Polls (Some History)

[selmaborntidefan]

JULY 1980 - THE GOP CONVENTION AND REAGAN TO THE LEAD

At the beginning of July, Gerald Ford (yet again) opened his mouth and removed all doubt. After declaring in March that Reagan could not win, Ford used the period just before the Detroit-based Convention to declare that the election was going to be decided in the House of Representatives because of John Anderson's candidacy. John White, chairman of the DNC, sent a completely different message and one that would later make the petulant actions of Carter regarding Anderson make sense: a vote for Anderson was a vote for Reagan. The NY Times poll released at the start of the month did not support either speculation:

NYT POLL:
Reagan 49
Carter 36

Three-man
Reagan 43
Carter 27
Anderson 1



So if Reagan would lose 6 points to Anderson and Carter would lose 8 points, sure, a SLIGHT bit more of taking from Carter than Reagan but hardly enough to justify the conclusion of White. And since Anderson used this same time frame to tell the whole world he was not going to campaign in the South, what then? Indeed, this suggested Anderson's candidacy by itself wasn't really worth all that much anyway. But Anderson's declaration was rooted in another reality: Jimmy Carter was already set to lose the election in July 1980 because the South that had provided 92 of his 297 electoral votes. In fact, if Carter lost ONLY TEXAS plus one other state anywhere, he was finished. And Carter had won Ohio in 1976 by less than 11,000 votes, meaning all Reagan had to do to win was hold onto the Ford states and take Texas OR Ohio plus one small state (Carter had barely won Mississippi, Pennsylvania, New York and Wisconsin, in 1976).



Reagan arrived in Detroit - without a running mate at this point - with the usual lead that happens when the incumbent is in trouble and the challenger is not very well-known.

AP/NBC Poll (July 14)
Reagan 42
Carter 27
Anderson 18
Undecided 13

Ronald Reagan accepted his nomination and was left with one decision to make: who should be the running mate? And much like looking back years later after the selection of an Alabama head football coach, the names on the list are often interesting.

Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, Phillip Crane, Richard Lugar, Jack Kemp, John Connally, Howard Baker were all prominent names. But only two had any stature, Ford as a former President and Bush, with a resume a mile long and a 1/2 inch deep. Reagan chose Bush despite serious reservations about his strength, a leftover grudge from Reagan burying him in New Hampshire with the microphone line. Plus - you have to remember this - Bush was from Texas and in 1980, Texas was still part of the Democratic Party's electoral base vote. In the century-long span since 1876, Democrats had won Texas in the general election 22 out of 26 times - and two of those Republican wins had been General Eisenhower, who was originally from Denison, TX.

Reagan then went to ground for awhile. And after the full bump of his Convention, he was sitting pretty. Carter, meanwhile, had rallied from a 74% DISAPPROVAL rating in October 1979 to knock down the Kennedy challenge.

The myth of "Carter would have won but the hostages" needs to be revised to the more reality based "Carter wouldn't have won the nomination without the hostages." The point, though, is Carter had spent much of two years in electoral trouble. And he still had to get ahold of the nomination from the Kennedy boomlet.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

AUGUST 1980 - REAGAN STUMBLES AND SO DOES CARTER

Over the course of the month of August 1980, Ronald Reagan made enough blunders in his Presidential campaign to call into serious question his ability to lead the country. Granted, very few people other than junkies who have their minds made up already pay close attention in August, but his own pollsters warned him, "You're this close to making YOURSELF the issue rather than Carter's last four years." Reagan ducked into the phone booth, came out as Superman, and after an immediate stumble out of the gate on Labor Day weekend, Reagan ran one of the best campaigns in modern American history. Of course, challengers that beat incumbents are always said to have run great campaigns - but the reality is that the race in August 1980 was artificially close. Once Reagan chose Bush, which showed he was serious, and focused on prices/inflation (all polls showed that was by far the top issue, the hostages were well down the list, which should end any mythmaking that bringing home the hostages would have won the election for Carter).

