no one more so than John Edwards. His decision to unleash the big guns on her Iraq vote and "dirty" corporate money has already yielded him a victory. She's deigned to acknowledge he's actually on the stage and even answered some of his criticisms, which in turn has suggested to audiences that she views him as a threat. [Snip]

Grateful as that nation is to Mr. Edwards for livening up the debate and unleashing some healthy Clinton criticism from other campaigns, we're also just 40 days from Iowa. The long, gentle treatment by opponents allowed Mrs. Clinton to build up such a sizable lead the attacks might now come a little too late.

They also may remain a little too little. Yes, Mr. Edwards is hitting Mrs. Clinton on foreign policy. Yes, Barack Obama is taking it to her on trade. But consider this: What none of her Democratic opponents has broached--what has so far been a super-off-limits-high-security-no-fly-zone--is any direct mention of Mrs. Clinton's ethically challenged period as first lady.

I disagree. Strassel fails to account for the fact that a negative campaign carries with it serious risks. It does. And so, when a candidate engages in negativity - he or she must be adroit. Richard Lau and Gerald Pomper - both of Rutgers University - have found, for instance, that incumbent senators who go negative in their reelection campaigns tend to lose support. This effect is independent of the competitiveness of the race. They conclude in a 2002 article on the subject, "A full accounting of the evidence suggests that, as often as not, attacking the opponent is a counter-productive campaign strategy to follow."

Note that Lau and Pomper track the effects of negativity in general election Senate races. We are talking about a presidential primary - and, so far as I know, this is a subject that has not been studied thoroughly. But that is all the more reason for candidates to be cautious. We know that going negative can be a double-edged sword, but we are not exactly sure when and where. So - the negative campaign is a weapon that should be wielded with a deft touch.

Dexterity is especially required for an attack on Hillary Clinton - and it is not because she is a woman. It is because, among Democratic primary voters, she is well known and well liked. She has been in the public eye for about sixteen years. Voter opinions of her are not based upon a dearth of information. And, according to the most recent Fox News poll, Democratic voters like her. Clinton's net favorable rating among Democrats is +58%. So, Obama or Edwards cannot just go after Clinton willy nilly. The attacks have to be subtle because they are directed at a public that knows of and is disposed toward her.

What they should not do is make use of "Republican talking points," which is precisely what Strassel suggests by exhorting Obama and Edwards to go after Clinton on ethics. Political scientists have found that negative advertising reinforces previous partisan dispositions rather than persuade the skeptical. And so, an attack on Clinton's ethics might influence an electorate composed largely of Republicans. But, obviously, the Democratic primary will have few of them involved. There will be a lot of Democrats who participate - and I doubt they would buy such an attack, especially if it was predicated on something old. As a matter of fact, I could see those voters being persuaded by the Clinton rejoinder: stop calling shots from the GOP playbook.

Personally, I like Obama's line of attack on Clinton. It is subtle. It sets up a contrast without alienating voters. The average voter gets the gist of what Obama is hinting at, but is not turned off by it.

A final point. Strassel suggests that Obama and Edwards waited too long to start drawing some distinctions between Clinton and themselves. I could not disagree with this more. This was a line that a lot of pundits were repeating prior to the Philadelphia debate - when Obama signaled that he was going to start to sharpen his rhetoric. Many said that he had waited too long. That kind of thinking rests on the false premise that voters pay as much attention to politics as pundits do. They don't, which means that candidates have to save their sharpest, most effective stuff for when they begin to pay closer attention. On their last tour - (what's left of) the Who played their new garbage in the middle of the show. They saved "My Generation" for the end. The same premise applies to campaigns.

Obama would have been unwise to start drawing sharp contrasts in the summer. It's all well and good that his reticence allowed "Mrs. Clinton to build up such a sizable lead" - but, as I have argued time and again on this blog, leads in national polls of summer and even fall are not worth much because voters are paying little attention. If having a lead in mid-November's Gallup poll was Obama's goal - then, by all means, he should have amplified his rhetoric in August or September. But his goal is to win Iowa and then New Hampshire - and ratcheting up the rhetoric 40 to 50 days before those contests is the right move.

Remember that Giuliani just started advertising in New Hampshire. The Giuliani campaign is a smart operation - and those of us who pay an inordinate amount of attention to politics should take this "lateness" as a cue to change our timetable. Remember, we political obsessives have different levels of attention and information than the average voter. Successful campaigns are built around winning them, not us.

Posted by Jay Cost at 12:00 AM | Permalink

Today, I want to conclude an argument I have been developing over the last few days about the relationship between the media and the horse race. Up to this point, I've asserted that journalists and pundits have a false impression of how voters make their vote choices. One implication of this is that journalists have an impoverished or at least incomplete view of how electoral politics work. Another implication - one that I want to develop today - is that much of the electoral "news" that we encounter is just idle entertainment for political junkies. It is not getting at anything of real value, even if it might appear as though it is.

The media, and politicos in general, have a narrative about this campaign that they have spent a lot of time analyzing and interpreting. It is not about which candidate has the better policies or who is addressing the most important issues. It is about the horse race: who is up, who is down, why they are where they are, and where they are going next.

