Cook Political Report National Overview
February 24, 2004
Introduction
While Republican control of the House
appears rock-solid and the GOP’s chances of
maintaining a majority in the Senate remain
high, we are convinced that this presidential
race is going to be very, very close. In separate
analyses, Jennifer Duffy, our
Senate/Governor Editor, focuses on the 2004
Senate races. Amy Walter, our House Editor,
looks at the fight for control of the House with
particular attention to the competitive races,
the special election in South Dakota and the
races in the newly redistricted Texas seats. The National Overview focuses on the national
political landscape and the presidential
contest.
A competitive presidential race in 2004
is almost inevitable, given the fact that our
two major political parties are virtually
evenly divided in strength and voters are
more polarized along partisan lines than any
time in memory.
An Evenly Divided Nation
The two broadest gauges of partisan
strength are self-described party identification
of voters and the party affiliation of state
legislators.
The Gallup Organization interviewed
nearly 40,000 Americans over the course of
2003. On the party ID question, 45.5 percent
identified themselves as either Republican or
as independents who lean Republican, while
45.2 percent called themselves Democrats or
independents who lean toward Democrats.
Revised figures from 2002 showed
Democrats ahead in party identification, 45.4
percent to 45.3 percent for the GOP.
There are 7,382 state Senators and Representatives in the United States. As of December 2003, 3,688 or 49.95 percent were Republicans, and 3,627 or 49.13 percent were Democrats. While there would appear to be a slight Republican edge in both measures, it really couldn’t be much closer.
A Highly Polarized Nation
The extraordinary degree of polarization is evident in a Gallup poll finding that showed that President Bush enjoyed the third highest
job approval rating of any modern (post-World War II) President among members of
his own party in November of their third year
in office (one year before the re-election).
Only Presidents Eisenhower and Reagan had
higher approval ratings. But the same poll
indicated that Bush also was dead last in job
approval among members of the other party
one year before the election, showing that he
was even more unpopular among Democrats
than President Clinton was among
Republicans at a comparable point in his first
term. An early February poll for the
Associated Press by Ipsos U.S. Public Affairs
showed that while 72 percent of Republicans
said that they would definitely vote to reelect
President Bush, 74 percent of
Democrats said that they would definitely vote
for someone else. These numbers not only
show a level of intensity that is highly unusual,
but it is extraordinary for Democrats to
show greater unity than Republicans since the
reverse is normally the case.
Return to the Top
President Bush’s Narrow Trading Range
This extremely high level of support for
President Bush among Republicans effectively
creates a high floor underneath him, while
the adamant opposition to him among
Democrats creates a low ceiling above him. In
effect, if President Bush were a stock, he
would have a narrow trading range. Only
extraordinary events are likely to allow him
to move above that ceiling or below that floor,
and even then only for short periods of time.
That is precisely why top Bush campaign
strategists have long maintained that if
everything went their way, the President
could win by no more than four, and possibly
five or six, percentage points. If things didn't go so favorably, the race would be much
closer and the outcome could quite possibly be
different. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s
61.1-percent showing over Sen. Barry
Goldwater in 1964 or President Richard M.
Nixon’s 60.7-percent win over Sen. George
McGovern in 1972 is extremely difficult to
replicate given this evenly divided, highly
polarized political environment. Indeed, even
the 10-point win former California Gov.
Ronald Reagan achieved over President
Jimmy Carter in 1980 is extremely unlikely.
A Pattern of Surges and Declines
There is usually a natural ebb and flow to
politics, but the last few months have more
resembled a roller coaster. In mid-November
of 2003, President Bush’s job approval rating
in the Gallup Poll had dropped to 50 percent,
the lowest of his presidency, while his disapproval
rating had inched up to 47 percent. This
50-percent rating put him lower than his
father, President Reagan or President Clinton
were in November of their third year in office.
The combination of a sluggish economy and a
war that didn’t seem to be going well were taking
their toll on President Bush’s standing with
the American people. From Labor Day until
that point, eight Gallup Polls had indicated that
the President’s job approval rating ranged
from 50 percent (twice), to 56 percent
(once), with an average of 53 percent. If you throw out the highest and lowest ratings, the
remaining six ranged from 50 percent to 55 percent.
