This is part two in a series of posts this week dealing with presidential primary reform. As a refresher you can also look at FHQ's earlier synopsis of several of the various reform proposals that have been talked about and/or considered. The maps are a little clunky, but will suffice for now. I'm planning a revamping of them in the not too distant future. You can also find part one (National Primary with a Twist) here.
A couple of months ago I got an email from Matthew Sanderson (former McCain-Palin campaign finance counsel) with another innovative idea for presidential primary reform. Up until now, I didn't know what to do with it, but since the news on reform has quietly ramped up of late (more coming later in the week), I have an opportunity to put Mr. Sanderson's idea out there. Here's the premise as Matt laid it out to me. [As always, you can read the full proposal here -- a forthcoming article in the Virginia Journal of Law and Politics. It is a pdf file, but is freely available. And yes, it's a lengthy read, but is chock full of great background research.]
Two Birds proposes a package of reforms that would pivot the Public Funding System away from its current emphasis on spending limits and retool it to combat frontloading in the presidential nomination process. The proposed reforms include: (1) delaying the System's matchable-contribution and disbursement dates until October 1st of the pre-election year and April 1st of the election year, respectively; (2) forcing candidates to compete for a single pool of funds, with no guaranteed maximum or minimum amount; (3) transforming the general-election grant into a matching-funds program, similar to that currently used during the primary-election period; (4) eliminating the grant to political parties for national conventions; and (5) creating new, unconventional benefits for public funding participants, such as automatic ballot access.
First of all, if you thought the FairVote plan discussed yesterday was ambitious, it has nothing on Matt's plan to overhaul not only the presidential nomination process but to fix campaign finance as well. Also, there's more to it, but for our purposes I'll try to focus on just the frontloading and presidential primary finance mechanisms. If you have thoughts on the other portions of the proposal feel free to sound off in the comments section.
At face value, I love this idea. As the title implies, two birds (frontloading and campaign finance), one stone (well, several small stones thrown together really). The entire idea is predicated on motivating the presidential candidates -- especially the main contenders -- to opt into the changes to the campaign finance system and that states' hands will be forced as a result, moving them into compliance vis a vis primary and caucus scheduling. That's not necessarily a complicated process, but getting there would be a real battle. Let's put the pieces together:
1) Move the matchable contribution date from January 1 to October 1 in the year prior to the election and move the disbursement date from January 1 to April 1 of the election year. I can buy that. If contributions are not matchable until the October prior to primary season kicking off and matching disbursement checks are not handed out until April of the election year, then participating candidates would be unable effectively campaign in many states earlier than April. As such, states would be motivated to shift to a point in the calendar when candidates would and could actually pay them some mind.
That's all well and good, but how do you get candidates to opt in? That's the big question, right? Fixing frontloading, as detailed here, can only be fixed if the major candidates accept the terms of the enhanced system.
2) Well, that piece of the puzzle is dependent on a handful of factors. First, the stick. If you opt in as a candidate, you are in for both the primary phase and the general election phase. None of this opting out for the primaries and crawling back in for the general election (see Bush, George W., Kerry, John and McCain, John). But there's also the carrot (multiple ones actually). First, participating candidates can take advantage of a cap-less pool of money and can do so to the detriment of their opponent. That is, instead of the $160+ million cap on 2008 general election funds for example, there would be no cap. On top of that, if you raise more than your opponent, you get more than your opponent. Furthermore, if your opponent goes it alone outside of the proposed system, you get everything in the pool. Oh, and there is a 4:1 matching fund ratio to sweeten the deal.
Not bad, huh?
No, it isn't. But the one problem I have with all of this is this: What if, as a candidate, you know you can out-raise your opponent and what he or she can gain from the new system? Even if Barack Obama had ceded the entire $168 million in federal money to John McCain in 2008, the then-Illinois senator still would have been able to out-raise/out-spend the Arizona senator. But that's somewhat underhanded of me. This system applies to both the primaries and the general election. Obama didn't necessarily know in February 2008 that he could outdo McCain financially in the general election. He would have been more concerned with Hillary Clinton at the time. More to the point, he would have been interested in how he'd stack up financially compared to the former First Lady. Would the promise of matching money in the fall have been enough pie in the sky to bring Obama to the table in the Two Birds-One Stone system? Perhaps.
Here's the thing: The more I think about this, the more I think of how perfectly it would have worked in the 2008 environment. But what about other elections? If you're an incumbent and see a close election on the horizon, maybe you'd jump in (Bush 2004), but if you saw a comfortable win coming, you might just as soon opt out (Clinton 1996). Well, that's a fair number of elections right there. It is and we haven't even tackled the open seat elections. Opting in in those cases would be conditional as well, though. In 2008, sure, this system likely would have worked. I can see Clinton and Obama and McCain opting in. But in 2000, I don't think so. Gore and Bush were heavy favorites and would have quickly eschewed the parameters of this system. Both were comfortable frontrunners who were fine with the status quo in both the primaries and general election.
The key would be getting this up and running and strategically, you'd be better served doing it ahead of an open seat presidential election with no clear frontrunners. Maybe that's 2016, maybe it's not. But you would face a major obstacle in pushing this when an incumbent who can raise lots of money is running for reelection and can shun the system. Of course, I have Obama in 2012 in mind as I'm writing this. But that money could very well dry up to some extent if the economy isn't trending in the right direction by then.
But if the candidates don't buy in, then we're right back to square one with campaign finance and frontloading.
Interesting stuff, Matt.
Recent Posts:
Presidential Approval Tracker
Today's 2012 Presidential Trial Heats In-Depth
PPP Poll: 2012 Trial Heats (Obama v. Gingrich/Huckabee/Palin/Romney)
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Presidential Approval Tracker
[Click Figure to Track/Compare Approval]If you haven't seen it already, USA Today has a neat little gadget up today using Gallup data that allows you to track President Obama's approval rating and compare it to past presidents all the way back to Truman (when Gallup's efforts commenced). You can zoom in and out on the time series by moving the handles at the bottom of the graph and you can also compare presidents side by side. This has already been used as fodder among the political class (believe it or not).
This one is worth keeping tabs on as we approach next year's midterm cycle, and obviously, 2012.
[Honestly, someone who has more time than I do now should take the data on the last eleven presidents and use that to project where Obama will end up. That isn't particularly accurate, as things are bound to come up that are unique to Obama's administration, but it would be an interesting baseline, nonetheless.]
