The Need for Narrative

Brendan Nyhan writes about how the need to construct a campaign narrative can lead to people substantially overestimating the importance of this or that campaign occurrence. For example, current polling makes it look likely that Hillary Clinton will beat Barack Obama by a bit more than ten points.

Now if you'd said on March 5 "looks like Clinton will win Pennsylvania by about 12 points" most people would have said "sounds about right, she has a huge advantage in the polls right now but Obama always gains ground through actual campaigning; still, demographically speaking it's very favorable terrain for Clinton." But today it's essentially inevitable that any failure on Obama's part to close the gap will be substantially attributed to "bittergate" even though failure to fully close the gap was not only predictable but widely predicted weeks ago based on Pennsylvania's age structure, educational attainment, and African-American population.

Comments

this is his campaign's failure. they just can't keep expectation low. although this time they did try hard.

Posted by jay | April 15, 2008 2:57 PM

Conversely, if Obama cuts her lead to 5%, it may just as easily be interpreted as a "backlash" against "bittergate."

Posted by Craig | April 15, 2008 2:57 PM

Reason #1,987,234 I hate the media.

I've never been a reporter so I've never quite understood the incredible necessity reporters have to repeat endless drivel that was itself repeatedly endlessly by other reporters over and over and over and over and over in the face of tremendous evidence to the contrary (i.e. McCain SAYS he's against torture, so don't even bother to remember the fact that he voted for it). You people are a servile bunch.

Posted by How Insane Is John McCain? | April 15, 2008 2:57 PM

It's almost enough to make a fellow bitter.

Posted by Bill | April 15, 2008 3:02 PM

Unless she starts winning states by 25%, she isn't going to close the delegate or popular vote gap enough to persuade superdelegates to execute a "coup". And if she loses outright or only wins by a small margin, there's a very good chance the supers won't wait until June 4 to announce for Obama in droves. A 12% win in Pennsylvania doesn't change the race any and a huge game changer is exactly what Clinton needs to maintain the fiction that she is still a viable candidate for the nomination.

Posted by Ron | April 15, 2008 3:03 PM

But why!?

Posted by steve duncan | April 15, 2008 3:04 PM

Bittergate? Is Obama accused of violating the law or acting unethically? No he was expressing the long held puzzling view that many Americans - particularly in small towns, the exurbs and on the farm - vote against their economic self interests because they are charged up on cultural and identity issues. Nothing new there! Is going to San Francisco the equivalent of meeting Hamas? Is that where we are right now?

Can we cut out gate thing - either for bowling, bitterness or orange juice. It's a race and the candidates are being tested. Let's report and talk about it but these little snide pigeonholes are efforts to dismiss one or another of the candidates.

I mean, whatever happened to John McCain and cuntgate?

Posted by Jake | April 15, 2008 3:08 PM

But Matt,

The problem i have with you is that each time something controversial comes up with Obama you appear to panic and think it will doom him. You don't appear to have any faith or confidence in him and this is what i get in reading your blog.

Posted by Lynette Robinson | April 15, 2008 3:10 PM

Unless she starts winning states by 25%, she isn't going to close the delegate or popular vote gap enough to persuade superdelegates to execute a "coup".

Which is why we should all (for the sake of our own sanity) do our best to ignore the media drivel- it has virtually no effect on the real world anyway.

Posted by Steve LaBonne | April 15, 2008 3:13 PM

Shorter Matt:Obama never loses, it always just bad demographics!

Posted by Rob | April 15, 2008 3:13 PM

Really, Rob? That's what you got of his post?

Posted by Stacy | April 15, 2008 3:22 PM

Good narrative Matt.

Posted by Dave | April 15, 2008 3:36 PM

Assuming the stupid "bitter" flap dissolves like the fart in the wind that it is, what we're really seeing is how irrelevant the media has become. They buzz around the candidates like flies around a pair of bulls, but don't really affect anything.

In due time Hillary's campaign will blessedly come to an end, her supporters will sulk for a bit and then realize their actual choice is Obama or a horrendous unreconstructed rightwinger, and most will go for Obama and forget Hillary (just as the Edwards supporters did before them). McCain won't be able to untie the Bushco boat anchor from his leg and it'll pull him under. Obama will take office in 2009 and start picking through the wreckage.

Meanwhile the whole time the idiot MSM will be on about whatever onanistic crap they get in their heads, and blog pundits like Matt will mistakenly believe it means something.

Posted by jimBOB | April 15, 2008 3:46 PM

Hillary is likely to win Pa, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico. Obama is favored to win NC and Oregon. I have not seen polling on South Dakota, but I know that Daschle will work the state hard for Obama. If Obama gets shut out for these last eight contests, then I doubt that Obama will get the nomination before Denver.

