Sarah's Effect On 2008
I recently read an excellent article at realclearpolitics.com.
Here's an excerpt:
In the end, Palin had a modest impact on the race. About 60 percent of those interviewed in the exit polls said McCain’s choice of Palin had been a factor in their vote. Of these, 56 percent voted for McCain while only 43 percent voted for Obama. In other words, she appears to have helped McCain more than she hurt him, but not by much, which is as it should be; we were voting for a President, after all. In the face of unprecedented attack, Palin succeeded where almost no vice-presidential candidate ever has before in winning sustained support for the ticket.
posted by Matthew Canonicus at
11:18 PM
7 Comments:
I interpreted the exit polls quite differently! Although i'm not sure that i'm correct. It seems to me that vice-presidential candidates shouldn't influence people's votes away from the candidate, just lend some support to the main candidate from a state/minority/race that the main candidate is seen to be weak in. If 43% of 60% of voters said that Sarah Palin influenced their vote, and it influenced them to vote for Obama, then there's the potential that Palin inspired a legion of undecideds or people who were not intending to vote at all to lean towards Obama. Hmm.
Hmm ... to me it seems a little odd to me to suggest that those who were 'influenced' by Sarah Palin voted against here when those same people were reported to vote more form McCain by a 7% margin.
As far as how people "should" consider a vice-presidential candidtate, I'd say they should totally ignore their race, sex, and geographical region and just look at their values.
My point was that I doubt many people voted for Mccain because of their dislike of Joe Biden. Whereas I believe a number of independents, who were undecided on who to vote for, fell to Obama 2-4 weeks after Palin was picked as the vice-presidential candidate. Of course there are other reasons for that, but this is probably one of them.
Hi Tim,
I think I'm beginning to understand your point. Palin has high favorability and unfavorability numbers. (Actually at one point in the campaign Palin's favorability numbers were higher than any other candidate!).
As for independents, they really should be ignored. Karl Rove famously persuaded George W. Bush to only campaign to the base in 2004 and he beat Kerry by a landslie. McCain campaigned to the independents and his loss was collossal. He ended up losing both Republicans and the so-called independents.
I think I get your point now: Biden wasn't really getting anyone's attention, so those who were swayed were influenced for Sarah (but then why did those other people say they were influenced by the VP?). Anyway, statistics can be confusing.
Yeah, I just mean Biden didn't hurt Obama in any tangible way, but Palin probably did (while energising the base).
As for the independents, I don't think Mccain really campaigned for them. Instead of tacking to the centre of some large issues, he went right. Bush in 2004 had a number of factors working for him that made him attractive to some independents. Things like encumbency, "Osama Bin Ladin would vote for Kerry", smears, and some personality traits of Kerry.
Although I disagree about McCain not appealing to independents, your claim is certainly common enough. His views on global warming, immigration, campaign finance reform / free speech are centrist (if not liberal). I guess you could call these lesser issues compared to things like taxes, pork spending, abortion, etc. To some extent I agree with you.
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