What Might Have Been
Kevin Drum asks:
Now, suppose Kerry were running this year and therefore had the following three advantages over his previous self: (a) he was running after eight years of Republican rule instead of four, (b) the economy sucked, and (c) he had a fantastic fundraising advantage over his Republican opponent.
Question 1: how well do you think Kerry would do? Question 2: how well do you think Obama is going to do this year? Question 3: how big is the difference between the answers to Q1 and Q2?
I think (c) shouldn’t be added into the experiment. You can’t treat Obama’s spectacular fundraising success as exogenous to his individual appeal as a candidate or to his campaign’s particular organizational and tactical gambits. Rather, I think the way to specify the hypothetical would be to wonder what would have happened if instead of offering tepid support for the war and running for president in 2004, Kerry had offered mild opposition to the war and ran for president in 2008. I think he’d be doing pretty darn well, though presumably with a slightly different electoral coalition behind him than Obama has.
34 Responses to “What Might Have Been”
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October 27th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
I think interesting stories of this election will be how and to what depth Obama’s organisation was set up and the “GEnX-GEnY” vs “Greatest Generation/Boomers” mentalities at work in the two campaigns (Obama v. McC). I’d like someone with more information adn a bigger brain than me take these on.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Do we posit that Kerry would also have had to run against and defeat Hillary and Bill Clinton, with all of the intramural costs and benefits that entailed?
October 27th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Yeah, totally. Imagining a scenario in which Kerry fires up the electorate like Barack Obama is imagining a John Kerry who is not John Kerry.
A more plausible alternate history in which Obama didn’t run is just to imagine Hillary Clinton plowing through the competition in the Democratic primaries. My guess is that in such a scenario, you’d not have the excited base that Obama does, but you’d have more excitement than Kerry had. Winning Ohio and Pennsylvania would be a lot easier, and Arkansas and West Virginia would be possibilities. That being said, Virginia and North Carolina would be a lot more questionable, and I’m not really sure whether the national tracking would be a net positive or a negative compared to Obama.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
The real key is the war. I like Kevin, but he’s one more relatively hawkish Clinton-style Democrat who can’t seem to understand that huge swaths of the party looked at the Iraq War and saw the confirmation that the hawks were murderously incorrect and that it was time for the party to represent dovish Americans. This started happening in 2004 and it– not the internet fundraising skills of Joe Trippi– was behind the Dean boom. But that year, the hawks (who will believe to their dying day that no person can win an election as a dove) were able to wrest control back with Kerry. This time, the hawks saw their two candidates, Clinton and Edwards, lose to a candidate whose main early support came from people who appreciated that he had been right on the Iraq War.
The real question is what would have happened if Kerry had voted the right way and opposed the Iraq War. He’d have become President in 2004.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Kerry would have been duller, but he also would have been whiter. And his name is John, not Barack.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Let’s not forget d) he is not running against an incumbent wartime president.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
I’ve seen no evidence that Obama created his fundraising abilities himself — its more a reflection of the moment, as it was with Dean. When Kerry became the nominee, he raised funds at a faster clip than Dean had. Four years later, its progressed even further.
Hillary Clinton went toe-to-toe with Obama in fundraising even after her defeat appeared inevitable, which is really, really hard to do.
Obama’s run a decent campaign, but this was his to lose from the start. Only a ridiculously incompetent dem could lose this year.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Adam Vanilli,
I’m a John Kerry constituent. He’s been a political hero of mine since he ran for Lt. Governor.
A candidate would could fire people up IS the real John Kerry.
That Shrummified a-hole we saw in 2004 was not the real John Kerry.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Hillary Clinton went toe-to-toe with Obama in fundraising even after her defeat appeared inevitable, which is really, really hard to do.
