President Edwards? He would have had a better chance.
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May 2, 2004
POLITICAL POINTS
Edwards Wins: A Theory Tested
By JOHN TIERNEY - NYT
IMAGINE there's no Iowa. No New Hampshire, too. Imagine the Democratic Party, instead of relying on a few unrepresentative voters to quickly anoint John Kerry, had allowed people across America to vet the candidates and contemplate the issues.
Then Mr. Kerry might well not be the nominee, and the Democrats would stand a better chance of reaching the White House, at least according to the results of a novel experiment during the primary season.
After choosing a representative national sample of more than 700 people, political scientists conducted what is called a deliberative poll. They created a group of well-informed voters by giving them home computers and exposing them to the candidates' commercials and policy positions. These voters, using microphones with the computers, discussed the candidates and the issues in small groups that met online once a week, starting in January on the day of the Iowa caucuses.
Over the next five weeks, as Mr. Kerry built up momentum among both real-life primary voters and the control group in the experiment, Senator John Edwards enjoyed the biggest surge in the well-informed test group, which was won over by his personal traits as well as by his policies, notably his protectionism on trade. Besides appealing to the Democrats in the test group, Mr. Edwards did better among the group's independents and Republicans, and he emerged as the strongest candidate against Mr. Bush.
"The normal primary process allows a few small and unrepresentative states to create the momentum for all that follows," said James Fishkin, who conducted the study with Shanto Iyengar, a Stanford colleague, and Robert C. Luskin of the University of Texas. "We wanted an alternative to shrinking sound bites, attack ads and a largely inattentive public that responds mainly to candidates' traits and horse-race coverage by the media," Mr. Fishkin said. "What would happen if people across the country were really engaged and informed and had a chance to think about the issues?"
You may call him a dreamer. But there must be at least one former presidential candidate who shares his sentiments.
Towel Talk
At Yale, 1965
WHAT exactly was the topic of the first debate between John Kerry and George W. Bush? And what exactly were they wearing?
Neither candidate seems to remember the historic occasion, but a new biography, "John F. Kerry," by three Boston Globe reporters, breaks the story of a debate at Yale over school busing. It was in the fall of 1965, when Mr. Kerry was a senior and Mr. Bush was a sophomore. David Thorne, a classmate of Mr. Kerry's who would later become his brother-in-law, is quoted describing the argument in the locker room near the Yale playing fields: "John had been participating in busing stuff, but George was very conservatively placed and thought it was a crazy idea."
Given the subsequent unpopularity of school busing experiments, this sounds like a potentially useful moment for Mr. Bush, who could point to it as evidence of his superior common sense even during his fraternity days. But there is a complication. In an interview on Friday, Mr. Thorne said he thought it was actually about a different kind of busing.
"I meant the Freedom Rides to Mississippi," Mr. Thorne said, referring to the trips by college students to protest racial segregation, which he recalled being a much bigger issue than school busing in 1965. "To the best of my memory, John was supportive of the rides and Bush was not. He had a conservative attitude that Northerners shouldn't be messing with the South."
In that context, it looks like a useful moment for Mr. Kerry. But one of the book's authors, Michael Kranish, stood by the original interpretation after reviewing a transcript of the interview. "David Thorne used the word `busing' twice in the interview and never mentioned Freedom Rides," Mr. Kranish said. "I don't think an argument about Freedom Rides makes as much sense." Although school busing in late 1965 was not yet the major issue it would become, Mr. Kranish said, it had recently been in the news because of court cases over school segregation and busing in Massachusetts.
After hearing that information on Friday, Mr. Thorne said he was no longer sure exactly what aspect of segregation had been debated. "This was 40 years ago," he pleaded. He was also unable to resolve the other major question for historians about that locker-room encounter: Was it the first nude presidential debate?
"It could have been, but I'm not sure," Mr. Thorne said. "I can't even remember whether they were getting dressed or undressed. But it was probably at least the first partially clothed presidential debate."
If You Don't Hear It
Fall, Is It a Tax Cut?
THE Bush administration cut the federal income tax rates across the board last year, but try getting taxpayers to believe that.
Most of them seemed less than grateful in an April poll by the National Annenberg Election Survey at the University of Pennsylvania. Only about one in 10 said they were paying less in federal taxes this year than last because of the cuts. When The New York Times/CBS News Poll in March asked respondents how Bush policy affected their federal tax bills, only 22 percent said it lowered them; 46 percent reported no change, and 25 percent actually blamed Mr. Bush for higher taxes.
Those answers may seem bizarre, but they're not unexpected. Voters routinely refuse to believe they've received tax cuts. Many don't know how much they pay in federal income tax, and many don't notice the effects because they're partly offset by higher local taxes or Social Security payments. The conventional wisdom among pollsters is that voters can get incensed at increases but don't get correspondingly excited about cuts. They hate losses more than they appreciate gains.
A New York Times/CBS News poll released Thursday showed that voters were more likely to fear higher taxes under Mr. Kerry, but they had no confidence that either he or Mr. Bush would lower taxes. Only about one in 20 voters expected lower taxes under either man, and not many more would believe it even if the check arrived in the mail.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company |
