Political Polls: Tea Leaves for the Campaign Manager

When they go your way - talk them up.

When they don't - invoke Harry S. Truman.

Political polls are the proverbial tea leaves of political campaigns and become news stories in their own right.  Political polls are difficult creatures particularly in Presidential Elections because the Electoral College System narrows the focus down to 18 swing states - five of which lean Democratic and five lean Republican.  National Presidential polls are, if not worthless, very limited in value because we do not elect the President based upon a national vote - something Al Gore ruefully notes at most speaking engagements. 

Exploit Your Opponent's Gaffes
The Best Gaffes support a perceived negative stereotype

When Barack Obama went off script in Roanoke, Virginia justifying increased taxes on wealthy individuals and business owners.  Obama's message culminated with the following remarks, "If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business. you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."

The Romney campaign pounced.  "It's insulting to every entrepreneur, every innovator," Mr. Romney said, calling the statement, "startling and revealing."  Painting the comment as a rare insight into Obama's true feelings about business.  "It wasn't a gaffe. It was his ideology. I don't think the president understands what makes this country great." Romney said at the Middlesex Truck and Coach, a small truck repair shop just outside Boston.  


The Obama Truth Team launched a curious rebuttal claiming Obama's comment was taken out of context.   


The Romney campaign now sells T-Shirts (for a $20.00 dollar donation) that read, "I built my business, Mr. President."  The campaign released an video response featuring Hudson New Hampshire's Jack Gilchrist of Gilchrist Metal Fabricating.  




Romney of course has given the Obama Campaign an equal amount, if not more, of gaffes.  Given the constant cycle of campaigning, but also the constant video of candidates from onlookers and opposition there are more to come.  Romney's gaffes play best when they enforce the image of him as the ultra-wealthy out-of-touch profiteer.  Romney gaffes likely to haunt him this election are (thus far):

• Corporations are people, my friend.
• I like being able to fire people.
• I'm not concerned about the very poor.
• $10,000.00 bet to Governor Perry
• [My Wife] drives a couple of Cadillacs.

To be effective politically, gaffes must be consistent with the candidate's perceived negative stereotype.  The most common stereotype appears to be that the opposition is stupid.  Recent examples include George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, and Dan Quayle.  Ronald Reagan's detractors considered him feeble-minded and befuddled.   Any verbal misstep consistent with this stereotype is taken as an affirming event, while gaffes that are inconsistent are overlooked.


Sarah Palin demonstrated this with her posting on Facebook giving a "Thanksgiving Message to all 57 States."  The post actually recounted numerous Obama gaffes that have not received as much attention by virtue of the fact that Obama's stereotype is that he is very intelligent. 


Where do you come down on these gaffes?  Are they taking things out of context or are they rare truthful insights into the candidates real thoughts?

Political Marketing: Campaign Icons & Logos

Bringing Branding to Politics

Marketing is the combination of the art of psychology applied to the economics of buying and selling.  Students are taught that marketing involves deliberate decisions about product, placement, price, packaging, promotion, and people.  Political campaigns have always brought along songs, catch phrases, and themes.  "I like Ike" is perhaps the most memorable catch phrase.  

The gold standard of political icons is the Obama icon.  It conveys so many messages of Obama, the Sun, heartland, patriotism, and a new day of hope.  It is perfect and perhaps that explains why he uses it often and everywhere.  It is the first "non-name" logo for a Presidential Candidate that I can recall.  (If I am wrong please let me know in the comments.)

Campaign logos, or icons, have recently transformed from simple exercises in typesetting and graphic arts into a critical element of the campaign that conveys not just the identity, but the message of the candidate.  Bill Whittle has an excellent YouTube commentary on icons and their power in politics.

Mitt Romney has started to incorporate a message with his logo.  If you have to add a message to your logo, it may be a tacit admission that your logo doesn't convey the theme.  

It used to be so simple. The button and sign had to convey the candidate's name and that was it.

As we move forward in time, the campaign logo had a few basic rules:  (1) Prominently display the candidate's name; (2) Use Red, White and Blue - or some combination; and (3) Use images of stars, stripe or eagles or other such USA visuals.

Bill Clinton incorporated all of these elements in his campaigns for president.  His campaign logo is patriotic and incorporates a star in his name.  Note the use of angles, a road up so-to-speak - giving a dynamic "moving" quality to the logo.