We have had no meaningful results for eight weeks. No matter who you support, there is no objective reason to see the race as any different than it was after Mississippi.

If Hillary wins the last eight contests, my bet is she will be the nominee.

Posted by Ephus | April 15, 2008 4:08 PM

All of those demographic reasons are why McCain will make PA close and probably even win the state.

Despite what you all try to convince each other of, McCain is a moderate and much closer to where the majority of Americans are on most issues. Obama is a leftist, much further left than the majority of Americans are on most issues.

If he hides his true beliefs, maybe he squeaks by to gain the nomination. But his problem is that when he shows his true beliefs he has to apologize/clarify-- and this is only the primary. The Obama zealot followers lap it up because they believe the same things he does. But Obama co-religionists are hardly representative of where American voters are on the issues or reflect what qualities 50+% of the people look for when electing a president.

He talks about typical white people being bitter and clinging to guns, religion, anti-trade. That's rich-- he's immersed himself in bitter religion for 20 years, clinging to some fantasy he has about being authentically black, whatever that means. It appears that it means that white people are the cause of all the pathologies in black America. And isn't he campaigning on an anti-trade platform? More bitterness!

But when "the jobs" come back, the people Obama casually identifies as bitter will suddenly stop hunting, stop going to church, embrace their union brothers in Colombia, and accept that they are the reason for all the black ills, right? That is the premise of your assertion that, if only these typical white people voted for what you perceive to be their economic interests (as opposed to their social/cultural beliefs), then they wouldn't need these silly things they cling to, because they would no longer be bitter. And the way to such sweet (or at least non-bitter) nirvana is.... to vote for Obama!

The hicks might be dumb, but they're smart enough to know insincerity.

They already have a religion, and they ain't buyin' yours.

Hillary may not be your only chance to keep the electoral votes close, but Obama sure won't. PA will show you that.

Posted by 8-Ball | April 15, 2008 4:39 PM

Can we please stop adding "gate" to every "controversy," no matter how small? It's just plain silly.

Besides, "Bittergate" sounds like the name of a mediocre rock band.

The "Bittercling Controversy" sums up the situation better and is at least original.

Just a thought ...

Posted by Mark D | April 15, 2008 4:47 PM

8-Ball-

Since when is McCain a moderate? Just because he's pissed off a bunch of Republicans doesn't mean he's not one of them.

Posted by How Insane Is John McCain? | April 15, 2008 4:54 PM

In a current political ad, 3 year-old Hillary Rodham, arms extended, toddles toward the home-movie camera. Hillary's present-day voice-over explains, the Rodham family cottage, down by the lake, lacked indoor plumbing. Yet, more telling details seem to fall by the wayside. Take twenty-seven year old Hillary's first real job. The upshot: Jerry Zeifman fired Hillary for unethical practices during the Watergate Investigation. Why was Hillary fired? “Because she was a liar,” Zeifman said in a recent interview. “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.”

“I have gone [duck] hunting. I am not a hunter. But I have gone hunting," says Hillary. Perhaps as amusing, is how an elitist politician worth over $100 million-dollars, espouses small town family values. Not only does Mr. Zeifman’s account go to character, it goes to a lifelong pattern of lying and obfuscation. It took Zeifman twelve years to get his story aired. After Watergate, Zeifman could not recommend Hillary for any subsequent position of public or private trust, nor furnish her with a letter of recommendation. After that, Hillary's employment record is one of strict nepotism, cronyism, and amnesia.

Although few suspected the lengths to which Hillary would go, a leopard never changes her spots. According to Mr. Zeifman, it’s not just Hillary’s dishonesty; that’s not in dispute. More to the point, Hillary’s history of lies and unethical behavior goes back farther, and goes much deeper than anyone realizes. "The Clintons corrupted the soul of the Democratic Party." -Henry Ruth, lead Watergate courtroom prosecutor. Hillary Clinton is a bold-faced liar, who will stop at nothing. Should anyone doubt either Mr. Zeifman, or Mr. Ruth’s veracity regarding the Clintons, dispute this: http://theseedsof9-11.com

Ps. Parental reminder: due to possible long-term side effects, please use caution when teaching a child to quack like a duck.

Posted by Peggy McGilligan | April 15, 2008 5:46 PM

Another fun thing coming at Obama that the MSM hasn't run yet is the same bloggger published an earlier piece APR 7th about another remark by Obama at a (separate?) San Fran Dem Wealthy Elite fundraiser.

