Polls (Some History)

[selmaborntidefan]

Super Tuesday was a Democratic creation borne of good intentions that produced a disaster. A double disaster for the Democrats, in fact. It ended the Republican contest and let them have more time to get ready for the fall, and it splintered the vote so badly that the Democrats were left with:

a) the Northern liberal the contest was designed to limit
b) the black candidate who won 5 Southern states because the white vote split
c) a Southern candidate who did well in the region, winning 6 states, but nowhere else

On top of the fact the regional primary eliminated the one candidate, Dick Gephardt, who probably matched the intents of the creators of Super Tuesday more than anyone else competing. He carried only his home state of Missouri and now had to decide whether to continue or concede. Since he was popular with unions, he decided to make on last gasp effort in Michigan.

What the news media interpretation of events never bothered to mention was crucial: Michael Dukakis DID win 9 states, but he also finished third in no fewer than eleven states. Dukakis won two contest in the South, Florida and Texas, and then won a bunch of states OUTSIDE of the South, including his home state of Massachusetts. But in all of the interpretations of "the winner," it never seemed to occur to any of the analysts that Dukakis might be a disaster come November. In fact, there was a different disaster scaring the Hell out of the party: what if Al Gore and Dukakis split the white votes in the upcoming primaries and the party got stuck with Jesse Jackson as the nominee?

Of course, the Democrats had created something to prevent that from happening, the concept of super delegates. Although they dated back to the 60s, it wasn't until 1984 that the party wrote into their rules the idea that super delegates would have a vote that could potentially "overrule" the choices of the voters at the ballot box. This little insurance policy came out of the Hunt Commission and while it was primarily designed to prevent the nomination of a radical (most notably George Wallace, who was still in office in 1983), the whisper among the media with sources was that it was designed to prevent getting someone "too conservative" for the party, the most obvious suspect being Jimmy Carter winning the divided party in 1976. The next big competition - with South Carolina conceded to Jackson - was Illinois, and it was now the party had a problem.

Jackson was well-known for his involvement in Chicago politics, and Senator Paul Simon was on the ballot and campaigning by suggesting a "brokered Convention" that might possibly nominate someone besides Dukakis. The problem for Dukakis was simple: he had one week to tell the Illinois voters who he was while running against two candidates the state knew very well.




ABC/WAPO ILLINOIS POLL (MOE: 6)
Simon 39
Jackson 34
Dukakis 17

CHICAGO TRIBUNE POLL (MOE: 5)
Jackson 32
Simon 29
Dukakis 20

ACTUAL RESULTS
Simon 42
Jackson 32
Dukakis 17
Gore 5

Simon's win meant that five different Democratic candidates had now won competitive primaries.
Dukakis now had 11 days to turn out the vote in Michigan. But Gephardt was there, so it was far from certain he could pull this one off.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

MICHIGAN - JESSE JACKSON PEAKS

1988 was a disastrous year for both parties in Michigan, the result of years of tampering by the (mostly) Democratic politicians. George Wallace won the first primary in 1972 by getting 51% of the vote against five competitors, an occurrence that simply scared the hell out of everyone involved with the party. Since President Ford was from Michigan, it didn't matter at all in 1976, but in 1980 there was the creation of a bizarre poll tax type setup, and Teddy Kennedy edged President Carter in a low turnout contest that preceded Ronald Reagan beating Carter like a drum (6.5% in a three-man race) in the fall election. Realizing the Republicans had drawn far more voters even in their primary, the Democrats outlawed the Michigan primary in 1983. This left an old system on the books of delegate selection, and the Republicans learned the hard way how difficult it can be to change when a conspiracy between Jack Kemp and Pat Robertson nearly wrecked the party in early January. George Bush eventually won the most delegates, but the state now had a voting caucus system rather than a primary, which would prove crucial to what happened to the Democrats.

Dick Gephardt was the favorite of the union vote, but he was also dead in the water. Part of the reason he was dead was because the Michael Dukakis campaign ran one of the most clever negative ads ever conceived to finish him off on Super Tuesday. The commercial showed a tumbler whose eyebrows had been lightened and who really did favor Gephardt physically doing somersaults while a voice-over said that Gephardt had been flip-flopping over the issues, all of them crucial to the Democratic primary vote. Dukakis had unleashed this after the infamous "Belgian endive" commercial in South Dakota, and Gephardt was basically hoping for a miracle in Michigan. But it was right here that Dukakis flip-flopped and Jesse Jackson stood ready to cash in on all of the black union members who saw Gephardt as the goner he was.

