Examining the 2012 Campaign Character Narratives: Obama vs. Romney

[russ_watters]

That most certainly is false. Yes they had a majority, and yes they failed to utilize it, but that was a direct result of not having "full control," steming from the Conservatives in the Senate; your first three points contradict each other. The democrats never had "total control." What they did have was a majority in Congress for the first two years of Obama's presidency. People mistakenly assume that this therefore means Democrats could have essentially passed any bill they wanted to do during this time as if the world was in the left's hands; anything not done can't really be blamed by Conservatives because the Democrats really just failed to get anything done.

The problem with this is that the Conservatives in the senate have been so stubborn that they have fillibustered more than 400 times in the last six years.

They may not have had it long, but they most certainly did have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. That's what enabled the passage of Obamacare. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act

 

[ThinkToday]

9/11 got Bush re-elected. It was a positive for him. Did I misunderstand your post, it seems you were saying 9/11 was bad for him. He started the "war on terrorism" in Afghanistan.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_image_of_George_W._Bush#Domestic_perception_of_Bush

Seriously! I can't imagine the thought process that would see this a positive for anyone. I don't know if any other President has done something lilke this "The Times notes that people familiar with Bush's routine say he has written letters personally to every one of the families of the more than 4,000 troops who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq. The task has taken a toll, and Bush has relied on his wife, Laura, for emotional support, he said.""Bush has met with more than 500 families of troops killed in action and with more than 950 wounded veterans, often during private sessions, White House spokesman Carlton Carroll told the newspaper." Source http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2008/12/22/report-bush-spent-hundreds-hours-comforting-families-fallen-soldiers/ I seriously doubt that any President would look at this as a positive. I doubt FDR considered Pearl Harbor a positive for re-election. I also doubt Lincoln saw anything positive about the civil war. IMO, you need look no further than LBJ, when it comes to war and re-election or even the desire to run again. LBJ didn't start Viet Nam, that was JFK's war, but LBJ was stuck with it. http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/lbj-decision.htm IMO, no one alive in those days could miss the significance of the toll that took on LBJ, and I don't think any President would or could.

IMO, it takes a pretty different way of thinking to get to your position. For example, let's take Bush 41 after the first Iraq war. His popularity was high http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/georgehwbush/ , but in the end, Clinton won because of the economy. IMO, it seems to almost always be the economy, except for Viet Nam perhaps. Also, 9/11 was at the start of the Bush 43 term, and by the end of Bush's 1st term, Afghanistan was dragging out and people were wanting out. 9/11 trashed the economy and put us back spending money on war, instead of working to improve our economy at a time when the Clinton dot com bust trashed the economy already. And, IMO, "He started the "war on terrorism" in Afghanistan." is flat wrong; UBL started that one. We just finished it.

IMO, if you think about things people hate Bush for, the big ones can trace to 9/11, e.g. Patriot Act, Gitmo, Axis of Evil speech. I doubt there would have been a War on Terror http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Terror without 9/11. So, no, I don't see a major positive re-election aspect to 9/11. IMO, much more down side than up side. As you remember, the country was very polarized at that point. Hardly a positive. As a practical matter, when it came to war in Afghanistan, Bush did what I think any President in any party would have done. IMO, Bush was re-elected because the Democrats ran a weak candidate.

 

[Evo]

Seriously! I can't imagine the thought process that would see this a positive for anyone.

IMO, if you think about things people hate Bush for, the big ones can trace to 9/11, e.g. Patriot Act, Gitmo, Axis of Evil speech. I doubt there would have been a War on Terror http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Terror without 9/11. So, no, I don't see a major positive re-election aspect to 9/11. IMO, much more down side than up side. As you remember, the country was very polarized at that point. Hardly a positive.

Wow are you wrong! You're forgetting how people thought in 2004. You should do some research before you IMO yourself deeper into misinformation.

Opinion about the war on terror consistently favored President Bush’s reelection. A Gallup poll in late August (23–25) found Bush to be favored over Kerry in handling terrorism by a margin of 54 to 37 percent. The exit polls similarly found that Bush was more trusted to handle terrorism by a margin of 58 to 40 percent. NES data indicate that voters approved of Bush’s handling of the war on terror by a margin of 55 to 45 percent. When asked which party would do a better job in handling the war on terror, voters favored the Republicans over the Democrats by a margin of 45 to 27 percent (with 27 percent saying that they thought both parties would handle it about equally well). The war on terror, along with the fact that Bush’s general political perspectives were viewed by more voters as being more ideologically acceptable than Kerry’s, were decided advantages for President Bush before and
throughout the campaign.19

<snip>

As an issue, the economy was expendable to the Bush campaign because it could be largely neutralized and ultimately trumped by the terrorism issue

http://www.polsci.buffalo.edu/contrib/faculty_staff/faculty/documents/PolSciQElection2004.pdf

CBS News Exit Poll results suggest that the Bush campaign strategy was relatively effective in blunting the potential damage of the issues of the economy and Iraq.

