MidTN4Ron
06-29-2007, 04:02 PM
While surfing the net I came upon the text of an interesting book on elections:
Samuel L Popkin, The Reasoning Voter (Univerisity of Chicago Press, 1992).
Popkin’s comments are quite relevant to the RP situation.
In January of 1975 Carter was at 1 % in the national polls. In the fall his name recognition was only at 29%. In February he was at 12% in the polls. Everything changed after New Hampshire and Iowa.
According to Popkin, Carter won the nomination because 1) the Democratic Party leadership was discredited, 2) he made sense of Watergate, and 3) he was a southern governor who could assemble a coalition of blue-collar whites and blacks.
Popkin goes on to state that the media underestimated Carter’s “personal appeal.”
Now obviously some things have changed since the ’76 election. The primary season is now front-loaded so that it is more difficult to gain momentum by winning a couple of small primaries. On the other hand, there was no internet in ’76. Almost all information about candidates came through the mainstream media. In fact, they really didn’t pay any attention to Carter until AFTER he won the early primaries. Practically speaking, this means that RP should be well ahead of where Carter was when the first caucuses and primaries are held.
Certainly the overall situations are similar. The Republican Party is in disarray. The party leader is utterly discredited. The Iraq war is a dead weight around the Party’s neck, and RP is the only candidate trying to make sense of the war and what it is doing to our economy and our freedoms at home. On top of that, RP has appeal across a wide spectrum of voters; everyone really except the hard right and the hard left.
There are several lessons to be learned from this.
First, nationwide polls are absolutely meaningless at this point.
Second, credibility is the name of the game. A good showing in the Iowa and NH straw polls as well as in the actual votes will create attention.
Third, the best advert we have for RP is RP himself. People voted for Carter in 76 because they were sick of Washington (Watergate and Vietnam) and perceived Carter to be a down-home, honest man (“I will never lie to you.”—Of course we now know that that folksiness masked a monumental ego and an avaricious thirst for power, but no one realized that at the time.) RP is the real deal, and I think people who watch him can tell that.
Fourth, we should not overcomplicate the message. Carter was criticized for being vague, but his campaign based on honesty, integrity, and good management resonated with voters. Some of us (myself especially) want to get too philosophical and too technical. That is fine for political junkies and philosophy majors (who are dear to my heart since I was one and now teach this stuff for a living), but John Q. Public needs a message that is clear, concise and digestible.
So the moral is this: When someone says, “I like what he is saying, but he doesn’t have a chance of winning (which, btw, was what I said to a friend on May 2 of this year),” simply reply: At this time during the 1976 presidential campaign no one outside of Georgia had any clue who Jimmy Carter was, and he ended up winning the presidency. If you like what Ron Paul has to say then support him; the alternative is four more years of Bush-Clinton-Bushism, regardless of who gets elected.
Samuel L Popkin, The Reasoning Voter (Univerisity of Chicago Press, 1992).
Popkin’s comments are quite relevant to the RP situation.
In January of 1975 Carter was at 1 % in the national polls. In the fall his name recognition was only at 29%. In February he was at 12% in the polls. Everything changed after New Hampshire and Iowa.
According to Popkin, Carter won the nomination because 1) the Democratic Party leadership was discredited, 2) he made sense of Watergate, and 3) he was a southern governor who could assemble a coalition of blue-collar whites and blacks.
Popkin goes on to state that the media underestimated Carter’s “personal appeal.”
Now obviously some things have changed since the ’76 election. The primary season is now front-loaded so that it is more difficult to gain momentum by winning a couple of small primaries. On the other hand, there was no internet in ’76. Almost all information about candidates came through the mainstream media. In fact, they really didn’t pay any attention to Carter until AFTER he won the early primaries. Practically speaking, this means that RP should be well ahead of where Carter was when the first caucuses and primaries are held.
Certainly the overall situations are similar. The Republican Party is in disarray. The party leader is utterly discredited. The Iraq war is a dead weight around the Party’s neck, and RP is the only candidate trying to make sense of the war and what it is doing to our economy and our freedoms at home. On top of that, RP has appeal across a wide spectrum of voters; everyone really except the hard right and the hard left.
There are several lessons to be learned from this.
First, nationwide polls are absolutely meaningless at this point.
Second, credibility is the name of the game. A good showing in the Iowa and NH straw polls as well as in the actual votes will create attention.
Third, the best advert we have for RP is RP himself. People voted for Carter in 76 because they were sick of Washington (Watergate and Vietnam) and perceived Carter to be a down-home, honest man (“I will never lie to you.”—Of course we now know that that folksiness masked a monumental ego and an avaricious thirst for power, but no one realized that at the time.) RP is the real deal, and I think people who watch him can tell that.
Fourth, we should not overcomplicate the message. Carter was criticized for being vague, but his campaign based on honesty, integrity, and good management resonated with voters. Some of us (myself especially) want to get too philosophical and too technical. That is fine for political junkies and philosophy majors (who are dear to my heart since I was one and now teach this stuff for a living), but John Q. Public needs a message that is clear, concise and digestible.
So the moral is this: When someone says, “I like what he is saying, but he doesn’t have a chance of winning (which, btw, was what I said to a friend on May 2 of this year),” simply reply: At this time during the 1976 presidential campaign no one outside of Georgia had any clue who Jimmy Carter was, and he ended up winning the presidency. If you like what Ron Paul has to say then support him; the alternative is four more years of Bush-Clinton-Bushism, regardless of who gets elected.