The GOP ballot problem

May 7, 2007 – 6:06 am

Ok, now I have argued that electability will matter in this election. And early polls only matter a little. But the new Diageo/Hotline poll, via Pollster.com, should terrify Republicans:

  Clinton Obama Edwards
Rudy Giuliani +4 -9 -6
John McCain 0 -11 -11


That is, Rudy Giuliani is beating Clinton by 4%, and the rest is … a mess. And Hillary Clinton performs worst against the Republicans. Not surprising with fav/unfav of 48/51, net -3% with only 1% left to go.

Now, there is plenty more time for this stuff to change. But, especially McCain and Hillary are fixed. There is plenty that the country does not know about Giuliani, but it is hard to imagine how much of it is going to help.

The GOP should be scared.

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Romney’s flip-flops take a village

April 17, 2007 – 1:42 pm

Mitt Romney opened his mouth and inserted his foot again. However, it turns out that he was replacing Hillary Clinton’s words with his foot, so it may well be a trade up.

You see, back in 1998 he said that Hillary Clinton was "very much right" that "it takes a village:"

Hillary Clinton is very much right, it does take a village, and we are a village and we need to work together in a non-skeptical, no-finger-pointing way…

Now, you see, "it takes a family". Just in case you missed that, he was talking about Rick Santorum.

Perhaps one should say that Romney’s flip-flops take a village. There are so many of them…

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Hillary raises $26m

April 1, 2007 – 4:24 pm

That’s the number from the Hotline. They note that, for her, that isn’t really that impressive. Furthermore, this is a primary and general number. As the Romney memo notes, this number is a little bunk. The NYT’s Caucus points out results for Joe Biden, $3m, and Bill Richardson, $6m. They also give us a bit of wisdom:

In the logic of campaign publicity, campaigns are likely to consider it advantageous to announce numbers at the same time as Senator Clinton if they want their relatively low numbers to be overshadowed in the news coverage. Conversely, waiting suggest they may want to attract attention to unexpectedly strong results.

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Brownback beats Romney in Hillary head-to-head

March 11, 2007 – 12:52 am

Last week Rasmussen released polls on 2008 head-to-head match-ups between various Republicans and various Democrats. The Brownback campaign touted one that showed Brownback only 5% behind Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee. Rasmussen notes:

Brownback is an unknown to 43%, and viewed favorably by only 19%. Just a couple weeks after his announcement, the percentage who view him favorably isn’t any larger even among Republicans.

Remember that Sam Brownback is at 1 or 2% in nationwide polls right now. People do not know who he is. It is likely that he is polling as, approximately, a "generic Republican" against Hillary Clinton. Why does this matter? Contrast this with Mitt Romney’s performance against Hillary Clinton:

  1. Hillary Clinton beats Sam Brownback 46-41.
  2. Hillary Clinton beats Mitt Romney 51-41

Sam Brownback performs 5% better against Hillary Clinton than Mitt Romney. Now, there are two possibilities: either people are favorably inclined towards Brownback, or they are unfavorably inclined against Romney. As much as I love Sam Brownback, I just do not think that it is credible to argue that a significant number of voters have information at this time that would make them more favorable to him than the average Republican. Therefore, I have to conclude that a significant number of voters have negative information about Mitt Romney.

If I am right that Sam Brownback is polling as a "generic Republican", then Mitt Romney is underperforming the generic Republican by 5% against Hillary Clinton. This is believable. Romney has been beaten up in the press, as I have noted repeatedly. At this point, Romney has a couple of strong negatives, including Massachusetts, his religion, and his flip-flops, which have all been written about in the AP and on CNN, etc. This could easily account for the losses that he is facing, as compared to Sam Brownback who just has not received the same kind of press. This is a dire warning for the Romney campaign.

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Hillary, high name id and familiarity, and running for President with a record

September 3, 2006 – 7:18 am

Today the Blogosphere is buzzing with the news that people are advising Hillary Clinton not to run for President. Some discuss her future as the Democrat’s Senate Leader. I have written earlier about some of this here and here. Why is she considering this? There are several theories:

  • She is too divisive. Her candidacy would energize the right like almost no one else. Note that this is a question about her electability. The Times of London article recasts this a little as a positive:

    “I would not be surprised if she were to decide that the best contribution she can make to her country is to forget about being president and become a consensus-maker in the Senate,” said a leading Democratic party insider. “She believes there is no trust between the two political sides and that we can’t function as a democracy without it.”

  • She misunderstood where the Democrats would be on the war. This has opened a gaping wound on her left flank. The Washington Times has an excellent story on the subject:

    • “She has to move to the left on the war,” said John Zogby, president of an international polling firm. She “risks losing a chunk” of the liberal vote if she doesn’t.”