This is ironic. A discussion of the ins-and-outs of the horse race requires the participation of the broader public. It is implicitly about who has the edge in the upcoming election - and therefore whom the voters prefer and why. So, they have to be in the subtext of any horse race analysis. However, as far as the storyline that politicos have developed goes, it is clear that the voters are not playing along. As a consequence, the whole discussion loses much of its value.

Take, for instance, the lead of Dan Balz's Saturday article in the Washington Post:

LAS VEGAS, Nov. 16 -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's strong performance in Thursday's Democratic debate here will blunt talk that she is on a downward slide and shift the focus to whether Sen. Barack Obama or former senator John Edwards can stop her march to the nomination, party strategists said Friday.

What is the object of this story's narrative? For whose benefit is all of this occurring? It surely is not the voters' benefit. Most of them did not watch the Las Vegas debate, whose record-breaking ratings still did not beat an average episode of The Biggest Loser. They do not pay enough attention to politics to dedicate two hours to such a display. And anyway, they dislike the gamesmanship of politics; even if they had watched, they would have found very little of value in a debate that focused mostly on tactical positioning and jewelry preferences.

So, with whom was Clinton on a "downward slide," the talk of which has now been "blunt[ed]?" For whom will the "focus shift?" The answer is: politicos. Balz's article is actually a story about electoral politics that does not involve the electorate at all! It just pretends to involve it. In reality, this is a story about how a very small group of people - who account for maybe 2% of the voting public, and who have in all likelihood already selected their favorite candidates - reacted to the Vegas debate. The broader voting public is injected to maintain the illusion that the stakes are higher than they actually are.

That is the way it goes for many days' horse race news. There is a false assumption that underlies much of the daily discussion - that what happened matters because it influences votes. It usually doesn't. The campaigns, the media, and the pundits are interacting with one another - but only for the benefit of each other. The voters are usually not involved in this interaction. We pretend that they are to make the story seem like it is about something real - but they usually aren't, and it usually isn't. In reality - the story is often about how political elites react to the ins and outs of the day's news, told as if the public as a whole is reacting in that way. It is a strange combination of autobiography and fiction.

Since I started this blog - I have set about to avoid this type of analysis. I think this is why my analysis of the Democratic race has been so constant. I'll say now what I have been saying for months about the Democratic race. It's basically a two-person contest. I don't think Edwards can win the nomination. It will either be Clinton or Obama. Because of her position in the public mind, a victory in Iowa is probably a sufficient condition for Hillary Clinton to win the nomination. Because of his position, a victory (or at least finishing ahead of Clinton) is probably a necessary condition for Barack Obama. He might still lose the nomination if he wins Iowa - Iowa just makes it a race. But Obama has the money, he has the organization, and he has the message to win the Hawkeye State. The Iowa polls are, as I have argued, not all that helpful in predicting who will win. So - all we can say is that Iowa is a three-person race.

All of this twisting and turning and strategizing - "Novak said this" but "Oh, he's just a GOP shill" - is all just a noisy show put on for politicos by other politicos. When you distance yourself from it - the noise dies down, you can think clearly, and you see that very little about this race has changed in the many months since it started.

Posted by Jay Cost at 12:00 AM | Permalink

A few days back, I saw that Clinton web video called "Caucusing Is Easy." You probably saw it, too. Anytime Bill does something, it gets noticed:

At the time, I thought it was a bit strange - insofar as it did not cohere with the conventional wisdom that Clinton and Edwards were the ones winning the support of veteran caucus voters, and Obama was winning over newer "voters." It seemed to me that this kind of video would be something to expect from Obama.

That last paragraph sports some important scare quotes - because newer voters often turn out not to be voters at all. Systematic survey evidence has picked this up - and it conforms with anecdotal accounts. Remember Nader's huge rallies in 2000? How about Dean's in 2004? This is why videos like this get made: young people are unreliable voters, and often need to be charmed into voting. Many pundits have speculated that the young supporters of Obama might be his Achilles' heel - as they are sufficiently motivated to come out and see him on a cold fall day, but not motivated to support him on caucus night. The former has some curiosity value. The latter? Not so much.

So, it surprised me that Clinton was the one creating a "hip" video about caucusing. Then I saw this in the Washington Post's write-up of its latest poll:

Overall, the poll points to some strategic gains for Obama. His support is up eight percentage points since July among voters 45 and older -- who accounted for two-thirds of Iowa caucus-goers in 2004. He also runs evenly with Clinton among women in Iowa, drawing 32 percent to her 31 percent, despite the fact that her campaign has built its effort around attracting female voters.

And despite widespread impressions that Obama is banking on unreliable first-time voters, Clinton depends on them heavily as well: About half of her supporters said they have never attended a caucus. Forty-three percent of Obama's backers and 24 percent of Edwards's would be first-time caucus-goers. Previous attendance is one of the strongest indicators of who will vote.

