My Frustrating Ignorance On The Campaign

by: Chris Bowers

Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 13:31

Why is McCain performing well, relative to where the general election was in June? In the extended entry, I explore some possibilities, and offer a path toward figuring out which is correct.

• Does McCain make more effective attacks? McCain's attacks seem to dominate the news cycle, but I'm not convinced they are making a big difference. For one thing, Obama's favorables are still very high, and actually rose over the summer. At this point, both Obama and McCain have roughly equal favorable ratings. So, I'm not sold on this one.

• Is it shifting partisanship? Republicans have gained at least 4% on Democrats in partisan self-identification since June. The decline in Democratic partisanship could account for the entire difference in polling between now and then. However, these shifts in partisan self-identification could be, as they have always been, about Republican and Democratic leaning independents whose voting preferences are stable shifting between identifying as partisan and identifying as Independents depending on how they feel about their party at any given moment. So, this might not be shifting votes, and is really more of a shell game.

• Is it Sarah Palin? People online seem convinced that Palin has helped McCain. I however, am not so sure. As I wrote after the conventions, Palin's speech was not well received in focus groups, McCain still receives far more news coverage, and his convention speech resulted in a better polling result. Also, polling internals disagree on where McCain's bounce has come from. I don't think there is clear evidence that Palin is making a big difference for McCain.
  

• Is it that Obama is black? While there are clearly some normally Democratic voters who aren't backing Obama because he is African-American, people didn't just realize that Obama was African-American sometime over the summer. Obama was black when he was winning, too. So, this might be a problem for Obama, but it isn't the cause of his polling decline.

The truth is, it is probably a combination of several factors. The frustrating aspect is that we don't know which ones are the more important factors, and we don't know what message or strategy will turn the campaign around. This is highly aggravating, and tensions over this are boiling over online.
 

Which brings me to my next point. While I don't know the reasons why McCain is rising, one thing I do know is that the problem not the people who are worried, or who think that the Obama campaign is doing a poor job. How could it possibly be?

The argument that progressive critics of the Obama campaign are de-motivating Obama supporters from taking action is idiotic. I wasn't aware that grassroots progressives were such delicate creatures that even the slightest criticism of the campaign they support causes them to cease all activism. Even reading a progressive blog is an indication of being a self-starting activist and political junkie, given that the progressive blogosphere has a collective advertising budget of zero dollars. Reading critiques of the Obama campaign, not to mention the occasional honest expression of frustration and depression, is not going to deter such people. Further, every indication is that grassroots activism on behalf of Obama continues to be record breaking, making the argument is stupid on both the deductive and inductive levels.

So, I have a suggestion: if you are feeling frustrated at the state of the campaign, let's admit to our ignorance of the cause, and stop blaming each other. From that point, join me in experimenting with messaging and campaign strategy by running your own micro-paid media campaign. Read my first article proposing this idea here, and my update from yesterday here. This is a way that we can not only engage in activism, but actually test it to see what works and what doesn't. And if you don't feel up to running a campaign like this yourself, but you want to help out, then you can donate to our efforts here.

Let's stop blaming each other. Let's start admitting that we don't necessarily know what will turn things around. From that point, let's pursue courses of activism that will increase our understanding of what works and what doesn't. I'll have an update on my campaign later today, but the more people who participate and comment, the more and better information we will have. Run your own paid media campaign, and let's learn how we can do better.

Update: In the comments, I think Kagro X has the explanation exactly right:

I saw a comment on a blog that said it was because we weren't following the advice of the guy who wrote the comment.

So I'm pretty sure that's it.

I bet it is, too.