I offered my preliminary reflections on the 2012 presidential exit polls and promised more to come. I’m a man of my word.
Thus far, I’ve argued that, in effect, the Obama campaign executed a plan based on a theory of electoral behavior (ideology and identity) that was superior to the understanding that guided the Romney campaign (a referendum on an incumbent in tough times). Not every candidate could have pulled off what Barack Obama did. If, for example, you consider the mix of personal attributes on which he was considered favorably–more favorably than Romney–they all contributed to the successful execution, especially, of his identity politics appeal.
To take just one instance, voters were asked which one of four candidate attributes was most important for their decision–”shares my values,” “strong leader,” “has a vision for the future,” and “cares about people like me.” Romney led Obama by varying margins on the first three, but Obama blew him away (81 percent to 18 percent) on the fourth, regarded as most important by 21 percent of the respondents. His margin there far overshadows Romney’s combined margins on the other three qualities. This is compassionate identification very well executed. I have to confess to having been impressed by Romney’s confidence and competence and to having been unimpressed by Obama’s capacity or willingness to feel my pain, but having lived through the Clinton Administration, I shouldn’t have assumed that enough people shared my judgment.
Similarly, by a 53-43 margin, respondents said that Obama was more in touch than Romney with people like themselves.
Now, I think that Bill Clinton is a much better practitioner of this form of politics than Obama is, and I don’t think doing so would at all come naturally to Romney. In other words, I don’t think that the “identity” part of the ideology/identity strategy can work for just any candidate. Some might have to rely more heavily on the transactional “I’ve got a program for you” version, as (in part) Obama did and as no consistently conservative politician could. I have to confess that I’m not fond of the “compassionate” dimension of representation, at least in its more Rousseauean versions. But someone who genuinely likes and connects with people–Reagan on an average day and George W. Bush on a good day–could connect with voters without making them feel that they could get anything they wanted from them. It’s perhaps no accident that Bush did as well as he did with Hispanic voters in Texas and nationally.
I could conclude this post now by asserting that, with these considerations in mind, Romney ran the campaign he could run and Obama ran the campaign he had to run.
But that would be to do an injustice to Romney because it would imply that, in effect, the times called for a man more like Obama than like him. So I’ll conclude on a different note. Those of us who were following the race closely saw a sea change in the campaign after the first debate, when Romney took a pretty significant lead and held it for most of October. But Sandy seems to have changed all that in a pretty decisive way; that much was evident in almost all the post-storm polling, which showed the race tightening.
The exit polls confirm that impression: voters who decided late broke for Obama and those who say they decided in October (which seemed–before Sandy–to be Romney’s best month of the campaign) narrowly favored the incumbent. Then you have to consider this: 42 percent of the respondents said that Obama’s response to Sandy was an important factor in their vote and another 22 percent said it was a minor factor. All told, 64 percent say it affected their vote, and 62 percent of them went for Obama. He showed up and felt our pain (which, by the way, George W. Bush did compellingly at Ground Zero). An “act of God” permitted Obama, at the last memorable moment of the campaign, to showcase what, in the eyes of many voters, is his most attractive quality
Had that not happened, I might now be writing about how Romney’s brilliantly executed “referendum” strategy made Obama a one-term president. Benghazi, where Obama spectacularly failed to feel the pain of the four men who died and their families might have gotten more traction sooner (though the lax coverage here of the improvidence about security, the fecklessness of the response, and the willful misrepresentation of what occurred has to be laid at the feet of a complacent and partisan press). And the childishness and churlishness of those weeks of the Obama campaign might have remained with more of the voters.
But there’s a blessing here. Had there been no hurricane and had Romney coasted to a narrow victory, we might have been less alert to the changing character of our political challenge than we now are and less inclined to meet it squarely. Those of us on the wrong side of yesterday’s decision have some time on our hands. Let’s use it wisely.
November 8th, 2012 | 9:52 am
Those of us who were following the race closely saw a sea change in the campaign after the first debate, when Romney took a pretty significant lead and held it for most of October. But Sandy seems to have changed all that in a pretty decisive way; that much was evident in almost all the post-storm polling, which showed the race tightening.
The problem with this assessment is that it doesn’t correspond to the facts. If you take a look at Nate Silver’s 538 Blog, you’ll see that Obama was never behind either in the popular vote or the Electoral College. It was the campaign message and the Democratic organization—not Hurricane Sandy—that won Obama the election.
November 8th, 2012 | 10:21 am
The reality distortion field is still in full effect. It is remarkable that given the overwhelming demographic and philosophical shifts of the country, stalwarts like Dr. K (one of my favorite professors at Oglethorpe) are still focused on arguing process. It wasn’t about Sandy. It wasn’t about stylistic differences between the candidates. The world has changed in a real and fundamental way and isn’t going back. So maybe lay off the Leo Strauss and come join the 21st century.
November 8th, 2012 | 10:36 am
I think this is exactly right. Obama won the “he cares about people like me” vote handily, and we are becoming a “I want a President who cares about me” country. Obama cared for gays by reversing himself on gay marriage. He cared for single women by pushing the HHS contraception rules. He cared for the unions by buying out GM under terms that saved union jobs, and by promising to hire 100,000 teachers. He cared for Latinos by supporting the Dream Act and creating an order that prohibits the deportation of children who are here illegally.
