Michigan Policy Circle
September 7, 2004

Presidential Prospects in the Final Round
by Craig Ruff,
President & Chief Executive Officer

Wedged between the Olympics and the Michigan-Ohio State football game are two World Series: of baseball and politics. During these next 60 days of fall, both frenzied bees and political parties will buzz around us and strike without warning. Where do presidential prospects stand heading into the final round?

Scoring the incumbent and conditions

Conventionally, an election involving an executive incumbent (i.e., Bush) is a referendum on the handling of the affairs of state. Normally, voters gauge performance on the economy and thrust thumbs up or down. Will the norm hold this year?

Prior to the parties’ conventions, 43 percent of Americans wanted to see Bush reelected. Immediately following the GOP national convention, 53 percent favored a reelection. Similarly, the president now enjoys an approval rating of 52 percent after a couple of months in which his approval was shy of 50 percent.

People are concerned about the economy. But this is wartime. Iraq and terrorism (two different issues which Republicans now try to join at the hip) vex Americans. And lurking around are moral issues (e.g., gay marriage and abortion) and health care. Nearly absent from the cocktail of concerns are education, crime, taxes, the deficit, the environment, and (thankfully) Social Security. Oh where is the lock-box of 2000?

Look at how voters responded in early August regarding the issue most important to them in deciding how to vote in November:

In the early post-GOP convention polling, there has been a shift of attention toward the war on terror (24 percent) triggered by the Republicans’ focus on Bush’s strong suit. Bush totes an edge over Kerry on ability to handle terrorism.

Iraq’s a different story and a complex one. Wording a question makes a big difference in how Americans size up Iraq. Compare these questions and responses to national surveys:

The August 3–5 Time poll discovered that voters trust Bush over Kerry to do a better job handling Iraq by the most slender 46-44 percent margin. Kerry’s acknowledgement in mid-August that he would still have cast a vote to invade Iraq, even knowing what is now known, may neutralize the issue. Events in Iraq, of course, could alter the equation before Election Day.

Just as the public divides over which candidate would best stop terrorism and handle Iraq, it does so on domestic issues. In the ABC News/Washington Post poll of late July, voters forced to choose between the relative trustworthiness of the two gave Bush a 47-46 percent edge on the economy and Kerry 45-44 and 47-44 percent edge, respectively, on education and health care. A couple of weeks later, Time’s poll gave Kerry a significant edge on both the economy (51-42 percent) and health care (54-36). On trustworthiness on “moral issues,” Time found a perfect 44-44 percent division.

Voters are hardly happy with Bush’s economic track record. In the above-mentioned ABC News/
Washington Post survey, only 15 percent thought that Americans are better off than they were in 2001 when Bush became president—a whopping 41 percent said economic conditions were worse.
Frequently, pollsters blend together every public concern by asking whether the nation is on the right or wrong track. This produces a bottom-line appraisal of how the executive is handling everything and the relative optimism and pessimism surrounding the nation and the president’s leadership. In interviews of August 3–5, the Associated Press/Ipsos reported that only 39 percent felt the nation was on the right track and 59 percent perceived it on the wrong track. In post-GOP convention polling, optimism is rising: 44 percent now feel that the country is heading in the right direction.

So, whose referendum is it?

Neither Kerry nor Bush held any clear advantage until the GOP national convention. Head-to-head polls for months have shown a virtual dead heat. As of September 5, Bush has a lead of about 6 percent. These data suggest that voters are not only scoring a report card on Bush but also drawing their zone of comfort around Kerry.

Recent presidential incumbents have not attacked their challengers on their ethical compass or capacity to lead the nation. Clinton, Reagan, and Eisenhower pretty much pretended that their respective opponents Dole, Mondale, and Stevenson simply did not exist. LBJ and Nixon could not believe their good luck when extremists Goldwater and McGovern won their parties’ nominations. The daisy/mushroom cloud ad aside, neither president bothered with the wacko. Underdog Gerald Ford spent more time building confidence in his leadership abilities than questioning Jimmy Carter’s experience to govern.

