The Pretense
For your morning thought, consider that it’s pretty remarkable how firmly the media is clinging to the pretense that we’re watching a close, interesting election contest. In fact, Barack Obama has a lead in the polls that no challenger has ever overcome for as long as polling has existed. On top of that, his Electoral College numbers have consistently outperformed his popular vote numbers. And I’ve never heard a single person so much as try to argue that Obama doesn’t have a superior “ground game.” Obviously, McCain could win, but if he turns it around and does that’d be a really remarkable turn of events. Instead, I’m reading things like this in The Washington Post:
Robert Shobe, who spent almost three decades in the Navy before settling down in Virginia Beach, will not decide whom to vote for until the presidential candidates get more specific about their foreign policy. [...] This year, members of both parties think that Virginia could be critical to either candidate’s capturing the 270 electoral votes needed to secure the White House. Virginians do not register by party, and many have been known to split their tickets.
Shobe is a fiftysomething (at the youngest) male military veteran who lives in what’s been a strongly Republican state ever since the Civil Rights Act. If he’s undecided, that’s a sign of an impending Obama victory not a close-fought contest. And how critical is Virginia, anyway? Pollster.com’s averages show larger Obama leads in every state Al Gore won, plus Ohio, Colorado, and Florida. Adding any one of those three states to the Gore states (all of which currently show large Obama leads) would suffice to get Obama over the 270 mark. For Virginia to become “critical” to the outcome, McCain would need to make up his current deficit in all three of those other states. Again, that could happen but it’d be quite the turnaround.
Meanwhile, on top of those states, Obama is currently also leading in pure gravy states like North Carolina and Nevada and looks to be within striking distance in Missouri. At this point, in other words, the Electoral College math has nothing to do with anything — McCain is around 7-8 points down nationwide which makes it impossible to win. And when you’re down 7-8 points nationwide you can’t make up the gap purely by persuading “undecided” voters. At the moment, most of the undecideds are going to be Robert Shobe types — voters who demographically ought to be McCain voters, most of whom will probably come home to McCain at the end of the day and somewhat narrow the gap. But that’s because at the moment so many people say they’re voting for Obama! McCain will somehow need to get a lot of them to change their minds.
45 Responses to “The Pretense”
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October 15th, 2008 at 9:11 am
You’re right, of course, but I think the “artificial closeness” (”closiness?”) helps Obama, by keeping the base fired up and the ground game working hard. It never pays to get complacent!
October 15th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Does it ever occur to you, Matthew, that the media waiting for the votes to come in before declaring a winner is actually useful to Democrats?
If an Obama coronation took place today, we’d likely have more trouble getting to 60 in the Senate and 260 in the House, as folks would pay more attention to re-establishing divided government.
We’re already going to get whacked in the 2010 elections when we’re in the WH. Let’s leave Bush as the incumbent for the next month.
October 15th, 2008 at 9:15 am
Bradley effect?
Vets are going to keep turning left, as it becomes more clear that we are the ones who will take care of them. It’s going to be as bad as after Vietnam guys..
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/vets/
October 15th, 2008 at 9:18 am
I agree that this type of press bias is quite benign. I would rather see this, than more vomit-inducing stories of Obama’s otherness or associations with evil black priests.
The upper bound on the percentage of voters who will be swayed by such reports to vote against Obama is perhaps 0.001.
October 15th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Regarding the idea that no one would” so much as try to argue that Obama doesn’t have a superior ‘ground game.’” I was going to suggest Michael Barone, who seems to think Obama’s ground game is over hyped and that he’s employing the same kids in orange hats that were out for Dean in 2004. But even he admits McCain’s got nothing:
Ouch. If McCain doesn’t come back and start generating some enthusiasm, is anyone going to bother going to vote for him?
October 15th, 2008 at 9:21 am
I like the concept of “pure gravy states.” Very catchy.
October 15th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Re: For your morning thought, consider that it’s pretty remarkable how firmly the media is clinging to the pretense that we’re watching a close, interesting election contest.
Maybe not “close” (although the numbers are close in places like OH and MO) but it’s definitely interesting! The fact that Obama looks likely to take VA and has a pretty good chance in states like MO, NC and now even ND suggests that we are seeing the breakdown of the red-blue divide that dominated the last two elections.
And as someone else suggested this “close” storyline actually benefits the Democrats by boosting turnout which helps in the other races. The last thing you should want is a bunch of voters staying home on election day because Obama already has it in the bag.
October 15th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Thanks — I’ve been wondering for a couple of weeks, when somebody was going to say this.
