An Inconvenient Truth

Two people have mentioned to me Joe Klein's article in this week's Time entitled "Pssst! Who's behind the decline of politics? [Consultants.]", and I feel compelled to respond publically. He begins with a vignette of RFK's speech during the night of King's assassination:

"Ladies and gentlemen," he began, rather formally, respectfully. "I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening because I have some very sad news ..." His voice caught, and he turned it into a slight cough, a throat clearing, "and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee."
...
"My favorite poem, my favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote, 'Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart,'" he paused, his voice quivering slightly as he caressed every word. The silence had deepened, somehow; the moment was stunning. "'Until ... in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.'"

Klein goes on to blame television and consultants for the lack of politicians who cite Aeschylus in their speeches. He then specifically attacks the consultants of the Gore and Kerry campaigns for causing their downfall. I agree with bits of the essay, but contend most of the substance.

First, I concur that television has changed everything. While previously, intellectuals could be elected to the highest office in the land, with the advent of mass communication, performers are much more suited to the task. (Roger Simon's book Show Time illustrates this point quite clearly.)

I also 100% agree with this sentence:

In fact, [the Democratic consultants] had it backward: the character of their candidate, they believed, would be inferred from the quality of his policies.

If there was one thing that the Dean campaign taught us, it was that neck-down campaigns are exceedingly powerful. But in high-profile races at least, it is the candidate, not their consultants, who dictate whether you can run a head- or heart-centered campaign.

Klein then slips into the fallacy that I've seen all too often: because the Democrats lost in 2000 and 2004, the consultant on the left must be terrible, while Bush's cadre must have the Midas touch. (Bush's current approval rating notwithstanding, apparently.) The simple fact that a party loses two Presidential races in a row does not mean that party's campaign structure is in shambles. Clinton won in 1992 and 1996, with much wider margins than Bush's: where were the "Republicans have it all wrong" stories then?

But enough musings, let's get down to facts. According to Ray Fair's Presidential Vote Equation, which is based purely in the cards handed to the candidates (e.g., incumbency, economy), Gore should have won 50.8% of the two-party vote and Kerry should have won 42.3% of the vote. This equation has a standard error of a little more than 2%. (Non-statistician's translation: most of the time the election will fall within 2% of the given number.)

How did the Democratic consultants do? Well, in 2000, Gore "only" received 50.3% of the two-party vote, well within the margin, but slightly underperforming the expected value. In 2004, Kerry received 48.7% of the two-party vote, demolishing the state-of-the-nation prediction. These numbers certainly don't support Klein's conclusion.

Plus, if Klein is going to blame the Democratic consultants, he should at least fault a specific action. For instance, in 2000, Bush stole West Virginia from Gore with television advertisements that blasted Gore's environmental record. Gore's polling showed him up by a good margin in WV, and thus his campaign didn't respond to these ads for weeks. During that time, West Virginia went from Gore country to Bush country and then voted GOP in Novemberl for the first time since 1984 (since 1956 if we exlcude 49-state landslides). Ironically, Klein recommends that Gore should have spoken more about the environment. Yeah, and Gore should have touted his pledge to register all new handgun purchases, too...

Have Democrats made tactical mistakes? Sure. Kerry probably should have bashed Bush at his convention. Gore should have spent more resources in Tennessee. But, the Bush campaigns were not immune from stupid decisions either. In 2000, Bush's consultants (who Klein specifically cite as a model for how campaigns should be run) decided to spend money on advertising in California. Recall that California media is almost prohibitively expensive and the Gore won the state with relative ease (53% to 42%). Gore's advisors wisely stayed out of an ad war in CA, and Bush wasted $10.8 million. Think of how many gross rating points those dollars would have bought in the Orlando-Daytona Beach market.

Politics has changed since RFK's time, and not necessarily for the better. Candidates have adapted to meet the public's and the media's shifting expectations. Consultants have learned to use new technology. But I'll take a system of government, advisors and all, which produces Barack Obama as a convention keynote speaker any day.

LOTD: And while we're on the subject of Al Gore: check out the trailer for his new documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.