So, 2004 brings a peculiar situation. The incumbent is weak. He plants seeds of doubt about his challenger. Now voters are vexed with the choosing between which lesser to reject. Sure, Bush and Kerry stake out a certain optimism and “vision.” But directly and indirectly, they point primarily to the shortcomings of the other.

Digging in heels

For a year, Democratic voters have locked into hating Bush and embracing whoever faced him. Kerry is the anti-Bush. Just reverse the equation for Republicans. You could shoot a cannon into Rotary Club luncheons and not hit a Democrat supporting Bush or a Republican backing Kerry. Defying virtually all electoral history, come November something on the order of 90–95 percent of each partisan group will vote their party. Among Democrats, Bush is the candidate of dimwits, despots, daredevils, and despoilers. Among Republicans, Kerry is the candidate of the dilettantes, deviants, dalliers, and deadbeats.

Demonizing the political opposition has not been this cavalier, ugly, and two-sided since Reconstruction. You may blame Bush and Kerry for the polarization, but first cast your eyes and ears on the venom of the partisan rank-and-file. Dividing people is both top-down and bottom-up. Partisans are loaded for bear and bear no tolerance for anybody on the other side of the fence. They are not letting facts and similarities get in the way of warfare. All Republicans and Democrats share similar lifestyles and values with a large number of their “opponents.” They cannot see and will not accept that fact. Of course, nobody (Bush, Kerry, the media) is encouraging them to do so.

Consider the charges: Bush is just plain dumb. Kerry is dour and depressing. Bush has surrounded himself with testosterone-driven warmongers. Kerry is owned by bicoastal limousine liberals. Bush is a draft-dodging dogmatist. Kerry has the philosophical compass of driftwood. Bush hates the rest of the world. Kerry would sell out the U.S.

If 10 percent of the charges leveled against either were true, it’s not quite enough to put him behind bars, but you surely would not put him in the White House.

We know all too much about the partisans. Who are fence sitters? First, they number about 5 percent of all the people who actually will vote. Undecided people do not like either candidate. (So what else is new?) Compared to partisans, they try to avoid political news and zap any television advertising. (That begs the questions: Just how many votes will shift as a result of $1 billion of political ads, and what in the end is the cost per shifted voter?)

Campaigns and 527s (those unregulated zealots) unleash negative ads to move some number of fence sitters to hate a guy’s guts. The motivation is not to endear a candidate to voters, but just get them to despise the other guy more. You tell me: When ads scream that both candidates are unworthy, do you think that undecided people summon any reason to vote?

Exigencies

I can think of only a handful of closely contested presidential elections in which the contenders had so little mastery of control. Lincoln likely would have lost to McClelland had not Grant and other Union generals starting winning battles. Cleveland’s win over Blaine in 1884 came about because of an insult (Cleveland stood for Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion) by a so-called ally. Wilson would have lost to Hughes had he been forced to enter the Great War in Germany in 1916. Humphrey probably would have defeated Nixon in 1968 had there been a pause or settlement of the Vietnam War (the October Surprise). War is hell on presidential candidates.

Raise and spend a quarter of a billion dollars, and the candidate still can’t predict whether a terrorist will blow up a subway or poison a water system. Furthermore, you can’t predict whether that helps or hurts a candidate. Neither candidate at this juncture can set or affect October’s unemployment rate, inflation, or the stock market. Neither can hold in check outrageous and backfiring rhetoric of friends.
When two candidates run even among committed voters and only 5 percent hedge their bets, Fortuna calls the shots.

Conclusion

The center has pretty much collapsed. Nearly all voters have dug in. Partisan marshals have retreated to trench warfare. Kerry and Bush await the callous fate of some calamity. Thank God we have sports to entertain us this fall.

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