This is pure fantasy. Obama outraised Clinton consistently and Hillary ended the campaign with millions in debt.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
given all those conditions, democrats can have a fridge running for presidency and still win.
but no, i dont think even kerry or hillary can raise as much money as barack. theyll total about 400M but they are pretty dull and just not inspiring.
you just want to donate 10 bucks every time you see obama give a speech in front of a big crowd.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
If Edwards or Clark or someone else had lost to Bush in ‘04 instead, Kerry would’ve been in the also-ran crew with Biden and Dodd. He may have been attractive enough as an anti-war candidate with his personal history (despite his AUMF vote) to siphon enough votes from Obama in enough early states to give Hillary a clearer path to victory.
Celebrating early victories and scheming for their White House appointments, the Hillary campaign crew would then form a circular firing squad resulting in dozens of horrifying articles about the state of their campaign and paving the way for huge Obama wins in PA, OH, and TX to win the nomination from behind.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
a) would not be an advantage for kerry, since bush isn’t on the ballot. Kerry did as well as he did because he was running against an incumbent that a lot of people didn’t like (though still popular enough to eke out a victory). How many votes would Bush get if he ran for a third term? Bush’s plummeting approval ratings alone didn’t make McCain unpopular–independent voters still saw him as the maverick moderate even a month ago, making him much more popular than any other Republican. Kerry just wouldn’t be enough of an alternative to McCain.
Kerry’s war vote is the only reason he made it out of the primaries in ‘04. If he had voted no, he would have been rejected as too risky like dean (remember that Saddam had just been captured, the war was still reasonably popular in January 2004, Kerry actually used that against Dean). Or else he would have lost to Dean, having nothing to distinguish himself.
I think its also important to remember that the Republicans would have never been competitive had they chosen anyone but McCain. Back in primary season, McCain was running even with both Hillary and Obama in matchup polls, while all the other Republicans were losing in landslides. Nobody seems to remember that now.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Obama created a different electoral map (Colorado, Nevada, and Iowa) that he used to change the nature of the generic battleground states of Ohio/Florida/Pennsylvania.
If Kerry or Hillary Clinton was running, I’d expect for them to be solidly winning the Kerry states plus Ohio and Florida. The national polls and electoral vote might be closer (or it might not) but the actual outcome of the election would be the same.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
If you’re basically saying ‘what’s a scenario in which Kerry wins?’ then you could probably say ‘having another presidential election in 2005′.
Though Obama’s primary/caucus work in those western states appears to be paying off, I think NM and NV would still be up for grabs to Kerry or Clinton; CO might be a battleground or overlooked, NC firmly red, while VA/FL/OH would drearily dominate the map.
What’s interesting about this cycle, though, is the genuine volume of scorn towards undecided voters. There’s a sense that the sucking-up to idiots in Dayton and Akron that we saw in 2004 no longer applies. (Instead, we have Joe The Delusional Guy from Toledo, who is a different kind of insufferable.)
October 27th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
The main thing that would be interesting about Kerry running this year would be how McCain would play him. Would he conclude that he needed to “disqualify” Kerry the way he’s decided he needed to disqualify Obama? Would he embrace the Swift Boating that he would have (indeed did) repudiate in a different context?
Really, when I re-think the race run against Kerry in 2004, I think it wouldn’t have been much different now. If Kerry had known Ayers we’d be seeing almost the exact same ads against Kerry.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
you can’t really ‘analyze’ the thoughts of Kevin Dumb. they don’t make literal or figurative sense. he may as well be asking “if then was now, and vice versa, and John Kerry was Barack Obama, and vice versa, would things be any different?” which is of course so stupid a question it ought never be asked.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
No Democrat was supposed to win in ‘04. The fact that Kerry came so close speaks volumes. He was an excellent canditate and would have been an excellent president. Beyond that I echo Will’s sentiments and would only add it’s time we gave Kerry a pass on that Iraq vote. A difficult vote to be sure that was probably not executed as deftly as it could have been. I’m far less than 100% sure Obama would have handled it better had he been in the same postition as Kerry.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
I think the right (c) question is what if Kerry had opted out. He’s been talking about that at length.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Ditto with the above who point out that Obama’s concentration on formerly red states has really transformed the race. I really think that Axlerod and Plouffe sat down in mid-2007 and said, “OK, what red states could we make competitive if Barack is the nominee?” Then they came up with a list of states where there has been a significant influx of educated people from Democratic areas (CO, VA, NC) or where there is a big African-American population that could be decisive in a high-turnout election (VA, NC, maybe GA). Then they focused like a laser on those states — and with Obama up big in CO and VA, and it being neck-and-neck in NC, the benefit is obvious.