October 15th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Market Watch or whatever its called on NPR had a ridiculous segment this morning in which they cited some guy’s theory that close elections are good for the stock market, but mysteriously the model is “not working this time.”
Blabbering on and on about the election being “so close” at this point. I guess it’s benign but still annoying…they simply can’t bring themselves to say the truth, which is that Obama is crushing McInsane double digits by most any measure.
October 15th, 2008 at 9:32 am
I worked a phone bank for the Obama campaign in Minnesota last night. We called about 200 people mostly in suburbs of Minneapolis. Minneapolis is a liberal state but currently has a republican governor and, for a short time longer we hope, a republican senator. The suburbs we called into are a mixed lot and voting there has been pretty evenly distributed but tilted toward republican in the last elections.
The results indicated a very interesting trend. We had two McCain supporters identified on our list of registered voters, one of whom said she was supporting McCain because Obama was the anti-christ, but a vast majority of Obama supporters. The interesting thing was that we also asked about the down ticket races and many of the enthusiastic Obama supporters and Obama ‘leaners’ called themselves undecided on the senate and house races. A couple said they were waiting on the debate tonight ‘to give McCain one last chance.’ That means that we are making great inroads into the last undecided voter bloc not simply gathering up party line Democrats. There is still a lot of work to do to turn out these people to vote and to close the deal on the down ticket races, but it looks like hope is coming home strong.
October 15th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Finally, something I can add that will not raise hackles of lefty disagreement – Obama has this thing in the bag, unless someone can prove definitely that he’s not a US citizen (and even then, I don’t think he would lose), or he deliberately throws it away.
In football terms, he’s ahead 30 points with 6 minutes left in the 4th quarter.
October 15th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Matt, you’re taking food out of the mouths of literally dozens of hard-working Americans who are relying upon the illusion of a close election to make ends meet. That would be expensive food, insufferable mouths, and exorbitant ends, but still.
October 15th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Note also the weird inconsistency sites like WaPo and MSNBC rely on to keep Obama below 270 on their electoral maps:
http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9063
October 15th, 2008 at 10:20 am
The basic “Let’s you and him fight” story works with McCain, since he’s short-tempered, but it doesn’t work with Obama. I expect that this will be a continuing story, with journalists continually trying (unsucessfully) to pick a fight between Obama and some third party.
October 15th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Chris Bowers’ posts on this subject started with this one: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=8971 — which points out how few major media organizations reflect the data that the polling/electoral projection websites do: Obama currently has a significant and winning advantage at the electoral college level. Even the right wing websites generally reflect this…
http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=8971
October 15th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Credit where due: Petey is absolutely correct that this meme benefits Democrats.
Nothing is more likely to depress a strong and enthusiastic turnout for Obama, with the associated long coattails for House and Senate races, than 3 weeks of nonstop media coverage insisting that an Obama landslide is guaranteed.
There’s a debate tonight and 3 weeks of smears and attack ads still to come. Never count your votes before they’re cast.
October 15th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Re LaFollette Progressive
Actually, several million votes have already been cast in states that allow early voting plus absentee voting.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:08 am
I like the pretense! The pretense is good! The pretense will keep the Obama campaign from complacency. The pretense will ensure Democrat turn out in record numbers. Why are you criticizing the pretense, Matt? Do you want McCain to win?
October 15th, 2008 at 11:34 am
“Actually, several million votes have already been cast in states that allow early voting plus absentee voting.”
And over a hundred million votes have not yet been cast. I’m not sure what your point is. Most votes have not been cast. Therefore, we shouldn’t declare a victor based on a lead in the polling average in mid-October.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:38 am
I wouldn’t pop the bubbly quite yet. The votes of over 600,000 newly registered voters in Ohio may not be counted if the Republican Party has its way. They seem to have found a sympathetic court. This is only the beginning of the Republican legal attacks on the electoral process. If McCain wins, this is how he will do it, and the polls won’t matter.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:42 am
I guess I’m ultimately fine with the myth of a close race- mostly for the sake of fighting Democratic complacency. No one wants this to turn into Martin Prince winning the election because no one bothered to vote for Bart.
