From: "Nathan Newman" <nathan.newman at yale.edu> Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 09:58:35 -0400
----- Original Message ----- From: "Joe R. Golowka" <joeG at ieee.org> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>I'm more interested in polls on those who don't intend to vote. I'm
>especially interested in learning if Gore's recent upswing is due to him
>taking votes away from other canidates or if it's the result of getting the
>support of those who wouldn't otherwise vote. If the later then Nader's
>drop in the polls isn't because he's losing supporters; it's because there
>are more potential votes & he thus has a smaller percentage of the pie.
I am hoping I am going to lose my bet with Seth and the real reason it looks likely is not so much the polls, although those are encouraging, but the real shift in enthusiasm for turnout among progressives that should make the difference in the key swing states. Unions and other groups are moving into high-level turnout mode and, unlike in 1996, almost all the money being spent is not on the "air war" (which the DNC and Gore campaign are taking care of) but rather on expanding turnout and person-to-person contact. It is worth remembering that Gingrich won in 1994 not because the rightwing turned out so many people (since the total percentage voting was historically low) but because our folks stayed home. Given the volatility on who will turn out, the variability among polls is inevitable since which turnout model a pollster is betting on will markedly change the results of their polls.
What Gore accomplished at the Convention and immediately afterword is, from a strictly political strategy approach, quite remarkable. He managed to both fire up the base of the Democrats while simultaneously reaching out to a range of independents, including the proverbial soccer moms. One reason I had thought he was toast was that, given his incompetence in campaigning in the late Spring and summer, I didn't think he had it in him to pull it off. But he managed to craft a solid progressive bread-and-butter message that, against the conventional wisdom, proved that "the Center" is not just motivated by Dick Morris style marginal issues, but can be pulled in through solid social democratic appeals. Apparently, one of the key architects of his strategy was Marty Greenberg, who was always one of the most progressive strategists around Clinton in the first couple of years. He was exiled after the 1994 Gingrich coup, but Gore pulled him in after his lackluster problems of the Spring.
As for Nader, Gore shut off his political oxygen from two directions. A lot of progressives and independents were looking at Nader not so much because of specific issues but because they were disgusted with Clinton's behavior and betrayals and saw Nader as a way to take a moral bath. Gore choosing of Lieberman and his whole "I'm my own man" schtick roped back a lot of those folks, just at it pulled in many more centrist independents who had been leaning Bush. And by pulling out a range of spending programs and railing against big business abuses, he pulled back a chunk of the issue-oriented progressives. In the union where I worked this summer, Nader had a heck of a lot of support until the Convention. Then he gave his speech and, wham, it was startling how many folks tossed Nader aside and decided Gore was worth supporting.
And given that it is those kinds of issue-oriented progressives who are needed to get out the vote and mobilize the Dem base, that is what will win it for Gore in the end if he pulls it off. On the conservative side, it is shocking to see how fast the wingnuts have moved from full-scale enthusiastic mobilization to backbiting and near-disarray. It didn't help of course that Bush managed to run possibly the worst three weeks of post-convention campaigning in the modern history of Presidential campaigns.
Of course, two months is forever, the debates could rattle the game, and so on, but the political fundamentals (as opposed to the economic fundamentals which are also of course good for Gore) are looking a lot better, not only for Gore but for some serious gains in both the Hosue and the Senate.
-- Nathan Newman