Rick Davis on Palin: VP Selection is easy when you're up 15 points, but is tough when you're down 15

This is part one in a series of posts on Rick Davis' recent visit with political science students and faculty at Wake Forest.

On Palin...
Davis mentioned that the campaign was keeping tabs on what the Democrats were doing over the summer; not necessarily in terms of their vice presidential selection, but poll position among various demographic groups. Beyond that, the McCain camp came up with a list of about 50 names that was ultimately whittled down to about 20. That was the serious list. At that point, Davis sat down with McCain with the names and the numbers and discussed the selection. Davis prefaced this by saying (I'm paraphrasing), "Because, you know, the candidate has some input, too."

To that point, the campaign seemed to be targeting possibilities that would help them sway Hillary Democrats (or are those Reagan Democrats?), but people like Joe Lieberman and Michael Bloomberg were not moving the needle in a positive direction for the Arizona senator among those folks in particular or overall. It was at this time that McCain proposed the idea of looking at women, but as Davis suggested, the reality was (and is) that there just aren't that many female Republican options. Admittedly, I was hoping during this point in the talk that Davis would name names of other Republican women considered, but all he said, in addition to the slim pickings comment, was that women in politics and business were considered. On the business front, I can't help but assume that both Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman had their names come up, but don't know how seriously either was considered.

Part of the problem for Republicans in 2008 was that it was just plain hard to run with an R next to your name unless you were representing a ruby red state or congressional district. What was vexing the McCain campaign, though, and what led them to consider a woman for the number two position on the ticket, was that they were facing a tremendous gender gap among their core of white voters. In the end the only one who significantly closed that gap (and was someone who McCain could live with) was Sarah Palin. Among those white voters, she took an approximately 40 point gender gap and shrunk it to single digits. [Something that I really wanted to ask in follow up to this point is what Davis thought about the fact that the 2012 polling done thus far has consistently shown Palin trailing her male Republican counterparts relative to Obama in terms of the gender gap. Alas, I didn't have the opportunity.]

I wouldn't say they thought her selection was a no-brainer, but their were advantages to her having been picked. Even Steve Schmidt is drawing a distinction between 2008 Palin and potential 2012 Palin; calling her potential nomination in 2012 "catastrophic," but adding just today that her selection was defensible. ["I believe to this day that had she not been picked as a vice presidential candidate, we would have never been ahead, not for one second, not for one minute, not for one hour, not for one day."] The lead Schmidt references there was something Davis touched on as well: That in national polls, McCain was ahead after the Palin pick. Now granted, that was during that unprecedented string of events from the close of the Democratic convention on Thursday night, to the introduction of Palin on Friday to the Republican convention the following week. The lead may have been due to a Palin effect, but there very likely was at least something of an interactive effect between that and the convention bounce.

The McCain folks apparently are of a mind that it was Palin and not the convention though.


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Rick Davis at Wake Forest: A Series of Postscripts

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/14/09)

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/13/09)

Rick Davis at Wake Forest: A Series of Postscripts

On Sunday, I solicited FHQ readers for questions to pose to Rick Davis, who was visiting campus here at Wake Forest on Tuesday. The former 2000 and 2008 McCain campaign manager had an hour to speak and field questions from political science students and faculty here and offered a unique glimpse inside the McCain operation.

I'll skip over his prefatory comments, which focused on his past in the College Republicans in Alabama in the late 1970s. Those points were really only interesting for the description of his agree-to-disagree relationship with Karl Rove that found its origin not in the McCain-Bush divisions of the 2000 Republican nomination race (and infamously South Carolina), but in their College Republican days (Rove in Washington, Davis in Alabama).

Again, that was informative, but the meat of the event was the Q&A session. And believe it or not the "Palin question" did not lead. I was shocked; Davis was too, and said so when he got the second question, which happened to be about the former Alaska governor. One thing that was clear was that Davis has certainly spent some time around politicians. His answers were long, debate-style walls of talking points. I don't particularly have a problem with that (As I said, it was an informative hour.), but it had the effect of limiting the number of questions that were asked in a short period of time. In the end, beggars can't be choosers, though.

What did Davis have to say? I'll have a series of posts up throughout the day dealing with several different topics with which Davis dealt. Up first? Sarah Palin.


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State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/13/09)

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/14/09)

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The chatter around the New Jersey gubernatorial race this Tuesday three weeks before the election centered on whether independent Chris Daggett could actually win the election in the Garden state. 77% of the new Quinnipiac survey's respondents thought not, but that didn't keep the good folks at NBC News' First Read from wondering aloud about the possibility. Well, at the very least it didn't prevent First Read from making a flawed connection between Jesse Ventura's win in the Minnesota governors contest in 1998 and Chris Daggett in 2009.

Yes, environmentally, Minnesota had an electorate that was seemingly against both major parties down the stretch in that race whose candidates were deadlocked in the polls. However, New Jersey and Chris Daggett are missing two very important ingredients from the Ventura formula: money and election day registration. [Oh, and if the Minnesota ballot in 1998 was anything like this -- which is a heck of a lot better than this -- Daggett will have had something Ventura did not: a ballot problem.] Does any of this mean Daggett cannot win? Well, there is an awful lot of mounting evidence, but I suppose the idea can't be completely dismissed.