The Democratic Convention was 11-14 August, and it was marked by the unforgettable sight of President Carter fruitlessly pursuing Senator Kennedy around the podium attempting to get the "unity shot" to show the left and the center that both wings of the party were connected. Kennedy, who would be far more important if Reagan was President than if Carter was - plus maintain his chances for 1984 - never really did much for Carter. The optimism of 1976 was gone. Indeed, the Democrats would go a 20-year span (1968-88) and have only one bright moment in the sun between the riots at the Chicago convention (1968) and Dukakis stiffing Jesse Jackson for the VP slot (Dukakis, however, did leave Atlanta on a high note and with a lead in the polls).

But what both candidates had to do was figure out how to deal with Congressman John B. Anderson.

Reagan had the easier choice here. Anderson might have been a Republican before running, but he was a 1940s Republican in the 1980 campaign. The question as to who Anderson would take votes from were he on the ballot depended on the state but it didn't matter much to Reagan because Anderson wasn't going to cost him anywhere important unless something changed.

Carter, by contrast, hated Anderson and wanted him to vanish off the face of the earth. He dismissed Anderson as a candidate who had not won so much as a single primary, had not had a Convention, had chosen Democratic Governor Patrick Lucey as his running mate (to show bipartisanship), "was and is still a Republican", and Carter wasn't going to run against "two Republicans." The part Carter left out was the brutal fact that after Ted Kennedy had sledgehammered Carter with the left for nine months, Anderson was about twice as likely to take a vote away from Carter as he was Reagan. And Carter couldn't afford any slippage.

Consequently, Carter refused to engage in any Presidential debate that included Anderson while Reagan insisted upon including the Illinois Congressman. This made Reagan both look unafraid of engaging Anderson and Carter and enabled him a ready excuse to not accept a one-on-one with Carter until it was to his advantage.

Immediately after the DNC - before the Convention bounce could be fully felt, polls appeared:

AP POLL (MOE: 4 points)
Reagan 39
Carter 32
Anderson 13

GALLUP (MOE: 2 points)
Reagan 39
Carter 38
Anderson 14

ABC/LOU HARRIS (MOE: 6 points)
Reagan 42
Carter 36
Anderson 17

 

[selmaborntidefan]

SEPTEMBER 1980 - PART 1

The campaigns kicked off Labor Day weekend (Aug 30/31/Sep 1) with Reagan, the challenger, slightly ahead but screwing up repeatedly. He made his last big misstep on Labor Day back in Detroit, but Nancy called in Stu Spencer, who had run his 1966 gubernatorial campaign to run the show, and it was smooth sailing from then on. The BIG STORY, though, was that Anderson and Reagan agreed to meet in a debate in Baltimore for 60 minutes on September 21. In 1980, the League of Women Voters (not the two political parties) ran the debates, and their threshold was simple: if Anderson was polling at 15%, he was eligible to debate Reagan and Carter. But when Carter kept refusing to debate Anderson as "a second Republican", Reagan's campaign figured a debate with Anderson, who was probably the best debater in the Republican Party at the time, would show he was unafraid and might gain him points with the public.

And it was right about now that everyone began complaining what exactly the polls meant and criticizing those who collected them. Lou Harris, who had worked for both the 1960 Kennedy campaign and at one point in his career for Representative John Anderson, was the one under the most scrutiny.

In July, Harris's polls showed a generic ballot favoring the Republicans over the Democrats in House races, 47-43, a poll that suggested the Republican Party was going to have such a huge voter turnout in their favor that control of the House, an impossible-to-believe conclusion in light of the fact the Democrats had a 277-157 edge on the GOP, meaning it would take winning 61 seats for the Republicans to take control. The GOP DID win a thumping 34 seats in November but were nowhere close to taking control. Kevin Phillips returned with criticism of the press surrounding polls and noting that Gallup, Harris, and Roper all had Reagan in the lead from 1-7 points, which mean everything or might mean nothing at all. But Harris defended his polls, noting he'd managed as a pollster to elect 45 House members and 23 governors, so he wasn't just making up numbers. If Harris had Reagan in the lead, it was to cover his tracks. If he had Carter in the lead, it's because he was a Democrat. And no matter what Anderson polled, Harris was criticized as biased because he'd worked for Anderson.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

SEPTEMBER 1980 - PART 2

As has happened every year since 1980, we were treated to standard libretti from the campaigns. Vice-President Walter Mondale asserted that Reagan was afraid to face Carter alone, and Reagan kept asking why Carter was afraid to face the guys running against him. But then the ground shifted in mid-September, when Reagan and Anderson met in a mano a mano contest in Baltimore. Carter, meanwhile, was still stuck with the fact he'd refused to ever debate Ted Kennedy (and/or Jerry Brown) in the primaries and now he was stuck playing "Reagan is chicken" but being the only one insisting "no Anderson" as a debate condition. As time moved towards the end of the campaign, the Reagan side dropped the insistence on including Anderson.