Hat tip to Josh Tucker at The Monkey Cage for the link. Tucker, by the way, is calling on those who frequent TMC (read: political scientists) to put Obama's current position and the honeymoon effect generally into context.
Recent Posts:
Today's 2012 Presidential Trial Heats In-Depth
PPP Poll: 2012 Trial Heats (Obama v. Gingrich/Huckabee/Palin/Romney)
Rasmussen Poll: 2012 Trial Heats (Obama vs. Romney & Palin
Monday, July 20, 2009
Today's 2012 Presidential Trial Heats In-Depth
We were all treated to a double helping of 2012 general election presidential polling today (...if you like that sort of thing.). Public Policy Polling's numbers were expected, but Rasmussen had some numbers on prospective match ups between Obama and Palin/Romney as well. One of my complaints last week about the 2012 trial heats was that only PPP had conducted any thus far in the admittedly (very) early stages of 2012 election cycle. If you are going to conduct polls this early, it is nice to know that you have more than one polling outfit to lean on. Enter Rasmussen, who polled Romney and Palin against Obama in addition to PPP's now fourth iteration of their Gingrich/Huckabee/Palin/Romney versus Obama survey.
The one thing that I want to note before I jump into looking at the results of these individual match ups is that the sample sizes between these two polls are vastly different and that may say something about the reliability of each organization's numbers. For a national poll the standard sample size is something at or around 1000 respondents. Rasmussen had exactly that, but Public Policy Polling had but 577 respondents. As I mentioned last week in my piece on the 2012 polls, PPP has come under that 1000 respondent mark three of the four times they've done these 2012 surveys (or four out of five counting the Obama/Palin survey that initiated the series back in March). Are these reliable numbers? Other than the May poll that had 1000 respondents, there has been a general closing of the gap between Obama and his would-be challengers since April. That tracks well with the president's overall decline in approval and favorability over that period of time.
But are the results reliable? Seemingly, but certainly not as reliable as the more robust sample from Rasmussen. Here's an example: GOP12 points out that PPP breaks favorability and the hypothetical trial heats by region. Interesting, right? Yeah, until you look more closely. Obama sweeps all four Republicans in the South! What!?! The president also wins across the board in the northeast (not surprisingly), loses to Gingrich and Huckabee in the midwest and is vulnerable in the west against Palin and Romney. Normally, a lightbulb would go off for me there. "Hey, why don't we try and project that onto the electoral college, just for fun (I still might do this. Ha!)?" But those numbers in the South give me pause.* As I lamented on Friday, it would have been nice to have seen what the non-May numbers would have looked like in those PPP polls had each had the standard sample size. At the end of the day, a 577 respondent sample would be solid for a poll here in Georgia, but on the national level, not so much.
Moving on...
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Against Newt Gingrich in the PPP survey, Obama actually goes up. Well, Gingrich does, too. The results here are just a reiteration of the status quo from a month ago. Rasmussen didn't poll Gingrich in the trial heats which make sense considering he lagged behind the leading troika of prospective GOP candidates, but that makes the exclusion of...
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[Click to Enlarge]
...Mike Huckabee in the Rasmussen poll all the more surprising. Again, Huckabee, Palin and Romney have all traded off handling the top honors for "best against but still trailing Obama" in all of these polls thus far. And they have all clustered together and well above all others save Gingrich for the duration of these surveys as well. Nonetheless, Huckabee was not included in the Rasmussen questions. The former Arkansas governor was, however, a part of the PPP survey. And whereas both Gingrich (41 to 42) and Obama (49 to 50) rose this month over last, Huckabee (43 to 42) and the president (50 to 48) both saw declining shares of support in the July poll. I don't find that that is anything to write home about, though. Again, like the Gingrich numbers, these just serve to validate the status quo in this match up.
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[Click to Enlarge]
As we move into the Palin and Romney results, we can begin to compare and contrast how the Rasmussen and PPP polls stack up against one another. Both polls show the soon-to-be-former Alaska governor rising as compared to last month's PPP survey, but the July PPP poll shows greater improvement than does Rasmussen. Regardless, the improvement continues to indicate that Palin's July 3 resignation announcement has not necessarily hurt her in terms of polling (2012 or otherwise). Given the question marks surrounding the PPP poll outlined above, if we take the Rasmussen results, we see that Obama is under the 50% mark against Palin for the first time in any of these trial heats. That's a far cry from the 55/35 split from PPP favoring the president in March. It just goes to show you how quickly the political outlook can change. And yes, that should serve as a not of caution concerning these polls. It is still very (VERY) early and much can change between now and next year's midterms, much less 2012.
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[Click to Enlarge]
The result that will catch everyone's eyes from these two polls is the Obama/Romney split in the Rasmussen poll. The 45-45 tie is a remarkable sign of the current position the president is in: precarious given the typical, early term highs in January and Februrary. Still, this is a widely divergent result compared to the nine point advantage Obama has in the PPP survey (49-40 -- no decided change from last month). Now, I've certainly already called into question the sample size of PPP's poll, but without the Premium Service (I'm cheap, not to mention poor.) from Rasmussen, I don't know that it is fair to compare these two polls. Upon seeing the results, I'd wager that the Rasmussen poll has a few more Republicans in its sample than does the PPP poll (42% Democratic, 35% Republican and 23% Independent/Other). Again, these polls are all verging on the premature, but the real take home message from them is one you can easily glean from Obama's approval and/or favorability numbers: The president's support is dwindling. Obama is still fine among Democrats, but has virtually no crossover appeal and is seeing his advantage among independents evaporate like a small rain burst on a late July afternoon in Georgia. There's still something there, but it is certainly less than what it once was.
Let's wrap this up on a lighter note:
[Click to Enlarge]
Just for fun, let's look at the three-way general election race with Palin as an independent. If John Sides hates 2012 polls, then I'm sure he'll just love a poll that takes two hypothetical steps to even get to. First of all, Palin has to lose the GOP nomination (one she hasn't even announced she's running in) to Romney and then has to decide to run as an independent. That's almost hypothetical enough in 2009 to make me queasy. And that's saying something! Understandably, this type of three person race negatively affects the Republican Party's fortunes in a prospective 2012 general election. Obama remains stationary at a shade under 50% (Well, maybe more than a shade for an incumbent president.) while Palin pulls enough away from Romney to give the president a comfortable enough edge (11 points) over the former Massachusetts governor. Mitt's already been tweeting about the Rasmussen results, but here's betting he won't be trumpeting these three-way results. Well, he won't until he asks Sarah Palin to be his running mate and has an affirmative answer anyway.
