MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
Nate Silver has some interesting thoughts on the dynamics of this year's GOP caucuses.
The most interesting thing about the latest polls in Iowa (which are the basis for our forecasts) is that they essentially show a four-way tie for third place among the Republican presidential contenders, with Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry all projected to receive between 11 and 14 percent of the vote.
This is especially interesting because these candidates, with the partial exception of Mr. Gingrich, have very similar platforms to one another. They are hoping for support from many of the same demographic groups, especially evangelical voters, and have struck many of the same themes in their attempts to appeal to caucusgoers.
If these candidates could somehow combine forces, they could very easily win the caucuses. Even if you exclude Mr. Gingrich from the group, Mr. Santorum, Mrs. Bachmann and Mr. Perry collectively have about 34 percent of the vote, well above the projected figure for either Ron Paul or Mitt Romney, the candidates leading the polls.
Comments
And which of them has an ego small enough to allow them to concede this early in the race?
by Verified Atheist on Wed, 12/28/2011 - 1:17pm
None.
Nate seems to be proposing their supporters marshall behind one of them:
by Elusive Trope on Wed, 12/28/2011 - 1:43pm
The caucus system tends to force voters coalesce by default. I'm surprised that Nate didn't mention it.
In a standard primary, you just tally up the votes, so you'd get an even spread among the losing candidates.
But in a caucus, every district selects one candidate after extensive debate and multiple interim votes. When participants realize that the caucus won't pick their favorite candidate, they usually migrate to their second or third choice.
That's how Obama won Iowa. He picked up votes from Edwards supporters and others who preferred Obama to Hillary, even if he wasn't their first choice.
You could still get "gridlock" if different districts settle on different candidates, but I predict that most will follow a common pattern. The question is what will the pattern be?
Here's something to consider. We tend to think about candidates joining forces against Romney, but what will Romney supporters do if they conclude that Romney can't win the district? I suspect that they'll go for the most "reasonable" of the alternatives, probably Gingrich followed by Perry.
In other words, in Iowa, we might not see the anti-Romney coalitions people expect. We might see anti-Paul coalitions centered on Gingrich or Perry.
by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 12/28/2011 - 2:05pm
Good point, and one reason Newt's lack of ground game may not be that big of death blow for him in Iowa.
The question for Iowa for this year in particular is how strong is the protest vote. Many of the voters don't like any of the candidates passionately. So some will just "throw away their vote" on the candidate closest to what they want in order to send a message to the higher ups. Is this kind of protest sentiment strong enough numerically to counter some of the dynamics you mention? Some think it might be. Santorum winning a few districts is not out of the question.
There is also the issue that the caucus doesn't actually allocate the delegates. That won't happen until June when the contest is basically over. The more messy it becomes, the harder time the pundits will have saying just who won what. If that is the case, candidates like Santorum and Bachmann and Perry might just be able to spin some kind of momentum out it, keeping them in the race longer, which would continue to keep Mitts' numbers down.
by Elusive Trope on Wed, 12/28/2011 - 2:22pm
This is the main reason why I think Paul and Romney have a lock on #1 and #2. I am pretty sure they are training their respective caucus teams and whips to lock in for the other if it looks like their candidate won't prevail. Or at least they were a couple weeks back.
I think both Paul and Romney like the lay of the race better without Gingrich. Of course, I'm pretty sure Gingrich just tanked pretty hard in favor of Santorum in Iowa. So maybe now all bets are off ... although I can't imagine Romney would prefer to face an ascendant Santorum along with Paul for the rest of the race, so the alliance may hold.
If the trend to Santorum continues, it appears the "flavor of the month" wave mostly bypassed Ron Paul. I don't know much about Santorum. What's your take on his implodability factor?
by kgb999 on Wed, 12/28/2011 - 6:51pm