It was understood by both sides that Anderson hurt Carter more than Reagan. Reagan had the entire Western half of the United States locked down in his electoral vote column already except for Hawaii (which no Republican ever wins) and Texas. Anderson had no standing there. Nor did he have any standing at all in the Southern United States, where Carter was a native and Reagan was the most popular Republican in history to that point. But Anderson could score big-time in the industrial states, the border states, and New England. If he took Illinois and Massachusetts away from Carter, the incumbent had zero chance at winning unless Anderson took enough to ensure Reagan couldn't win 270 electoral votes.

The day before the Reagan-Anderson debate, Gallup released a new batch of polls:

Reagan 40
Carter 38
Anderson 15
Undecided 7




Televised only by CNN, the debate showed Reagan anything but afraid. And oh yeah, it had FIFTY MILLION VIEWERS! Prior to the debate, a CBS-NYT poll showed the biggest concern about Reagan was "he commits too many gaffes," so when Reagan got through the debate without any comments like trees causing most pollution, Vietnam being a noble cause, or siding with Taiwan, he passed an important barometer of "Presidentialness."

If you judge debates on points, Anderson was probably the winner, but the fact that there's no memorable moment like Nixon looking shifty, Ford prematurely liberating Poland, or Lloyd Bentsen being the "friend of Jack Kennedy" tells you all you need to know about how much it mattered. The moment the debate was over and Reagan emerged unbloodied, the Carter claim that REAGAN was afraid was gone.

And thus we entered what would later be called the "Meanness Phase" of Carter's attempt to hold power.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

(See bottom)





OCTOBER 1 THROUGH 15 POLLS

The end of September brought great news in the popular vote poll anyway. On October 1, the Harris and Gallup polls released their most recent data. It was also time to start publishing state polls that might have actual bearing on the final outcome. And it was here that anyone looking closely would have seen the first silhouette of the landslide that was about to unfold. A CBS/NYT poll charted the concurrent rise of Reagan with the fall of Anderson. Carter pollster Patrick Caddell conceded the movement and then tried to spin it by saying once it played out, the vote would work in Carter's favor because all that Anderson would have left would be Democrats. (WTH?). Caddell conceded a brutal point, though: the movement from Anderson to Reagan was most pronounced in the Rust Belt states Carter absolutely had to hold onto to have any chance of winning.



HARRIS
Reagan 45
Carter 40
Anderson 10
Undecided 4

GALLUP
Reagan 47
Carter 44
Anderson 8

With a month remaining in the race, Walter Mears - one of the most respected commentators of the time, a journalist who steadfastly refused to ever say whom he supported, saying it would cause people to not believe him - published an overview of the 50 states as they stood entering October. Mears had Reagan with 25 states pretty much "in the bag" that totaled 236 electoral votes and Carter with 11 that totaled 131. It may be worth noting that at the exact same time, Reagan's own pollster (Dick Wirthlin) had Carter ahead with over 100 EVs and Reagan only "assured" of 83.

Mears noted that Reagan a month earlier, Reagan had 212 EVs pretty much locked up - but Mears was also clear that something dramatic like the return of the hostages or something that could flip perception on the economy could make all of the then current polls meaningless. Some of the October polls are quite interesting for how they eventually turned out.