Before that, Fowler had turned in a piece which ran April 7th and caused a ripple, with Obama telling the San Francisco fundraiser crowd that he doesn't need a foreign policy expert as his running mate because he already knows a lot about foreign policy. Huffington, who was about to leave for Tahiti, was concerned about that piece, which had no political impact other than pointing up Obama's cockiness.

This is a guy that still maintains that because he gave an anti-war speech 6 years ago, saying the same basic things other Lefties ideologically opposed to Iraq said - like Susan Sarandon, Teddy Kennedy, Fidel Castro, Vladimir Putin, and Saddam himself - Obama is a foreign policy genius of the highest judgment.
And he says his in-depth knowlege comes from being an expat kid for a while, his undergrad degree in International Relations, and being in contact with Muslim relatives in Indonesia and Kenya.

Clinton may be a liar, McCain may be old, but Obama appears mildy delusional and full of himself. And elitist. Seems after the Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, and Kerry picks, only Clinton was worth a damn, and Obama besides his soaring black preacher-like speechifying, looks to be no Clinton, but a Kerry that talks better and has no Vietnam baggage.

Posted by Chris Ford | April 15, 2008 6:12 PM

MY:

... Pennsylvania's age structure, educational attainment...

Here, let me translate that.

Old people "don't count."

People not in the "creative class" "don't count."

No thanks necessary, glad to be of help.

Posted by lambert strether | April 15, 2008 8:29 PM

Matt, observing demographic realities and noting that the press' bullshit have an impact isn't contradictory. If Obama's "gaffe" hadn't been made or, at least, reported, the press would have spent the weekend talking about what a dishonest hack hillary is. As we have already seen, that cuts into her poll numbers. Sans l'affaire Wright and this new gaffe, the media wouldn't be focusing on questions of Obama's electability and would be more likely to give Hillary the huckabee treatment, effectively killing her chances (at this charade, not that she has a chance at the nomination).

Also, please refrain from ever suggesting that because you made a prediction that it was a good one. Some people overestimate the reliability of their efforts to divine causility, true, but some people also overestimate the reliability of the predictions of the punditry. Your "counterintuitive" impulse is annoying, but to make a post attacking conventional wisdom armed only with the support of previous conventional wisdom is embarassingly dumb. The fact that you and a bunch of other pundits who are mostly incompetent at predicting future events had the same opinion at one time is meaningless.

Note the vapid tautology implicit in Nyhan's post: gaffes aren't important...except when they are! Media coverage matters, much more than this pet theory allows. Remember that most recent primary contests are based on media created "momentum" generated by single digit delegate gains in a little less than 2-4% of the total contests theoretically being challanged. If Hillary doesn't cry for votes in NH, Barack wins there and the primary is over by Feb 5th. The "outrage" and the "pity" vote, etc. are significant, even if the impact is hard to theorize or measure in advance (or even in reflection). Many voters (enough to matter) make choices based on really dumb reasons--regardless of how obtuse the punditry is.

So, yes, this is an onslaught of mass twaddle that distracts from important issues and won't impact how anyone votes. And the fact that nobody is changing their mind, when there is good evidence that, sans gaffes, they would have, is important.

Posted by Client #11 | April 15, 2008 9:36 PM

Clinton will say whatever it takes to get elected.

'Annie Oakley' changes her tune
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9594.html

Bill Clinton Flashback: "All These Economically Insecure White People...Are Scared To Death"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/13/bill-clinton-flashback-al_n_96433.html

Electoral-Vote.com says this about Pennsylvania:

"Thus it could happen that Hillary Clinton gets 55% of the vote and net a total of three pledged delegates. Fortunately for her, there are also 35 at-large delegates that split in proportion to the popular vote and also 20 PLEOs (mayors and local officials who have to campaign for a delegate slot). If she gets 55% of the popular vote, she would get a net of three at-large delegates and a net of two PLEOs. Thus if CQ Politics has it right on the districts and also if Clinton gets 55% of the popular vote, she will probably gain a net of under 10 delegates from the primary election and Obama will probably win most of that back in North Carolina two weeks later. After that, there are no big states left so the delegate totals will not change much until the superdelegates go public."

At TPM:

Three new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg polls show close primary races in Pennsylvania and Indiana, with Barack Obama posting a strong lead in North Carolina -- bad news for Hillary Clinton, as she at least needs good-sized wins in Pennsylvania and Indiana.

Pennsylvania
Clinton 46%, Obama 41%

Indiana
Obama 40%, Clinton 35%

North Carolina
Obama 47%, Clinton 34%

Meanwhile, Real Clear Politics Poll Average shows Clinton ahead in PA by around 8.6 points, while their National Average shows Obama ahead by 7.6.

Check this wonderful YouTube video out:

Hillary's Tax Returns
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XznOWNnjlL4

Clinton is toast.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 15, 2008 10:14 PM

C'mon.