I may have given Rasmussen another idea for a poll question there.
*For the record and given the crosstabs, there would have been 196 respondents from the South, 138 from the northeast, 150 from the midwest and 92 from the west. I honestly don't know if those numbers are going to yield representative results for those regions much less the nation in the aggregate.
Recent Posts:
PPP Poll: 2012 Trial Heats (Obama v. Gingrich/Huckabee/Palin/Romney)
Rasmussen Poll: 2012 Trial Heats (Obama vs. Romney & Palin
Presidential Primary Reform Week: National Primary with a Twist
The one thing that I want to note before I jump into looking at the results of these individual match ups is that the sample sizes between these two polls are vastly different and that may say something about the reliability of each organization's numbers. For a national poll the standard sample size is something at or around 1000 respondents. Rasmussen had exactly that, but Public Policy Polling had but 577 respondents. As I mentioned last week in my piece on the 2012 polls, PPP has come under that 1000 respondent mark three of the four times they've done these 2012 surveys (or four out of five counting the Obama/Palin survey that initiated the series back in March). Are these reliable numbers? Other than the May poll that had 1000 respondents, there has been a general closing of the gap between Obama and his would-be challengers since April. That tracks well with the president's overall decline in approval and favorability over that period of time.
But are the results reliable? Seemingly, but certainly not as reliable as the more robust sample from Rasmussen. Here's an example: GOP12 points out that PPP breaks favorability and the hypothetical trial heats by region. Interesting, right? Yeah, until you look more closely. Obama sweeps all four Republicans in the South! What!?! The president also wins across the board in the northeast (not surprisingly), loses to Gingrich and Huckabee in the midwest and is vulnerable in the west against Palin and Romney. Normally, a lightbulb would go off for me there. "Hey, why don't we try and project that onto the electoral college, just for fun (I still might do this. Ha!)?" But those numbers in the South give me pause.* As I lamented on Friday, it would have been nice to have seen what the non-May numbers would have looked like in those PPP polls had each had the standard sample size. At the end of the day, a 577 respondent sample would be solid for a poll here in Georgia, but on the national level, not so much.
Moving on...
.png)
[Click to Enlarge]Against Newt Gingrich in the PPP survey, Obama actually goes up. Well, Gingrich does, too. The results here are just a reiteration of the status quo from a month ago. Rasmussen didn't poll Gingrich in the trial heats which make sense considering he lagged behind the leading troika of prospective GOP candidates, but that makes the exclusion of...
.png)
[Click to Enlarge]...Mike Huckabee in the Rasmussen poll all the more surprising. Again, Huckabee, Palin and Romney have all traded off handling the top honors for "best against but still trailing Obama" in all of these polls thus far. And they have all clustered together and well above all others save Gingrich for the duration of these surveys as well. Nonetheless, Huckabee was not included in the Rasmussen questions. The former Arkansas governor was, however, a part of the PPP survey. And whereas both Gingrich (41 to 42) and Obama (49 to 50) rose this month over last, Huckabee (43 to 42) and the president (50 to 48) both saw declining shares of support in the July poll. I don't find that that is anything to write home about, though. Again, like the Gingrich numbers, these just serve to validate the status quo in this match up.
.png)
[Click to Enlarge]As we move into the Palin and Romney results, we can begin to compare and contrast how the Rasmussen and PPP polls stack up against one another. Both polls show the soon-to-be-former Alaska governor rising as compared to last month's PPP survey, but the July PPP poll shows greater improvement than does Rasmussen. Regardless, the improvement continues to indicate that Palin's July 3 resignation announcement has not necessarily hurt her in terms of polling (2012 or otherwise). Given the question marks surrounding the PPP poll outlined above, if we take the Rasmussen results, we see that Obama is under the 50% mark against Palin for the first time in any of these trial heats. That's a far cry from the 55/35 split from PPP favoring the president in March. It just goes to show you how quickly the political outlook can change. And yes, that should serve as a not of caution concerning these polls. It is still very (VERY) early and much can change between now and next year's midterms, much less 2012.
.png)
[Click to Enlarge]The result that will catch everyone's eyes from these two polls is the Obama/Romney split in the Rasmussen poll. The 45-45 tie is a remarkable sign of the current position the president is in: precarious given the typical, early term highs in January and Februrary. Still, this is a widely divergent result compared to the nine point advantage Obama has in the PPP survey (49-40 -- no decided change from last month). Now, I've certainly already called into question the sample size of PPP's poll, but without the Premium Service (I'm cheap, not to mention poor.) from Rasmussen, I don't know that it is fair to compare these two polls. Upon seeing the results, I'd wager that the Rasmussen poll has a few more Republicans in its sample than does the PPP poll (42% Democratic, 35% Republican and 23% Independent/Other). Again, these polls are all verging on the premature, but the real take home message from them is one you can easily glean from Obama's approval and/or favorability numbers: The president's support is dwindling. Obama is still fine among Democrats, but has virtually no crossover appeal and is seeing his advantage among independents evaporate like a small rain burst on a late July afternoon in Georgia. There's still something there, but it is certainly less than what it once was.
Let's wrap this up on a lighter note:
[Click to Enlarge]Just for fun, let's look at the three-way general election race with Palin as an independent. If John Sides hates 2012 polls, then I'm sure he'll just love a poll that takes two hypothetical steps to even get to. First of all, Palin has to lose the GOP nomination (one she hasn't even announced she's running in) to Romney and then has to decide to run as an independent. That's almost hypothetical enough in 2009 to make me queasy. And that's saying something! Understandably, this type of three person race negatively affects the Republican Party's fortunes in a prospective 2012 general election. Obama remains stationary at a shade under 50% (Well, maybe more than a shade for an incumbent president.) while Palin pulls enough away from Romney to give the president a comfortable enough edge (11 points) over the former Massachusetts governor. Mitt's already been tweeting about the Rasmussen results, but here's betting he won't be trumpeting these three-way results. Well, he won't until he asks Sarah Palin to be his running mate and has an affirmative answer anyway.
I may have given Rasmussen another idea for a poll question there.
*For the record and given the crosstabs, there would have been 196 respondents from the South, 138 from the northeast, 150 from the midwest and 92 from the west. I honestly don't know if those numbers are going to yield representative results for those regions much less the nation in the aggregate.
