Matt Yglesias

Cooking With Political Science

Conventional wisdom has it that the financial crisis cooked John McCain’s goose, but Phil Klinker observes that the trend seems pretty smooth and Obama was leading and trending upwards before Lehman collapsed and the great panic began:

I think the evidence suggests that rather than being gutshot by the crisis, McCain was just more banally dragged down by the poor economic situation in terms of GDP, employment, and income growth.

43 Responses to “Cooking With Political Science”

1. DTM Says:
   November 5th, 2008 at 2:45 pm

   The problem is that the conventions predictably throw off all the trends for a while, but gradually tend to settle out. So to really examine this issue you would have to construct something like an expected trend effect from the conventions (say based on historical averages), then back it out of the observed trends and see what remained.

2. CitizenE Says:
   November 5th, 2008 at 2:49 pm

   While I think Obama would have won in almost any scenario because of his campaign’s vast superiority, I believe the tide began to turn with McCain’s week of truly dastardly negative campaigning that included the sex ed ad, which far more than the Ayers slurs, was the most shamelessly unethical ad in the half century or so of television advertising for Presidential campaigns. The obvious inference of such an ad was that John McCain would rather have small children vulnerable to sexual preditors than lose a Presidential campaign. Even Karl Rove called him out for that, which should have given them pause, and both centrist msm and populace at large were telling them loud and clear that not only was this kind of advertising non productive; it was verifiably suicidal.

3. TheF79 Says:
   November 5th, 2008 at 2:53 pm

   I had noticed a similiar thing – the race was approaching the pre-convention equilibrium when the finanical crisis hit. But of course, the pre-convention numbers were pretty favorable for Obama, but the race would have likely been tighter in the absence of the fiancial meltdown.

4. Brad L Says:
   November 5th, 2008 at 3:01 pm

   Yeah, this is pretty difficult to untangle. The crisis wasn’t exactly a single-day event, which would lead to a “gutshot” in the polls. Rather, it was a complicated mess.

   The early stage of public awareness was Lehman, Bear Stearns, etc, and if you are looking to say when the crisis came to light, this is a fine time to do it. But even at this point, I don’t think most people knew what exactly was going on. Then, there was the Sept 18 bailout announcement (is that the right date?) and the first we all heard of the 700b ransom note. The final package didn’t pass until Oct 1.

   What was happening in this chart during that time? McCain was on a straight line down, which matched, pretty well, the straight line that represented the inevitable decline from the convention bounce.

   But it looks here like the great divide was formed basically between the convention and the first week of October, which was really the heart of the crisis. After that, we see something of a rocky levelling off.

   And, McCain’s performance during that time was deeply unsettling – he lurched from denial, to grudging admittance, to panicked campaign suspension – in a way that I think hurt him tremendously. Added to the Palin pick, which I think energized the base but scared a bunch of other folks, I think this brief timeframe cast great doubt on his judgments.

   This graph doesn’t prove it, of course. But it hardly disproves it. There is a very close synchronicity between McCain’s big drop and the crisis news cycle.

5. Notorious P.A.T. Says:
   November 5th, 2008 at 3:07 pm

   I almost hung myself during McCain’s convention bounce, but I still remember some people saying “don’t worry, McCain’s numbers will come back down, Obama’s get out the vote operation is strong, etc.” Then the deluge.

6. mitch Says:
   November 5th, 2008 at 3:13 pm

   This is absolutely true. Palin, I think, did more to hurt him than the financial crisis, and he had 100% control over that. The economy was going to be bad no matter what (if it hadn’t gone south at all we were looking at $4.50 gas nationally), and McCain was very poor on the issue beforehand anyway. The brief convention bounce notwithstanding, he campaigned badly before the financial stuff, and he campaigned badly after. He had no strategy, just tactics. The celebrity ad and guilt-by-association fearmongering predated Lehman Bros.

7. Al Says:
   November 5th, 2008 at 3:15 pm

   Meh. If you look at the RCP poll average, McCain was leading by 2 points on September 14, the day before Lehman declared bankruptcy and 10 days after the RNC. Obama gained ground steadily for the next month. (In fact, using the RCP avergae, Obama’s lowest polling day since he won the nomination was 9/15/08.)

   McCain lost in large part because of the economic crisis precipitated by Lehman’s collapse. There are other factors – Obama massively outspent McCain after breaking his pledge regarding public funding – but the most important factor in the entire election was the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

8. Njorl Says:
   November 5th, 2008 at 3:25 pm

   I think the only reason it ever looked close was the short term boost McCain got when he nominated his slow-poison running mate. She hurt him in the long run, but his campaign would have been over half way through a somnolent Republican convention without her.