By dividing the electorate into interest groups and finding ways to buy their votes through acts that appeared to demonstrate compassion, he made himself seem compassionate and caring in the eyes of the electorate. It was shrewd, it was smart, and it won him the election.
November 8th, 2012 | 10:41 am
I agree with both David and Jeff that there is still a certain resistance to facing facts in this post. And if I could add to that, I’d turn the claims about “identity politics” around here and suggest it’s time to ask what kind of a candidate so badly fails to appeal to anyone but older white men? There’s some identity politics at work there too.
November 8th, 2012 | 11:15 am
Jeff and Tristian,
Please read the first post I wrote, to which I link in this one. The exit polling data do seem to indicate a shift in the demographic composition of the electorate, though I think that Sean Trende’s analysis ought to give us some cause for pause.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/11/08/the_case_of_the_missing_white_voters_116106.html
Also, if you read the exit polls carefully, you’ll notice something else: in addition to winning votes from people like me (middle-aged white men), Romney got a majority of the votes of white women and white young people. Obama’s overall lead among young people and women says more about the racial and ethnic composition of those slices of the population than it says simply about young people or women.
I’m not reluctant to face facts; rather I’m looking carefully at the facts I currently have available. Even if, as Trende argues, the larger non-white share of this electorate is largely the result of white non-voting, that doesn’t mean that–long term–it makes sense for Republicans and conservatives to write off a portion of the electorate that amounts to at least a quarter and will likely be larger in the future. It also doesn’t mean that they should engage in a bidding war for their loyalties with Democrats. it does mean that they have work to do, work that will be made harder by an opposition that controls the White House and the Senate and a media that is only too willing to give the current occupant of the Oval Office a free pass (vide: Benghazi).
November 8th, 2012 | 1:04 pm
A fellow churchgoer in Texas once commented she was a liberal Democrat but that Republicans had been the ones to offer her state jobs.
George W. Bush’s White House was certainly filled with very talented women and persons of color.
The Republicans need to do a better job nationally of putting forward prominent women and persons of color. Would it have helped Romney to have Condoleezza Rice or Marco Rubio as a VP candidate?
November 8th, 2012 | 2:22 pm
“But there’s a blessing here. Had there been no hurricane and had Romney coasted to a narrow victory, we might have been less alert to the changing character of our political challenge than we now are and less inclined to meet it squarely.”
I am sure the people of the northeast feel doubly blessed to have received the storm and also been given the tremendous opportunity to be a wake up call for the Republican Party.
November 8th, 2012 | 3:46 pm
“I am sure the people of the northeast feel doubly blessed to have received the storm and also been given the tremendous opportunity to be a wake up call for the Republican Party.”
Unfortunately I think we all are going to have a “wake up call” in the future due to irresponsible debt, divisive identity politics and the success of demonization campaigning that this President has raised to a new level.
November 8th, 2012 | 4:43 pm
Most of the commenters are focusing on the exit poll and missing the second half of the equation, what Sherlock Holmes called the dog that didn’t bark — in this case the fact that Romney got @57 million votes while John McCain got @60 million in 2008. In other words, between 2.5 and 3 million McCain voters didn’t show up. Why not? Remember, Obama used the 2004 Bush playbook — maximize your base vote while minimizing the opposition’s vote by making the other candidate seem unacceptable.
Mr. Knippenberg recommended that you read Sean Trende’s Real Clear Politics. Let me summarize his theory. Trende focused on Ohio and compared 2008 turnout vs. 2012 turnout county by county. He found that the GOP counties that are rural and less economically prospering actually turned out less than in 2008 vs. the more affluent GOP counties in which turnout soared. His conclusion is that Obama’s attempts to make Romney appear out of touch, patrician, and concerned only for the rich paid off. Those voters would not vote for Obama, but were convinced to sit home rather than voting for Romney.
In 2004, the GOP took Bush’s win as evidence of a paradigm shift, that the country’s electorate had been realigned. Sound familiar? How long did that realignment last? Not even to the next midterm election in 2006. Obama’s tactics were focused on Mitt Romney, not the GOP as a whole.
I agree with Mr. Knippenberg that the GOP has some strategic decisions to make regarding both policy and messaging. I recommend that you read Yuval Levin’s excellent suggestions as to how the GOP can use conservative principles to make policy proposals that could make it more palatable to middle class and female voters. And while there are problems within the Latino community that are inhibiting it’s upward mobility and making it more dependent on government support, they are not (yet) intractable. However, Latino’s will not even listen to GOP ideas because our rhetoric makes them believe that we feel they don’t belong here. We MUST change our tone regarding Latinos AND propose policies that can solve the illegal immigration problem and still uphold the rule of law and promote assimilation.
November 8th, 2012 | 7:20 pm
Romney’s advantage among white men is disproportionately weighted towards men in the South, just before people over-generalize on that point…
November 10th, 2012 | 2:28 am
Latino’s will not even listen to GOP ideas because our rhetoric makes them believe that we feel they don’t belong here. We MUST change our tone regarding Latinos AND propose policies that can solve the illegal immigration problem and still uphold the rule of law and promote assimilation.
And what is your proposal?
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