First off - WaPo does a good job of splashing some cold water on the statistical significance of the topline results. The margin of error on this poll is +/- 4%, so a 4 point lead for Obama is not statistically significant. However, statistical significance is conditioned by the number of observations. It has a lot in common with a simple computation of the standard deviation - which has the number of observations in the denominator. As the number of observations decreases, the standard deviation increases. It's the same basic premise for the margin of error.

So, when you are dealing with a subsample of the whole poll - say, voters 45 and older - the margin of error increases. I'd have to run a statistical test to confirm it (and the internals of the poll just do not provide the data to enable it) - but my intuition is that Obama's gains with older voters is not outside this increased margin of error. An 8 point difference between this poll and the July poll would be significant with the topline results, which are based on 500 observations - but probably not with a subsample of about 200 observations. WaPo was thus wrong to identify this as a "strategic gain" for Obama. It could very well be a sampling anomaly.

That being said - there are still some interesting inferences that we can make without running an undue risk of Type I error (i.e. wrongly concluding that something is significant when in fact it is not). The poll found Clinton and Obama relying on first time voters by about equal measure. The difference between their new supporters is not statistically significant - so the conventional wisdom about how Obama is relying on new voters more than Clinton does not hold. Accordingly, we have explained how Hillary's campaign could coax Bill onto a NordicTrack.

What probably does hold is the argument that Edwards is relying on new voters less than Clinton and Obama. The breakdown is basically 50/43/24. That is, (about) 50% of Clinton supporters are new, 43% of Obama supporters are new, and just 24% of Edwards supporters are new. Again, I would have to see more data than what ABC News/WaPo is providing - but my intuition is that the difference is statistically significant. Edwards is relying less on new voters.

This conforms with what Ana Marie Cox wrote last week in Time. Most of Edwards' supporters are reliable caucus goers. This might give us some clues about what to expect on caucus night. If attendance at the caucus is greater than what it has been in years past, that might bode well for Clinton and Obama. If it is equal to or less than what it has been, that might bode well for Edwards.

Another point on Clinton v. Obama. Clinton is splitting the female respondents evenly with Obama. She pulled in 31% of female respondents. He pulled in 32%. It is surprising to me that Clinton is not pulling in more females in this poll, given the tone of her campaign of late. These results make Mark Penn's promise to pull in Republican women seem like rhetoric designed to win over Democratic voters hungry for a victory.

For comparative purposes, I would note that the recent CBS News poll also found no statistically significant difference between Clinton and Obama among first time and long time caucus attendees. It also seems not to have found a statistically significant difference between them on levels of female support (although Clinton does lead this category by 12%, it is such a small sample that I suspect the lead is statistically insignificant), and levels of support among voters aged 45-65. However, it did find what appears to be a statistically significant difference on levels of support among voters 65 and older, though there is a tie between Clinton and Edwards among voters of that age. [Again - I'm "spitballing" these conclusions of significance because none of these polls ever give you the data you need to draw more assured conclusions.] So, all in all, I would say that the results of the ABC/WaPo poll roughly conform with the results of the CBS poll.

Now - it is important to remember that there are boundaries that we have to obey when drawing inferences from these Iowa polls. I wrote about this last week. Care is important because the Iowa Democratic caucus is a poor fit with the way polls are conducted. I am pretty sure that I have managed to color within these lines in this write-up - but we need to be careful.

Posted by Jay Cost at 10:28 AM | Permalink

I really can't stand these debates.

And it is not because of the candidates. I enjoy watching them debate each other, and I thought they made it worth my while last night.

No. The reason that I cannot stand these debates is the media and the insufferable assumption that frames all of its analysis: voters are exactly like journalists. They pay as much attention as journalists do. They are as interested in the tactics as journalists are. They enjoy all of the thrusting and parrying of the rhetorical joust as much as journalists do.

This view was on display everywhere last night and this morning - from CNN's pre-debate analysis to the pundit reviews that followed. Find a debate analysis or scorecard that does not focus on tactics first, tactics second, tactics third - and maybe, if there is still room, policy fourth. Said scorecard will invariably go on to draw an inference about who helped their electoral prospects by being the best tactician of the night. Implicit in this view, of course, is the assumption that voters think about politics in exactly the same terms.

This is a narrow view of politics: the press collects seven people on a stage, knowing that one of them will be the next Democratic nominee and could very well be the next President of the United States, and has no interest except in whether they slap each other around a little bit. This is a solipsistic view of politics: journalists "know" that Americans find the gamesmanship of politics to be loathsome. Nevertheless, their analysis is predicated upon the assumption that Americans like it as much as the journalists do. This is a false view of politics: this way of analyzing the electorate has no empirical basis in reality - which journalists would quickly discover if they read more widely than what their fellow journalists are writing.

Narrow, solipsistic, and false. An impoverished view of politics.

This is why I do not like these primary debates. They concentrate everything wrong about the way the media covers presidential campaigns and jam-packs it into two hours. And then you have all of the endless, mindless, group-think "analysis" that follows. As if this morning's conclusion was not wholly predictable. Provided that Clinton did not trip when she walked onto the stage - the media was gonna conclude, "The kid stays in the picture!"

Enough already! If post-debate conventional wisdom was a machine, I would throw stones at it and curse in French.