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Quinnipiac	Oct. 7-12, 2009	+/- 2.8%	1264 likely voters	40	41	14	5

Meanwhile, the two major party candidates remained in a statistical tie in yet another poll. Jon Corzine continues to hover just under the 39% mark in FHQ's averages, but Chris Christie dropped yet again; this time to just less than 45% (His lowest mark since FHQ began watching the race in June.). With each passing day, the Republican is inching ever closer to Corzine, who seems destined to come in somewhere very close to the 40% mark from here on out (Perhaps not in the voting itself, but the polling sure seems that way.).

And where does that leave this race? Well, it is a tie with a very interesting third party twist. Like the Public Policy Polling survey yesterday, the Quinnipiac poll finds Daggett's support to be on the weak side of the ledger (59% of the Daggett supporters said they still may change their minds.), and Christie is the leading second choice for those respondents. To that latter point, however, Christie leads by only 7 points (40-33), which is about half of what PPP showed yesterday. If the polls continue to show a tie between Corzine and Christie for the next three weeks, the second choice question will absolutely be the number to watch as this race runs its course.

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Another day brought another upper single digits lead for Republican Bob McDonnell in the Virginia gubernatorial race. Even though, the survey from Rasmussen preceded last night's debate in Richmond, the status quo result combined with the fact that the debate didn't shift the narrative of the race noticeably to make it seem like another typical day in the late stages of this race. And with that debate out of the way, that's one more opportunity lost for Deeds to put a positive spin on his campaign after the longstanding negative attacks on McDonnell for his past writings wore thin with likely voters in recent polls.

2009 Virginia Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Deeds	McDonnell	Undecided
Rasmussen	Oct. 12, 2009	+/- 4%	500 likely voters	43	50	6

With the opportunity lost, however, things are very much stuck in a rut in this race. McDonnell is ahead and has been better than 50% in most of the recent polls. The Republican is exactly on that mark in FHQ's averages of the race, with Deeds still struggling to break the 43% here for the first time since July. If this one's going to get close down the stretch, Deeds is going to have to happen on a magic formula and/or find some other controversial McDonnell writings (even then that latter narrative is likely dead). With the enthusiasm gap working against the Democrat in this race, as evidenced by the low projected African American turnout, it just looks as if the tried and true Virginia gubernatorial election trend will continue: Democratic president, Republican wins the governors race (or as we saw four and eight years ago, Republican president, Democrat wins the governors race).

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State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/13/09)

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Public Policy Polling released a new poll from New Jersey this morning and the state of the race has moved very little. In fact, because the new poll looked so similar to the last most recent poll (from Democracy Corp), nothing changed much at all with the exception of both major party candidates dropping a tenth of a percentage point. Christie's shift is a continuance of his slide in surveys of late whereas Corzine's move was more a function of his most recent poll rating (41% in the Democracy Corp poll) being slightly higher than the 39% support the incumbent Democrat received in the PPP poll.

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Public Policy Polling [pdf]	Oct. 9-12, 2009	+/- 4.1%	571 likely voters	39	40	13	8

The real news continues to be Chris Daggett's rise in the last few weeks. His 13% showing in the PPP poll pushed the independent closer to the 10% mark in FHQ's averages of the race's competitors. But it isn't all good news for Daggett (and Corzine by association). As was brought up again today by Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic, Daggett faces the very real possibility that voters will have issues locating him on the ballot. The major party candidates get the first two rows in the gubernatorial ballot with the first slot being determined by a coin flip between the Democrats and Republicans. Everyone else, though, is crammed into a third row (see FHQ's discussion of this from last week). What will happen then? PPP found that only 44% of Daggett's supporters in this poll were committed to the independent and that Christie led by a 48-34 margin over Corzine as a second choice. If you aren't really committed to the third party guy, and you can't find him on the ballot, then what is the likelihood that you throw in the towel and mark the name of your second choice -- the guy who's not the unpopular incumbent.

Now, is that likely to happen? Possibly in a lower information, off-year election like this where the race is close. Usually the impact of something like this would be felt at the margins and wouldn't affect the outcome. But we're talking about a statistical tie in this race in the most recent polls. Yes, FHQ's averages are still a bit skeptical (owing to the fact that we have turned the other way on several Neighborhood Research polls and a handful of internet-based polls that have shown a close race as well) and lag behind. However, the margin between Christie and Corzine is definitely creeping closer.

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If you hold an Iowa Caucus, will the 2012 candidates come?

Well, the Des Moines Registered is sounding the alarm. It seems the prospective candidates for the 2012 Republican nomination aren't coming to the Hawkeye state anywhere near as many times as the prospective 2008 candidates did by this point four years ago.

Is that a fair comparison, though? 2008 was such an historic election cycle, that it would honestly be tough to top on any front. I suspect the Republicans will have raised more money by the time Iowa rolls around in early 2012 than their 2008 counterpart managed, but that may be about it. Both nominations were truly open and competitive for the first time since 1952 and interest in the race and participation skyrocketed because of it. Wouldn't it, then, be a fairer comparison to look at the 2004 Democratic candidate visits to the state instead?