9. Alex Says:
   November 5th, 2008 at 3:25 pm

   I think the real thing the financial crisis did was to drown out any possibility of a McCain comeback from the McCain camp. Due to his erratic responses to it and the length of time, none of the sideshoes McCain generated could stick.

10. mort Says:
    November 5th, 2008 at 3:28 pm

    We might also check the dates of the Palin interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric.

11. Gore/Feingold '16 Says:
    November 5th, 2008 at 3:30 pm

    Lots of folks I heard from mentioned Palin.

12. Al Says:
    November 5th, 2008 at 3:31 pm

    I think the only reason it ever looked close was the short term boost McCain got when he nominated his slow-poison running mate.

    I don’t know about that. Immediately prior to the Democratic National Convention – i.e., post-Biden, but pre-Palin – Obama was only leading by less than 2 points according to the RCP average. If you want to look at what the race likely would have looked like absent Palin and absent Lehman, I’d think that’s about right. Obama may have picked up a couple of points by being able to outspend McCain, given Obama’s breaking of his pledge, but that’s it.

    The Lehman collapse led to an change of 10 points over a month, from McCain +2 to Obama +8.

13. duBois Says:
    November 5th, 2008 at 3:31 pm

    Obama massively outspent McCain after breaking his pledge regarding public funding

    -I pledge to give you $100 if you cook me a meal tonight.
    -OK. Give me the $100.
    -You haven’t cooked the meal.
    -Oh, you’re breaking your pledge.

14. Jim W Says:
    November 5th, 2008 at 3:38 pm

    Two words: Sarah Palin.

    Ok, they’re technically names, not words. But you get my meaning. Palin’s poll ratings were nosing down at exactly the same time as McCain’s, as people got to know her better.

    The other major factor was McCain’s response to the financial crisis, which confirmed the whole “erratic” meme. But, the idea of him being erratic started with his bizarre selection of Palin in the first place.

15. Al Says:
    November 5th, 2008 at 3:39 pm

    BTW, the idea that Palin hurt McCain is not borne out by the exit polls. Among the 60% of people who said Palin was a factor in their vote, McCain won by 56% to 43%. Among the people for whom Palin was NOT a factor, Obama won by 65% to 33%.

16. Peter K. Says:
    November 5th, 2008 at 3:41 pm

    Brad L.

    And, McCain’s performance during that time was deeply unsettling – he lurched from denial, to grudging admittance, to panicked campaign suspension – in a way that I think hurt him tremendously. Added to the Palin pick, which I think energized the base but scared a bunch of other folks, I think this brief timeframe cast great doubt on his judgments.

    When I read that McCain actually said “the fundamentals of the economy are strong” I had to laugh out loud.

17. duBois Says:
    November 5th, 2008 at 3:43 pm

    We’re so much better off without McCain. Apparently, like George Bush, from his youth, McCain has eschewed analysis and thought, preferring to act by instinct and, unlike Bush, to apologize later when his instincts proved to be foul. Like Bush, he apparently has never gotten over being enamored of his instincts.

    It will be so much nicer to have an adult in charge.

18. Al Says:
    November 5th, 2008 at 3:49 pm

    Obama didn’t pledge to cook dinner, he pledged to “agressively pursue” a public financing deal. He did not do so, since the only thing he did was to send his counsel to one meeting.

19. WillieStyle Says:
    November 5th, 2008 at 4:03 pm

    BTW, the idea that Palin hurt McCain is not borne out by the exit polls. Among the 60% of people who said Palin was a factor in their vote, McCain won by 56% to 43%. Among the people for whom Palin was NOT a factor, Obama won by 65% to 33%.

    That doesn’t really tell us anything. ~24% of voters voting against McCain and listing Palin as a factor seems rather large to me. How does this compare to other VP candidates? Furthermore, how many of the ~35% who voted for McCain and stated Palin was a factor would have voted for McCain anyway?
    In the NRO post from which you get this data, it says she mostly attracted White evangelicals, gun owners etc. In other words, folks who would have voted Republican anyway.

20. Njorl Says:
    November 5th, 2008 at 4:04 pm

    BTW, the idea that Palin hurt McCain is not borne out by the exit polls. Among the 60% of people who said Palin was a factor in their vote, McCain won by 56% to 43%. Among the people for whom Palin was NOT a factor, Obama won by 65% to 33%.

    While 60% of the people may have said Palin was a factor in their vote, the majority of them would have voted the same way if she were not on the ticket. You can’t ask people questions like that and expect a meaningful answer.

    You need to know for whom she was a decisive factor. The best analysis I’ve seen was how she affected independent voters, and among them she was a resounding failure.

