Why Oh Why Can't We Have Better Horse-Race Journalism?

The Atlantic and others are rushing into print... well, onto LCD screens... with things like this, from Joshua Green:

Inside the Clinton Shake-Up: By all accounts, Solis Doyle's firing [from the Clinton campaign] became imminent after the first loss [in Iowa], as the extent of the damage sank in.... She'd been dispatched to Iowa to oversee operations in the final weeks before the caucuses, and Clinton still finished third. She'd been placed in charge of the campaign's relationship with John Kerry and hoped to get an endorsement, but he'd chosen to back Obama.... Solis Doyle's departure took a near-mutiny to bring about.... In one sense, Solis Doyle performed exactly as Hillary had hoped. Somewhat to my surprise, the longstanding fissures in Hillaryland never truly erupted when Clinton came under presidential-campaign pressure, certainly not the way they did in 2000. For all the chaos and disillusionment with Clinton's performance so far inside the campaign, very little of it had leaked to the press until just recently...

This seems to me to get the main story wrong. For example, consider this:

Had Hillary Rodham Clinton faced only Republican-quality opposition in the primaries, she would be rolling to an overwhelming victory with 80%+. It's only the fact that she's facing a very strong and very good candidate who has struck an immensely rich vein within the Democratic Party that leads to the pack-journalist consensus that the HRC campaign has gone badly wrong. It hasn't. It just has not (yet) been quite good enough, given the caliber of the other choices Democratic Party members have this year.

It's not the horse-race journalism I mind so much, it's the incompetent horse-race journalism. HRC's team is running a fast race here.

Comments

[derek]

What's the history of primary versus election turnout for the Republican and Democratic parties? Does anyone have any figures? I'd be interested to see if the result of the Presidential elections is well predicted by how many voters came out to vote in the primaries earlier that year.

[NeilS]

Thank you. Both Democratic candidates are excellent and Democrats are enthusiastic. I know I am.

The media want a dramatic story of collapse, but it just isn't there. At least not with the candidates. How lazy can you get.

A more accurate lede might be "Journalists Still Haven't Got a Clue and Can't Do Simple Arithmetic"

I was going to suggest some more graphic aphorisms attributed to LBJ, but decided not to do so.

[eponymous coward]

Er, having your campaign almost broke just before Super Tuesday and having to basically cede an entire month's worth of contests after it is "running a fast race"? Along with having your campaign manager resign so she could "spend more time with family" (and we all know what THAT means)?

My preferred explanation: much like Iraq, Hillary bought into conventional wisdom: a boatload of cash spent before February would lock up the nomination on Super Tuesday as voters went to the default option and setting up a showdown with John McCain, who was doing something similar. It wasn't a completely unreasonable set of assumptions 12 or even 6 months ago... but like Iraq, nobody bothered to challenge assumptions even when evidence was displayed that contradicted them (Obama catching fire and so on).

If Hillary's campaign is a proxy for how she'll govern America, color me unimpressed. We have a bit of a recurring leitmotif here with respect to Hillarycare/Iraq/her 2008 campaign, of insufficient intellectual flexibility and realization that the ground is shifting under your feet. I think it's a bad sign for her Presidency- though I have no doubt she'd be an improvement on the current occupant, I wonder if she'd stumble LBJ-style into a disaster.

In contrast, it's VERY clear Obama got it right on Iraq, and his campaign correctly identified a strategy with an excellent chance of winning for an underdog campaign facing someone with a large institutional advantage- basically, let Hillary rope-a-dope him with her cash and built-in, semi-incumbent advantages in the big states through Super Tuesday, while Obama showed the flag in them and kept the losses to acceptable levels, while picking up delegates in caucus/red/outlying states, and nailing Illinois- and then come out on fire in February in a favorable map for him. Plus, he ALSO had to thread the needle of becoming the Anyone But Hillary candidate, against candidates with more experience (Richardson) or somewhat comparable stump speaking skills and followings (Edwards).

I don't think there's any doubt in my mind who had the massive advantage and blew it- and who's done the better job executing a strategy (and Obama's campaign was dealt the worse hand and the harder path).

[eponymous coward]

There are many ways to interpret these numbers. Democratic voters may be coming out in greater numbers because they more passionately support one candidate over the others, whereas Republican voters may have less strong preference between their candidates. In addition, there was until recently a larger number of viable Republican candidates than Democratic candidates.