Gephardt had been making an issue of tariffs and trade, saying that when Korea added tariffs to an exported Chrysler, the car cost $48K (a whopping sum back then). He ran largely as a protectionist and after attacking Gephardt for the better part of three months as a protectionist, Dukakis suddenly changed his position to one that was so close to Gephardt's protectionist position that Gephardt began screaming that Dukakis was "the real flip-flopper." Thus, you had a divided state where Jackson was assured of the black vote if he could turn it out while three white candidates - Dukakis, Gephardt, and Al Gore - were splitting the white vote. Detroit Mayor Coleman Young publicly said he was voting for Dukakis, largely because Young loathed Jackson, but he never actually endorsed him because he could read how this was going. Once again - it is VERY DIFFICULT to poll a caucus because the turnout is different and something altogether unusual happened in the 1988 Michigan Democratic caucus.

According to Jack Germond and Jules Witcover, the caucus was a locally run system and in many places HAD NO CHECKS on whom exactly was voting. One member of the Dukakis campaign voted no fewer than five times right in front of them, a system with no identification or verification of precisely who or how many times. In this questionable setup, Jackson ran up enormous margins in the heavily black areas of the state and absolutely obliterated Dukakis and Gephardt, scaring the hell out of the party apparatus in the process. You simply cannot blame a pollster for this miss, and the result was the picture of Jackson on "Time" and "Newsweek" both the following week.

RESULTS
Jackson - 55%
Dukakis - 28%

Believe it or not, Jackson credited his win to George Wallace of all people, saying Wallace had advised him, "Keep your message so low the goats get it."

The Democrats now had a big problem on their hands, and Dukakis headed to Wisconsin knowing anything less than a blowout win would finish him off with the party's nominating apparatus as well. Jackson might not win the nomination, but nobody was going to nominate the guy who couldn't beat Jackson, either.

Dukakis had 10 days to turn it all around.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Bob Dole left the race, and it was over for the Republican contest - officially.

Dukakis then won Connecticut by a 2-1 margin that nobody cared about.

WISCONSIN: ALWAYS AN ISSUE FOR THE DEMOCRATS

There are some disagreements over which state had the first Presidential primary for the voters, but Wisconsin has as good a claim as any. Developed in the "let the people decide" practices of the Progressive Movement (Robert LaFollette), Wisconsin held the actual first documented primary in 1912, although both Florida (enacted in 1901) and Oregon (adopting the first preference primary in 1906) have claims. And while it would shock people today, Wisconsin was basically viewed in the early 20th century as the twin sister of California when it came to weird political proposals (note similarities even today between the easy recall of elected officials). The INTENT in both cases was to make the politicians the SERVANT of the people rather than the other way around.

In 1912, LaFollette won the state primary, but the primaries did not catch on until New Hampshire adopted theirs in 1952. But it was 1960 when two candidates who could never have been nominated otherwise - Senator John F. Kennedy and Senator Hubert Humphrey, of neighboring Minnesota - chose to compete in the Wisconsin primary. Kennedy won the heavily Catholic districts but lost the heavily Protestant ones...though those were also farmland that bordered Minnesota and would probably have gone for Humphrey anyway. But JFK won the state. In 1968, President Johnson threw the race into a tizzy when he withdrew less than 36 hours before the first ballots were to be cast in Wisconsin. In 1972, his win in Wisconsin thrust George McGovern to the front of the pack. Four years later, Jimmy Carter infamously beat Morris Udall and held aloft a newspaper similar to the "Dewey Defeats Truman" headline that finished off Udall. And then came 1988.

Gephardt withdrew a few days after losing Michigan, leaving Gore, Dukakis, and Jackson. Well and Simon had leaped ahead to Wisconsin, still running on "a government that cares" message that appeared to have been adopted from Jimmy Carter. And it was at this point Gore became even more of a bullying presence, attacking Jackson and then attacking Dukakis as being "too scared" to attack Jackson. Being from Tennessee and the son of a Senator who had infamously voted AGAINST the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Gore was coming across as, well, a racist. Meanwhile, the Republican Governor Tommy Thompson then did something that set off the Democrats hysterically when he said that he liked Jackson, Jesse had momentum, and "if I was a Democrat, I'd vote for him." A Republican saying vote for the most obviously beatable Democrat wasn't going to fly, and it didn't.

Jackson was only 6 delegates behind Dukakis, and the polls entering Wisconsin showed the race neck-and-neck. And those polls were taken BEFORE Jackson had won Michigan.


But upon his victory in Connecticut and with the whole world watching Wisconsin, Dukakis suddenly barged into the lead almost overnight. Polls showed him leading Jackson by about 8 points or so, and Dukakis for maybe the first time in the race dug in and campaigned hard as well as maybe scared.



Speaking of scared, one of the most amusing personas adopted - every bit as funny as Dukakis in the tank (that's coming up) - was Al Gore milking a cow on a Wisconsin farm to show how "normal" or what an everyday guy he was.