Recent Posts:
PPP Poll: 2012 Trial Heats (Obama v. Gingrich/Huckabee/Palin/Romney)
Rasmussen Poll: 2012 Trial Heats (Obama vs. Romney & Palin
Presidential Primary Reform Week: National Primary with a Twist
PPP Poll: 2012 Trial Heats (Obama v. Gingrich/Huckabee/Palin/Romney)
Ah, here are the Public Policy Polling numbers for 2012:
Obama: 50%
Gingrich: 42%
Not Sure: 9%
Obama: 48%
Huckabee: 42%
Not Sure: 10%
Obama: 51%
Palin: 43%
Not Sure: 6%
Obama: 49%
Romney: 40%
Not Sure: 11%
Margin of Error: +/- 4.1 points
Sample: 577 voters (national)
Conducted: July 15-16, 2009
For a more in-depth look at this poll and the Rasmussen survey also out today, see here.
Recent Posts:
Rasmussen Poll: 2012 Trial Heats (Obama vs. Romney & Palin
Presidential Primary Reform Week: National Primary with a Twist
Join FHQ for Presidential Primary Reform Week This Week
Obama: 50%
Gingrich: 42%
Not Sure: 9%
Obama: 48%
Huckabee: 42%
Not Sure: 10%
Obama: 51%
Palin: 43%
Not Sure: 6%
Obama: 49%
Romney: 40%
Not Sure: 11%
Margin of Error: +/- 4.1 points
Sample: 577 voters (national)
Conducted: July 15-16, 2009
For a more in-depth look at this poll and the Rasmussen survey also out today, see here.
Recent Posts:
Rasmussen Poll: 2012 Trial Heats (Obama vs. Romney & Palin
Presidential Primary Reform Week: National Primary with a Twist
Join FHQ for Presidential Primary Reform Week This Week
Rasmussen Poll: 2012 Trial Heats (Obama vs. Romney & Palin)
Well, I wasn't expecting that. Rasmussen preempted Public Policy Polling's 2012 trial heats with a version of its own this morning. The particulars:
Obama: 45%
Romney: 45%
Other: 7%
Not Sure: 3%
Obama: 48%
Palin: 42%
Other:
Not Sure: 3%
Margin of Error: +/- 3 points
Sample: 1000 likely voters (national)
Conducted: July 16-17, 2009
For a more in-depth look at this poll and the Public Policy Polling survey also out today, see here.
Recent Posts:
Presidential Primary Reform Week: National Primary with a Twist
Join FHQ for Presidential Primary Reform Week This Week
Presidential Primary Frontloading (1976-2008)
Obama: 45%
Romney: 45%
Other: 7%
Not Sure: 3%
Obama: 48%
Palin: 42%
Other:
Not Sure: 3%
Margin of Error: +/- 3 points
Sample: 1000 likely voters (national)
Conducted: July 16-17, 2009
For a more in-depth look at this poll and the Public Policy Polling survey also out today, see here.
Recent Posts:
Presidential Primary Reform Week: National Primary with a Twist
Join FHQ for Presidential Primary Reform Week This Week
Presidential Primary Frontloading (1976-2008)
Presidential Primary Reform Week: National Primary with a Twist
This is part one in a series of posts this week dealing with presidential primary reform. As a refresher you can also look at FHQ's earlier synopsis of several of the various reform proposals that have been talked about and/or considered. The maps are a little clunky, but will suffice for now. I'm planning a revamping of them in the not too distant future.
On Friday, FairVote went public with a novel idea for presidential nomination reform. Here's their idea (and please follow the link above to read the full explanation of the proposal):
1) Coordinated action. This is another idea that will require coordinated effort from both national parties. I don't see this as the monumental roadblock that I once did. Folks from both sides seem to be mindful of the fact that now is the time to hammer something meaningful out on reform. Of course, one man’s meaningful is another man’s useless.
2) $$$$. The idea of moving congressional primaries to coincide with the national primary is ingenious. It is also imperative. Without that, states would be confronted with footing the bill for another (separate) election. I’m not sure, but I’m fairly certain that this current period is not the proper time to be pushing an additional election to be paid for with taxpayer money. Call it a hunch. The other side of this is that it probably wouldn’t just be congressional primaries moved but all primaries. And there may be some complications there because that would obviously include state legislative primaries (in most states). If any perceived negative impact surfaces there, state legislators — the folks primarily tasked with initiating these election date changes — may put their own self interests above the national party’s. Now, what could be seen as a negative impact to state legislators? First and foremost, the most problematic aspect is turnout. Some legislators might prefer lower turnout primary elections. Those conditions are to their advantage, after all.
3) Delegates/conventions. One major piece missing from this puzzle is the delegate calculation. What effect does the national primary have on the allocation of delegates? Are the state contests merely just the first round (beauty contests)? Does the national primary determine the allocation of all the delegates or just a certain percentage? And finally, what does this do to the convention? I suppose the same rules apply, but this national primary idea has an air of finality to it. "The delegates are allocated. Let the general election begin!" This last point is a minor issue. If this plan was instituted, the parties, I'm sure, would go on having their conventions as if nothing had happened. It isn't as if the conventions have been decisive of late (though they could have been in 2008 if Hillary Clinton had kept her campaign going throughout the summer).
4) Candidates. What does this plan do to candidate strategy? Would candidates drop out as they do in the currently configured system? Super Tuesday does have a way of winnowing the field down to (usually) one candidate. But I don't know. Candidates may opt to tough it out. After all, the candidate who places second at the end of all the primaries and caucuses moves on to the runoff national primary. Money would be the determining factor there, though. If you don't have any money you can't go on. What a national primary like this does accomplish, though, is basically a reset. Things kinda sorta go back to the way they were prior to the McGovern-Fraser reforms in one respect: there's a prize at the end of the calendar. Look at the allocation of Democratic delegates in 1976. The date on which the most delegates were at stake was the last one on the calendar. This proposed system, however, would have all of the delegates (it seems) at stake on the final date. In that regard, some of the same dynamics that prevailed in the earlier iterations of the McGovern-Fraser system would return in the revised system. Mainly, that would mean that, sure, candidates would drop out as they do now (when they aren't catching on), but it would also potentially mean that you would have candidates jumping in the contest midstream (depending on how frontloaded the calendar is -- If the calendar is like 2008, it wouldn't have made sense for, say, Jeb Bush to have jumped in after Super Tuesday's delegate giveaway. There likely wouldn't have been enough delegates left to counter McCain's lead after February 5.) as well. Essentially, then, this proposed system would offer two opportunities for buyers' remorse: once by giving a late-arriving candidate a chance to catch on and then again in the national primary when the second place finisher goes against the frontrunner (the winner of the most contests).