Or, to quote Gelman and King (again):

"Journalists should realize that they can report the polls all they want, and continue to make incorrect causal inferences about them, but they are not helping to predict or even influence the election. Journalists play a critical role in enabling voters to make decisions based upon the equivalent of explicitly enlightened preferences. Unfortunately, by focusing more on the polls and meaningless campaign events, the media are spending more and more time on "news" that has less and less of an effect."

Posted by Jay Cost at 09:20 AM | Permalink

Mark Mellman had a very excellent column in the Hill yesterday. The topic involved the validity of horse race polling.

This is what he had to say:

Regular readers have heard me rail against the inaccuracy of early polling, which often fails to presage ultimate electoral outcomes.

Yet I have also maintained that presidential elections are predictable based on the fundamentals -- incumbency, war/peace, prosperity and the like.

Recognizing the implicit contradiction, political scientists Gary King and Andrew Gelman asked, in one of academia's best-titled papers, "Why Are American Presidential Election Campaign Polls So Variable When Voters Are So Predictable?"

Their answer focuses on learning during the campaign, and while they may be right, I fear the problem runs deeper. [Snip]

Though it is heresy for a pollster to say it, the evidence also suggests people are only mediocre predictors of their own behavior. Responses to horserace questions a year out may be a special case of faulty prediction.

Hardly an original thought, it can be traced at least to Russian exile and founder of Harvard's sociology department Pitirim Sorokin, who titled his 1936 paper, "Can One Predict His Own Behavior 24 Hours In Advance?" His answer, based on a study of federal employees, was a resounding no: When asked how much time they would devote to various activities during the subsequent eight-hour workday, the average person was off by five hours.

My hat is off to Mellman - who actually relies upon the work of one of the best political scientists in the country, Gary King, to make an argument about politics. A very rare thing indeed! Usually, political scientists get no more "airtime" than the occasional self-evident quote that journalists integrate into their preconceived storylines.

Mellman's topic - the invalidity of early election polling - is one that I have discussed frequently on this blog. I'd like to extend this conversation because I think the problem with media polls gets to what I think are some serious failings in the way journalists and pundits analyze politics.

The best way to discuss this is simply to review the Gelman and King article - which, I should note at the outset, is an attempt to explain a problem with general election presidential polling. Their title indicates the question with which they tussle. Political scientists have developed models that do a very good job of predicting presidential elections based upon "fundamental" variables like incumbency, partisanship, and the state of the economy. All of these are available a long time before ballots are cast. Meanwhile, the polls run all over the place prior to Election Day. How to explain this?

Gelman and King offer what they call the "Enlightened Preference" Model. They assert that:
(1) Voters do not have full information throughout the campaign about the "fundamental variables" that ultimately drive vote choices.
(2) Voters do use all available information to make their decisions.
(3) Voters do not rationally account for uncertainty during the course of the campaign.

This explains how polls can vary so wildly, and yet final results can be so predictable. Voters base their election decisions on basic variables. Thus, their vote choices are quite predictable. But it is only at the end of the campaign that they have fully grasped the values of the variables. Additionally, they do not factor this lack of knowledge into their thought processes. And so, when pollsters dial them up - they rely on the data they have available, but give answers that are less certain than they realize.

Gelman and King write:

[W]ithout sufficient knowledge of their fundamental variables, and when asked to give an opinion anyway, most respondents act as they will in the voting booth on election day: they use the information at their disposal about their fundamental variables, and report a "likely" vote to the pollster. We believe that this report is sincere, but the survey response is still based on a different information set from that which will be available by the time of the election.

Note that this does not mean that the campaigns are useless. The campaign organizations are the agents that provide the information to the voters. If there is a rough organizational "balance" between the campaigns - then the relevant information will be communicated to the voters through them. The media can play a role here - by providing relevant information to the public so that their choices are as informed as possible. Of course, in the last several cycles, most of the media's work has been in covering the horse race.

Now, as I indicated, I think there is a lesson in this for all of us who produce and consume political news and analysis. Of course, bear in mind that this is not a certification of the Gelman/King theory. My specialties in political science are party and campaign organizations. It is not in public opinion or political psychology. I lack the credentials to certify this theory. My intuition is that they are pretty close to the truth - but I am not up on the latest scholarly research to tell you with certainty.

However, I do know enough about these subjects to know that popular accounts of voter psychology are seriously askew because they falsely assume both too much and too little of the average voter. Gelman and King summarize what they take to be the "journalistic model" of the political campaign. I think there is a lot of validity to the characterization:

Under this model, voters base their intended votes partly on fundamental variables, but considerably more on the day-to-day events of the presidential campaign. Voters are assumed to have very short memories, relying for their decisions disproportionately on the most recent campaign events and last piece of information they ran across. Candidates are thought to be able to easily "fool" voters by changing their policy stance during the campaign or causing the opposing candidate to say or do something foolish. [Snip]

Also according to the journalists' model, voters do not take their role in the process very seriously, have very little information of the campaign and the issues, and frequently do not vote on the basis of their own self-interest.

