What Works

Chris Bowers critiques the flip-flop line of attack against Barack Obama and observes "In fact, looking at the national poll trend lines at Pollster.com, the only line of attack that has ever clearly damaged Obama was the Reverend Wright flap back in March." Indeed as you can see above that's true. I might add that Wright-based attacks, while in many ways unfair, had the proverbial "grain of truth" advantage in that I think Obama really is more liberal than the Democratic nominees of the recent past in a way that trying to associate him with radical figures drives home.

The interesting thing about the 2008 election is that the political marketplace has responded to the collapse in support for Bush and the GOP in a pretty efficient manner -- with the Republicans nominating someone who's somewhat less conservative than Bush and whose association with the GOP brand is relatively weak, and the Democrats running on a more liberal agenda than they've had in recent cycles. McCain wants to exaggerate how moderate he is and how left-wing Obama is, not recycle attacks on John Kerry. I bet most people wish Kerry had won (actually, it would be interesting to see polling on this).

Comments

My speculation is: Kerry would have been a very poor president. I still wish Kerry had won.
The two candidates in the Dem race have been better than anything the Dems had since RFK, with the (debatable) exception of Bill Clinton and maybe the early Gore.

Posted by Speculative Man | July 8, 2008 9:27 AM

I'd like to see polling on buyers' remorse and Gore 2000 at least as much, too--and it would be worthwhile for some outfit to conduct a pretty big exercise in this vein, as it would be an interesting indicator of just how strong the Dem brand is right now....

Posted by elle loco | July 8, 2008 9:28 AM

Loco: What buyer remorse? They wanted to vote for Gore, yet the butterfly ballot fluttered its wing, bringing chaos to the world.
A more interesting poll would gauge public opinion on which form of "goin' medieval on his ass" is better suited to a certain Mr Nader.

Posted by Chad Cutter | July 8, 2008 9:31 AM

McCain's nomination was a path-dependent accident probably arising mostly from the personal unattractiveness of Romney and the hokey charm of Huckabee. In what became a 3 person race, McCain was a plurality winner. On the Democratic side, Obama's win is largely attributable to his success among independent voters, who were attracted to his personal qualities and his appeals to rise above partisanship.

It may be that Obama would have performed more poorly among Democrats had he been less liberal, which would partially validate your thesis. It's hard to attribute McCain's success to any efficiencies. Seems like the Republicans just stumbled into the least Republican candidate.

Posted by henry evans | July 8, 2008 9:35 AM

I hate to say it, but I don't think the flip flopper charge has had time to stick and make its way into polling data.

I don't agree Obama has flip flopped on Iraq at all, and couldn't care less about supposed flip flops on the death penalty and guns (it's not as if he was ever completely against either, so why the flip flop charge?).

But I have a hunch if we look back at 2004, it took a while for the Kerry flip flop meme to set in. Perhaps as late as when people got into the voting booth and said, "You know what, I don't trust this professor dude." Some research or insight into this would be useful (i.e. how long did it take for the flip-flop charge to set in).

And think about it, do we even remember what he supposedly flip flopped on? Voting for $87 billion before he voted against it? Anything else? Taking to hunting over windsurfing?

McCain is trying to construct a narrative based on a lot more examples of supposed flip-flops, manufactured or not. Hopefully it doesn't work, but the point is it's too early to tell if the seeds planted today will or won't lead to an uneasy mistrust about Obama's authenticity in the voting booth.

Ideally, we wouldn't need those last minute deciders...a hope that places a pretty large burden on Obama's voter registration drive.

Posted by Reversed | July 8, 2008 9:37 AM

Obama's so liberal I mean he has a comprehensive national health care plan! Wait no that was Bill Clinton, Obama has a milquetoast reform program that does little.

But he has a fully understood energy tax to fight global warming! Wait no that's Bill Clinton with a BTU tax, Obama has a cap and trade system that has yet to be fully spelled out.