5) Turnout. One last hypothetical and I'll wrap this up. What if candidates continue to drop out of the race as they do now and the winner becomes a foregone conclusion? Not only that, but what if the party is satisfied with the "presumptive nominee"? Does the national primary, then, become something akin to the conventions now: a formality? If the national primary is a formality, then that is likely going to be a low turnout affair, which is something, I think, that would be against the wishes of those who have crafted the idea. Another argument along these same lines is that the national primary, in such a situation (low turnout), would become an election ripe for insurgency. Again, let's look at the 2008 Republican nomination contest. Let's assume that everything was the same about the contest, but that there was a national primary at the end. Why would Republicans go to the polls on the national primary day? The contest is over, right? Yes and no. Seemingly McCain has won, but technically, he hasn't. What if Ron Paul was able to quietly (or perhaps not so quietly) call on his supporters to turnout and vote? Would his loyal following amount to enough to overcome a low turnout in favor of McCain? Maybe, maybe not, but here's guessing that the GOP wouldn't even want to consider the possibility. [Of course, 2008 would have played out differently had there been a national primary at the end. Neither Huckabee nor Romney would have withdrawn from the race, I suspect.]
I don’t know that any of these things are deal breakers, but I do think they are factors that would have to be ironed out to some extent to avoid any unintended consequences. And despite the fact that I often come down hard on these reform plans, what I ultimately want to avoid are unintended consequences that make matters worse. But some might argue with me about the ways in which (or whether) things could get worse in the current presidential nomination system.
Hat tip to Matthew Shugart over at Fruits and Votes for the link.
Part Two of this series tomorrow will deal with another new and sweeping reform proposal. Stay tuned...
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On Friday, FairVote went public with a novel idea for presidential nomination reform. Here's their idea (and please follow the link above to read the full explanation of the proposal):
"The entire political universe, from the heights of the Washington establishment to the depths of the grassroots, agrees that our presidential nominating process needs to be reformed. But while there is broad consensus that a problem exists, there are myriad diagnoses as to what actually needs fixing. As the parties begin internal and interparty discussions about what elements need tweaking, it‘s time to take a serious look at more extensive and comprehensive reforms that will truly fix the process. The parties should begin to debate a plan that includes traditional state-based nomination contests culminating in a final, decisive national primary." [Emphasis mine]I really like this idea, but for a few things...
1) Coordinated action. This is another idea that will require coordinated effort from both national parties. I don't see this as the monumental roadblock that I once did. Folks from both sides seem to be mindful of the fact that now is the time to hammer something meaningful out on reform. Of course, one man’s meaningful is another man’s useless.
2) $$$$. The idea of moving congressional primaries to coincide with the national primary is ingenious. It is also imperative. Without that, states would be confronted with footing the bill for another (separate) election. I’m not sure, but I’m fairly certain that this current period is not the proper time to be pushing an additional election to be paid for with taxpayer money. Call it a hunch. The other side of this is that it probably wouldn’t just be congressional primaries moved but all primaries. And there may be some complications there because that would obviously include state legislative primaries (in most states). If any perceived negative impact surfaces there, state legislators — the folks primarily tasked with initiating these election date changes — may put their own self interests above the national party’s. Now, what could be seen as a negative impact to state legislators? First and foremost, the most problematic aspect is turnout. Some legislators might prefer lower turnout primary elections. Those conditions are to their advantage, after all.
3) Delegates/conventions. One major piece missing from this puzzle is the delegate calculation. What effect does the national primary have on the allocation of delegates? Are the state contests merely just the first round (beauty contests)? Does the national primary determine the allocation of all the delegates or just a certain percentage? And finally, what does this do to the convention? I suppose the same rules apply, but this national primary idea has an air of finality to it. "The delegates are allocated. Let the general election begin!" This last point is a minor issue. If this plan was instituted, the parties, I'm sure, would go on having their conventions as if nothing had happened. It isn't as if the conventions have been decisive of late (though they could have been in 2008 if Hillary Clinton had kept her campaign going throughout the summer).
4) Candidates. What does this plan do to candidate strategy? Would candidates drop out as they do in the currently configured system? Super Tuesday does have a way of winnowing the field down to (usually) one candidate. But I don't know. Candidates may opt to tough it out. After all, the candidate who places second at the end of all the primaries and caucuses moves on to the runoff national primary. Money would be the determining factor there, though. If you don't have any money you can't go on. What a national primary like this does accomplish, though, is basically a reset. Things kinda sorta go back to the way they were prior to the McGovern-Fraser reforms in one respect: there's a prize at the end of the calendar. Look at the allocation of Democratic delegates in 1976. The date on which the most delegates were at stake was the last one on the calendar. This proposed system, however, would have all of the delegates (it seems) at stake on the final date. In that regard, some of the same dynamics that prevailed in the earlier iterations of the McGovern-Fraser system would return in the revised system. Mainly, that would mean that, sure, candidates would drop out as they do now (when they aren't catching on), but it would also potentially mean that you would have candidates jumping in the contest midstream (depending on how frontloaded the calendar is -- If the calendar is like 2008, it wouldn't have made sense for, say, Jeb Bush to have jumped in after Super Tuesday's delegate giveaway. There likely wouldn't have been enough delegates left to counter McCain's lead after February 5.) as well. Essentially, then, this proposed system would offer two opportunities for buyers' remorse: once by giving a late-arriving candidate a chance to catch on and then again in the national primary when the second place finisher goes against the frontrunner (the winner of the most contests).
5) Turnout. One last hypothetical and I'll wrap this up. What if candidates continue to drop out of the race as they do now and the winner becomes a foregone conclusion? Not only that, but what if the party is satisfied with the "presumptive nominee"? Does the national primary, then, become something akin to the conventions now: a formality? If the national primary is a formality, then that is likely going to be a low turnout affair, which is something, I think, that would be against the wishes of those who have crafted the idea. Another argument along these same lines is that the national primary, in such a situation (low turnout), would become an election ripe for insurgency. Again, let's look at the 2008 Republican nomination contest. Let's assume that everything was the same about the contest, but that there was a national primary at the end. Why would Republicans go to the polls on the national primary day? The contest is over, right? Yes and no. Seemingly McCain has won, but technically, he hasn't. What if Ron Paul was able to quietly (or perhaps not so quietly) call on his supporters to turnout and vote? Would his loyal following amount to enough to overcome a low turnout in favor of McCain? Maybe, maybe not, but here's guessing that the GOP wouldn't even want to consider the possibility. [Of course, 2008 would have played out differently had there been a national primary at the end. Neither Huckabee nor Romney would have withdrawn from the race, I suspect.]