In the 2000 election the Gore campaign is still in typesetting mode having a shooting star.  Further complicating the logo is that Vice-Presidential Candidate Joe Lieberman's name is so much longer leading to speculation that perhaps you should choose a running mate with a name not twice the size of your own.

During the 2004 campaign George W. Bush used the American Flag (no subtlety here) next to either his name or "W."  Again, just incorporating a little graphic arts to spruce things up.

Hillary Clinton continued the trend in her failed campaign for the nomination for the 2008 Democratic nomination.  Reminiscent of the Eisenhower campaign, she adopted the first-name basis, perhaps to distinguish her from prior Bill "Clinton" campaign messages.

Campaign and candidate icons and branding are here to stay and how well a campaign creates a logo indicates the sophistication and integration about its attention to detail with the campaign message.

Re-Framing The Issue

Make the topic about what you want it to be - not what it is to others

Following the highly anticipated Health Care Decision by the United States Supreme Court, President Obama took to the cameras and said, "Good afternoon. Earlier today, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act — the name of the health care reform we passed two years ago. In doing so, they’ve reaffirmed a fundamental principle that here in America - in the wealthiest nation on Earth - no illness or accident should lead to any family’s financial ruin.  (Emphasis Supplied)

Yet that wasn’t the issue or the principle before the Supreme Court.  The Decision itself states at the outset,  "We do not consider whether the Act embodies sound policies. That judgment is entrusted to the Nation’s elected leaders. We ask only whether Congress has the power under the Constitution to enact the challenged provisions … In this case we must again determine whether the Constitution grants Congress powers it now asserts, but which many States and individuals believe it does not possess."

Focusing just on the individual mandate, that is, the law’s requirement that each individual purchase health insurance, the issue, and therefore the principle before the United States Supreme Court was really a simple question: What Part of the Constitution did Congress rely upon to pass the individual mandate?

 It is a question that perplexed even elected members of Congress: 

• Then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D) became almost apoplectic when pressed on the question that she repeatedly responded, “Are you serious?  Are you serious?”
• Then Representative Phil Hare (D – Ill 17) when pressed on this topic at a town hall meeting stated, “I don’t worry about the Constitution on this to be honest.”

In the oral arguments before the Supreme Court on the mandate, there were only two possible arguments.  The first, and primary argument of the government was that Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce gave them the power to require participation in the market.  The second, almost an after thought argument, was that Congress’ power to tax gave it the power to “take” money from individuals who did not purchase insurance.  It was the latter argument that prevailed. 

Mitt Romney provided a more nuanced reaction to the decision,  “Let's make clear that we understand what the court did and did not do," he said. "What the court did today was say that Obamacare does not violate the Constitution. What they did not do is say that Obamacare is good law or that it's good policy."

 With such parsing, he may have scored points with Constitutional Scholars and other intellectual purists, but he lost an opportunity to speak to the average voter who, with Obama’s encouragement, may consider the decision to be an endorsement of the his political aims.

Concentrated Benefits versus Diffused Costs:  How a Minority Political Interests Win

Interest groups may succeed in obtain political benefits by spreading the expense of the broader political base.  The benefits motivate the interest group, while the relatively small “expense” fails to have a similar motivating effect upon the broader political base.  Examples include:  School Board Elections, School Bond and Tax Increase Election, and Public Financing of Sports Stadiums.  In this case “benefits” could be monetary, regulatory, or public assistance.  

In politics, as in economics, incentives matter.  It follows that benefits given to a smaller group of individuals provide a greater incentive to each individual to support the measure.  If the cost of providing that benefit is spread out over a larger group of the populace - each individual faces a smaller incentive to fight against the measure.  University of Maryland’s Mancur Olson theorized in his first book The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (1965) that motivating a group toward or against a particular action becomes increasingly difficult as the size of the group increases.  As Wallace Forman writes in his blog Commentarius, “self-interested voters rationally allow themselves to be robbed a penny at a time.” 

Smaller interest groups increase the odds of success when they are able to shift elections or referendums to non-traditional voting dates, for example school board and city counsel elections.  Individuals employed by school districts are highly motivated to take the time to vote compared to other members of body politic.