What happened next was a succession of events that seemed at the time to have taken
President Bush to a new level. The first event
was his surprise Thanksgiving Day trip to
meet U.S. troops in Baghdad, which was
extremely well received by the public and left
Democrats slack-jawed at the audacity of the
move. A post-Thanksgiving Gallup poll indicated
that Bush’s approval rating had jumped
six points to 56 percent. Then came the
unexpected news of the capture of Saddam
Hussein, followed shortly by news that a deal
had been negotiated with Libyan leader Col.
Muammar Qadafi to end Libya’s nuclear
weapons development program. These three
foreign policy/national security related
events reversed waning public support for
the engagement in Iraq, turning what was
threatening to become a liability for the
President into a real, though temporary,
asset.
These events did not happen in a vacuum,
but occurred against a backdrop of six weeks
of the best economic news in several years,
sending President Bush’s approval ratings up
seven more points to 63 percent just before
the Christmas holidays. AP/Ipsos had the
jump slightly lower at 59 percent in its final
poll of the year. It is important to note that
according to its analysis of its data Ipsos found
that the increase in President Bush’s
approval ratings was more closely linked to
the economic developments than to the three
foreign policy events, but it was all good news
for the President.
These events took President Bush well out
of his normal 50-percent to 55-percent
approval rating range. At the time we wondered
whether it would realign the election,
and whether perhaps President Bush had settled
onto a new and higher plateau. The Gallup
63-percent approval rating, his highest
since June, was the highest for a December of
the third year in office of any President since
Dwight D. Eisenhower, who sported a 75-percent approval rating at that stage of his
presidency.
This surge, however, proved to be temporary.
As Gallup Organization Editor-in-Chief
Frank Newport noted in his February 10 "The
Nation’s Pulse" column (www.gallup.com), a
combination of events worked to undercut the
President on national security, his strongest
issue, and raise doubts about his judgment and
foreign policies. Some of these events included
a report from Iraq arms inspector David
Kay that he doubted we would ever find weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq,
as well as the suggestion by CIA Director
George Tenet that the Iraq threat was not
imminent at the start of the war. And
Secretary of State Colin Powell’s statement
that if he had known then what he knows now
about Iraqi weapons he might not have supported
the war was also a major factor. At the
same time, Democratic presidential candidates
campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire
were launching brutal daily attacks on the
President, which dominated the evening news
and front pages of the nation’s newspapers.
The Democratic/anti-Bush message was suddenly
articulated more sharply and was more
focused than ever before.
Given these circumstances, it is little
wonder that President Bush’s approval ratings
quickly tumbled. They dropped from 63
percent in late December to 49 percent in a
January 29-February 1 Gallup/CNN/USA
Today poll of adults, and slid to 47 percent in
a February 2-4 Associated Press/Ipsos Poll
of registered voters, among other surveys.
In subsequent polling, the President’s
approval rating appears to have leveled off
and recovered a few points. In a newer
Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll, taken February
6-8, his approval rating was back to 52 percent
and his disapproval was down to 44 percent.
The two most recent Gallup polls
(February 9-12 and 16-17) showed Bush’s
approval rating dipped a point to 51-percent
approve, 46-percent disapprove.
Gallup’s Newport pointed out in his
February 17 column that in the most recent
poll, 88 percent of Republicans approved of
President Bush’s performance, compared to
47 percent of independents and 19 percent
of Democrats. In early January, when
President Bush’s overall approval was nine
points higher at 60 percent, his approval
among fellow Republicans was five points
higher at 93 percent. It was nine points
higher at 56 percent among independents and
10 points higher at 29 percent among
Democrats. This suggests that there isn’t
much elasticity in the President’s numbers
among members of his own party; that his
hold on Republicans appears exceedingly
secure. To the extent that there is an ebb and
flow, it is among independents and
Democrats.
The pattern during this presidency seems
to be that dramatic events suddenly push
President Bush’s approval ratings up, and
then a sort of political gravitational pull
brings them back toward 50 percent.
Interestingly, each surge in President Bush’s
approval ratings is smaller and more shortlived
than the preceding one. After the
September 11 tragedy, the bounce lasted an
extraordinary 15 months, while the Iraq
invasion bounce lasted a little less than four
months. The most recent bounce lasted less
than two months. When the each surge wears
off, his approval ratings tend to revert back
to the norm and back to the even partisan
divide. This surge/decline pattern may well
repeat itself again between now and the
November 2 general election.
