There has been a lot of hand wringing, and a few I told you so's about Obama's latest poll numbers and the apparent tightening of the race. Everybody is wondering why, in what would appear to be a very favorable year for the Democrats is it tight at all. Bush's favorably ratings are at around 30%, an unpopular war, high oil prices and a rotten economy. I mean this should be a cake walk, right?
Well maybe not. Let's face it, the Republican's may have lucked into the the best candidate to go up against us. McCain's got a 20 year brand as a "maverick" some one who goes against the grain of the the standard Republican. I'm not speaking to the truth of this brand, but the perception and there is a big difference between reality and perception. Perception tends to win in the short term until folks start paying attention. And right now I don't think the majority of the electorate is paying attention.
Next are we really expecting to much. Gallup has an interesting read on this:
One of the more puzzling questions in election polling this year is why isn't Barack Obama doing better in the polls? In a year when outgoing president George W. Bush has an approval rating around 30%, when less than 20% of Americans are satisfied with conditions in the United States, when Democrats have had the largest advantages in party ID they have enjoyed in recent memory, and when Americans have a much more positive view of the Democratic Party than of the Republican Party, Democrat Obama has held only a modest lead over Republican John McCain, averaging just 3 points among registered voters since early June.It's possible that it's not Obama's performance in the polls that is lacking, but that the expectations for how he should be doing are too high. The high expectations for Obama are based largely on an assessment that the political environment is very favorable for the Democrats, but maybe that will not be as big a factor in this election as in other elections.
My expectation going into the year was that Democrats seemed like a safe bet to win the election, and probably by a comfortable margin in the popular vote given the political environment. While I still believe the Democrats are the favorites, I'm not convinced that Obama will win by a very big popular vote margin if he does in fact prevail. I began to have some doubts about that after seeing a presentation by a former professor of mine, Helmut Norpoth of Stony Brook University. He presented his simple election forecasting model at the American Association for Public Opinion Research meetings this spring, and predicted a close-as-can-be election between Obama and McCain, based in part on the New Hampshire primary results and in part on the party holding the White House going into the election.Part of the explanation he gave is that non-incumbent elections tend to be very close. That made me question whether the political environment applies to non-incumbent election years, and if it does, does it apply as strongly? What do the data suggest?
Whereas a political climate explanation seems to work so well in incumbent presidential elections and midterm elections, on the surface it doesn't seem to explain the outcomes of non-incumbent elections that well, in terms of either the margin or the winner.
Read entire piece here: http://www.gallup.com/poll/109663/ReAsse ssing-Obamas-UnderPerformance-Polls.aspx
It an interesting analysis and worth the quick read. I always believed, no matter who the nominee was, it was going to tighter than the CW thought.
If we are going to win this time we are going to have to work for it! It just isn't a given.
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