I’m fascinated by the story of McCain saying he’s not attending the debate, because it’s such an obvious losing position for McCain to take. Either he doesn’t show up, in which case Obama will have an exceptionally well-publicized opportunity to look Serious taking questions from reporters or the public; or McCain shows up, in which case, McCain looks like he and Obama played “chicken” and McCain flinched first.
Some folks are saying McCain’s idea was to look presidential and non-partisan, but that’s too transparent a ploy to fool anyone but dedicated McCainiacs. Plus, the idea that Presidential candidates shouldn’t be expected to handle public speaking during a crisis doesn’t hold much water. (Diagram from indexed and via Matt.)
Are McCain’s advisors so deep in the game that they didn’t realize what a bad idea this was? Or did they realize that it was a bad idea, but couldn’t dissuade McCain?
It’s enough to make me speculate that McCain is having severe butterflies in his stomach about his debate performance — enough to be looking for an “out.” (Of course, it’s common for nervous debaters to shine once the debate begins, so even if that’s true I don’t take much comfort from it.)
I’m a fan of the presidential debates — politics is the closest our country ever comes to a national sport I have any interest in — but I’m not convinced they matter. At this late point in the process, there are only two kinds of voters: High-information voters, who already know who they’re going to vote for, and low-information voters, who still haven’t been decided, but won’t watch the debates, because if they were the sort of people who watched debates then they wouldn’t be low-information voters and they’d already know who they’re going to vote for.
So why the debates? Well, for me, it’s the entertainment value. But from the candidates’ perspective, I think they’re just hoping to get the media to repeat (over and over and over) a sound bite or narrative that makes them look good, or for their opponent to have a genuinely horribly and telegenic gaffe. If the media repeats it 50,000 times, then maybe enough of those low-information voters will hear about it so it’ll sway a tiny percent of votes.
So if the debates matter, it’s only because they can have a third-hand effect — the debates effect the media, and the media, maybe, effects low-information swing voters. But according to political scientists, even that is unlikely. Usually debates don’t have any detectable effect on election outcomes.
So maybe McCain and his campaign people aren’t making a mistake; maybe they understand, correctly, that there are weeks of new flash in the pan news stories to come before the election, and it really won’t matter if McCain attends this debate or not.
In a two-party system, it’s probably inevitable that elections are decided by low-information swing voters, because both parties have an incentive to move as far to the middle as they can without losing too much of their base, leading them to split the high-information partisans more or less evenly. So it’s the small minority of low-information voters who end up holding the deciding vote. ((There are probably some people out there who are high-information non-partisans, or who are high-information but vote for third party candidates, but I think they’re a small enough minority not to matter.))
I have a fantasy of living in a society in which voters decide who to vote based on serious policy and moral debates. That’s why I like watching the debates, and that’s why I blog. But make no mistake, it’s a fantasy. Who wins the election does matter for substantial policy reasons; but those substantial policy questions don’t have any causal effect on who wins the election.
Does anyone know if low-information voters decide the elections in countries with multiple-party systems?
I agree, they don’t matter. Remember in ’04 when Bush came off so horrible in the debates, stuttering, defensive and completely uninformed? I remember telling my dad that Bush’s campaign was “circling the bowl”. In the second debate Kerry wiped the floor with him again, yet it still didn’t matter. Bush’s supporters said, “well I am not interested in a president who is a good debater” and “I don’t care if he is a good speaker or not” and my very favorite, “well, nobody’s perfect”. Bush won the election again, even after showing himself to be an uninformed ass. I think McCain can afford to be a no-show because his base will still vote for him. I think McCain has the Baby Boomer vote pretty much tied up and they are one of the biggest populations in the country right now. Helped by Palin, he has the christian vote as well.
I was 8 when Kennedy and Nixon debated. I was a precocious little shit, though, and actually knew what was going on. Without those debates, Nixon might well have won the Presidency in 1960. Debates matter.
But what I think you’re missing here is that different people get their information in different ways. Some people (like me) will read reams of the written word but never pay attention to the Sunday morning pundit shows (because I’m in church, for one) or listen to the various people like Rush and his ilk that you rail about here. Others won’t read a word in print but will follow blogs. And others won’t read at all but will watch the debates. Some people try to be as rational as possible; others size someone up by how he or she performs in a situation such as a debate. Or interviews, or press conferences.
Just because people use different information or get it through different channels than you do doesn’t make them low-information voters.