The fact that you keep thinking Obama's a liberal despite him being the rightmost candidate in the Democratic primary is really funny.

Posted by Rob | July 8, 2008 9:41 AM

I think that the Iraq flip-flop accusation has a sting in its tail for McCain-- it draws attention to McCain's views on Iraq. Which is a -bad- thing for McCain.

Posted by MattF | July 8, 2008 9:42 AM

I bet most people wish Kerry had won (actually, it would be interesting to see polling on this).

Would you rather have President Kerry right now running for re-election against John McCain or Jeb Bush, or the Obama / McCain election? Is it worth taking the last four years of Bush to get to Obama?

However, I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people wish Gore had won in 2000. Which, of course, he sorta did.

In fact, looking at the national poll trend lines at Pollster.com, the only line of attack that has ever clearly damaged Obama was the Reverend Wright flap back in March." Indeed as you can see above that's true.

I think more generally that was just the period of time where Clinton supporters pretended they would support McCain over Obama in order to make Obama look weaker.

Posted by right | July 8, 2008 9:43 AM

Rob, Bill Clinton didn't have a comprehensive national health care plan or a BTU tax when he was running for president in '92. Those came after he won, and oh btw he didn't get either of those passed into law.

Posted by redwards95 | July 8, 2008 9:45 AM

"And think about it, do we even remember what he [Kerry] supposedly flip flopped on?"

Kerry said that, even knowing everything he knew by 2004, he still would have voted for the authorization to go to war. After that, his message was completely incoherent on his biggest issue, Iraq. He appeared to be attacking Bush for going to war based on exaggerated intelligence, but the charge made no sense after his statement. It was hard to follow whether he thought we needed to add more troops, or withdraw more quickly. It was an awful campaign. Flip-flopper? Close enough.

Posted by jbd | July 8, 2008 9:45 AM

There have been a few polls on potential redos.

First, there was an Angus-Reid poll from a couple years ago that polled Americans on every presidential election from 1964. Every real-life winner won every rematch, except for Richard Nixon in 1972 (in which he trails George McGovern 42-39) and Bush's two races. For the 2000 result, Gore leads Bush 46 to 38 and for the 2004 result, Kerry leads Bush 46 to 40.

I remember an LAT poll from April 2006 that showed Kerry winning by 10, but I can't find the poll now.

Posted by ASI | July 8, 2008 9:53 AM

The fact that you keep thinking Obama's a liberal despite him being the rightmost candidate in the Democratic primary is really funny.

I guess that depends on how you're judging. If you look at their Senate careers, for instance, Obama was to the left of Hillary for both years that the comparison is applicable. You can see here for the applicable rating. That is, of course, when they weren't just voting the same. Also, I'm unsure as to how saying something about Bill Clinton is supposed to prove that Obama was to the right of Hillary Clinton, much less Bill Richardson or Joe Biden.

Posted by Josh R. | July 8, 2008 10:03 AM

Kerry said that, even knowing everything he knew by 2004, he still would have voted for the authorization to go to war. After that, his message was completely incoherent on his biggest issue, Iraq. He appeared to be attacking Bush for going to war based on exaggerated intelligence, but the charge made no sense after his statement. It was hard to follow whether he thought we needed to add more troops, or withdraw more quickly. It was an awful campaign. Flip-flopper? Close enough.

His position in 2004 was the same as Hillary Clinton's in this campaign. Like Hillary, he called the war a mistake, but said he didn't regret his vote, saying that Bush was the one who took us to war and that Saddam wouldn't have let weapons inspectors in without the threat of force.

Though sort-of intellectually defensible, it was a fairly transparent (and clumsy) attempt to stay "consistent," which backfired because, by looking unprincipled and by conflicting with all his other statements about the war being a mistake, it made him look like a flip-flopper anyway.

Because Hillary's position was basically the same, this was a BIG reason why I favored Obama over her. Though I liked Kerry, I didn't want to relive that kind of debate.