I don’t know that any of these things are deal breakers, but I do think they are factors that would have to be ironed out to some extent to avoid any unintended consequences. And despite the fact that I often come down hard on these reform plans, what I ultimately want to avoid are unintended consequences that make matters worse. But some might argue with me about the ways in which (or whether) things could get worse in the current presidential nomination system.
Hat tip to Matthew Shugart over at Fruits and Votes for the link.
Part Two of this series tomorrow will deal with another new and sweeping reform proposal. Stay tuned...
Recent Posts:
Join FHQ for Presidential Primary Reform Week This Week
Presidential Primary Frontloading (1976-2008)
Search Engine Wars? FHQ Prefers Google
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Join FHQ for Presidential Primary Reform Week This Week
Democratic Change Commission and Republican Temporary Delegate Selection Committee meetings notwithstanding, there has been enough news about the parties' methods of nominating presidential candidates recently to warrant an entire week devoted to the process, and perhaps more importantly, the process of reform. Each day this coming week, then, FHQ will discuss one reform proposal specifically or some relevant news about the process that really has not seen the light of day yet. We'll start tomorrow off with an interesting new proposal I caught wind of late Friday and progress from there.
Also coming this week:
1) Tomorrow starts the week off with a bang and no, not just because of the announced series of posts above. [I've got better things to do than worry about that sort of thing.] Public Policy Polling will be releasing their July numbers for the 2012 general election trial heats (Obama v. Gingrich/Huckabee/Palin/Romney) on Monday. Be on the lookout for an update of our 2012 graphs and additional analysis soon thereafter.
2) Also, on Tuesday or more likely on Wednesday, PPP will have some numbers out of Louisiana. There's likely to be an Obama/Jindal head-to-head poll in there, but I may be guilty of having misinterpreted the intent of that poll in an earlier post. The line from the PPP blog read, "...is Bobby Jindal more popular in his home state than Tim Pawlenty?" Now, that seems like there is going to be a head-to-head between Pawlenty and Jindal in Louisiana, but was likely a reference to Pawlenty's position in an earlier survey the company did in Minnesota. If your hopes skyrocketed because of my post, I apologize. [But it does read that way. It should have been written, "...is Bobby Jindal more popular in his home state than Tim Pawlenty was in his?"]
3) There may also be a vote on the Sotomayor nomination sometime this week. Thus far, FHQ has remained quiet on this issue. That's mainly because the vote in the Senate is what I've been waiting for. Only that is likely to shift candidates' electoral fortunes in the future. If that hasn't been hammered to death by the blogosphere, then I may have something to say about a select few races (depending upon how the vote goes).
Recent Posts:
Presidential Primary Frontloading (1976-2008)
Search Engine Wars? FHQ Prefers Google
What's Wrong with 2012 Polls?
Also coming this week:
1) Tomorrow starts the week off with a bang and no, not just because of the announced series of posts above. [I've got better things to do than worry about that sort of thing.] Public Policy Polling will be releasing their July numbers for the 2012 general election trial heats (Obama v. Gingrich/Huckabee/Palin/Romney) on Monday. Be on the lookout for an update of our 2012 graphs and additional analysis soon thereafter.
2) Also, on Tuesday or more likely on Wednesday, PPP will have some numbers out of Louisiana. There's likely to be an Obama/Jindal head-to-head poll in there, but I may be guilty of having misinterpreted the intent of that poll in an earlier post. The line from the PPP blog read, "...is Bobby Jindal more popular in his home state than Tim Pawlenty?" Now, that seems like there is going to be a head-to-head between Pawlenty and Jindal in Louisiana, but was likely a reference to Pawlenty's position in an earlier survey the company did in Minnesota. If your hopes skyrocketed because of my post, I apologize. [But it does read that way. It should have been written, "...is Bobby Jindal more popular in his home state than Tim Pawlenty was in his?"]
3) There may also be a vote on the Sotomayor nomination sometime this week. Thus far, FHQ has remained quiet on this issue. That's mainly because the vote in the Senate is what I've been waiting for. Only that is likely to shift candidates' electoral fortunes in the future. If that hasn't been hammered to death by the blogosphere, then I may have something to say about a select few races (depending upon how the vote goes).
Recent Posts:
Presidential Primary Frontloading (1976-2008)
Search Engine Wars? FHQ Prefers Google
What's Wrong with 2012 Polls?
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Presidential Primary Frontloading (1976-2008)
[Click to Enlarge]2) States vertically split in two on any of the maps are states that had contests on different dates for the two parties. Democratic contests are on the left and Republican contests are on the right.
This isn't anything new. These are the same maps that have been residing in the left sidebar (see said sidebar for the attendant primary calendars) for a while now, but the above is probably a better representation of the frontloading trend over time. Sure, you can scroll down the page or look at the slideshow of the changes, but this more immediately demonstrates the effect with each of the maps side by side.
Recent Posts:
Search Engine Wars? FHQ Prefers Google
What's Wrong with 2012 Polls?
State of the Race: New Jersey (7/16/09)
Search Engine Wars? FHQ Prefers Google
There's been a discussion in the tech press lately concerning the pros and cons of Google and the newly refurbished Microsoft search engine, dubbed Bing. No, this has nothing to do with presidential primaries, the 2012 election or anything of that ilk. In fact, it is more horn tooting, I suppose, than anything else. FHQ gets a steady stream of traffic based on people searching online for a number of things: electoral college maps, divisive primaries and generally anything having to do with 2012. I like knowing that people can search using those keywords and find their way to FHQ to discover what I hope they perceive as meaningful information. Hey, that's why this site exists. I could certainly do all the things that I do here and not post them, but why not share? Increasingly the internet is transforming into a highly efficient means of sharing information from the mundane to academic research. [FHQ lies somewhere in the middle, but operates under the assumption that what may be mundane to one man, may be enlightening/academic to the next.]
But what about Google and Bing? Well, to my mind there was no better way for me to check out the search abilities of the upstart, Bing, than to use the typical keywords that guide traffic to FHQ. If Bing is so good/better than Google, then it will do the same and more in terms of introducing more eyeballs to FHQ, right? Sure, theoretically. But that's not what I found. Where FHQ would appear high on the Google list, it rarely appeared at all in Bing searches.