I don’t think Kerry would have done that. He would have run the same, boring ol’ Florida-and-Ohio campaign. Now, he probably would have had success doing that because of the pro-Democratic sentiment out there, but I really think that his margin for error would have been much smaller.
October 27th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
It forgets Clinton. There are years the first stringers run, and there are those years left to second stringers like Kerry. This, by the way, is a year for GOP second stringers. So not only is the thought experiment flawed in that it assumes Kerry is relevant outside the one open window of his political career, it is doubly irrelevant because it pits a second stringer against a second stringer. It’s a minor league match up.
October 27th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
It’s hard to construct a scenario where Kerry would have won the nomination in 2008; his reason d’etre was his war hero status, which was fairly irrelevant this cycle. We’d also have to assume that somehow Kerry was able to defeat Hillary Clinton for the nomination.
I’m also not convinced that campaigns don’t matter – Bush/Rove ran a brilliant campaign in 04 and Kerry ran a mediocre one. Obama is running a pitch-perfect campaign and McCain is running a downright terrible one. Would the word of the day still be “change”? Would McCain have still picked Sarah Palin? Would the swiftboaters still have come out of the woodwork, or would it have been seen as too risky for one Vietnam vet to attack another’s service?
The fact is there’s too many variables to say what would have happened.
October 27th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Question 1: how well do you think Kerry would do? Question 2: how well do you think Obama is going to do this year? Question 3: how big is the difference between the answers to Q1 and Q2?
Answer 1: Hillary would have won. Answer 2: Even better than expected. Big since Kerry would have lost to Hillary.
I just recall how Kevin Drum was dismayed when Hillary lost Iowa, because it meant the fevered swamp of the rightwing had won in their jihad against her.
Whereas I, a lowly commenter, was elated b/c it could mean the Democrats could ride Obama’s coat tails and enlarge their majorities in Congress and pass some meaningful legislation, if things go well. Having Alan Greenspan issue a mea culpa was just a bonus.
October 27th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
I remember in 04 one time Kerry being asked about which of his children he liked best. He started out with one of his daughters, ran her praises up and down for a while, and then stopped, paused, mentioned the other’s name, paused again, and in an even longer monologue praised her. Finally, with an even longer preamble, discussed the difficulty of making such a judgment. He should have wiped the floor with W. Too bad we didn’t have Barack Obama in 04.
October 27th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Whereas I, a lowly commenter, was elated b/c it could mean the Democrats could ride Obama’s coat tails and enlarge their majorities in Congress and pass some meaningful legislation, if things go well.
Agreed. In particular, I think it was clear early on that Obama’s electoral map had better coattails than Hillary’s: Clinton could have expanded the House majority, but Obama’s seemed tailor-made for a handful of Senate pickups.
There was, I think, no desire among number-crunching Dems for another Florida-Ohio race, particularly after the 50-state strategy seemed to have borne fruit in 2006. In that regard, Kerry’s defeat propelled Dean to the DNC chairmanship, and made it possible for Axelrod and Plouffe to look beyond the 2000-2004 maps.
(Speaking of idiots in Dayton: oh look, it’s John McCain.)
October 27th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
That was really the “real” John McCain.
Sheesh.
October 28th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Kerry would have won, but by a small margin.
He would have the same major problem now as he did then: an unwillingness to hammer back at the smear campaign.
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