Would you rather have President Kerry right now running for re-election against John McCain or Jeb Bush, or the Obama / McCain election? Is it worth taking the last four years of Bush to get to Obama?

And right, I absolutely wish Kerry had won. I actually think Kerry would have been a decent president and I think he would have handled Hurricane Katrina vastly better as well as doing better in Iraq (i.e. in a phased-withdrawal at this point).

However, even if you think Kerry would have been a terrible president, I still wish he won for one simple reason: the Supreme Court. Had he won, Kerry would likely have been able to shift the court to the left. He would probably have appointed three justices -- one to replace O'Connor (who was hoping for a Kerry victory), one to replace Rehnquist and probably one to replace Stevens as well. Even if nominated one centrist and one liberal, by replacing both Rehnquist and O'Connor, the court would have had a liberal majority.

There's virtually no prospect of that now, as all the likely retirees over the next decade are from the court's liberal wing. There's pretty much a well-cemented conservative majority for the conceivable future.

Posted by Andrew | July 8, 2008 10:04 AM

Oops! I screwed up my links.

This is the ranking of their Senate votes.

This is a Monkey Cage post with further information. Sorry.

Posted by Josh R. | July 8, 2008 10:07 AM

I can't imagine there's much buyer's remorse about Gore. Most Bush voters I know have only gotten angrier at Gore over the years for being consistently correct about everything over the past 8 years. With Bush, voters can at least tell themselves, "yeah, I was wrong, but the president was wrong, too."

Posted by Tyro | July 8, 2008 10:10 AM

Republicans nominating someone who's somewhat less conservative than Bush and whose association with the GOP brand is relatively weak, and the Democrats running on a more liberal agenda

I was thinking the same thing just yesterday. Matt, do you think the Bush administration's further-right stance on most issues foretells of a further-left reaction in the next (hopefully) couple of administrations?

Posted by Andrew Fly | July 8, 2008 10:12 AM

Is it worth taking the last four years of Bush to get to Obama?

No, because if Kerry had won in 2004 you'd already have a 6-3 liberal majority on the Supreme Court.

Posted by Just Dropping By | July 8, 2008 10:13 AM

JBD, I agree, Kerry ran an awful campaign with an incoherent message. At times it seemed like he couldn't complete a sentence. That allowed others to define him as a flip-flopper, but the evidence of actual flip-flops was pretty flimsy. One hopes Obama doesn't suffer the same fate, perhaps inoculated by his original opposition to the war.

Even Kerry's voting for the $87 Billion before voting against it was a defensible thing in terms of his actual votes -- one version funded it responsibly with reductions in tax cuts, the other didn't. Frustratingly, he never had the guts to make this argument clearly to voters after his infamous gaffe on the subject.

Here's hoping Obama's jujitsu to date is a preview of him turning these "flip-flop" charges into positives. I.e. "I'm not going to be another fundamentalist-in-chief."

Posted by Reversed | July 8, 2008 10:22 AM

The butterfly ballot didn't lose Florida. It was Harris's decision to not count over-votes. Florida had a history of finding ways to not-count votes so poor voters had become accustomed to double-marking their ballots. To really make them NOT ambiguous. The GOP in its corrupt soul decided to turn that lack of ambiguity into a flaw. Using pre-existing vote counting methods, Gore won by ~40,000 votes.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | July 8, 2008 10:22 AM

I bet most people wish Kerry had won (actually, it would be interesting to see polling on this).

Actually, if you polled I bet you'd find that a majority of people now believe that they did vote for Kerry in '04.

Posted by spaz | July 8, 2008 10:37 AM

While Nov 2004 was probably the saddest month of my college years, possibly my young life -- I have to say I don't believe we would have the political climate we have now without a second Bush term.

High school in Georgia in the late 90s and early 00s was awful for anyone who didn't see things the Newt Gingrich way. I was the only Dem in most classes, or at least the only one to speak out -- there was no Young Dems in existence. By 2006, the Young Republicans was out of business (replaced by the Young Moderates and a very healthy Young Dems) and now no one wants to call themselves a Repub, according to my younger brother.