This, Gelman and King argue, is how journalists implicitly explain the day-to-day movement of the polls. I think that this is a valid explanation of the way journalists and pundits approach politics. And, like Gelman and King, I think it is completely wrong-headed.

I would note three salient features about this false view of the voters:

(1) It assumes too much of them. Implicit in this theory is the idea that average voters pay as much attention to politics as political junkies do. We saw a great example of this early this month when pundits and journalists started talking about how the last Democratic debate "changed" everything. Give me a break! 2.5 million people watched that debate. It didn't change a thing! To think that it did requires one to accept a false premise: that average voters follow politics like the junkies.

(2) It assumes too little of them. It assumes that they can be beguiled - that, for instance, they voted for Bush over Dukakis because the latter put a dumb-looking helmet on his head. Again - give me a break! There is an implicitly condescending attitude toward citizens in media theories about vote choice.

(3) It assumes that average voters are quite like journalists. They love the gamemanship of politics. The twists and turns of the daily political soap opera is what they find to be valuable. They care, for instance, that Hillary Clinton's latest wardrobe choice has a lower neckline. And they really care about the political strategy that influenced the decision.

If these three assumptions are false - then most of the media's horse race coverage is a skewed version of what is really going on. I have been arguing this point for quite a while on this blog. What the media assumes about the voters is simply not true - and therefore its analysis is based upon false premises, and thus is wrong-headed. To appreciate this - try the following experiment: take any standard issue pundit discussion that you see on the news, ask yourself whether they are falsely assuming these three things about the voters, and then ask yourself whether - if they stopped making these false assumptions - the analysis would be different.

What, then, drives general election poll numbers? Gelman and King argue that one of the things that is surely driving it is the partial information that has been collected to date. That is, voters are in the process of collecting the data they need to make an informed choice in November. When queried in, say, July - they have only acquired some of that data, which is what they use to make their selection.

I would argue that there is something else going on in these survey responses. Sitting in the background here is John Zaller, whose theory on public opinion merges very nicely with the theory on vote choices that Gelman and King proffer. His 1992 book, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinions, is required reading on the graduate level - and I'd wager that a lot of undergrads are forced (much to their chagrin!) to slog through what is a very technical read. Zaller argues that one of the reasons public opinion varies is that respondents "receive" informational tidbits here and there from the dialogue of political elites. If those tidbits are essentially compatible with preconceived notions, they are "accepted" and mentally stored by the respondent - to be "sampled" from when the pollster comes calling.

Receive, accept, sample: the "RAS" Model of public opinion. So, in an ironic twist - the analyzers of public opinion actually are the ones creating some of it. It is not that the last Democratic debate had an independent effect on the polls (if there indeed was an effect at all); the effect was caused by the fact that analysts predicted that it would have an effect. Mass opinion is influenced by the elite conversation - so when elites talk about how an event shaped public opinion, they are in fact helping to shape public opinion in that way. But this kind of self-fulfilling prophesying is just a "game" that is quite separate from the way in which vote choices are formed. Public opinion can be tweaked by the elite dialogue - but insofar as this dialogue is not providing information on critical variables, it is not influencing vote choices. It's just shifting the numbers temporarily.

Now, let me reiterate that my specialty is not political psychology or public opinion. I have read and have understood the "great works" in the field, but I am not up-to-date on the current literature. And, as I said, Gelman and King's model is meant for general presidential elections. Nevertheless, I think that this explanation is probably not too far afield from reality. At the very least, I am certain that there is a disconnection between the way average voters really are, and the way journalists and pundits see them - and that this disconnection induces many, many errors in the way the latter examine politics. These errors ultimately make the media dialogue irrelevant for what really matters: who wins the election.

Or, to quote Gelman and King:

"Journalists should realize that they can report the polls all they want, and continue to make incorrect causal inferences about them, but they are not helping to predict or even influence the election. Journalists play a critical role in enabling voters to make decisions based upon the equivalent of explicitly enlightened preferences. Unfortunately, by focusing more on the polls and meaningless campaign events, the media are spending more and more time on "news" that has less and less of an effect."

Posted by Jay Cost at 12:00 AM | Permalink

One of the most entertaining features of this cycle has been watching the candidates attack each other over campaign strategy. This is probably due in part to the fact that the media focuses upon the horse race relentlessly - and the campaigns believe that the appearance of strategic strength buys them a few points in the polls.

The most recent example of this came on Monday. Shortly after Giuliani's campaign advisers held a conference call explaining their primary strategy - the Romney campaign responded with a snarky retort.

Tom Bevan summarized the Giuliani campaign's strategy thusly:

The argument goes like this: Iowa, while important for momentum, will not award its 40 delegates until later in the cycle, tentatively in mid-June. In New Hampshire, where the Giuliani campaign says they feel good about their current 2nd place position, the Granite State's 12 delegates (half of the normal 24 thanks to the 50% penalty levied by the RNC last week for holding its contest earlier than February 5) will be allocated on a proportional basis.

In Michigan, where Giuliani also runs second in the polls, the date and method of selection for its 30 delegates (also a 50% reduction due to RNC penalty) remain up in the air until at least this Wednesday.