Plus, this is different from the period during the primaries when Hillary could not mathematically win the nomination yet the media continued to treat her as if she were a viable candidate (which drove me insane). McCain still has like a 5% shot of winning- small odds, but technically he’s still viable. If we start seeing Reggie Miller show up at rallies, though, I may start to worry…
…
October 15th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Re LaFollette Progressive
The point is that, apparently, there is some evidence that the votes cast thus far seem to be rather heavily in favor of Senator Osama. There is nothing that Senator McCain can do to change those votes, other then getting them thrown out. They’re already in the bag. I think that Mr. Lafollette Progressive should worry more about the issue raised by Mr. JM in the comment just below his.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:58 am
I think the idea of the electorate wanting a “divided government” has gone by the wayside. It’s another thing the media has failed to notice. Bush had a GOP Congress virtually the entire time in office. For all their electronic gadgetry, the media of all stripes hang onto old “wisdom” like puppies with a chew toy.
October 15th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Headlines like “THREE WEEKS OUT, LOOKS LIKE OBAMA WILL WIN” won’t sell many papers and will cause GOP heads to explode. Better to conjur up some silly issues, some grist for the mills, some pablum for the masses, some whatever.
October 15th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Re: The votes of over 600,000 newly registered voters in Ohio may not be counted if the Republican Party has its way.
How will they figure out who’s vote to toss out? It’s not like you sign your ballot after all. Courts are extremely reluctant (make that super-duper extremely reluctant) to order votes nullified after an election has occured, though in a close contest they will order or suspend recounts (as happened in 2000). There is moreover no precedent for a revote in a presidential election and the state of Ohio would have to pass emergency legislation to effect one– I don’t see the Democratic governor cooperating in such an effort. (Ditto in Virginia and even in Florida since I don’t think Charlie Crist would risk tarnishing his reputation as Mr Clean and his political future as Everybody’s Favorite Republican). The most extreme result I can see coming out of any challenge to Ohio’s vote is that Ohio is unable to cast any votes in the Electoral College at all (and that’s a very low probability event), but Obama in leading is enough states now that that would not hurt him.
October 15th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
how firmly the media is clinging to the pretense that we’re watching a close, interesting election
Not the case on this morning’s Today show. The talking heads were playing with their electoral touch screen while making the point that Obama needs only one of the ‘battleground’ states, while McCain needs them all.
Later, talking with the two campaigns’ PR flacks, brief mention was made of the so-called “Bradley Effect”, which was immediately shot down as a myth.
And it is a myth. Bradley won the election day balloting, just like the exit polls said. He lost when the absentee count came in.
October 15th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Strangely, I agree with Petey. His instrumentalist point is correct– it’s better for Democrats if the race is portrayed as close and nobody sits on the lead.
But beyond that, I also don’t really want the media in the business of preemptively declaring the winners of elections now any more than they already are. (Indeed, I think they do too much of that already.) It’s this strange democratic bone in my body that says the voters, and not the media or the polls, should get to determine who becomes President.
October 15th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
While I agree with you in theory, like most of the other respondents, I am thankful that no one is calling the race ‘over’ or ‘in the bag.’ The more confident people are their candidate is going to win, the more likely they are to stay home, figuring that the candidate already has enough votes.
Also, a thing to keep in mind — in 2000, just 3 weeks before the election, Al Gore was up by about 6-8 points in the polls as well.
October 15th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Gore was up by double digits nationally around this time. He didn’t start sinking until the 19th of October. I’m not sure where you’re getting your electoral history from.
October 15th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
this is a great post. but the situation comes after democrat feelings of elections past being “stolen” by nefarious means.
probably there is going to be no end of sweating until the election is beyond called — but conceded. the idea that we might wake up three days before the election and find bin laden on the tv threatening us — or captured — is too easy to ignore.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
i actually… i didn’t think i would ever say this again, but I agree with Petey.
now to go wash my mouth out with soap.
October 16th, 2008 at 3:22 am
If Chuck Todd doesn’t move the NBC map of lean/firm Obama past 270, he’s going to look increasingly hackish. There’s basically nothing in the poll numbers from VA and CO to suggest that they don’t belong in the same column as MI and PA.
That said, better strategically to perpetuate the false narrative that the ‘tossup states’ will be decisive, because momentum could easily carry into the Senate squeakers, especially once money gets tight for the GOP.
October 16th, 2008 at 11:29 am
pseudonymous in nc — I completely agree about Todd’s map. Last week was borderline silly not to have at least VA i& CO n lean Obama, but leaving them out this week is a deliberate attempt to keep McCain in the game. I noticed CNN finally last night moved them over, putting Blue over 270, finally.
October 19th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Matt: As Senator Obama reminded us, Democrats still have many ways to screw things up. And these Democrats who have a penchant for doing so will have plenty of opportunities between now and the 4th.
And I agree with LaFollette Progressive. And with JM too.
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