21. duBois Says:
    November 5th, 2008 at 4:08 pm

    Obama didn’t pledge to cook dinner, he pledged to “agressively pursue” a public financing deal.

    The issue was 527s. The McCain side refused to try to control their 527s so the issue was moot. Time matters in a campaign.

22. Peter K. Says:
    November 5th, 2008 at 4:32 pm

    AI, conservative apologist:

    McCain lost in large part because of the economic crisis precipitated by Lehman’s collapse. There are other factors – Obama massively outspent McCain after breaking his pledge regarding public funding – but the most important factor in the entire election was the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

    It’s f***ing amazing to me how conservatives talk as if the economic crisis came out of no where, like it was a weather front or hurricane. It’s assumed to be nobody’s fault, just very unfortunate, when in reality it is a direct result of conservative economic policies enacted over many years. In some ways, it’s poetic justice. Especially the “tough love” applied to Lehman Brothers.

    As to campaign finance reform, are we now to assume that conservatives are in favor of it and disagree with the conservative Buckley decision of the Supreme Court? I didn’t think so. If conservatives ever want to win again, they need to stop being such cry babies and get their collective act together.

    Another conservative “excuse” they are clinging to is that “they went to Washington to change it, but were in turn changed by it” and I think yeah they were shitty before they got there and just got shittier after years in Washington.

23. Njorl Says:
    November 5th, 2008 at 4:46 pm

    Al,
    Looking at the RCP polls, McCain started a rapid drop on 9/13. His fastest drop was 9/16-9/18. The polls they average include daily polls, and 2, 3 or 4 day rolling average polls. The Palin interviews aired on 9/11&12, followed by a weekend of mockery.

    I don’t think you could really disentangle the effects of the Lehman bankruptcy and the Gibson interview. However, I think it is an unsupportable claim that the Lehman announcement would have a bigger effect than the emergency bailout announcement. That announcement was accompanied by very little change in the polls.

    I think it is the case that anyone who was likely to vote for Obama due to Lehman or the bailout was already voting for him due to the mortgage crisis. The 4 point swing from 9/13 to 9/18 is all Palin.

24. Jim W Says:
    November 5th, 2008 at 4:52 pm

    Al, you need to go to logic camp. First of all, those poll responses shouldn’t be taken at face value, as others have noted. Secondly, even if we take them at face value, they don’t tell us what the net Palin effect is. Would the 24% against McCain have been bigger or smaller without her? Who knows?

25. burritoboy Says:
    November 5th, 2008 at 9:05 pm

    “This is absolutely true. Palin, I think, did more to hurt him than the financial crisis, and he had 100% control over that. The economy was going to be bad no matter what (if it hadn’t gone south at all we were looking at $4.50 gas nationally), and McCain was very poor on the issue beforehand anyway.”

    Well, in addition, McCain certainly was himself aware that he was extraordinarily weak on economic policy for a politician with his ambitions (the “I’m reading Greenspan’s book” thing, etc. Huh? John, you couldn’t read a single actual book on economics in 72 years?). Making a Vice-President pick who was especially strong and respected on economic policy might have at least partially addressed that. Obama basically turned aside McCain’s criticism of Obama’s lack of foreign policy experience by maturely picking the most respected foreign policy player available. Obama could then say “I admit I’m not the most experienced person in foreign policy myself, but I do know how to address my own weaknesses effectively. Now, here’s Joe Biden with our foreign policy platform.”

    Instead, McCain picked a Vice-Presidential selection who was absurdly bizarrely ignorant about economic policy – indeed, if Palin was unable to string two sentences together about foreign policy, she was unable to string any words to make a single coherent sentence about economic policy.

26. Dickey Betts Says:
    November 6th, 2008 at 2:10 am

    I guess it’s too much to expect that Matt would know that Fannie and Freddie were rescued by the government on Sept. 7th…

27. ScottF Says:
    November 6th, 2008 at 8:40 am

    Y’know, just looking at the graph, what you see is a Democratic convention bounce, a Republican convention bounce and then a meltdown bounce. By late September, the race was roughly back where it was right before the Democratic convention, with the spread maybe a tiny bit larger (a percentage point or so). Obama put this race away in October, not in September.

28. Jason_M Says:
    November 6th, 2008 at 1:24 pm

    This was my sense at the time and I’m glad to see it documented by Pollster and Mr. Y. I noticed small but unmistakable increases in Obama’s polling numbers at 538 and Pollster before the economic crisis. The other side will want to push this narrative; it’s to their advantage. But the truth was, the more people got to know Obama, the more they liked him and felt comfortable with the idea of him as president.

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