WISCONSIN RESULTS
Dukakis - 47%
Jackson - 28%
Gore - 17%
Simon - 5%

 

[selmaborntidefan]

NEW YORK: RACE AND RELIGION

In 1984, Jesse Jackson has caused a firestorm when the Washington Post revealed he had uttered a slur against Jews to a reporter. Jackson's denials he had said what he had in fact said ON TAPE (to a black reporter no less) began with "not familiar with that", progressed to "I deny that", moved on to "I've been able to continue when folks called me the N-word" and eventually drew the inevitable "I'm sorry if I offended anyone." The fact Jackson had years earlier called for recognition of the PLO and embraced Yassir Arafat, had been publicly supported by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and seemed at every juncture to be anti-Semitic did not help his case. Throw in the Tawana Brawley rape hoax (November 1987), the Howard Beach racial attack (sentencing was in January 1988), and the fact Michael Dukakis' wife (Kitty) was Jewish, and you had a racial tinderbox ready to erupt. Throw in the fact many Democrats still hoped for NY Governor Mario Cuomo to become the nominee, the party wanted no part of Jackson, and the high number of Jews in the state - and oh yeah, the primary was going to be held two days after the NYC parade celebrating the 40th anniversary of the creation of Israel, and you had a situation ripe for problems.

Throw in the fact there were no other high delegate contests for two weeks, the Republican contest was decided, and NYC Mayor Ed Koch endorsed Al Gore, who had been unloading the most on Jackson...and everyone wanted this one over, quick. And then Mario Cuomo stepped forward and despite his steadfast refusal to endorse Dukakis, made two proposals that might well have destroyed Dukakis had he listened. The first was to take a position on Israel that would impress the most militant Jews voting and probably lock down their votes. The second, however, was to state publicly that he would consider Jackson for his running mate, a tactic that backfired spectacularly in 1992 on Jerry Brown when he did that very thing. These proposals were so ludicrous that the theory began again that Cuomo was trying to open up the nomination for himself. There was one other little recognized at the time exchange in the New York primary that would play, well, nowhere near as big a role as people think now. But it was important.


On April 12, the candidates held a debate sponsored by the New York Daily News and broadcast on public television. Needing to eliminate Dukakis to have any chance at winning, Gore was a yapping dog, attacking incessantly, accusing mercilessly. Gore then brought up the prison furlough program in Massachusetts and given the opportunity to question him directly, Gore noted eleven of these convicts failed to return, and two committed murders. Gore then bored in with the question, "If you were elected President, would you advocate a similar program for federal penitentiaries?" Rather than answer the question directly, Dukakis deflected: " “Al, the difference between you and me is that I have run a criminal justice system and you never have. Let me tell you that I’m very proud of my record when it comes to fighting crime.” But when pushed again by Gore to answer directly, Dukakis conceded, "Obviously not."

The other problem was the perception Democrats were engaged in a "STOP JACKSON" initiative. After all, Gephardt and then (after Wisconsin) Paul Simon withdrew. The charge - even if it was the hope of the party - was somewhat ridiculous. Gephardt and Simon were out of money and hope, Cuomo was refraining from endorsing Dukakis (as did Coleman Young), and the super delegates ready to rush in and declare themselves for Dukakis were sitting on the sidelines doing nothing.

Dukakis was unquestionably in the lead. The REAL question was whether or not Gore could take enough votes from Dukakis to give Jackson's candidacy more realism. But then Mayor Koch escorted Gore around New York City and proceeded in a matter of statements to turn the Tennessee Senator into an also-ran. The two would stand in front of microphones and Koch - himself Jewish and no fan of Jackson - looked like a thug mayor in a big city, using most of his time to attack Jackson for not marching in the Israeli parade, for being anti-Semitic, and declaring "Jews would be crazy to vote for him." Gore had a problem: if he got below 15% of the vote, he was no longer eligible for federal funds. And when the Democrats woke up on the morning of April 20, 1988, their path to the nomination was cleared considerably.



NEW YORK PRIMARY RESULTS
Dukakis - 51%
Jackson - 37%
Gore - 10%

 

[selmaborntidefan]

MAY 1988

Now that it was obvious who the nominees would be, the polling began in earnest. And for most of the next two months with Bush on the sidelines, the polls would show nothing but good news for Dukakis. Pundits who at the dawn of 1988 had declared the race was "Bush's to win" now said it was "Dukakis's to lose."

On Wednesday, May 18, Dukakis got great news in polls for both California and the entire country as the LA Times had him up by 17 over Bush in California, a state Dukakis absolutely had to win to have any chance, and by 16 points in a Gallup Poll covering the entire country.



A week later, Gallup published more detailed data of what their polling showed:


Dukakis ended the month on a high note and in the lead, and he still had two blockbuster primaries to draw media attention from in California and New Jersey. Meanwhile, the Bush campaign used Memorial Day to conduct two focus groups in Paramus, New Jersey and discovered the issues that could help them beat Dukakis, his veto of a bill requiring students to say the Pledge of Allegiance and the state's liberal furlough program that Dukakis had recently ended under pressure from the Lawrence (MA) Eagle-Tribune and the state legislature.

Bush vacationed at his Kennebunkport, Maine home over the holiday, leading one advisor to muse they'd have done better if he'd just left the country and not been on television seen around his palatial house several times.