Mind you, I won’t say that such a classification of voter doesn’t exist – I was just in a discussion on a Scouting list on the matter. It grew out of a discussion of that business with the Scouter and Scouts at McCain’s VP announcement and was thread-jacked into discussions of politics with or in front of Scouts. The general idea is that it’s inappropriate. But it’s natural for kids to ask leaders what they think at a time such as this. So, how do I handle it?
When the kids try to engage me, I stay away from “Mr. F thinks you should vote for …”. We talk about the obligations of a citizen and voter, and how I think that one obligation that is under-emphasized is that a voter has a duty to stay informed, and that this takes some techniques and some effort to sort out the information from the spin. You need to multi-scource your information to cancel out the spin of one source. You need to get your information from other than 30-second sound bites (that are always slanted) and entertainers (musicians, comedians and athletes), like newspapers and news shows. And you need to question everything you hear and consider what you’re NOT hearing as well as what you are. It’s their duty to not be a low-information voter.
I think this is about the VP debates. I think this is a ploy to cancel the VP debate and McCain will try to substitute a Presidential candidate debate instead at that place and time, for the one he “missed”. Then when it comes to rescheduling the VP debate suddenly Palin’s calendar will be full and she just can’t fit it in. Because you are right, usually they don’t matter, but the country doesn’t know much about Palin and they will be watching. I don’t think McCain wants US voters to find out he picked a completely empty shell for VP, then that debate will matter. Between his age and his cancer history it is particularly important to the US voter that his VP is prepared to take over if he becomes incapacitated or dies.
Hey, Michelle, I’m a boomer, probably closer to McCain’s age than yours. I’m also a left-of-liberal feminist whose only reservations about Obama are that he may not be as progressive as I’d like – but I wouldn’t vote for McCain-Palin even if by some miracle either of them suddenly started talking sense. I’m out there every weekend in my right-leaning Oregon neighborhood, knocking on doors for Obama along with volunteers young enough to be my grandchildren – and loving their energy, commitment and enthusiasm.
Not everyone grows more conservative with age.
To answer your question, up here in “sad-democracy-north” (i.e. Canada) yes, alas, disinformation and cosmetic BS (or, as low-information voters know these things: the news) play about as big a role as they apparently do down south. About the only benefit to our multiple-party system is that when a party says or does something outrageously false or offensive, a news broadcast will have talking heads from at least THREE other parties to shake their heads and uselessly stammer that it’s obviously a lie. As a consequence, maybe our political parties are 5-25% less willing to go completely batshit out-of-bounds
Heck, you could have a hundred parties. As long as one of them is willing to behave like children, and there’re ratings and profit driven media to broadcast the name calling, this is what you’re gonna get.
When I think about these debates you’re gonna have, all I do is get queasy. The way minds are set these days, Senator Obama can’t hope to garner more than handful of swing voters. All he can do is slip up and change the news cycle (AND his numbers for the worse). And I really think you guys need to vote out the current crop of Republicans, until they learn how to behave and/or rediscover true conservative principles again.
McCain will win come November, says this Canuck. When I see that Obama is only up by a handful of points against an opposing ticket this actively, demonstrably embarrassing, I can only think there’s something rotten going on underneath the numbers.
There’s a columnist in the Chicago Tribune who thinks that if Obama isn’t at least 6 points up by election day he’ll lose. The concept is that there are people who think that telling a pollster that they’re not voting for Obama will make them look like bigots, so they say the’re voting for Obama but actually vote for McCain.
The thing is, though, that national numbers are useless. It makes no difference whether Obama wins 65% or 80% of Californians, he gets no more electoral votes for them. Same for McCain in Texas. What matters is 1) undecided voters in 2) those states where the vote projects out close to 50-50; the “swing states”. Off the top of my head I think there’s supposed to be about 8 of them. That’s a small number of people in a big country. Poll them and you have a handle on the current state of the election.
Well, the thing about the 1960 election was that it was so damn close that a couple of guys who farted in the lineup in Illinois and Texas probably swung the election. So you could just as feasibly blame baked beans as the debate.
Personally, I think a gaffe during a debate can cost you – the Gore sigh, Bush I glancing at his watch – if it fits in with an existing negative caricature of you. I’m not entirely sure a standout debate performance can produce anything more than a temporary bounce, which is what we saw in 2004. (About Reagan/Carter 1980 – that was a unique historical circumstance as there was one debate between the two of them and it took place just days before the election. So perhaps part of the election reflected the bounce.)
And sincere kudos to you for not nudging partisan opinions onto your Scouts.
