The actual campaign, once the spending begins in earnest, may easily overcome media and blog speculation about Hillary's "inevitability." Responding to the "wait a minute" columns by Dan Balz and Adam Nagourney, Jay Cost analyzes for Real Clear Politics:
So, voters are not thinking about politics much right now. Out of the blue, they get a call from a pollster. They're asked to indicate a preference that they have not really formed just yet. How do they answer the question? They draw upon the available information that they have on the race - which is culled from, to quote Nagourney, who "has the most endorsements, is ahead in fund-raising, gets the most media attention, draws the biggest crowds and, well, just comes across as a front-runner." In other words, they draw from what little they know of the dialogue among political elites. And what is the elite dialogue at the moment? As Dan Balz notes, elites are asking: Can Hillary Clinton Be Stopped? So, they select Hillary Clinton.This points to the methodological flaw of using polling data to analyze the state of the race. Polls are valuable to a point - but they really cannot be taken as independent evidence of the state of the race. This is how the media's echo chamber is created. The media talks up one candidate over another. The polls echo this talking up back to the media. The media believes the polls offer independent evidence that justifies its talking up, and proceeds to talk up the particular candidate all the more.
Read the entire article at the link above. He makes a valid point - the Howard Dean "nutroots" campaign provides a great example of how this can fall apart. Dean surged to an early - and quite surprising - lead in the polls in early 2003. Media pundits, bloggers, and political junkies could speak of little else, there being no contest at all on the other side. This only fueled the perception, helping Dean set fundraising records with his internet campaign. He became the clear "frontrunner" in the eyes of those who were paying closest attention, but much of this turned out to be, as Cost describes, merely "echo."
When Dean came under the spotlight, he melted like a cheap candle. He began stumbling in December with the comment that "Saddam's capture doesn't make us safer" - a point worth debating, but one with which only the most rabid antiwar Americans agreed. Then, campaigning in Iowa, he snapped at a voter's plea for Christian civility that "George Bush is NOT my neighbor!" - revealing a nasty side reinforced by his ad campaign against Gephardt and his attitude in the last debate. By the time of the famous "scream," after finishing a pathetic third place in Iowa and squandering much of his vaunted bankroll, Dean was already toast.
As I noted in my earlier post on Balz' article, Hillary isn't going to be baited into making amateur mistakes, and we cannot possibly know if a scandal might overtake her campaign or not. The remaining chance to "stop her," as Balz posited, is defeat at the polls, and Iowa is the place it could happen. It might be the ONLY place, too, with her commanding leads in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida . . .
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2008 Presidential Race, Commentary, Democrats, Media, Primaries
Tags: analysis, Democrat, Hillary Clinton, presidential campaign, primaries
Comments (7)
What do you see in Realclea... (Below threshold)1. Posted by bryanD | September 26, 2007 9:59 PM | Score: -3 (3 votes cast)
What do you see in Realclearpolitics.com? (Since it's a Favorite of yours) It's a rather vapid, "popular"/ dumbed-down site run by a notorious bald-headed suck-up, lately of Time(!)Magazine (Mike Allen). And everybody knows Time sucks!
And that Polls section! P-U!!! Raw averages were beat out of me in 5th grade. Copeland Elementary, Augusta, Georgia, 1972.
(It was a frickin' baseball bat split in two!!!)
1. Posted by bryanD | September 26, 2007 9:59 PM |
Score: -3 (3 votes cast)
Posted on September 26, 2007 21:59
2. Posted by kim | September 27, 2007 6:29 AM | Score: 3 (3 votes cast)
It's my source for political info, Boo, well, they and you. All I know is what I read in the newspaper, and see with my own eyes as I wander from hither to thither.
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2. Posted by kim | September 27, 2007 6:29 AM |
Score: 3 (3 votes cast)
Posted on September 27, 2007 06:29
3. Posted by kim | September 27, 2007 6:38 AM | Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
And pay attention to Jay Cost. That dude's intuitions are unreal, and his explications thereof, for real.