A Referendum on the Incumbent
Presidential elections, at least those
involving an incumbent President seeking
re-election, are not primarily a choice
between two candidates, but a referendum on
the incumbent. Do the American people
believe that this President has performed
well enough to deserve re-election? Do the
American people have confidence that this
President can lead us for another four years?
There are three possible answers to these
questions: yes, no and maybe. If the answer to
those two questions is yes, then the President
will be re-elected regardless of the opponent.
Under those circumstances, Democrats could
nominate the reincarnation of Franklin D.
Roosevelt or John F. Kennedy, and still lose.
Conversely, if the American people fundamentally
lose confidence in a President and
believe that a President does not deserve to be
re-elected, or that circumstances exist to bring a majority or even large plurality of
Americans to reach that conclusion, the challenger
to the President becomes relevant. At
that point, the question that voters have to
answer is whether the challenger meets a
minimum threshold of qualification and
stature, that he is considered a qualified,
credible and viable alternative. If that challenger
doesn’t meet that threshold, the
incumbent would likely limp on to a second
term, despite voters’ misgivings.
It’s only when Americans are conflicted as
to whether that President deserves re-election
and whether they have confidence in that
President to run the country for another four
years, that the election truly becomes a
choice between two candidates. When that
happens, the campaigns and issues become
critically important. If the economic, foreign
policy and domestic circumstances produce
mixed signals for voters about their confidence
in the direction of where the country is
headed, a challenger still must meet the minimum
threshold, effectively making the race
a choice between two candidates. Our hunch is
that this is where we are headed this year.
Return to the Top
Key Determinants for the
2004 Presidential Election
We have been saying for the last six
months that in making a prediction about
whether President Bush will be re-elected,
we would rather know how the war in Iraq
was progressing than who won the Democratic
nomination. This is certainly not to suggest
that the identity of and the campaign waged by
the Democratic nominee is inconsequential,
only that what is happening in Iraq and public
opinion toward the war is an even more
important determinant in whether President
Bush would be re-elected.
Similarly, if we had to choose between
knowing the identity of the Democratic nominee
or how the economy is doing for the first
six months of this year, we’d rather know
about the economy. We’d want to know not
only what the gross domestic product (GDP)
growth rate is and how the stock market is
performing, but we’d look at a number of
other indicators as well. These include the
unemployment level, real disposable income
and real wages, how people feel about the
economy, whether the broader job situation
is improving, whether the number of jobs is
increasing, and whether the quality of the
new jobs equals the quality of those jobs that
have been lost.
These two issues, Iraq and the economy,
will be the most important factors in determining
whether President Bush will be reelected.
Iraq
The longer that U.S. troops in Iraq are
sustaining daily casualties and the financial
costs to U.S. taxpayers of involvement in Iraq
remain high, the potential for the American
people to reassess their view of the conflict
and the justification of the conflict exists and
presents a danger for President Bush’s reelection
hopes. Already, February polling by
the Gallup Organization showed that 49 percent
of Americans believe that the war in Iraq
is "worth it," and another 49 percent believe
it is not. This is still a far cry from Iraq
being a significant negative for the President,
but it still could happen.
Despite admissions by President Bush and
Secretary of State Collin Powell that there
was no direct connection between Iraq and
Saddam Hussein and the September 11
attacks, many Americans today still see a
connection and that obviously works to
President Bush’s benefit. And despite the
failure to find evidence that Iraq possessed
any significant number of weapons of mass
destruction, the public still seems to be willing
to give President Bush the benefit of the
doubt. The importance of voters linking the
events of 9/11 and Iraq is that the more time
that passes that no or few weapons of mass
destruction are found, the more important the
perceived terrorist threat to the U.S. and
retaliation for 9/11 remains. That is because the third justification—that Saddam
Hussein was an evil dictator and that Iraq and
the world are better off with him out of
power—is not one that most Americans would
continue to support in the face of mounting
casualties and costs draining resources from
domestic needs. They do not see freedom for
Iraqis as worth the sacrifices of American
lives and money. In some way, for Americans
to remain behind President Bush on this
issue, they need to perceive that Iraq was a
threat to the United States. It is critical for
President Bush’s future that Americans see
the Iraq conflict as a war of necessity rather
than a war of choice.