And in South Carolina, where Rudy is battling at the top of the polls with Romney and Thompson, the state's 24 delegates (post-RNC penalty) will be awarded on the basis of who wins at the Congressional district level with a bonus for winning the vote statewide. If the race remains tight in South Carolina, the delegates could be split among two, or perhaps more candidates.

Florida is often referred to as Rudy's "firewall," and the Giuliani campaign clearly sees this as the first state where their man can begin to break away. Even stripped of 50% of its delegates by the RNC along with the other states, Florida still has 57 delegates at stake which, like South Carolina, will be awarded on the basis of winning Congressional districts plus and for winning the statewide vote. But, their thinking goes, with more than a two-to-one advantage in the polls, Giuliani will be able to scoop up the lion's share of the delegates in the Sunshine State.

And then comes the Big Kuhuna on February 5th. The Giuliani campaign points out 1,038 delegates are at stake on Feb. 5h, nearly half of what is needed to secure the nomination, by far the single biggest day in the primary process.

Clearly, what underlies this strategy is the theory that Giuliani need not win the early contests to win the nomination. In particular, it looks as though Team Rudy is expecting to lose Iowa (at least on January 3), and it thinks it can finish second in New Hampshire and even in South Carolina. As the "firewall," Florida will not swing to Romney (or whoever wins these early states).

The Romney campaign thinks this is a bunch of hooey - and they responded on Monday with a memo that made its feelings clear. I have to admit, it reminded me a bit of Michael Scott's speaking strategy. "The most important part of a speech is the opening line. When time is not a factor I like to try out three or four different ones." And so Team Romney tries out two:

Mayor Giuliani's "momentum-proof" national polling lead, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny all walk into a bar...

You're right. None of them exist.

Why the "frontrunner" label and fifty cents won't even get you a cup of coffee nowadays:

Mayor Giuliani continues to hang his hat on national polls that show him garnering around 30 percent support, yet fully 100 percent of the electorate knows who he is. That is a very big gulf to have between the number of voters that know him and the number that actually support him.

National poll samples are largely a reflection of name awareness at this point in the campaign. The polls taken of voters in the early primary states reflect the opinions of voters who are the most engaged and most informed about the candidates. For Mayor Giuliani to have 100 percent of Iowa voters know who he is, yet only around 11 percent of those voters support him...that's a major problem for his candidacy.

So - Romney's campaign strategy is exactly the opposite of Giuliani's. Romney thinks that wins in Iowa, New Hampshire, and maybe a strong second (if not a first place finish) in South Carolina will swing the Republican electorate at large to the former Massachusetts governor.

Only one of these strategies can be correct. Either Romney's early wins will break through Giuliani's lead in the big states of February 5, or it will not.

So - will it?

Nobody knows.

This is my favorite part of political campaigns. They are often like JS Mill's "experiments in living." It's a matter of trial and error. Campaigns try new, untested ideas - and either those ideas succeed and they can be used again in the future, or they fail and everybody knows to avoid them next time around. We only find out after it is all over.

This is exactly where I think Mitt and Rudy are. The Republican campaign battle is unique in so many respects. We know all the reasons: no clear frontrunner, compressed primary schedule, bona fide celebrities in the race, a real ideological division within the party, and on and on and on. There is no historical precedent for us to draw on to see who has the strategic advantage. This is probably another reason the campaigns are so interested in communicating their strategies to the public - as well as attacking the strategies of others. There's a little self-consciousness on display here, dontcha think? [And, anyway, Team Rudy cannot be 100% certain about its theory of Florida and the later states. Otherwise, it would not be trying so hard in New Hampshire!]

I suppose that my only point on the viability of these strategies is that Romney's might be harder to execute. For Romney to develop the momentum that he needs to take Giuliani down on February 5 - he will have to have decisive wins in several of the early contests. This could be problematic. Huckabee is on the rise in Iowa - and a strong second might lessen the luster of Romney's win (and, of course, Romney would be in huge trouble if Huckabee bests him). Giuliani and McCain are currently both stuck in second place in New Hampshire, but both are within striking distance. Again, a Romney loss in New Hampshire (especially to Giuliani) would be a big problem for him. And South Carolina is a dead heat between Giuliani and Romney - with Thompson not far behind in third.

My feeling at this point is that this kind of mixed bag helps Giuliani. If we get to Florida with no candidate having any particular momentum over the rest - then there will not be any real pressure placed upon Giuliani's lead in Florida, and therefore on the later states. What Giuliani would need in that situation is simply to remain viable - to finish second in New Hampshire and/or South Carolina and be one of the feasible candidates. Generally, the poll positions in the early states reminds me a bit of the spate of endorsements we have seen - as various factions of the cultural conservative movement have been endorsing different candidates. The diversity benefits Giuliani - as it impedes cultural conservatives from coalescing around a single candidate in time for February 5.

But - the execution of a strategy is different from the viability of the strategy itself. If things play out as the Romney campaign would like - with wins in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina - we would head to Florida presumably with just Giuliani and Romney being viable. In that situation - the Giuliani campaign is betting that Florida is a firewall, the Romney campaign is betting that it is not. There is no way to know who is betting correctly. The only way to see which strategy is better is to wait and see!