Richard Steven Hack? That's irony, right?

Posted by Lambert Strether, Philadelphia, PA | April 15, 2008 11:35 PM

John McCain is no doubt a moderate by the standards of Heinrich Himmler and Josef Goebbels - but that ain't really saying too much.... Of course, the fact that he can't remember his lines, is a shameless flipflopper and sucks up lobbyist cash with a vacuum cleaner.. well, maybe that's why he'll lose the general/

Posted by morzer | April 15, 2008 11:54 PM

nice little train of thought influenced by The Black Swan. (right?)

and I especially enjoyed this phrase
"Pennsylvania's age structure, educational attainment, and African-American population."

Posted by McL | April 16, 2008 12:29 AM

Can we drop the "narrative" thing? Only in the minds of reporters is this campaign about narratives. In reality it's about delegates. I know it's exciting for Matt and friends to narrate interminable narratives, and we give them lots of hits in return, but this race is over.

Posted by phillygirl | April 16, 2008 12:48 AM

Strether: Nope - I used to get kicked off BBS systems back in the late '80's, early '90's (before the Internet) because sysops thought my name was a fake.

Being in IT, it comes in handy.

Meanwhile, Carter and Gore are reportedly planning to demand Clinton bow out by May or so.

It's Obama, stupid: Carter and Gore to end Clinton bid
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/world/It39s-Obama-stupid-Carter-and.3976738.jp

Money Quotes:

Former president Carter and former vice-president Gore have already held high-level discussions about delivering the message that she must stand down for the good of the Democrats.

"They're in discussions," a source close to Carter told Scotland on Sunday. "Carter has been talking to Gore. They will act, possibly together, or in sequence."

An appeal by both men for Democrats to unite behind Clinton's rival, Barack Obama, would have a powerful effect, and insiders say it is a question of when, rather than if, they act.

Obama has an almost unassailable lead in the battle for nomination delegates, and is closing the gap with Clinton in her last stronghold, Pennsylvania, which votes on April 22.

Clinton remains publicly defiant, insisting she will continue the battle with Obama all the way to the Democratic convention in August - when superdelegates, or party top brass, will have the chance to add their weight to primary votes.

But the party's top brass have concluded her further participation in the race can only harm the party as Republican nominee John McCain strives to take advantage of her increasingly bitter battle with Obama.

Both Carter and Gore occupy the rarefied position of elder statesmen - in addition to their White House past, both are winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, giving them additional gravitas to carry the party with them.

Neither of them is likely to object to the role of bringing down the curtain on Clinton. While neither man has formally endorsed either her or Obama, both have clashed in the past with the Clintons.

Gore blames his loss to George Bush in the 2000 presidential election on the impeachment of Clinton triggered by his White House affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Carter, who has carved out a successful career as an international mediator, is believed to detest the flashy style of the Clintons. He recently told an interviewer that his entire family are committed Obama supporters.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 16, 2008 1:22 AM

I voted for Carter and regretted my vote. He has no business talking to Hillary about dropping out. If he endoreses Obama, it would not surprise me.

However, Gore is another matter. I really like Al Gore and voted for him. He didn't lose in 2000 because of Clinton. Gore failed to carry his home state of TN. If he had, he would have won.

Obama has not earned the nomination. All this blabbering is nonsense.

Posted by EWard | April 16, 2008 10:02 AM

"However, Gore is another matter. I really like Al Gore and voted for him. He didn't lose in 2000 because of Clinton. Gore failed to carry his home state of TN. If he had, he would have won.

Obama has not earned the nomination. All this blabbering is nonsense.

Posted by EWard | April 16, 2008 10:02 AM"

Actually, Gore lost Florida and thus the election in 2000 in part because of Bill Clinton. Clinton went from getting 70% of the Cuban vote in Florida to being hated by that same community because of Elian. In places where Clinton could have helped with campaigning, he was nowhere to be found.

Posted by Reality Man | April 16, 2008 10:21 AM

What does "Obama has not earned the nomination" mean?

He has the pledged delegates, he has the popular vote, he has a number of superdelegates (but not a majority - yet), and there's no way Clinton can win without winning the majority of the remaining superdelegates.

Meanwhile, Clinton has "earned"...what? Title of the most lying, corrupt candidate since Hermann Goering?

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 16, 2008 4:55 PM

I don't think those poll results are saying what you think they're saying...and at this point I'd be quite surprised, actually, if Clinton defeated Obama by more than 10 in PA. I would say to look for things to be much closer than expected, considering Clinton's downright silly behavior of late.

Posted by onceler | April 16, 2008 5:03 PM