In other words, the worst of the Bush years did a lot for progressive causes -- a lot of folks had to look into the barrel of the gun before they realized death was imminent. Gore or Kerry would have prolonged the inevitable demise of conservativism.

Posted by CHoward | July 8, 2008 11:01 AM

MattF said... I think that the Iraq flip-flop accusation has a sting in its tail for McCain-- it draws attention to McCain's views on Iraq. Which is a -bad- thing for McCain.

YouTube. It's a serious bitch for McCain. If Obama unleashes comparison ads (and I hope he does), the country will see McCain for the feckless, pandering flip-flopper that he really is.

Posted by LFC | July 8, 2008 11:04 AM

the worst of the Bush years did a lot for progressive causes -- a lot of folks had to look into the barrel of the gun before they realized death was imminent. Gore or Kerry would have prolonged the inevitable demise of conservativism.

That was more-or-less what Ralph Nadir was saying back in '00.

Let's hope that there aren't many people this time around wanting to see how popular progressivism will become if we lose another election. After all, after McCain starts the disasterous Iran War and sends the economy into a tailspin unmatched since 1929, no one will ever vote Republican again . . .

Posted by rea | July 8, 2008 11:30 AM

The 2000 race looks crucial only in retrospect. Gore was running as a moderate Democrat (freakin' Joe Lieberman was on the ticket) and Bush ran as a moderate ("compassionate conservative") Republican. Gore moved left out of office and Bush moved right when he outsourced his authority to Dick Cheney. The Paul O'Neill book is the best work so far to spell out Cheney's power over the weak willed Bush. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Price_of_Loyalty

In retrospect, the best argument in 2000 for Gore would have been, he's the only candidate strong enough to keep HIS crazy VP on a leash.

The 2004 race was a crusher because from the tracking polls (and even the exit polls that leaked early), it looked like Kerry had it won. Bush's last minute campaigning was wistful, like he knew it was over. It made Bush's victory all the more disconcerting.

Posted by beowulf | July 8, 2008 12:05 PM

But I have a hunch if we look back at 2004, it took a while for the Kerry flip flop meme to set in.

Actually, I think the big difference was Kerry's "I voted for the funding before I voted against it" line. The second he gave them that soundbite Kerry did the GOP's work for them and set the flip-flopper charge in stone.

Instead of fighting it, he should have just owned it after that. "Even if I am a poll-driven weather vane it's not like that wouldn't be a vast improvement. A flip-flopper is right half of the time through random chance, which would put me miles ahead of this administration."

Posted by SeanH | July 8, 2008 12:45 PM

According to leaked CIA reports, a major reason Bush won was that bin Laden released that tape just days before the election with the intent of making sure Bush won.

"JBD, I agree, Kerry ran an awful campaign with an incoherent message. At times it seemed like he couldn't complete a sentence."

Very true. The texts of some of his speeches had rather simple, punchy sentences at times, but when he would deliver them, he would add on these meandering dependent clauses that seemed to add shades of gray while only adding to the incoherence. It made it seem like Kerry was just another politician who liked to cover his butt, didn't stand for anything and had no principles. He just didn't seem to get how to play the media.

Posted by Reality Man | July 8, 2008 12:47 PM

But I have a hunch if we look back at 2004, it took a while for the Kerry flip flop meme to set in.

Actually, I think the big difference was Kerry's "I voted for the funding before I voted against it" line. The second he gave them that soundbite Kerry did the GOP's work for them and set the flip-flopper charge in stone.

Instead of fighting it, he should have just owned it after that. "Even if I am a poll-driven weather vane it's not like that wouldn't be a vast improvement. A flip-flopper is right half of the time through random chance, which would put me miles ahead of this administration."

Posted by SeanH | July 8, 2008 12:49 PM