McCain's strategy: force a gaffe?

The conventional wisdom is that when a candidate asks for more debates, said candidate is probably behind. We see now that McCain has invited Obama to a series of weekly town hall debates. So does the conventional wisdom hold here?

Actually, I think yes. Particularly so because John McCain is not an especially strong debater. The GOP had some very capable debaters in its primaries; Rudy Giuliani was one of the quicker candidates on his feet that I've ever seen, and Mike Huckabee's entire opportunity probably came as a result of his strong performance in the debates. But John McCain's performance in the debates was middling. Barack Obama, meanwhile, while not a terrificly strong debater, improved significantly as the primary season wore on. The aesthetics of having the two of them on the same state together -- where Obama's height and relative youth make him more telegenic -- also play well for him.

McCain may be hoping to score a cheap political point or two ("he's afraid to debate me"), assuming that Obama won't take him up on his offer. Nevertheless, this is a reminder that the underlying dynamics of the race favor Obama. The two candidates are essentially tied right now, with about 20 percent of Democrats defecting to John McCain. If Obama can get that number down to 15 percent -- still higher than the 10-12 percent rates that most nominees get, but lower than where it is now -- that's worth a couple of points for him depending on the state. The bounce is likely to be especially large in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, which have been trending Democratic in party affilaition but that also have a lot of Clinton supporters. If Obama moves Pennsylvania from "lean Democrat" to "safe Democrat", and Ohio from "toss-up" to "lean Democrat", McCain will need to have a nearly-perfect Election Night to win the Presidency.

The Democrats are also likely to have a significantly more compelling convention than the Republicans. Obama himself is a better speaker than McCain by a couple of orders of magnitude, and the Democrats will also get speeches from Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, and (health willing) Teddy Kennedy. With the incumbent President and his family being more a liability than an asset, the Republicans simply won't have the star power to match that.

Obama is also likely to have a significant advantage in fundraising. He'll have the presence of an energized blogosphere to serve as a counterweight to right-leaning radio and television outlets like FOX News. The three official long-form debates scheduled by the networks, which are so structured as to resemble stump speeches as much as real debates, are also likely to favor Obama. The economy and the situation in Iraq aren't likely to have improved significantly by November.

So in order to win, McCain is going to need to capitalize on gaffes that Obama has already made -- the whole elitism/patriotism/liberalism/friends-of-Barack ball of wax remains a very significant vulnerability for Obama, especially if tinged with undercurrents of racial politics (as it invariably is). Or, better yet, McCain is going to have to induce some new gaffes from Obama. The more times that Obama speaks to a national audience, the more opportunity there is for him to do so. But this is not a strategy a candidate takes when his fundamentals look good.

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Dear George: voters don't care about electability

This might seem strange coming from a site that focuses unabashedly on the horse race elements of the campaign. But George Stephanapolous has it wrong in his interview today with TPM's Greg Sargent:

Asked to defend the fact that policy didn't come up for the first 40 or so minutes of the debate, Stephanopoulos said:

"We decided to focus at the top on the issues that had been at the center of the debate since the last debate. Everything we brought up in that front section had not come up since the last debate. And they all focused on the same theme -- which candidate would be a stronger Democratic candidate in November."

"This is the core question for the campaigns, and a lot of Democratic voters right now. That's why we decided to lead with it."

It's ABC's right to run its debate as it chooses; as I indicted last night, I think Barack Obama's preparation was lacking. However, if this was its rationale for running the debate as it did, it's a poor one.

Edison-Mitofsky, in its exit polls throughout the primaries, has asked the following question on each survey:

Which ONE of these four candidate qualities
mattered most in deciding how you voted today?

* Can bring about needed CHANGE
* CARES about people like me
* Has the right EXPERIENCE
* Has the BEST CHANCE TO WIN in November

So voters can pick between electability -- "best chance to win in November" -- and other core attributes like experience. How many voters picked electability? Not very many.



In the 29 states where Edison-Mitofsky asked this question, it finished dead last in 28 of them, and next-to-last in Vermont, where it beat "cares about people like me" by one point. Nor has electability become more of an issue for the voters as the primary season has worn on. In the states that voted in January, an average of 7.4% of voters chose electability. On Super Tuesday, 8.5% did. In the "rest of February" states like Virginia and Wisconsin, 8.3% chose electability. And it was the choice of 8.4% of the voters in states that voted in March.

Voters don't vote on electability because doing so means that you're essentially vetoing your own candidate preference. Essentially, you're saying:

"Sure, *I* think Hillary Clinton is the best candidate. But I don't think OTHER people will vote for Hillary Clinton. So I'm not going to vote for her."

This simply isn't how most people behave. They get to cast one ballot for their party's nomination for the Presidency every four years, and they aren't about to let it be dictated based on their guesses about how other people will behave. Arguably, this is a collective action problem. Although, under certain circumstances, voting on electability could become a self-fulfilling prophecy that could actually subvert the popular will.

Superdelegates care about electability. Pundits care about electability. But the average voter would rather see the candidates argue about health care or the war in Iraq.

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Three Thoughts on Tonight's Debate

Venturing slightly off-topic, but:

1a. I agree with Andrew Sullivan that Obama's demeanor was a problem. If you read a transcript of this debate -- you would probably call it a draw. If you were watching the TV with the sound off -- it would look like Obama was losing. Reality being somewhere in between those two things, the edge goes to Clinton.

1b. However, I sensed that Obama's mood was more one of exasperation than exhaustion. Obama had pivoted rather deftly from the bittergate controversy in recent days -- see for example his speech in front of the American Association of Manufacturers -- precisely because it reminded him of one of the original rationales for his campaign, which was running against the Washington establishment. e.g. "It's the career politicians in Washington who are out of touch, not me", or some variant thereof. However, it was impossible to strike that tone given the nature of the questions, which were more designed for superdelegates than ordinary voters. Obama faced a frontrunner's scrutiny, even though he's behind in Pennsylvania, an inherently difficult position for him not made better by the moderation. But Obama can be faulted, I think, for not gaming out a tonal strategy for this type of debate.

2. With that said, debates are won and lost in the 24-96 hour time period, rather than on the evening of. There weren't really any YouTube moments in this debate, and while the media is likely to focus on things like the Ayers issue --this is the same media that has consistently misread the pulse of the American public over the course of this campaign. The media badly misread where bittergate registered on the Richter Scale; they also badly underestimated how the "pile-on" narrative -- and their own slobbering praise for Obama -- would play out for Hillary Clinton before the New Hampshire primary. There are elements of the media -- see a good example here -- that are still focused on the 1998 model of winning elections. But this is a 2008 universe, and the public is both more battle-weary and far more sophisticated in the way that they consume information. This is arguably the same problem that the Clinton campaign has had for much of the primaries.

3. In terms of Pennsylvania, I think this can most safely be regarded as a missed opportunity for Obama. One thing we haven't mentioned is how few undecideds there are in Pennsylvania -- as few as 5-7 percent in many polls -- and those that have selected candidates are pretty dug in. I would assume that an undecided voter who had doubts about Obama would not have those doubts erased by tonight's performance -- but there are also not a lot of undecideds. It's become a very stubborn electorate.

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