While every effort is being made to transfer
political authority to Iraqis by summer
and further involve military forces from
other countries once that happens, foreign
policy and military experts suggest that the
political transition is going much slower than
hoped. Even in the event that the U.S. begins
to relinquish real control in Iraq before the
November elections, experts say that it will
only intensify the civil strife in the country,
as various factions jockey for dominant positions.
One CIA leak predicts civil war by the
end of they year.
Further, many experts say that the three primary objectives in Iraq - security, political
instability and reconstruction - remain
inextricably linked, with reconstruction
stymied by a lack of progress on security and
political stability. The delay in reconstruction
means that the slower than expected oil
revenues and electric power problems delay
economic stability and greatly exacerbate
other problems.
It is also worth noting that local warlords
appear to be gaining in strength in
Afghanistan with areas of allied control getting
smaller and smaller. The potential for
that conflict to flare up remains as does the
possibility that the Afghan elections may be
delayed.
The greater the cost in terms of both lives
(543 U.S. lives as of Feb. 20) and dollars
($87 billion comes out to approximately
$200 million per congressional district or
$1,000 per family) and the longer the conflict,
the greater the chance that voters will
re-evaluate U.S. policy in Iraq. Criticism of
the President’s Iraq policies thus far have
been somewhat diffused, but once there is a
Democratic nominee and the case against Bush
becomes better organized and more focused,
there is the danger the dynamics may change.
Another major terrorist attack on the
United States or against Americans abroad
also could prompt a reassessment. A December 15-17 Associated Press/Ipsos
survey indicated that 70 percent of
Americans agree with the statement that "the
U.S. military presence in Iraq is an important
part of the campaign against terrorism." Twenty-seven percent disagreed, and instead
agreed with the statement "the U.S. military
presence in Iraq is a distraction from the
campaign against terrorism." In the event of
another major act of terrorism, that poll
question should be asked periodically to see if
it changes. If the ‘essential’ number
remains high, that is good for the President.
On the other hand, if the ‘distraction’ number
were to grow significantly, it is a sign that
voters think that the money and effort spent
deposing Saddam Hussein would have been
better spent eradicating Osama bin Laden and
al Qaeda, and the President’s support would
likely erode very quickly.
The Economy and Jobs
You could almost hear the champagne
glasses clink when the announcement was
made late last year that the economy, as
measured by the gross domestic product
(GDP) growth rate, had grown by 8.2 percent
in the third quarter, the highest rate in two
decades. Even the 2003 fourth-quarter GDP
growth of four percent, substantially slower
than the white-hot third-quarter pace, was
enough for many to continue celebrating the
end of the downturn and the start of impressive
growth.
The consensus of 53 top economists surveyed in the February 10 Blue Chip Economic
Indicators was that the U.S. economy would
grow at a 4.6 percent pace this year,
unchanged from the Blue Chip consensus forecast
in January. But these impressive growth
rates and a once again booming stock market
may well be masking other economic problems,
or at the very least, diminishing the
positive political benefits of what otherwise
would be highly favorable economic numbers. A January 12 headline in the Financial Times
read: "A weak dollar, a growing deficit and a
feeble job market. So why are U.S. economists
so optimistic?" This headline came only days
after the International Monetary Fund issued a
warning that the mounting fiscal and trade
deficits in the U.S. had the potential to destabilize
the world economy.
It was a Federal Reserve Bank of New York
study in August by Erica L. Groshen and Simon
Potter (www.newyorkfed.org) that got us to
think differently about the economy. The
study looked at the current economic downturn
and recovery and compared it to the three
previous economic downturns and recoveries.
Looking back at the twin, back-to-back downturns
that the U.S. economy suffered in the
mid-1970s, the study found that 49 percent
of the job losses were in cyclical industries,
industries that would likely rebound and
rehire once the economy recovered, while 51
percent were permanent job losses. When the
economy dropped and recovered again in 1981
and 1982, the percentages were exactly the
same, 49 percent cyclical, temporary job
losses and 51 percent structural, permanent
job losses. But in the next downturn in 1991
and 1992, the percentage of cyclical losses
dropped to 43 percent, while structural losses
went up to 57 percent, suggesting a very
different pattern from the two previous business
cycles. This also turned out to be a bit of
a foreshadowing of the next down cycle. In the
current economic downturn, only 21 percent
of the job losses can be described as cyclical,
while 79 percent are structural.