Posted by Jay Cost at 12:00 AM | Permalink

Two items crossed my path yesterday that underlined the unpredictability of the Iowa Democratic caucus. The first comes from Ana Marie Cox of Time:

The Edwards campaign is alive and well in Iowa. Privately, rival campaigns concede that Edwards would probably win if the caucuses were held, say, tonight. Says one organizer, "His supporters are largely previous caucus-goers; you don't have to convince them very hard to go again. Everyone else is going to need all the convincing we can manage in the next month and a half."

The second comes from Richard Wolfe of Newsweek:

Is John Edwards in trouble in Iowa? Peg Dunbar thinks so. She signed up as a county chair for Edwards in the northeastern town of Waverly earlier this year, after backing the former senator's campaign in 2004. Now she has changed her mind and switched to Hillary Clinton. "John Edwards has been in Iowa for four and a half years and he's in third place," she says. "He should be in first place. Granted, it's very, very close. But I don't see him going anywhere and I don't go with a loser."

Dunbar is one of four county chairs--essential figures in any Iowa campaign--who have backed out since being identified as Edwards chairs in a June press release. Ernie Schiller of Lee County says he's now undecided, Frank Best of Louisa County has switched to Obama and Jody Ewing is supporting Bill Richardson.

So, what is going on in Iowa? How can rival campaigns see Edwards winning as of today, but Richard Wolfe see him losing?

I think the problem is that we do not have a reliable metric to measure the state of the race. Polls are of limited utility for gauging Iowa Democrats. This is a subject I discussed earlier in the year. There are two problems. The first is devising a sample of voters. Turnout in the Iowa caucuses is difficult to measure because it takes a good degree of devotion to participate. Chris Cillizza discussed this last week, writing:

Figuring out who is going to vote is always the most basic challenge for any pollster. Past results provide a guide but can never be taken as foolproof as turnout dynamics change from election to election.

This is especially true in Iowa's caucuses where an extremely small number of registered voters turn out to participate, voters can register the day of the caucus and turnout patterns fluctuate widely from caucus to caucus.

The challenge that anyone polling Iowa must face then is how to select an accurate sample of voters. Do you use the list of registered voters as your baseline? Or do you use the far narrower caucus list, which lists those that have participated in the most recent caucuses, to create your sample?

There is a second problem that is not discussed as much. A poll of Iowa Democratic caucus goers does not really mimic the process in which they participate. In a general election - you go into a voting booth, select your first choice, leave the booth, and drop the ballot in the box. And so, a poll that asks you for your first choice and then moves on to other questions does a reasonably good job of mimicking the act of voting.

However, this is not the experience of Democratic caucus goers. Iowa Democrats begin by standing in an area designated for their first choice candidate. Then, for thirty minutes, they either persuade or are persuaded by others to switch their choices. At the end of the half hour, electioneering is halted and caucus officials count the number of supporters that each candidate has. Candidates who have less than 15% or 25% are deemed not to be viable. And so, another thirty minutes for electioneering is once again granted. The supporters of nonviable candidates must find new candidates to support, team up with supporters of other nonviable candidates to make their candidate viable, or abstain.

As far as I know, there is no poll that fully reflects this process, which speaks to two very unique elements of voter psychology:

(a) How strong is your preference for your candidate? And we are not just talking about claims of strength, which some polls measure. We are talking about whether you can withstand being cajoled for half an hour. It is one thing to claim that your support is strong. It is another thing to endure thirty minutes of the Iowa caucus. This is also where organization is extremely important. To pry wavering voters from another candidate - a candidate needs organizers who are better at politicking than the other guy's organizers.

(b) If your candidate is not viable, who's your second choice among the viable candidates? For voters who support a viable candidate - second choices only become relevant if they change their primary candidate (either before or at the caucus). For voters who support nonviable candidates, second choices are quite important. Those whose candidates are deemed nonviable might add up to a substantive number. In the University of Iowa Hawkeye Poll taken last month - about 16% of Democratic respondents claimed support for a candidate who would be deemed nonviable at a caucus meeting that mimicked the statewide numbers. What is tricky here is that most polls I have seen do not tell us who the supporters of nonviable candidates support secondarily. Zogby does ask for the second choices of respondents supporting nonviable candidates - but, importantly, we are dealing with a very small subsample of such voters. The supporters of nonviable candidates would only number about 75 people per sample. This makes it very hard to estimate with any statistical confidence whether any candidate is receiving a boost because of them. [Also, Zogby might run afoul of the ecological fallacy. Just because Richardson, for instance, does not reach 15% on a statewide level does not mean that all of his supporters have to be reallocated. He could be above 15% in a given precinct - and therefore those supporters would not have to be reallocated.]

Iowa is one of the reasons I was arguing that Hillary Clinton is not inevitable (before it was popular to do so!). Polling methods do such a poor job of mimicking the caucus process that I think we have to give a wide berth to each candidate's number. The RCP Average, as of today, has Clinton at 30%, Obama at 23.6%, and Edwards at 19.6%. But the bias that the caucus system might induce in the polling is such that I do not think any statements can be made about who is actually in the lead. At best, they just give us some basic purchase on who might win.

