'08 Presidential Election

by Leo J. Shapiro
Morning line for the 2008 Presidential election.

Contact the principal investigator- Leo J. Shapiro (leos@8sages.com) with your questions, comments or request for updates on this topic.

With the U.S. public anxious for regime change at home, the 2008 Presidential election – nearly a year and a half away – looks to be a hot one.

According to our May Leo J. Shapiro & Associates national poll, six in ten (59 percent) – up eleven points from 48 percent in April - Americans say they do not feel their country is moving in the right direction. The 23 month high was 62% and low was 44%.

Looking toward the 2008 Presidential election, the public now leans toward the Democratic rather than the Republican Party by a margin of 52 to 21 percent in May, up from 43 to 35 percent in April. In the average month during the 15-month period ending in April 2007, those favoring Democrats led those favoring Republicans by 42 to 34 percent, with 9 percent ambivalent.

Note: For any specific month, the case base is 450 interviews. For periods of multiple consecutive months the case base ranges up to 10,000 interviews.

In our May poll, the strongest Democratic ticket - Obama for President and Clinton for Vice President - led the strongest Republican ticket- McCain as President and Giuliani as Vice President- by a margin of 56 to 27 percent, with 14 percent undecided.

But the race has just begun. While most Americans recognize that they lean toward one or the other major party, three quarters (76 percent) of Americans in May regard themselves as “independent” voters, which is in line with the 74 percent who said they were “independent” in the average month of the 15 months ending in May.

Less than one in three (28 percent) potential voters say they feel very strongly about the party toward which they lean. Indifference to party preference is expressed by failure to vote or to switch leanings in response to intense campaigning during the final days of the campaign.

Even though preferences for nominees seeking candidacy are crystallizing around four of the eighteen candidates who are running for President, the final choice of candidates remains uncertain. Mitt Romney, for example, has not achieved front-runner awareness, but has the funds and will and smarts to challenge the front-runners. And, there are others, like Al Gore, who are not yet in the race but are highly visible and could still enter the race.

The outcome of the 2008 Presidential election could continue to be subject to uncertainty until close to the day of election as was the case in the 2004 election. It is like a hanging gourd, swaying back and forth in the wind.

The situation in May 2007 resembles the situation at the close of the 2004 President campaign. Our October 2004 survey lamped Kerry as the clear winner. But in our November 2004 survey, Bush was the clearest winner. Come January 2005, had the election been rerun, Kerry would have won handily.

God help us all if, as in 2000, the outcome of the 2008 Presidential election remains uncertain for months after the polls close. The stakes are now higher than they have ever been.

Collectively, the 18 candidates now chomping at the vote have raised record funds to support their efforts to project charisma, leadership and promises to the nation.

The huge flow of funds into campaigning will trigger a media feeding frenzy. Television will get the bulk of money spent for paid advertising by virtue of its unique ability to project images or brands and the short, finite, and supply of prime time.

The Internet’s growth in advertising revenue will be greatly accelerated by virtue of advertisers’ growing recognition that the Internet lets them reach and stir targeted audiences to action.

Newspapers will, largely on a virtually pro bono basis, carry the main burden of communicating candidate stands on policy issues.

Content of the campaign is also pretty well blocked out.

Candidates will seek to present themselves as heirs to the legacy of past presidents. Abraham Lincoln is clear winner as the “greatest” of our past Presidents with spontaneous mention of Lincoln (21%), followed distantly by mentions of Reagan (12%) and Kennedy (11%), with Roosevelt, Washington and Clinton in a three way tie at 9% each for fourth place in May 2007.

Early interviews indicate that Obama now comes closest to capturing both Lincoln’s and Kennedy’s mantles. Hillary Clinton comes closest to capturing Bill Clinton’s mantle. (Caution: at this point, the case base relating associations between past presidents and current candidates is still small.)

While not seen as the greatest president, Reagan, by a hair’s breadth margin at 13% spontaneous mention followed closely by Kennedy 12% and Clinton 11% is the past president whom the public would chose to lead the nation today if miracles could happen.

The ten contenders for the Republican nomination, fighting to take on Ronald Reagan’s mantle of leadership, met for their first live debate just a few short steps from where the great Teflon© coated communicator lay moldering in the ground. Reagan, past, outperformed all of them put together. Oboma staged events in Lincoln’s stamping ground- Springfield, Illinois.

The public sets the agenda for campaign debates. In May, the problem spontaneously named most frequently (48 percent) was foreign or international affairs notably Iraq (13%) and immigration (9%). In descending order of frequency are including military competence (43%), economic problems (28 percent), effectiveness of government (28 percent), environment problems (24 percent) social services (17 percent) and social problems (16 percent).

Only six percent voiced concern about so-called “moral issues” (abortion, gay marriage). Turpitude – more prominent in candidates’ rhetoric than voter concerns - is in the eye of the beholder. These issues are more relevant for winning the nomination than the election.

BOTTOM LINE

Newspapers’ inability to sell advertising stems in part from the failure of the industry to provide media buyers with audience statistics that are as credible and useful as the audience statistics provided by television and Internet media. Also talent needed to produce moving advertising is more abundantly available for television than for newspaper advertising, given the larger flow of funds to television.

To capture their fair share of campaign advertising, the newspaper industry needs to suck up the courage to spend what needs to be spent to: 1) develop current, credible, useful audience statistics; and 2) subsidize, if necessary, the hiring of the best graphic talent and greatest word smiths to create advertising that jumps off the page and into the hearts and minds of readers.

For more about Political columns, go to editorandpublisher.com for more SAGE columns.

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