STATES REAGAN WON
Massachusetts - dead heat because Anderson was drawing otherwise Carter votes
Connecticut - Reagan 29 Carter 28 Anderson 27
Maine - dead even
New Hampshire - Reagan with a huge lead (he won the state by almost 30 points)
Vermont - in the bag for Reagan
New York - Carter 35 Reagan 29 Anderson 15
New Jersey - Reagan up by 5-6 points in all polling
Delaware - tossup but expected to go to Reagan because Pete DuPont was running for governor
Florida - slight lead to Reagan, partly due to the Mariel boat lift, but a tossup
N Carolina - Carter 46 Reagan 33
Virginia - slight edge to Reagan, only southern state Ford won in 1976
Missouri - tossup (Carter won in 1976 by 3.5%)
Louisiana - tossup
Tennessee - tossup
Alabama - tossup
Kentucky - slight edge to Reagan in earlier polling, gap closing
S Carolina - tossup
Mississippi - very slight edge to Reagan (note: Carter only won state by 1.8% in 1976)
Illinois - probably Reagan's (and technically his home state as he was born there)
Ohio - Reagan 35 Carter 29 Undecided 36
Michigan - Reagan up by 4, race expected to tighten
Indiana - Reagan up by a lot, will it help Rep. Dan Quayle knock off Senator Birch Bayh (yes, it would)
Wisconsin - Reagan ahead
Iowa - Reagan ahead
Kansas - Reagan way ahead
Nebraska - Reagan way ahead
S Dakota - will Reagan's lead end the career of George McGovern (yes, it would)
N Dakota - Reagan with a huge lead
Texas - both sides claim to be in the lead, nobody knows
Oklahoma - both sides admit Reagan has this one
Arizona - Reagan is up about 2-1 (and won it, 60-28-8)
New Mexico - so close the undecideds will decide it (Reagan won it by 18 points)
Colorado - Reagan ahead
Idaho - Reagan has it in the bag, according to Carter's state chairman
Utah - Reagan's
Montana - yep
Wyoming - are you kidding me?
California - everyone knows you can't beat Reagan in California
Washington - Reagan up by 10
Oregon - tossup, Carter barely lost it in 1976
Nevada - not even close
Alaska - see Nevada

STATES CARTER WON
Rhode Island - dead heat
Maryland - Carter narrowly ahead
Washington DC - not even close, Carter at 82%
Georgia - Reagan not even trying here
West Virginia - Carter 38 Reagan 26 Anderson 14
Minnesota - VP Mondale from there, Carter way in front
Hawaii - Carter up by 14


In the middle of October, the race looks good for Reagan, but he hasn't put it away just yet. Then on the morning of October 14, Reagan's own pollster's polls showed - for the only time in the competitive phase of the race - Reagan TRAILING Carter. Ransacking their brains for an idea to flip the race, they came up with one.

If elected, Reagan would appoint a woman to the Supreme Court.

Three days later, Reagan and Carter reached an agreement: there would be ONE debate on October 28, just one week to the day before the election.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

OCTOBER 16 - 31, 1980

On October 17, the two campaigns agreed to one debate that would be held in Cleveland (a state both campaigns needed to win) on October 28, seven days before the election. As Anderson's support collapsed mostly in favor of Reagan, he no longer had to insist upon the inclusion of the third-party candidate. Carter needed the debate as badly as Reagan did because he was trailing in most states. And wouldn't you know it - in the bad luck of political timing, the election was going to be on the first anniversary of the seizing of the hostages in Iran. That issue - despite later revisionism - was not the most important issue in the election, inflation and the economy were. One could argue the hostages were under the broad picture of national security or defense, but it was well behind the economy in polling (coming soon). And politics being what it is, the concern over an "October Surprise" along the lines of the Suez Crisis (1956), the highly publicized arrest of a then largely unknown Martin Luther King, Jr (1960), the Chennault affair (1968), or the sudden last moment demand that Carter's segregationist white church in Georgia permit blacks on the rolls (1976) was in the air. Carter - if you'll pardon the twisted pun - had been largely held hostage by the crisis long distance for a year. But it is also undeniable he had exploited the crisis to his own political benefit by refusing to debate Ted Kennedy (and thus preventing intra-party cross exam on his actions early), his announcement of pending positive action just prior to the Wisconsin primary, and the failed rescue attempt less than 48 hours after his loss in Pennsylvania's primary. History has shown that the latter two of those actions (at least) were good faith actions not determined by political calculus (the rescue effort had been approved on April 12, well before Carter knew he had lost PA), but the perception of the country was moving against Carter on this, too.

Polls approaching the debate were showing a Reagan lead ranging from slight to clear - but with an enormously large number of undecided voters, particularly whether the Anderson phenomenon was going to flame out or not.