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3. Posted by kim | September 27, 2007 6:38 AM |
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
Posted on September 27, 2007 06:38
4. Posted by kim | September 27, 2007 7:13 AM | Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
Read RCP for Hugh Hewitt's interview of Ken Burns about Iraq and Sistani, and you'll understand why Ron Paul is out to lunch about the Middleast.
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4. Posted by kim | September 27, 2007 7:13 AM |
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
Posted on September 27, 2007 07:13
5. Posted by bryanD | September 27, 2007 8:59 PM | Score: -1 (1 votes cast)
kim= you need to link. I clicked Jim's link to RCP and saw no neon-lit "ken burns here!" sign. Plenty on the midget Newt though *sigh*. Like I said, RCP (which W formally introduced at that Rose Garden presser months ago (a clue!)) is a beltway pet and a make work operation for spun-off pantloads.
And is Burns the documentarian Burns?
If he is: I HATE the incessant mood music he attaches to his documentaries. A cardinal sin in my book! And his Baseball doc swallowed whole every tall tale of baseball lore as if it were true. The "Babe Ruth homerun trot while carrying a tot" one was a real groaner. Never happened. Ken says it did. He's a romantic. He needs to not spread it. That's what 6th grade history textbooks are for.
And Hewitt! Shameless sychophant. Reagan and Nixon Library roach. Republican Party butt boy. Witness RCP. Plus immaculate hair and green teeth. What's up with that? Thus the "bottle baby" expression he wears. Has a history of grasping at "friendly" gov't sinecures.
PS. rE: Burn's WWII. BBC's "World at War" is still the one to beat. THC in all these years has never even come close.
As for Paul: be afraid! Be verrry afraid!
Did you see the Dem debates?
T-R-I-A-G-U-L-A-T-I-O-N
Very oily indeed but it murders GOP grassroots support base. Reinforces suspicions in the young to what the wizened already know : Bush is a Big Gub'mint Liberal.
Add incompetence. Add that the Top Tier are sucking him. Political VD.
5. Posted by bryanD | September 27, 2007 8:59 PM |
Score: -1 (1 votes cast)
Posted on September 27, 2007 20:59
6. Posted by kim | September 27, 2007 10:02 PM | Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
Thousands of pardons I beg. That was supposed to be John Burns, but I appreciate the critique of Ken. For books, I like Liddell Hart's 'History of the Second World War'.
Imagine how well Bush would have done if he'd expended his political capital domestically instead of internationally. He'd be impeached and al-Qaeda would be triumphant, given the nature of today's disloyal opposition.
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6. Posted by kim | September 27, 2007 10:02 PM |
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
Posted on September 27, 2007 22:02
7. Posted by bryanD | September 28, 2007 9:09 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
"That was supposed to be John Burns=kim"
Neverrr minnd.
"For books, I like Liddell Hart's 'History of the Second World War'.=kim"
I can recommend "Blood Tears and Folly" by Len Deighton. It's not so much a history as a review of the UK, French, Italian,and Japanese pre-war mindsets and how the die was cast for the various campaigns.
The highlight for me was Deighton's argument that Britain had become a service economy by the 1890s (losing key industrial preeminence to Germany), and that despite outwardly vigorous (maintaining an empire and developing the Dreadnaught class of ships), was a debtor nation to the US by the end of WWI. It took until 1936 to default thus the necessity of Lend-Lease for WWII.
Churchill's brilliant plan was to borrow so much from the US that the US would be itself vulnerable for repayment. Of course, FDR required that ALL UK gold be shipped to the US. In fact, Britain had to ask 3rd party loans from various gov'ts-in-exile for hard currency to pay the loan interest. The Belgian royal house finally lent 60 million sterling.
Anyway, that was why Churchill was kicked out immediately after VE Day when the war cabinet had fulfilled its first purpose.
But just a clue to why Britain went through depression in the 50s, answered with a welfare state, with it concommitant supposed need for an influx of immigrant labor, first from the West Indies. To do jobs that Englishmen "won't do."
7. Posted by bryanD | September 28, 2007 9:09 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on September 28, 2007 09:09