How many times had Kerry and Edwards and Dean and Gephardt visited Iowa by this point in 2001? Well, through all of 2001, there were 14 Democratic visits to the state. And while that tops the handful of visits the Des Moines Register alludes to, the difference isn't really all that pronounced. The one big difference between the two cycles (early 2004 and early 2012) is that Iowa was close in 2000 and not in 2008. Furthermore, the losing 2008 party (the Republicans) is the party with that active nomination for 2012. In other words, the GOP has got some work to do to make up ground in the Hawkeye state. That said, we're not talking about a windfall of visits in either cycle.

So what's the big deal?

There isn't one. There may be a lack of prospective Republican candidates crossing the borders into Iowa, but I don't know that it has anything to do with the evangelical influence in the Iowa caucus electorate. Let's take a look at history: Iowa may not have chosen the eventual nominee every time in the post-reform era, but it has mattered every year since 1976 with the exception of 1992. And in that year Iowa Senator Tom Harkin ran for the Democratic nomination and was able shift the candidates' foci toward New Hampshire, skipping Iowa all the while. So far, I don't see any prominent Iowans lining up to seek the nomination.

If Iowa still plans to hold a caucus in 2012 and it remains first (and I have no evidence that it won't), then Republicans, with the media in tow, will make their way there by 2012.


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It's too bad Public Policy Polling conducted a poll in New Jersey over the weekend. I'm sure those results will be interesting (They are bound to find their way onto FHQ somehow.), but PPP was the last polling outfit to show the Virginia race any closer than eight points -- where the new Mason Dixon poll finds the contest between Bob McDonnell and Creigh Deeds in the Old Dominion. It would be nice to see the before and after because most of the other polling firms weighing in since have shown a widening gap between the two major party candidates in Virginia.

2009 Virginia Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Deeds	McDonnell	Undecided
Mason Dixon	Oct. 6-8, 2009	+/- 4%	625 likely voters	4o	48	12

FHQ doesn't have any problem with the 8-9 point spreads; that's around where we have the race pegged at this point. It just feels like a 52-45 or 53-44 sort of win for McDonnell at this point. [And yes, that feeling is filtered through the polling data we have at the moment. It isn't a totally subjective ruling.] And with three weeks left, Deeds has to find a way to shift the narrative in a way that will help him. Again, the thesis narrative seems to have run its course. The media has moved on. The onus, then, is on the Democrat to alter the race in some way, shape or form. That may start with tonight's debate in Richmond, but even then, Deeds will have to overcome quiet a deficit and the difficult balance between local forces and national factors that have stoked Republican enthusiasm in the state.

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FHQ Readers:

John McCain's 2008 campaign manager, Rick Davis, is going to be on campus here at Wake on Tuesday. He's going to meet with the political science faculty and some students while he's here. I thought I'd give all our regular contributors a chance to pose a question that I can then attempt to have answered. If you have any questions about the 2008 presidential campaign, especially the approach of the McCain camp, just drop a note in the comments section below. Oh, and I'm guessing the Sarah Palin question will be asked, so you may want to go in a different direction.

Thanks,
Josh


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Won't Somebody Please Think About the Political 'Scientists'!?!

With all due respect to Helen Lovejoy, this isn't about just the children anymore.



Yes, that's right: My fellow political "scientists" and I are under attack. Well, our funding from the National Science Foundation is, at least, now that Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has introduced an amendment to eliminate it. This quote from the senator's press secretary kills me:

"Political science would be better left to pundits and voters," said Don Tatro, Senator Coburn's press secretary, in an interview.

Indeed. I think Steven Taylor has put it best:

"I can readily accept the notion that there is a debate to be had about federal funding of research (and not just polisci work). That is perfectly legitimate. However, it would be nice if Coburn at least knew what he was talking about. ... It is flatly not the case that the University of Michigan’s work on American elections is somehow equivalent to election-night reporting and commentary. And while there are some bloggers who do attempt to engage in legitimate analysis, some of it truly empirical in nature as well, they are not the same thing as actual political science analysis."

There are some other great reactions out there as well from political scientists (see below). Look, no one wants their funding threatened (Remember the bear DNA study that was a part of the presidential campaign a year ago?) and it is natural for political scientists to want to fight this. But seriously, Senator, if you're going to make this argument, please come up with something better than, "CNN could do just as well." That's simply not true. And that's not just some ivory tower-dwelling political scientist saying that.

Andrew Gelman
Henry Farrell
Joshua Tucker
Matthew Shugart
Dan Drezner
Steven Taylor

Oh, and John Sides awarded Coburn the Cobie.


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FHQ Friday Fun: Things are More Fun in Iowa

...and that doesn't even count the presidential nomination races kicking off there every fourth year.

I can't believe I managed to hold on to this until Friday. Good stuff from Iowa:



Hat tip to Jonathan Martin for the link.


Recent Posts:
September (State and Local) Primaries Are Now a Step Closer to Disappearing

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/8/09)

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