GALLUP WEEKEND BEFORE DEBATE
Reagan 42
Carter 39
Anderson or Undecided 19

TIME MAGAZINE
Carter 42
Reagan 41
Anderson 12

AP/NBC POLL (TAKEN 10/16 THROUGH 10/20)
Reagan 42
Carter 36
Anderson 10
Undecided 9

CBS/NYT (SAME DATES)
Carter 39
Reagan 38

The general interpretation of all polls went like this:
- Reagan's voters are more sure of their voting for him than Carter's are for him
- there is still an unusually high number of undecided voters
- Reagan also has a slight lead among the undecideds
- all of the materials necessary to build a landslide are in place

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Reagan then went out and won the debate, plain and simple. It was not Ford liberating Eastern Europe prematurely nor was it (the later) Lloyd Bentsen decking Senator Dan Quayle by observing that despite being a legislative lightweight with an unremarkable Congressional career who used his family's wealth to get ahead in life and into politics (like, you know, Jack Kennedy), he was "no Jack Kennedy." Reagan basically won the debate on three scores: 1) the amusing putdown line "there you go again" when Carter - again - exaggerated a Reagan position, this time on the beginnings of Medicare; 2) the rock solid closing, "are you better off than you were four years ago;" and 3) Carter insinuating while trying to drive home the point of the dangers of nuclear weaponry that he had sought his 13-year-old daughter's advice on political issues.

But Reagan won the most important contest: "this guy is not some wild bomb thrower who's going to start World War Three," a fear even Reagan supporters held well into his second term when asked. The moment Reagan looked like a guy who could be trusted in a crisis without losing his cool, Carter had no recourse. What was he going to say? The economy isn't really all that bad? The hostages aren't in Iran? Interest rates and inflation are not far above what they were in 1976? Reagan did not win the debate because he was impressive, he won it by merely being acceptable as an occupant in the Oval Office.

According to both Dick Wirthlin (Reagan's personal pollster) and Patrick Caddell (Carter's), the effect of the debate was to freeze everything and allow the voters to "wait and see." This "freezing" as both would later acknowledge meant that when the campaigns basically "stopped," they stopped with Reagan in the lead. And once he crossed the threshold of acceptability, Reagan's national lead increased in private polls by about one point per day over the next week.

The pollsters had to come out with their "last poll before the election" verdict, and they did.

UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
- Democrats will hold the House (not a bold claim)
- Democrats will retain the Senate, they currently own it, 59-41 (WRONG!)

ABC/LOUIS HARRIS FINAL POLL (MOE: 3)
Reagan 45
Carter 40
Anderson/Undecided 13

ALBERT SINDLINGER POLL (PENNSYLVANIA ONLY)
Reagan - 46.2
Carter - 45.4
Anderson - 8.4

GALLUP POLL (MOE: 3 POINTS)
Reagan 46
Carter 43
Anderson 7

CBS/NYT POLL
Reagan 44
Carter 43

NEWSWEEK (MOE: 4)
Reagan 44
Carter 43

 

[selmaborntidefan]

And then the results came in, and it was an absolute wipeout.

Reagan 50.75%
Carter 41.01%
Anderson 6.61%

The Republicans also picked up 34 House seats (the worst projections had the Democrats losing 15-20), but the most stunning win was the GOP capturing 12 Senate seats and control of the chamber for the first time since 1954. The GOP also picked up four governor's chairs, including a stunning upset in Arkansas, where Frank White knocked off Bill Clinton. The results were so conclusive that some huge names on the Democratic side went down to defeat:

FAMOUS LOSERS
George McGovern - 1972 nominee - lost a Senate seat he'd held for 18 years by 19 points
Herman Talmadge - running for a 5th term, he narrowly lost to Republican Mack Mattingly
Frank Church - the Idaho Senator who was Carter's "first choice" for VP in 1976, he barely lost
Gaylord Nelson - running for a 4th term in Wisconsin, he lost by 40K votes (Reagan won by 107K)
Bill Clinton - Clinton only lost 2 general elections in his life; this was the 2nd

FAMOUS WINNERS
Jeremiah Denton - Alabama's first ELECTED by the voters Republican Senator
Gary Hart - re-elected to the Senate from Colorado
Dan Quayle - knocked off three-term incumbent Birch Bayh, who had been considered a paper front-runner in the 1976 Democratic primaries
Chuck Grassley - for the love of God, he's STLL there at 91 as President pro tempore of the Senate
Bob Dole - won a third term
Tom Eagleton - despite his removal from the ticket in 1972, still popular back home in Missouri
Warren Rudman - new Senator, he'd become famous for deficit reduction and David Souter
John East - only win as an ECU professor, he committed suicide in office in 1986
Arlen Specter - from the Warren Commission, his first win; he'd later be quite controversial
Jay Rockefeller - already being touted as a future President, re-elected in WVA

DID CARTER'S EARLY CONCESSION COST THE DEMOCRATS?

