In Part 1, I provided the links to Mitt Romney’s “47%” remarks and an overview of why I generally don’t explore gaffes (short half-life, negligible outside voter impact, a quick shot-in-the-arm to the base, calculated intent, and no real value in doing so). I’m breaking my general rule because this is a very revealing exercise regarding the state of the campaign and how political operatives think and act. There are two key questions to consider, namely why the Democrats chose now to play this ace-in-the-hole and why the GOP acted the way they did.
Contrary to popular belief, Romney didn’t actually make these statements six weeks prior to the election. We’re first hearing of it now, but this was actually from May 17. What does that tell you? It should tell you that the Democrat machine has probably been sitting on this ace-in-the-hole for weeks, more likely months, and chose to play it now. Why now? My theory is two-fold.
One, Obama’s post-convention bounce is fading/stalling. The GOP will say the former and the Democrats will say the latter, but however you slice it, the bounce has clearly failed to continue higher. The daily Gallup poll on Obama’s approval numbers shows this, found here. It peaked at 52% for the Democrat convention, but has backed off materially since, to 47% as of this writing. Democrats thought and hoped it would go higher. Interesting side note – Obama’s approval rating, though well off the lows of last year in the upper 30’s, still has not been above 52% in over a year. So, there is an effort here to jumpstart the approval rating both from an absolute view because a high of 52% is disconcerting for Democrats and Obama’s odds of victory (52% is also pathetic and shows a lack of popular confidence in Obama’s leadership, but that’s beside the point) and from a relative perspective as an effort to maintain the momentum. We can also see this by looking at the Obama versus Romney polling that Gallup does, found here. As of this writing, it is a 47-47 tie, but it was 50-43 in favor of Obama at the beginning of September.
Two, aside from the loss of post-convention momentum and dismal absolute level, I think the events of the past week have hurt Obama in the short-term. A lot of negative attention has been put on Obama over the past week, specifically all of the violence at various US embassies (in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, etc.) and the Federal Reserve’s announcement of essentially indefinite Quantitative Easing (QE-infinity, as I call it). The violence creates the appearance, rightly or wrongly, that Obama’s foreign policy isn’t working and QE-infinity creates the appearance, rightly or wrongly, that Obama’s economic policy isn’t working. The Obama camp was thus in need of something that, at the least, shifts negative attention away from Obama. Ideally, that something would also give Obama positive attention and give Romney negative attention, too. This video did 2/3 for Obama. It failed to give positive attention to Obama, but it did give a shot-in-the-arm to energize his base.
On the GOP side, note Romney’s reaction. He more or less owned up to his statements, even embracing them. Though he said he may not have phrased them as well as he would’ve liked, he certainly didn’t deny or apologize for them. Yes, you’ve seen some GOP members criticize the statements, but most have stood by Romney and what matters here is what Romney himself does. Why would Romney embrace these statements? Simply put, the ‘makers versus takers’ narrative plays very well with the GOP base. If these statements were estimated by his operatives to hurt him in the polls, would he embrace them? Methinks not. Said another way, it gives Romney positive attention and a shot-in-the-arm to energize his base.
One quick side note is this also explains why there have been so many stories in the media about internal strife, turmoil, and dysfunction within the Romney camp. If they can portray Romney as imploding, this takes the heat off Obama for the week’s events and boosts his numbers because it makes Romney, rightly or wrongly, look like he’s falling apart. On the flip side, if Romney looks to be in dire straits, he can react by using that perception to create a sense of urgency for his base.
Democrats contend that my “conspiracy theory” doesn’t add up because they say Obama is winning and these aren’t the actions of a comfortable winner, but someone who is tied or even behind. I agree about the actions, but that means we have a paradox. If these actions happened and are truly the actions of somebody who is tied or trailing rather than someone who is winning, then Obama can’t be comfortably winning. I contend that, if Obama truly is winning, it is by an uncomfortably slight amount. These actions and the data support that statement. I think the Democrats need to reevaluate their assessment about Obama winning.
Ok, back to the gaffe. We have two slightly more energized bases for an event that, realistically speaking, won’t make many people change their votes or non-votes (if somebody decides to change their vote or non-vote strictly because of this incident, please come forward). We have a story that has probably already faded from the headlines. We have clearly intentional action by the Democrats and reaction by the GOP. We also have a largely worthless media circus.
What we also have is a great example of why this kind of thing is generally not important in the grand scheme of things and of how political operatives think and act. This is as close to real-time as I can get here. I hope these concepts stay in your mind as you watch the political circus.
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