Huh?
Here are some examples:
2012 electoral college map (Google, Bing)
2012 primary calendar (Google, Bing)
Divisive primaries (Google, Bing)
*For the record, Yahoo settles in somewhere in between both ends of the Google/Bing spectrum.
This struck me as odd. But then I realized that Blogger/Blogspot is a Google service and it occurred to me that either Google is protecting their own or Microsoft is penalizing those outside of its accepted list of blog services. [Nah, surely big, competing businesses wouldn't do that!] In the end this is all very interesting to me. Look, FHQ gets a meager amount of traffic in the grand scheme of things, so it isn't that big a deal. But it is curious and makes me wonder if this has affected other bloggers out there.
Plus, it is a slow Saturday and this was something I was thinking about.
Recent Posts:
What's Wrong with 2012 Polls?
State of the Race: New Jersey (7/16/09)
Romney Leads 2012 GOP Race (...and in more than just the Gallup Poll)
But what about Google and Bing? Well, to my mind there was no better way for me to check out the search abilities of the upstart, Bing, than to use the typical keywords that guide traffic to FHQ. If Bing is so good/better than Google, then it will do the same and more in terms of introducing more eyeballs to FHQ, right? Sure, theoretically. But that's not what I found. Where FHQ would appear high on the Google list, it rarely appeared at all in Bing searches.
Huh?
Here are some examples:
2012 electoral college map (Google, Bing)
2012 primary calendar (Google, Bing)
Divisive primaries (Google, Bing)
*For the record, Yahoo settles in somewhere in between both ends of the Google/Bing spectrum.
This struck me as odd. But then I realized that Blogger/Blogspot is a Google service and it occurred to me that either Google is protecting their own or Microsoft is penalizing those outside of its accepted list of blog services. [Nah, surely big, competing businesses wouldn't do that!] In the end this is all very interesting to me. Look, FHQ gets a meager amount of traffic in the grand scheme of things, so it isn't that big a deal. But it is curious and makes me wonder if this has affected other bloggers out there.
Plus, it is a slow Saturday and this was something I was thinking about.
Recent Posts:
What's Wrong with 2012 Polls?
State of the Race: New Jersey (7/16/09)
Romney Leads 2012 GOP Race (...and in more than just the Gallup Poll)
Friday, July 17, 2009
What's Wrong with 2012 Polls?
There has been an entertaining discussion on the utility of polling going on this week between Conor Clarke over The Atlantic and John Sides (among others) at The Monkey Cage. Clarke got the ball rolling in the Idea of the Day special section of The Atlantic's site by questioning the usefulness of polls -- mainly the overabundance of them and the effect that has on democratic governance and government. Sides, in a rejoinder to Clarke's response to his rebuttal, counters by arguing polling's positives are based on the accountability, evidence and representativeness they provide. I'm not going to rehash the arguments here (but do urge you to go check the discussion out), but I did want to take issue with Sides on one of his closing remarks.
On that last point is where the primary polling is of particular import; it is gauging how Republicans perceive the field of candidates/leaders to be shaping up. Now, it may be that at this point in the cycle what we are seeing in the cross-tabs is being driven by nothing more than name recognition, but that is providing us with a baseline for comparison as this race fully formalizes over the next couple of years. Stated differently, it is providing us with some evidence of a basic ordering of candidates. We could rely on pundits to tell us that it is all Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee or we could poll it to find some evidence of this (Of course, the logical question that emerges here is whether the polling is influencing the pundit-speak or vice versa.). For a party that is leaderless on the national level, the 2012 nomination question is more than a mere proxy.
But what about these trial heats? I've tried to caution FHQ readers about the limitations of these polls. First of all, with the exception of the University of Texas poll last week, all of the national and statewide polls asking the "if the 2012 presidential election were held today" question have been conducted by Public Policy Polling. That, in addition to the relatively small sample sizes (only above 700 respondents) for their national polls, is a hit for these polls on the representativeness score. And I'll grant Sides that. This may not be the most representative series of polls and as a result may not be the best evidence of the true state of something (the 2012 GOP nomination) that may not be a race yet.*
Here's the kicker, though: You'd expect these trial heat numbers to track with either Obama's approval or favorability ratings. But they don't; not across the board at least. Let's look at those PPP trends (Obama v. Gingrich/Huckabee/Palin/Romney) on the national level versus the data on the president's approval and favorability:
Now, there's been a steady decline in both the approval and favorability trends since they peaked for Obama in December and January respectively. But that's not the trend we see across the Public Policy Polling surveys. Obama opened with good leads over all four prospective Republican candidates, widened those leads in May and came back a bit in June.
What's the deal with May? Why is it that those numbers go against the grain of what we might otherwise expect? It may be something as simple as sample size. The May poll was the only survey in which PPP had a national sample size approaching the 1000 (+/-) respondent mark that is standard. The others hover in the 600-700 range. Again, representativeness takes a hit in those circumstances. The interesting question from this is whether PPP's other numbers outside of May are over- or understating Obama's or the Republicans' positions relative to each other. If all the samples were 1000 respondents in size would we have witnessed a steady decay was we see in the national favorability and approval numbers for the president? That's really the question here.
So have I made the case for the 2012 polls here? No, I don't think so. There are some problems with these polls -- sample size and the fact that only one organization is doing the general election trial heats. But what this does provide is some context and that was one of Sides' underlying points in this discussion; that the interpretations of these polls be more than, "Here are the numbers" and that the folks consuming them do so with an eye to detail.
The thing about polling is that a snowball effect can build rather quickly. Once you start asking a question like "If the 2012 elections were held today who would you vote for?" all that does is trigger increased polling to find if there was any validity to the original results. And on and on it goes. Is it too early in the 2012 presidential cycle to begin asking this question? Maybe. McCain campaign (circa 2000) strategist, Mike Murphy just yesterday tweeted this: "New polling out on GOP '12 race. I say ignore it and heed the Milt Gwirtzman Rule; nothing matters till first contest." That dovetails with John Sides' statement and I partially agree with both of them.
But if the prospective candidates are seemingly acting as if they are running (There's no doubt in my mind that the not-so-behind-the-scenes campaigning and positioning that is currently going on is the opening salvo in the 2012 invisible primary.), then wouldn't it behoove us to have some data to back that up? If the candidates are active and fundraising (even if through their PACs), wouldn't make sense to have the other piece of the puzzle that is so often looked at in these candidate/nominee emergence models (Mayer, for example). And wouldn't that have at least some effect on the piece of the puzzle Cohen, et al. brought to the table in The Party Decides (endorsements)?