NBC News called the race for Reagan at 8:15pm EST, 5:15 on the West Coast. Carter conceded at 9:50pm EST, with the polls still open for 70 minutes on the West Coast not to mention a few more hours in Alaska and Hawaii. Carter was attempting to be classy in the face of obvious defeat, and he dismissed the pleading of Tip O'Neill to wait until the polls had closed at a minimum. Nowadays with early voting and mail-in voting, etc, this is no longer an issue, but it begs the question: did the early call affect the outcome of down ballot races on the West Coast?

The Republicans picked up a net gain of five House seats in the West Coast states (CA - 3, WA - 1, OR - 1), and they picked up a Senate seat in Washington state by 144K votes, hardly a close race. But even a close look at the races suggests the early call played zero role in the outcome. Sid Morrison beat Mike McCormack in WA-4 by 15 points. Harold Johnson lost CA-1 to Gene Chappie by 38K votes. What's the claim - that there were 38,000 people either rushing to the polls at the last minute after work or standing in line who all heard that Carter had conceded and they ALL WENT HOME??? CA-35 and CA-42 were both margins of 10K and 12K votes respectively, so...again, what's the assertion? That thousands of people either heard it and stayed home or left the voting line? But there's a more sinister problem with this: whose voters left, those who knew they won or those who knew they lost? This is no small issue. I will grant it is POSSIBLE if one holds to this theory that the Democrats lost two seats, CA-21 and OR-2, although the latter appears to be a case where the long-term incumbent (Al Ullman) lost by 2700 votes when an Independent candidate took 10,000. So AT MOST we're talking ONE HOUSE SEAT. John Spellman won the governor's race in Washington by 13 points.

Numerous studies have been done of this subject, and they always end up saying two things:
1) there is no solid evidence early calls affect race outcomes
2) we need more grants to continue studying this subject

This is important later because the linchpin argument in the 2000 Election from the George W. Bush side goes like this: "well, the press called the race for Gore when the polls in the Western part of the state were still opened and because that was a heavily Bush area, it cost him THOUSANDS of votes and led to the recount."

Sure.

The call was made with 11 minutes left in the Central Time Zone poll areas and thousands of Bush voters all left the polls at the same time (or was it Gore voters now that he'd won?).

I will add my OPINION of the subject is that it is - or I should say WAS - bad optics for media to declare someone the winner while polls are still open, regardless of whether it affects the outcome. It gives rise to conspiracy theories with just enough evidence to not fully debunk the notion.

But we have one more poll from 1980: what were the big issues that led to Reagan winning, particularly since the voters themselves were highly skeptical of the Kemp-Roth tax cut.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Stop me if you've heard this one before: people were whining after the election about how "the polls were all wrong!" Even when they'd acknowledge that all of the major polls at a minimum had gotten the WINNER correct without breaking a sweat, they were attacked for not foreseeing the eventual landslide. (It was always funny, however, that none of those doing Monday morning quarterbacking had seen the landslide, either, and gone into print with predictions). As the late, great Tommy Lasorda mused, "Second guessers aren't all that smart because it took them TWO guesses to get it right."

Let us end one of the cherished myths of the 1980 election: no, a successful hostage rescue mission in April would probably not have won the election for Carter no matter how often you hear that one repeated. Make no mistake, the hostage crisis hovered over the election like an invisible issue that represented Carter on foreign policy, but the other reality (as noted above) is that Carter might well have lost his party's nomination without it because he was down at 21% approval rating until the siege of the embassy. But even had the hostages been freed at any time before the election, the reality is that the economy BY FAR was the biggest issue, and nothing else was even close.