I would interpret it more as Senator McCain blowing past the rest of a weak field by locking into his target constituencies ("war on terra" hardcores, independents, moderates, some parts of the Republican establishment) once , like Senator Clinton was probably planning to (women, blacks*, Democratic institutional players). However, Obama's stopped her from doing that- and apparently COMPLETELY caught her campaign off guard, to the point where they are basically looking at having to game the rules by letting in the FL and MI delegations in order to see a clear path to victory.

* yes, blacks. Remember, Hillary was married to the "first black president"? And Obama didn't have "street cred"? This was about 6 months ago. My, how times change.

[chris m]

There are similar numbers from 1984, and look what happened to Mondale. Primary turnout isn't predictive.

[derrida derider]

Yep, Hilary's strategy was to stay to the right of her opponents, but also assumed that this would be Edwards or similar - she got blindsided by Obama. This was a mistake for which her campaign director should be accountable. In the absence of that mistake, though, "bet it all on Super Tuesday" was sound strategy.

Having failed to kill Obama on super Tuesday she should cut her losses and withdraw. Its downhill from here for her, and even if she did somehow manage to get the nomination by ruthless means this would poison her presidential campaign against McCain.

But Brad's point about the Dems having two formidable candidates is true - she's been unlucky, but sometimes shit happens.

[dennisS]

chris m, thanks for your input. I've been looking for that answer along with derek. Though I believe you're right and for that reason we shouldn't be complacent I wonder still if there isn't a big difference between Mondale's time and now. I was around back then and though I eventually decided that Carter's Democratic party and the GOP of that era could've and should've been differentiated by a discerning voter, there are reasons to believe most of us would've had a tough time seeing it and getting excited about the Dems. After the last 25 years, and especially the last 7, it's drop dead-easy to see the difference. And now this year, along with the tail wind, comes this exciting historical campaign with a very inspirational and serious candidate and another quite expert alternative candidate. Anyway, I think the numbers indicate a sea change. Interesting question: have Democrats done this well relative to Republicans since Mondale?

[spaz]

Brad you need some headlines that don't scream outrage for this kind of thing. Many smart people think the Clinton campaign made some serious strategic blunders and it doesn't reflect well on her. I'm glad to have you here making an interesting alternative argument, but don't hitch it to your shotgun blasts about the broken press corps. It weakens the moments when the vitriol is really deserved, and it distracts from the counter-intuitive argument in this case.

[Steven]

[Don't be so stupid: turnout is low when a party is crowning an incumbent. Condirional on their being a race, number of votes is a fine indicator of enthusiasm. You embarrass yourself.]

From: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/content/pdf/8489

Primary Votes Cast (millions)

Year/Dem/Rep/Winner
1972/16.0/6.2/Nixon
1976/16.1/10.4/Carter
1980/18.7/12.7/Reagan
1984/18.0/6.6/Reagan
1988/23.0/12.2/Bush(I)
1992/20.2/12.7/Clinton
1996/10.9/14.0/Clinton
2000/14.0/17.2/Bush(II)
2004/16.2/7.9/Bush(II)

Conclusion: Brad should be embarrassed for pretending that the turnout differential observed to date demonstrates that Hillary would fare well against McCain. It appears to be a case of wishful thinking leading to overconfidence.

[Ken Houghton]

In 1984, there was a (relatively) popular (within his Party; the rest of us were still recovering from the Reagan Recession) Republican President who ran unopposed within his party. The purpose of voting Republican in a primary was simply to acknowledge the inevitable.

Any comparison of 2008--where there is no incumbent, and the incumbent is not popular--with 1984 ratios or percentages is, therefore, specious at its best.

[Joe S.]

I agree with Brad. To bolster his argument, everybody just kind of assumes that Hillary is the candidate of proven competence. Hillary's excellent campaign has helped people forget about the 93-94 health care debacle. It doesn't hurt that Hillary seems to have learned from Harry & Louise. But Harry & Louise happened, and nobody has been able to make that very real mud stick. Good campaigning by Hillary, I'd say.

[bigTom]

The primary numbers are encouraging, but they could be deceptive. Late primaries, since the presses near-coronation of McCain should not be used in this comparison, as Republican voters have little reason to vote when the nominee is (supposedly) already determined. The Republicans have also shown great skill in using wedge issues to blunt Democratic demographic advantages. You can bet they will try some of the same plays this fall.

[Bill Conerly]

Does anyone else find it disgusting that the campaign is being treated as a horse race? There's far more attention to who is likely to win than to what the candidates think about the issues.

Oh well, maybe the issues don't matter. But if that's true, then the horse race doesn't matter, either.

[JRVJ]

Mr. DeLong,

Your HRC figures are distorted by Michigan (where Obama was not on the ballot and HRC got 328,151 votes) and to an extent by Florida.