It always takes much longer to create a
brand new job because that job most often
comes from newly started companies, or
even newly minted industries, than simply
calling back a shift of assembly line workers
or rehiring salespeople. As a result, these
numbers suggest that the job growth aspect
of this economic recovery could be unusually
stubborn. Because the nature of the job
losses was so different from previous downturns,
the pattern of job growth in this
recovery could be equally different.
A December 29, 2003 front-page article
in the Los Angeles Times by David Streitfeld
took a different look at the problem. Using
November 2003 employment figures,
Streitfeld found that while there were 8.7
million unemployed Americans, there were
another 4.9 million who were working parttime
but seeking full-time jobs and another
1.5 million who were discouraged workers,
those workers who could not find jobs and
were no longer actively looking. This total of
15.1 million, the highest in 10 years, does
not include workers who currently hold fulltime
jobs, but jobs that are not as well-paying
or come with the benefits as ones they had
two, three or five years ago.
In traveling around the U.S. and meeting
with business leaders and workers, we have
heard plenty of stories about companies that
either out-source jobs to contractors who pay
less and provide fewer benefits, or shift jobs‘off-shore’ to other countries that have lower
wage scales and no benefits. As the CEO of a
California high-tech firm told us, "There is
no amount of overtime that my firm would not
pay, no level of temporary services that we
would not use and no degree of off-shoring
jobs that we would not do in order to prevent
hiring one more person in the U.S." At a
recent conference, another business executive
predicted that in five years, he would have
employees whose benefits, driven by rising
health insurance premiums, would exceed
their annual salaries.
Over the last five years, businesses large
and small have been buffeted by rising health
insurance premiums that have ranged from
mid-teens to 50 percent, often for increasingly limited coverage. Given that U.S. companies
are saddled with shouldering the health
care burdens of their employees, a responsibility
handled by the government in many
other countries, this presents, along with
higher wages, a situation in which U.S. workers
are becoming increasingly non-competitive. At one time, the loss of competitiveness
of U.S. workers was driven largely by wages,
now health insurance costs are making U.S.
workers even less competitive than their
foreign counterparts. What’s more, newer
job losses now include white-collar, knowledge-based jobs, not just manufacturing jobs.
These are the jobs that we told people to train
for so that they would not lose their jobs in
the future.
There is no doubt that these moves have
contributed greatly to vastly improved productivity
figures, higher profits, booming
stock prices and tremendously lower costs of
goods. As a whole, the economy is more efficient
because of these changes. On a "macroeconomic
level," these changes are good. But
in the short-term, it could slow down new job
creation and diminish the political upside that
would normally be associated with strong GDP
growth figures.
The overwhelming consensus of economists
is that meaningful job creation will
begin shortly, and maybe it will. Keep in
mind that with growing numbers of employment-age Americans and immigration, a certain
amount of job growth is necessary just to
maintain the same unemployment level.
Thus, even more jobs must be created to put
people who have lost their jobs back to work.
The ISI Group estimates that the working-age
population (WAP) is about 190 million and
growing at a pace of 1.3 percent per year,
roughly 200,000 per month.
Perhaps 150,000 jobs need to be created
each month just to keep even with this pace.
For President Bush to fully recover the job
losses that have occurred since the beginning
of his term, the U.S. would need to average
250,000 new jobs a month. Since November,
that average is about 70,000 jobs per month.
The primary reason that the unemployment
rate has not gone up is the large number of
Americans who have stopped looking for work.
And once the job growth does begin, the question
to be asked is whether the new jobs created
are commensurate in pay and benefits
with those jobs that were lost.
Return to the Top
The Democratic Nomination
This section has been rewritten many
times as the contest for the Democratic presidential
nomination has changed dramatically
over the last few weeks. As recently as
December, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean
appeared to have the nomination all but
wrapped up. Then, after Sen. John Kerry’s
Lazarus-like wins in the Iowa Caucus and New
Hampshire primary and ultimately 14 of 16
early contests, it looked like the nomination
was his for the asking, and very likely will
be. But, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards’s
near upset of Kerry in Wisconsin make this
race worth watching for another couple of
weeks. In all likelihood, Kerry has the
momentum and cash flow to yield him a
majority of delegates after the March 2"Super Tuesday" primaries and caucuses. But, given the great disparity between Kerry
and Edwards in candidate ability, with
Edwards far and away the more charismatic
and persuasive, we’re not quite ready to say
it’s over. On a level playing field, we suspect
that Edwards would take Kerry, but our suspicion
is that this playing field is anything
but level. Kerry’s momentum and money,
coupled with the desire by many Democrats to
get this nomination settled, is outweighing
persuasiveness as a factor.