Note that this is not a matter of the margin of error. Adding +/-3% to each candidate's total is not necessarily going to solve this problem. The margin of error is a matter of efficiency. What we are discussing here is bias, or the failure of our polling data to approach the level of support that a candidate actually enjoys. Assume no margin of error, and we might still have to "adjust" the poll results by some unknown factor. That last phrase is the trickiest part. Bias is very difficult to measure beforehand. The unknown factor may be very large. It may be zero. We just do not know.

The word "bias" actually has a technical connotation that I am relying on here. It implies that the polls are systematically overestimating or underestimating a candidate's level of support. In such a situation, it is not that our polling data reflects the random variation we see any time we try to measure a large population via a small sample. That's what the margin of error accounts for. That is a matter of efficiency, not bias. Those sorts of variations are expected to cancel each other out - and therefore, on average, our samples will correctly measure the population. With bias, the variations do not cancel each other out. Instead, they reinforce one another - and so, on average, we are left with a difference between our sample and the population. Thus, instead of being inefficient - we are just plain wrong.

Each of the factors I mentioned above could bias the polls.

First, it might be the case that the respondents who will go to the caucus have systematically different preferences than the respondents who will not go to the caucus but who are not filtered out by the pollsters' likely voter screening processes. On the flip side, it might be the case that the voters who are being filtered out by the pollsters' screening process are indeed going to attend the caucus, and their preferences diverge systematically from the voters not filtered out. Either scenario is intuitively plausible - as it is plausible that there is a correlation between candidate support and the enthusiasm measured by likely voter screens. Cox's essay was hinting at the former scenario: Edwards' supporters are more certain to go to the caucus. Therefore, the actual set of caucus goers are more pro-Edwards than the polls indicate. If this were the case, the polls would systematically underestimate the strength of Edwards' support.

Second, it might be the case that there are systematic differences in strength of support per candidate - and therefore systematic differences in levels of support before and after the time allotted for politicking. For instance, Obama's supporters are younger than the average caucus goer. And younger supporters may be more susceptible to persuasion at the caucus. If this is the case, then the polls are systematically overestimating Obama's level of support because they fail to mimic the process those supporters will undergo on caucus night. On the flip side, perhaps Obama's relatively strong organization means that it is better able to peel away supporters of other candidates, even the viable ones. In this case, the polls would systematically underestimate Obama's level of support.

Third, it might be the case that there is a systematic difference between the first choices of all and the second choices of those primarily supporting nonviable candidates. Perhaps Biden's supporters tend to support Obama secondarily at a rate that is greater than the general population's level of primary support. If 24% of the whole public supports Obama first, maybe 40% of Biden supporters support Obama second. As Biden is deemed nonviable - those supporters have to pick another candidate. The former Biden supporters go more to Obama than the general public did (40% instead of 24%) - and thus Obama's position relative to Clinton and Edwards will be systematically better than what the polls are telling us.

Will any of these biases come about? Not necessarily. That is the troublesome feature of bias. We have to know the population values before we can know whether a polling sample is biased. We do know that there are differences between the ways the polls are conducted and the way the Iowa caucus is conducted. Maybe those differences systematically favor one candidate over another. Maybe not. We will not know until after the caucus.

And so, we are left with what I think is a relatively unpredictable event. We can be sure that Clinton, Obama, or Edwards will win the Iowa caucus. And maybe if the polls come to show a large and consistent break toward one candidate or the other - we might be able to say more than this. But, at this point, with the differences between these three candidates in the RCP average being only about 10%, I do not think we can say more than the victor in Iowa will be one of these three.

Posted by Jay Cost at 12:00 AM | Permalink

I have spent a good deal of time on this blog discussing Mitt Romney's prospective "Mormon Speech." As we all read over the weekend - apparently, the speech is not in the works at the moment:

HOLDERNESS, N.H. (AP) -- Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney said Saturday his political advisers have warned him against giving a speech explaining his Mormon faith.

During a house party overlooking Squam Lake, Romney was asked by voters if he would give a speech outlining his religious beliefs and how those beliefs might impact his administration, much like then-Sen. John F. Kennedy did as he sought to explain his Catholic faith during the 1960 election.

"I'm happy to answer any questions people have about my faith and do so pretty regularly," the former Massachusetts governor said. "Is there going to be a special speech? Perhaps, at some point. I sort of like the idea myself. The political advisers tell me no, no, no -- it's not a good idea. It draws too much attention to that issue alone."

I would note first off that this comment does not square with what Bob Novak reported in October. This is what Novak had to say:

Although disagreement remains within the Romney camp, the consensus is that he must address the Mormon question with a speech deploring bias. According to campaign sources, a speech has been written, though 90 percent of it could still be changed. It is not yet determined exactly what he will say or at what point he will deliver a speech that could determine the political outcome of 2008.

So - two questions are on my mind.

(1) Why not give the speech?

The basic maxim of a political campaign is similar to the maxim of the private enterprise: increase one's vote share. If Romney is not going to give such a speech - we can infer that his advisers believe that th