T12P, Canada should really be considered as having three major political parties, not four. I don’t think regional parties should qualify, even if there was that embarrassing time (for the Progressive Conservatives) when the Bloc formed the official opposition. And despite the similarities, plus the fact that I don’t like the parliamentary system, I do prefer Canadian politics. There were no orange alerts or triple amputee veterans-cum-traitors to the Republic back home; things seem more laid back.
I’m not really supporting either candidate but if Obama does win, I hope he does something with the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division which wasn’t great during Clinton (and having been interviewed by DOJ including this division and U.S. attorneys on an investigation into patterns and practices of an agency, that provided some clue)
And either beef up or dismantle the CRS division b/c I’ve been on the phone with them all morning and the only thing I learned is that the last three regional directors I know all retired (gee, I wonder why) and there’s hardly anyone there except a gate keeper who keeps asking me what agency I’m from.
And I’m on hold…again hence the ability to multi-task and write this comment. :-)
Not that this won’t be a debate question but it really should be. There’s a lot of questions which the debates (which is one way the public has to access the candidates positions on a handful of issues) which can’t and won’t be asked which is another reason that I don’t think they reach much above the entertainment issue.
You’re often left thinking afterward after the glitz and circumstance has faded, what was it exactly that they were talking about?
For people who split on the main issues between the two candidates (e.g., pro-life but anti-war, anti-union but pro-welfare) the debates serve an important function of seeing these positions debated, seeing how close or far from one’s own position on each one the candidates are, and seeing how the candidates perform under pressure. If you are a highly informed split-position voter, your decision often will come down to calculations about character, leadership, etc. I don’t think this is illegitimate or unimportant.
What worries me about the polls as an accurate predictor for Election Day, aside from the Bradley Effect, is that I think they overestimate the number of conservatives who say they aren’t voting for either candidate because they’re pissed at McCain, but who come Election Day will be so freaked out by the thought of President Obama that they’ll go pull the lever for McCain even if makes them despise themselves at 3am that night. I foresee plenty of ads from the McCain campaign or its allies close to Election Day that will be designed to push those folks’ buttons: “Are you OK with Barack Obama’s taking your guns? Are you OK with Barack Obama’s becoming our next president? Don’t just sit at home — do something about it and VOTE!”
RonF, PG – the smart people at 538 had a good look for a Bradley Effect in the Democratic primaries, and didn’t find one as such. See here. (It’s a great site, too, though those pie charts may destroy my soul).
What he’s talking about is the Bradley Effect, and he’s wrong.
(1) First off, the Bradley Effect no longer appears to be there. They famously affected the Bradley, Wilder, and Dinkins campaigns of the 80’s and early 90’s, but over the past decade it has fizzled out. Most notably, the polls during the elections of people like Deval Patrick and Harold Ford turned out to be very accurate, and the latter was the most racially charged race in recent memory. (“Call me”, ring a bell?) That I deeply hate Harold Ford has no bearing on this matter.
Source: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/08/persistent-myth-of-bradley-effect.html
[EDIT: D’ohh! X-posted with Thene.]
(2) Even in its heyday, the Bradley Effect never changed the outcome of elections, only the margin of victory – it seems to exclusively work in the form of overwhelmingly favoured Black candidates winning by considerably narrower margins than last minute polls suggest.
(3) His prescription of the Effect is out of sync even with other pro-McCain partisans who are proposing the issue. It’s not a question of people lying to pollsters about voting for Obama, but rather lying to pollsters about being undecided when they really plan on voting for McCain. I don’t consider this a Bradley Effect because I’m unconvinced that this explicitly has to do with race (the same thing happened to John Kerry), but it is potentially a big deal, which I’ll get into later.
(4) The record from the 2008 Democratic primaries was at best mixed. The strongest effect was Obama overperformance in the South, with his margins in Carolinas, Georgia, and every Deep South state being much, much greater than polls suggested. Famously, Obama did best in states that either had a large amount of AA voters or none at all. Middling states in the middle were where he tended to underperform a bit, and Republicans can take heart because this includes a lot of purple midwestern/rust belt states.
Chuck Todd has claimed that about 70% of undecided will break for McCain, and that the magic number for Obama is 48%, and I think that’s right. If Obama’s raw support is below 48% in the country or in any individual state come the day before election, I’d favour him to lose that race, unless McCain’s own level of support is obscenely low. (Say 47-40.)