As has been widely reported, the common
theme heard from Democratic voters in every
corner of the country is electability: that they
want to nominate a candidate that will be able
to beat President Bush in November.
Different voters define electability in different
ways and give different weights to different
factors, but electability is the common
denominator and not to be overlooked in this final phase of the nomination contest.
What happened to Dean?
The rise and fall of Howard Dean has to be
one of the most fascinating sagas in modern
American political history. When we met
with Gov. Dean in January of 2003 and his
candidacy was at its embryonic stage, we confess
that we didn’t think he had a snowball’s
chance in hell of being even a factor in the
race, let alone becoming the frontrunner for
the Democratic nomination. But Dean and his
strategists saw very early a path to the front
of the pack that turned out to be brilliant.
First, Dean pointed to signing into law the
nation’s first civil unions legislation as an
example that he was not just a typical, lickthe-finger-and-put-up-in-the-wind style
of politician. He used that issue as a means of
standing apart from the practice of politics as
usual.
Second, Dean saw very early on, long
before others, that many Democrats were
harboring a deep well of anger and frustration
toward their leaders in Washington. These
Democrats saw Washington Democrats as
enabling President Bush instead of aggressively
opposing the President and his policy
initiatives, both foreign and domestic. It
largely had gone unnoticed that Democrats’
loathing of President Bush had come to match
and, in some polls, even surpass the hatred
that many Republicans and conservatives had
developed for President Clinton eight years
earlier.
This loathing for President Bush spilled
over into the policy side when congressional
Democrats seemed hesitant, particularly
after the September 11 tragedy, to challenge
him directly on many issues. Traditionally,
Democrats might have approached an economic
downturn with a proposal to enact jobscreation
programs involving road, school and
hospital construction since such programs
lead to relatively immediate, tangible job
creation. Instead, Democrats in Congress
chose to quibble with President Bush over
exactly what kind of tax cuts, how large and
for whom. The problem, of course, is that
while everyone likes lower taxes, the saliency
of tax cuts was at its lowest point in 42
years (per Gallup polling) and that most people
do not see a connection between tax cuts
and job creation. Time and again, these
increasingly frustrated party members saw
Congressional Democrats as not being confrontational
enough to the point that when
Dean came along and demonstrated considerably
higher levels of anger at President Bush
and a far more pugnacious approach than his
rivals, it got noticed.
Third came the Iraq War. It should hardly
be a shocker that there is a strong, antiwar
constituency in the Democratic Party,
one that goes back long before the Vietnam
War. And yet when many liberal leaders in
the party, up to and including Sen. Hillary
Rodham Clinton, voted in favor of the war,
these anti-war Democrats looked for a standard-bearer and found one in Howard Dean.
The Iraq War issue effectively married
Dean’s three themes; that he didn’t bend with
the winds, that he was willing to take on
President Bush directly, and that he was
opposed to the war in and of itself. It wasn’t
until Dean started gaining momentum that
other Democrats began to emulate him,
attacking President Bush more forcefully,
being critical of how the war was being conducted
and even questioning the President’s
decision-making process. This was obviously
awkward given that most voted for the war
as well.
Fourth, there was the Dean campaign’s
brilliant use of the Internet as both a tool of
organization and fundraising, which was made
to order as his supporters were young, welleducated,
affluent, highly wired and more
technology oriented, far more so than the
supporters of any of his rivals. Let’s face it,
Rep. Dick Gephardt could have had a worldclass
web site and it wouldn’t have worked too
well for him, as that was not his constituency.
Dean used the Internet to reach over and
around the Democratic Party establishment and its traditional constituency groups,
effectively creating a party-within-a-party
and eventually taking over much of the original
party before fate turned against him.
Dean’s rivals were largely helpless for a
time. Like poker players watching a fellow
player who is on fire, there seemed no way to
beat him, as long as his luck was holding out.
