Independents' Day
» WaPo: A Political Force With Many Philosophies (Dan Balz, Jon Cohen)
» WaPo: Independents: Who and How Many? (Jon Cohen)
» WaPo: Pledging Allegiance to No One in Particular (David Broder)
Great recap of political independents here by the Washington Post this week. Of the most interest to me is that it puts into better perspective the competing notions of indie voters as either wholly disinterested, uninformed, or unmotivated and the alternate - that they're just Dems and GOPers by any other name. The truth - coincidentally found in the middle - is that while there are certainly those clusters of indie voters, it doesn't paint the whole picture.
The polling identifies "Dislocateds" and "Deliberators," offerering these descriptions:
Unlike most other independents, the Deliberators are generally satisfied with the political system and have positive views of the two parties. Two-thirds have voted about equally for Republican and Democratic candidates, making them perhaps the most significant group of swing voters. At a time when other independents lean more heavily toward the Democrats, the Deliberators are a prime Republican target....
The ideologically Dislocated are far more likely to say that the Democrats better represent their views on social issues, while a majority asserted that the government in Washington is doing too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses. They are also the least religious of any of the five groups.
Clearly, those are the two groups worth fighting over.
Likewise, the question of support for Presidential candidates shows some interesting results:
(Candidate Definitely Vote - Consider Voting - Definitely Not Vote)
Hillary Clinton 14-42-42
Barack Obama 13-53-29
John Edwards 7-51-37
Al Gore 10-39-49
Rudy Giuliani 7-52-36
John McCain 5-51-40
Mitt Romney 3-41-47
Fred Thompson 4-38-44 (14% Don't Know)
Newt Gingrich 3-26-66
Thompson's "DK" is easily the highest, with Mitt's 9% coming in second. But in general, the question offers an unusual insight that, I'd argue, seconds the notion that candidate support is something that gets polarized over time that each one is a known entity. And the end result isn't that, after viewing these numbers, one should conclude that Obama is more favorable with indies than Hillary, but that as candidates become tied to their party's identity, the break becomes more predictable. John Edwards, who all but disappeared after the 2004 Primaries fares worse than Obama. His "DNV" competing with Hillary's. Why? By the time November 2008 rolls around, there's a pretty good chance that Hillary sees roughly 42% of independents vote against her. My argument is that whoever the nominee is, there'll be roughly 42% of independents voting against them as well.
On the GOP side of that equation, McCain has witnessed a steady drop of support as he's curried favor with Republican partisans. Giuliani, while still representing the pole position, isn't exactly breaking away unless you compare him to the candidates that people know far less about, or potential candidates that have spent years as a self-made pariah both among his own partisans and independent voters.
The "DK" factor on Romney & Thompson is interesting. Either of the two will likely advance as the conservative competitor to Giuliani. Given Romney's past ideological acrobatics, the advantage now has to fall to Thompson. But it's worth noting that both have "DNV"s on par with Hillary's. Amazing, since certain journalistic prognosicators like to paint Hillary as overly polarizing - to the point that she'll be the deathknell to downballot Dems. Ah, but poor unfavorable Fred Thompson? What of that?
It just goes to underscore a sad "truism" of modern journalism - if one thing is true of a Democrat and a Republican, it's a given (so the story goes) that the one thing is bad for the Democrat, but either benign or helpful to the Republican. Of course, the corollary to this is that verifiable facts shall not get in the way of conventional wisdom.