    …

    “The anti-war crowd is going to have no choice than to bang on her record — to go after her,” said Republican strategist Scott Reed. “They’ve all been emboldened by this Lamont exercise.”

    When asked Friday about the war, Mrs. Clinton said, “I’ve been a constant and consistent critic. I’ve also tried to work within the fact that this president has made decisions and a series of strategic blunders. … I have a situation that I’m trying to figure out how we’re going to deal with.”

    Leaning against a pickup truck on display at the fair, the anti-war Mr. Tasini said, “People are furious about the war. It’s the precise reason she doesn’t want to debate me. She’s obfuscating where she stands on the war.”

  • Finally, Democrats don’t really seem to like her after all. (and the schedule has been given, in essence, to John Edwards)

It is interest to note that there are 3 or 4 other high name ID candidates in this race right now: John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, and John Edwards (who has to be considered the Democrat’s frontrunner now). A brief comparison of the GOP candidates with Hillary:

  • Newt Gingrich. He has the same electability problem. It is unclear how much the base actually likes him because familiarity with him has faded over time. And enough people have forgotten some of his apostasies and he has been able to flip on those issues (like immigration).
  • Rudy Giuliani. Clearly no electability problem. In the current set of candidates, the base seems to like him. But it is clear that the base has not been fully informed about his positions, especially with regard to red meat issues like abortion, gay rights, and gun control. Will he be able to build enough of a relationship with the base before they find out about these apostasies? Or will he be able to change the subject in a way that they approve of, that this can be overcome? (this is the “security more important than moral issues” theory)
  • John McCain. Clearly no electability problem either. The base seems to be somewhat torn by him. And in many ways they are misinformed by him. In his case, the question will be whether he can overcome perceptions of him. In some ways, the time for McCain to stop embracing the President and start criticizing him from the right may be approaching, but he can’t do it until after the election. He has the advantage that the press will cover anything that he says.

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Hillary as Senate Democratic Leader — The Hillary Movement

August 22, 2006 – 3:56 pm

What is this about? Ezra Klein writes about this in the LATimes. The answer is simple. It is about turning her into the national boss of the Democratic Party. She would use her fundraising network to raise money for candidates and pick candidates in primaries. She would use her power in the Senate to control the debate to shape the message of the Democratic Party. This is a Newt-like ambition and vision.

Her husband failed to shape the party. He tried to tack to the center and the party rebelled after he left, starting with Gore’s populism in 2000. This would be a place from which they could shape their party. The question is whether they are more interested in the office of the President than the future of their party. That is what I failed to communicate the other day in my post on her future.

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Online markets prefer Edwards to Clinton in the general

August 21, 2006 – 1:09 pm

H/T to Greg Mankiw for the analysis.

The GOP markets at Tradesport only have McCain and Giuiliani, so I don’t think that they are very meaningful. But Mankiw points out what is interesting about the Democrat ones:

[W]e can obtain for each candidate the conditional probability–the probability that the person will win the general election if nominated. Here are the results:Clinton 48.3
Edwards 57.3

Note the relative performance of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. Although Clinton is more likely to end up President than Edwards is, Edwards is more likely to win the general election conditional on being nominated. At least that’s what the market says.

I think that jives with most people’s understandings. I also think, looking at some of the other stuff on there, that there’s some room for arbitrage…

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Iowa State Fair Straw Polls Results: McCain wins; Clinton and Edwards tie

August 17, 2006 – 9:50 pm

GOP side:

  1. John McCain: 24%
  2. Rudy Giuiliani and Condi Rice: 20%
  3. Newt Gingrich: 10%

Dem side:

  1. Hillary Clinton and John Edwards tied at 34%
  2. Vilsack third.

Upshot: McCain is still the front runner. And Hillary just can’t go that high, we think.

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A Thought on Hillary’s Strategy

August 16, 2006 – 7:57 pm

Hillary just put out her first ad. Hotline has it. So I pose a question:

Does she have to run for President in 2008? Not necessarily.

Let’s go back to the basics and think about her position:

  • First of all, to quote a friend of mine from IA Democratic politics, “Is there anyone in the world who is persuadable on her?” The answer is, fewer voters every year don’t know who she is. Some die and some become new voters.
  • People hate her. Even Democrats hate her.

  • Why do people think that she is unbeatable if she runs? She has the largest fundraising operation in the country

So here’s a thought. Why doesn’t she run for VP? You can’t really attack a VP candidate. Is someone really going to vote against the Dem ticket because she’s VP? At the same time, she can deliver her organization for someone else in 2008. And then in 2016, she has a clear shot, and 8 more years of voter attrition and positive name ID as VP…

She and Bill are smart enough. They could be thinking like this.

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