Gephardt, for example, had acquired candidate
skills that he had never before possessed and
put together a terrific organization, but it
seemed to get him no closer to the nomination
and he was never able to convince the party’s
donors that he was a different and better candidate.
He also couldn’t convince them that his
jobs message would work, even in the face of
considerable survey data that it could and
would. Although John Kerry had difficulty—and still does—"connecting" with voters on a
personal level, his organization and fundraising
was (and is) first rate. When the Dean
juggernaut was at its zenith, Kerry was forced
to dismiss his perfectly capable campaign
manager simply to try to jump-start a campaign
that was held back as much by the luck of
an opponent and the aloofness of the candidate
than anything else.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut’s
candidacy never seemed to get off the ground.
It wasn’t just that he could not transfer the
goodwill and sympathy that he generated as
the party’s vice presidential running mate in
2000, but he failed to raise the money in the
Jewish community that almost everyone
expected that he could. To us, it seemed as if
four different, and somewhat contradictory,
arguments worked against him among
prospective Jewish donors and supporters.
The first was, "one of us cannot win," that
America would never (or not yet) elect a
Jewish President. The second argument, and
one that was mostly articulated by older Jews
was, "Oh my God, what if one of us won?" This
group feared an anti-Semitic backlash if
someone of their faith won a presidential
nomination or the presidency. The third was,"I would love to see one of us elected
President, but given what is going on in the
Middle East, this is not the best time." The
final reason heard was, " He’s too conservative,"
as most Jewish Democrats are considerably
more liberal than Lieberman. Despite
the fact that Lieberman is a very talented guy
and that he had some very able people in his
campaign, his candidacy just never came
together.
Dean’s fall came swiftly and we see a
handful of reasons for it. First, Dean allowed
his candidacy to become too defined by his
opposition to the war. This did two things.
First, it defined him as a liberal, which certainly
was contrary to much of his record as
Governor. On the basis of his actual record in
office Dean and Lieberman were arguably the
two most conservative Democrats in the race.
While Dean often cited balancing 11 budgets
as Governor of Vermont, a state that does not
require balanced budgets, he did not emphasize
it enough to fully establish himself as an
effective, pragmatic, moderate Governor. And
while he often referred to the plan he implemented
that effectively gave health care coverage
to 99 percent of children under the age
of six, he should have emphasized that he was
able to do that because he had been a moderate,
pragmatic Governor who had held the line on
spending in other areas. He also should have
emphasized his opposition to higher taxes and
his willingness to work with the business
community to promote growth in the state.
While one might ask the need to do that in a
party of liberals and chronic tax-raisers, the
reality was that electability was a central
element in Democratic voters’ decision-making.
As such, these other aspects of Dean’s
record could and should have been emphasized
more and earlier on to establish his electability
bonafides and not allow the anti-warmust-be-too-liberal argument to dominate.
Second, Dean’s emphasis on the war made
him too dependent upon the war remaining
front and center in the minds of voters. As
soon as Saddam Hussein was captured, media
and public focus on the war virtually disappeared,
and one could almost see the wind
coming out of Dean’s sails, and for that matter, the sails of retired Gen. Wesley Clark.
Neither candidate had (and arguably Clark
could not) diversified their message beyond
the war, thus both were highly vulnerable to
a drop if the public and media focus shifted
away from the war even briefly.
The final mistake was more tactical than
strategic. Historically, Iowa Caucus contests
have been fairly tidy and positive affairs. The
candidates focus on capturing the imagination
of party members while their campaigns
focus on identifying and getting their supporters
out to vote. Very little negative
advertising, particularly on television, had
been done in the caucuses in the past, and
Iowans seem to like it that way. The overwhelming
desire to win in November, in retrospect,
made Iowa Democrats even more
hostile to negative advertising. Iowa
Democrats could see that the more baggage the
eventual nominee might pick up from a bloody
fight, the less electable they might be in
November. Dean’s decision to air negative ads
attacking Gephardt and Kerry, along with
Gephardt’s decision to attack Dean, turned out
to be fatal. The attacks ran counter to both the
spirit and tradition of the Iowa Caucus as well
as to the mood of Democrats this year. In
Dean’s case, it further undermined his image
of being "not just another politician." Dean’s
snapping at a heckler at an Iowa event, something
understandable given the pressure he
was under but again, not consistent with "Iowa nice," didn’t help either.