Perhaps. But it could also be that I just like the polls.
...even if they're too early and meaningless.
*Though, the actions of Huckabee, Palin, Pawlenty and Romney make it appear as if each is at least angling for a national run. Huckabee is making seemingly beneficial endorsements in Iowa (Chuck Grassley, Bob Vander Plaats) and Florida (Marco Rubio). Both are early states given the 2008 calendar (2012 is subject to change) and those endorsements are solid given that each would help among conservatives in primaries or caucuses closed to independents and Democrats. Palin's actions have been difficult to explain, but there seems to be some national ambition in there. Romney is building the organizational infrastructure necessary to be successful in 2012 given his fundraising and strategic disbursements to candidates and leaders within the party. And Pawlenty's decision not to seek a third term seems to have at least been somewhat politically driven. Again, there appears to be some upward ambition there.
Recent Posts:
State of the Race: New Jersey (7/16/09)
Romney Leads 2012 GOP Race (...and in more than just the Gallup Poll)
Revisiting Democratic Delegate Allocation (1976-2008)
"Lest I sound like a cheerleader: some polls bug me, much as they must bug Clarke. I hate the vastly premature 2012 presidential trial heats, for example."First, I should say that I obviously come down on Sides', uh, side of the argument, but this hits a little close to home considering the ramped up 2012 gazing on FHQ of late (see here, here, here and here). Also, before I get in to this, I think that it is instructive to make a distinction between the trial heats and the GOP primary polling for 2012. I find the latter to be of greater use simply because of the position the Republican Party finds itself in in the aftermath of last November's elections: out of the White House, out of power in both chambers of Congress and leaderless.
On that last point is where the primary polling is of particular import; it is gauging how Republicans perceive the field of candidates/leaders to be shaping up. Now, it may be that at this point in the cycle what we are seeing in the cross-tabs is being driven by nothing more than name recognition, but that is providing us with a baseline for comparison as this race fully formalizes over the next couple of years. Stated differently, it is providing us with some evidence of a basic ordering of candidates. We could rely on pundits to tell us that it is all Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee or we could poll it to find some evidence of this (Of course, the logical question that emerges here is whether the polling is influencing the pundit-speak or vice versa.). For a party that is leaderless on the national level, the 2012 nomination question is more than a mere proxy.
But what about these trial heats? I've tried to caution FHQ readers about the limitations of these polls. First of all, with the exception of the University of Texas poll last week, all of the national and statewide polls asking the "if the 2012 presidential election were held today" question have been conducted by Public Policy Polling. That, in addition to the relatively small sample sizes (only above 700 respondents) for their national polls, is a hit for these polls on the representativeness score. And I'll grant Sides that. This may not be the most representative series of polls and as a result may not be the best evidence of the true state of something (the 2012 GOP nomination) that may not be a race yet.*
Here's the kicker, though: You'd expect these trial heat numbers to track with either Obama's approval or favorability ratings. But they don't; not across the board at least. Let's look at those PPP trends (Obama v. Gingrich/Huckabee/Palin/Romney) on the national level versus the data on the president's approval and favorability:
Now, there's been a steady decline in both the approval and favorability trends since they peaked for Obama in December and January respectively. But that's not the trend we see across the Public Policy Polling surveys. Obama opened with good leads over all four prospective Republican candidates, widened those leads in May and came back a bit in June.
What's the deal with May? Why is it that those numbers go against the grain of what we might otherwise expect? It may be something as simple as sample size. The May poll was the only survey in which PPP had a national sample size approaching the 1000 (+/-) respondent mark that is standard. The others hover in the 600-700 range. Again, representativeness takes a hit in those circumstances. The interesting question from this is whether PPP's other numbers outside of May are over- or understating Obama's or the Republicans' positions relative to each other. If all the samples were 1000 respondents in size would we have witnessed a steady decay was we see in the national favorability and approval numbers for the president? That's really the question here.
So have I made the case for the 2012 polls here? No, I don't think so. There are some problems with these polls -- sample size and the fact that only one organization is doing the general election trial heats. But what this does provide is some context and that was one of Sides' underlying points in this discussion; that the interpretations of these polls be more than, "Here are the numbers" and that the folks consuming them do so with an eye to detail.
The thing about polling is that a snowball effect can build rather quickly. Once you start asking a question like "If the 2012 elections were held today who would you vote for?" all that does is trigger increased polling to find if there was any validity to the original results. And on and on it goes. Is it too early in the 2012 presidential cycle to begin asking this question? Maybe. McCain campaign (circa 2000) strategist, Mike Murphy just yesterday tweeted this: "New polling out on GOP '12 race. I say ignore it and heed the Milt Gwirtzman Rule; nothing matters till first contest." That dovetails with John Sides' statement and I partially agree with both of them.
But if the prospective candidates are seemingly acting as if they are running (There's no doubt in my mind that the not-so-behind-the-scenes campaigning and positioning that is currently going on is the opening salvo in the 2012 invisible primary.), then wouldn't it behoove us to have some data to back that up? If the candidates are active and fundraising (even if through their PACs), wouldn't make sense to have the other piece of the puzzle that is so often looked at in these candidate/nominee emergence models (Mayer, for example). And wouldn't that have at least some effect on the piece of the puzzle Cohen, et al. brought to the table in The Party Decides (endorsements)?
Perhaps. But it could also be that I just like the polls.
...even if they're too early and meaningless.
*Though, the actions of Huckabee, Palin, Pawlenty and Romney make it appear as if each is at least angling for a national run. Huckabee is making seemingly beneficial endorsements in Iowa (Chuck Grassley, Bob Vander Plaats) and Florida (Marco Rubio). Both are early states given the 2008 calendar (2012 is subject to change) and those endorsements are solid given that each would help among conservatives in primaries or caucuses closed to independents and Democrats. Palin's actions have been difficult to explain, but there seems to be some national ambition in there. Romney is building the organizational infrastructure necessary to be successful in 2012 given his fundraising and strategic disbursements to candidates and leaders within the party. And Pawlenty's decision not to seek a third term seems to have at least been somewhat politically driven. Again, there appears to be some upward ambition there.
Recent Posts:
State of the Race: New Jersey (7/16/09)
Romney Leads 2012 GOP Race (...and in more than just the Gallup Poll)
Revisiting Democratic Delegate Allocation (1976-2008)
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