When voters were asked which of several issues mattered most in deciding their vote, roughly equal numbers picked the Bush campaign's main issues of moral values (22 percent) and terrorism (19 percent),

Mr. Bush's efforts to portray himself as taking clear stands and as being a strong leader—characteristics he said were necessary for fighting the war on terror—appeared relatively successful. Among voters who said that being a strong leader was the most important candidate quality in their decision (17 percent), Mr. Bush was favored by 86 percent to Kerry's 13 percent. Among voters who said that taking a clear stand was the most important candidate quality (17 percent), Mr. Bush was favored by 78 percent to Kerry's 21 percent

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-250_162-653238.html

They gave him a 53 percent approval rating, higher than we had seen during the campaign, but still very divided over the Iraq and felt badly about the way the economy was going, certainly didn't rate the economy very well, but in the end came to the view that they were more comfortable, certainly more comfortable with President Bush than they were with Sen. Kerry.

They were mostly comfortable on the leadership and character dimension. Every single element in this campaign that related to leadership and character, President Bush won by an 8-1 margin, and in the end, even on questions of Iraq, which was divisive, the public went, the voters went along with the way the Bush people saw it, for example, they saw the war in Iraq as a majority of them said it was an integral part or a part of the war on terrorism.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec04/exitpolls_11-03.html

 

[russ_watters]

Seriously! I can't imagine the thought process that would see this a positive for anyone.

I don't think you reacted to that logically. It isn't about a candidate thinking about the war as a positive, it is about the voters view of how the candidates would handle the war. That's all -- don't read into it any more than that. And on that, I'm sure both Bush's team and Kerry's team probably were aware of the general truths that:

1. Voters tend to favor Republicans over Democrats on issues of defense/war.
2. Voters tend to favor incumbents over challengers on issues of defense/war. (Incumbents get to make speeches about war that make them look stern and Presidential. Challengers can either agree with the incumbent or go against him and risk looking anti-patriotic.)

 

[lisab]

I don't think you reacted to that logically. It isn't about a candidate thinking about the war as a positive, it is about the voters view of how the candidates would handle the war. That's all -- don't read into it any more than that. And on that, I'm sure both Bush's team and Kerry's team probably were aware of the general truths that:

1. Voters tend to favor Republicans over Democrats on issues of defense/war.
2. Voters tend to favor incumbents over challengers on issues of defense/war. (Incumbents get to make speeches about war that make them look stern and Presidential. Challengers can either agree with the incumbent or go against him and risk looking anti-patriotic.)

Since the parties have evolved and changed so much over the last 50 years, I don't think we have enough data to make those statements definitively.

 

[russ_watters]

Since the parties have evolved and changed so much over the last 50 years, I don't think we have enough data to make those statements definitively.

I don't know about the last 50 years, but certainly the last 20 or 30. Evo provided some data. I'll have to do some digging to find a lot more, but here's some:

I'm having trouble finding data for today's polling on national defense -- doesn't seem to be on Gallup's radar. But this poll says says Republicans (not the specific candidates) poll better on Afghanistan and national security: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/trust_on_issues
Now that doesn't speak to Obama's polling on terrorism, which presumably is pretty good due to him getting Bin Laden.

In 2008, candidate Obama had favorable marks on defense/war on terror, but was still way behind McCain: http://www.gallup.com/poll/109189/views-obama-international-matters-little-changed.aspx

In 2004, despite believing we were losing the war on terror, a slim majority still favored Bush over Kerry on terrorism (though it apparently went back and forth a little): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46366-2004Jul13.html

Bush had a healthy lead on Gore in national defense polling: http://articles.cnn.com/2000-07-27/politics/cnn.poll_1_al-gore-gop-congressional-candidate-george-w-bush?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS

Dole outpolled Clinton on foreign policy: http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/elections/natl.exit.poll/index2.html

Having trouble finding 1992 data, but this article points to foreign policy as a weakness for Clinton but not much of winning issue for Bush because our foreign policy situation at the time was so good. Ironically, that made him a victim of previous success: http://www.presidentprofiles.com/Kennedy-Bush/George-Bush-Defeat-in-1992.html#b

And before Bush, of course, we had Reagan.

 

[BobG]

Interesting take on the election campaigns: http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/2012_campaign_character_narratives

2008 was unique in that the narrative (ads, news, etc) on Obama was mostly positive.

2012 is an extremely negative campaign - as negative as the 2004 campaign.

Part of the reason is that journalists have less impact than they have in the past. The campaigns themselves (or their Super Pacs) have a lot more to do with shaping the narratives than the news media.