All of this seemed to come together during
the first two weeks of January. On the ground
in Iowa, one could sense that Dean was falling,
though it was not apparent that he was in a
complete free-fall and would end up in a
stunning third-place finish. The now infamous
scream that came at the end of a talk that
would be totally appropriate for the coach to
deliver at half time was not appropriate for
national television, and ended up being the
period at the end of the sentence. At that
point, Dean was done. A meteoric rise that
was both brilliant and miraculous ended in
ridicule.
Return to the Top
The General Election Campaign
As Gallup’s Frank Newport pointed out in
his February 17 column, polling in the first
half of February ranged from a nine-point
Kerry lead to a three-point Bush advantage,
but most polls showed Bush ahead. At one
point, Gallup had Bush 12 points behind
Kerry and the most recent survey showed the
race basically even. Newport noted that "…these data suggest that 2004 is not shaping
up to be the type of easy sweep to victory
enjoyed by Clinton in 1996, Ronald Reagan in
1984, Nixon in 1972 or Dwight Eisenhower
in 1956. In each of those years, the incumbent
President never trailed his opponent in
any Gallup Poll trial-heat ballot during the
entire election year."
The 2004 Presidential election battlefield
very closely resembles that of 2000 but it is
not identical. Depending upon one’s count,
there are between 16 and 18 states that are
legitimately in play. Our way of looking at the
battlefield is to start off with every state that
touches the Great Lakes except three, New
York, Illinois and Indiana (the first two will
very likely go Democratic, the last
Republican), then add two states in the
Northwest, Washington and Oregon. In the
Southwest, there’s Nevada and New Mexico.
Although some add Arizona into the mix, we
don’t. While the Hispanic percentage is
increasing dramatically, President Bush also
polls unusually strong with Mexican
Americans. As such, we think it won’t be until
2008 that Arizona becomes a genuinely competitive
presidential state. Moving eastward,
add Iowa, Missouri and Arkansas into the target
mix. Some include Louisiana as well,
though we don’t. We see the spillover for the
Texan helping just enough to keep Louisiana
tilting toward the GOP. Add Florida in the
Southeast, and West Virginia, then head further
north and add in Maine and New
Hampshire and you get the full complement of
16 states in play. If you include Arizona and
Louisiana, it would take it to 18.
The four states that President Bush carried
last time that deserve especially close
attention this year are Florida, Missouri,
New Hampshire and Ohio. Florida is included
for obvious reasons. In Missouri, keep in
mind that it has gone with the winning presidential
candidate in every presidential election
since 1900 except for 1956. It is as
close to a political microcosm of the country
as there is. In 2000, the presidential, Senate
and gubernatorial races in the Show Me State
were all won by three percentage points or
less. New Hampshire, once a flinty-conservative
Republican state, is getting less
Republican and more independent every year.
Fifty-six percent of the people in New
Hampshire were not born there. This has
become very much of a swing state. Finally,
there are plenty of indications that Ohio,
which Bush won by just over three percentage
points in 2000, is even more in play this
year than it was then.
In terms of states that Al Gore carried last
time that deserve a close watch are Minnesota
and Wisconsin in the upper Midwest and New
Mexico, which Gore carried by only 366
votes in 2000. Given President Bush’s
unusually strong (for a Republican) support
among Mexican-American voters, this one is
hardly a slam-dunk for Democrats.
Democrats, particularly in the South,
seem to constantly cry out the importance of
the party carrying at least a few Southern
states. Our view is that with the exception of
Arkansas and possibly Louisiana, Democrats
could not carry any other state in the region
even if they had Robert E. Lee at the top of the
ticket. Like many political analysts, we do
not consider Florida a Southern state.
Beyond picking off Arkansas and maybe
Louisiana, it’s really more a factor of the
presidential ticket not hurting Democrats in
down-ballot races in southern states. This is
especially important given that Democrats
are defending four open Senate seats in traditionally
southern states, five if Florida is
thrown in.
Return to the Top
Bottom Line
The bottom line is that if the situation in
Iraq improves and if the economy, including
meaningful job creation, does pick up, then
Democrats could nominate the reincarnation
of Franklin D. Roosevelt or John F. Kennedy
and still lose the election. But if one or both
factors get appreciably worse, then this election
might well get very close and President
Bush’s re-election is anything but a foregone
conclusion.
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