What Obama has going for him right now though are favourable state polling numbers, which are good even after adjusting for his national lead. For instance, a statistical mode has recently emerged placing Iowa and New Mexico at about 10 points in Obama’s favour, and Michigan increasingly looks out of reach for McCain, even if some momentum were to shift back in his favour. (A Detroit Free Press poll released today has Obama up 13 points in Michigan. Recently, Rasmussen has had him up 7, Marist has him up 9, and National Journal has him up 8.) McCain can still win if Obama essentially sews up the Gore 2000 states without much effort, but he’d have to play one of the most epic and grandest electoral defenses in history. A dramatic choir would have be hired to sing along to FNC’s election night projections. Of course, a lot can change in a month’s time (anyone remember what polls looked like on August 26? I neither remember nor care), but the onus is on McCain to disrupt a steady state from naturally forming, which may end up hurting him further. I’m convinced his debate gambit was a high risk, high reward gambit to try and upset the equilibrium, but like an indebted gambler, he may end up further and further behind if he doesn’t catch a stroke of luck.
And yes, the Democratic Primary =/= the GE. But, it was unprecedented in the amount of media saturation, national attention, and turnout. It’s not a perfect model but it is a data point, and the most relevant one at that. I guess you could argue that the Republican Party has more closeted racists ;) and I’d agree with you, but the discrepancy is probably pretty small.
My overall point is that I don’t think it’s valid to assume that only high-information voters watch debates.
Fair enough – especially given what a spectacle McCain has built it up to be.
I also meant to ad re. your#2: it’s fairly well-established that Kennedy didn’t beat Nixon in 1960, so perhaps the role of the debates that year is moot?
Man, I was really hoping McCain would keep up his bailout gambit and send Palin to debate Obama. Now, that would be real theatre and frankly, while everyone making fun of Mccain for throwing these wild passes, they’re forgetting he’s playing a real bad card and needs to take gambles. Obama’s pulling away, he’s got to do something. But is he out of tricks now? Only thing left to save him is an OBL capture it appears, or some monumental Bradley affect, though that seems unlikely.
I thought one of the reasons he chose Plain was because, at least on the surface, her weaknesses appear eerily similar to Obama’s: she lacks experience, not foreign policy cred, is a celebrity, is too good looking, her appeal is identity, belongs to a radical church, has radical affiliations, is a good orator but is there substance, etc. So by criticizing her for this dems unwittingly bring down Obama. Trade your #2 for bringing down the other teams #1.
But Palin, after a spectacular start, appears to have peaked and maybe on the verge of imploding, if recent interviews are any indication. Everyone’s eagerly awaiting a train wreck in her debate with Biden, so you might as well get it over with and trow her in there with Obama, and hope for the best.
One more Hail Mary, John?
By no means is it well-established that Nixon beat Kennedy in 1960. You are probably referring to the allegations of vote fraud in Illinois and Texas. But winning Illinois alone would not have given Nixon the election, and from what I read vote fraud in Texas is not at all generally considered to have been sufficient to have denied Nixon the state.
I’m sure you can cite sources that hold other opinions (at least about Texas). But my point is that there are groups of historians on both sides of the debate. There is no consensus that would support that it’s “well established” that Nixon beat Kennedy.
Eh, I’m just going to hope that the young voters, who get under-counted by the failure to poll folks who have only cell phones and no landlines, will actually get to the polls this year for Obama.
The signs of desperation in Missouri, which normally goes red but is looking tossup this year, have peaked with the governor declaring that because Obama’s “truth squad” (supporters who volunteer to counter lies about him with the truth) includes 2 prosecutors, a sheriff and Senator McCaskill, they are “silenc[ing] political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment” and “Enlisting Missouri law enforcement to intimidate people and kill free debate.”
Heck, I work as a plaintiff’s attorney (awaiting bar admission) — are my efforts to spread truth about Obama tantamount to filing frivolous defamation suits? or are lawyers and public officials also allowed to support their preferred candidates through public speech?
Oh, one more interesting aspect about McCain supporters’ whining about the Obama campaign’s efforts to ensure that criticism of the candidate is accurate and in compliance of election law. They’ve complained about the Obama campaign’s letter to the FEC questioning whether the American Issues Project is compliant with its 501(c)(4) status, saying that Obama is just trying to avoid their criticism.
In a not-so-odd coincidence, in the 2000 Republican primary, McCain complained bitterly about the ads from “Republicans for Clean Air,” calling on the FEC and FCC to investigate the group. McCain’s basic problem is that he is stuck with the crew that he used to be fighting — the Karl Rove types who gave him such a hard time in 2000. They didn’t care about legal compliance or accuracy then, and they don’t care about it 8 years later. But now they’re his buddies, at least in a “the enemy of my enemy” way.