In polling both before and after the election, 62 percent of the electorate cited the poor economy - high inflation, high interest rates, and high unemployment. An incumbent President can survive one of those being high but not all three. And the voters DID NOT (in the conservative Rush Limbaugh ethos) look at Reagan as some sort of Savior whose tax cuts were going to make things better, they simply looked at who was in the White House and shrugged their shoulders saying, "How could Reagan really be that much worse on the economy?"

You have to remember that in 1980, the economy had been an albatross for the Republicans ever since the Great Depression. Democrats, who were the majority party, could hold onto the White House through the subtle fear of, "If a Republican gets elected, the economy is going to crash." As Dick Wirthlin (Reagan's private pollster) noted in a June 1980 memo, "Carter’s record in office has denied him use of the traditional Democratic theme song of the economy and how Republicans would foul things up. . . . More than ever, the electorate questions Carter’s very capacity to lead. So, to beat us in November, Carter’s task seems to be clear: Reagan must be demonized." The Republicans anticipated the only chance Carter had to hold onto power was to run a campaign of fear, character assassination, and suggestion Reagan was a bad dude. And polling essentially showed that Carter had held onto ONE asset through thick and thin - the electorate at large thought he was an unfailingly polite and moral guy, maybe a guy in over his head but still possessing quality character. But when Carter's campaign turned vicious for the better part of a month while he was avoiding debate, his standing even with people who "I like him but things are bad" went down beyond the point of recovery. And for those insisting this never happened, Carter had to go on ABC News and confess his sins to Barbara Walters on October 8.

MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE
Economy 62%
Foreign Policy 24%

The voters as a whole felt Reagan was far more likely to improve the economy than he was to get the US into a shooting war, although they felt he was a bigger risk on that than Carter.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Now let's go back and look at the first poll from 1980:

HARRIS
Carter 59
Reagan 36

GALLUP
Carter 63
Reagan 32

It should be remembered that the Harris poll was taken in MID-DECEMBER 1979 and thus BEFORE the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan while the Gallup Poll was taken a week AFTER the invasion.

So what happened? Did Jimmy Carter "really" blow a lead of 23-29 points?
Not really.

That's not to say the voters weren't sincere at the time, but at the time it needs to ALWAYS (every time you see this) be remembered that Carter was the President and Reagan was...well, those who even knew who he was likely remembered him as an actor some 25 years or more earlier. We naively assume that because Reagan won, the voters in January 1980 were comparing the Reagan who had been in office two terms as President with President Carter, but the reality is that even many REPUBLICANS did not know who Reagan was.

SO WHY DID THE POLLS MISS THE MARGIN?

Although the Harris, Gallup, and Roper polls were all (for the most part) showing Reagan leading, they came in for criticism over "but Reagan won in a landslide, and you had it close!" OK, I'll grant Reagan won a landslide, but some important things have to be considered:

1) Reagan still only got 50.75% of the national popular vote total.

Yes, despite his reputation as a vote-getting powerhouse, Reagan's percentage was only .02% higher than 2004 George W Bush, who barely won. It was lower than Obama both times, Biden 2020, Bush 1988, and Eisenhower's two elections. Yes, he still won by 9.74 points, but he still barely topped the majority of votes. And no doubt his defenders will go with, "But there was a third party candidate!"
So....

2) John Anderson was hardly a viable third-party candidate.

There is always an audience for those who want to hide out and not be forced to make rational decisions, and third-party candidates offer that. John Anderson got less of the vote in 1980 despite reservations about both candidates than Ross Perot got in 1996, when he ran the second time. So to argue that Reagan "only" got a bit less than 51% of the vote because of Anderson is truly laughable since the same polls were showing an Anderson voter was about 2-1 more likely to be a CARTER voter than a REAGAN voter. Unlike Perot in 1992, Anderson never made one single appearance on a debate stage with both opponents at the same time. In fact, he was never on stage with Carter ever. Anderson DID swing at least one state to Reagan's column (Massachusetts) and possibly New York and Connecticut...maybe. But how would that affect Reagan's vote total in any way?

3) But were the polls "really" all that bad?

Okay, consider the polls we looked at above:

Harris - Reagan 45, Carter 40 - and Carter got 41, he just missed Reagan's total. But with a 3-point MOE and nearly 1/8 of the electorate either for Anderson or undecided, Harris hit it just fine. Maximum error would top Reagan out at 48, and he got a little less than 51 from the huge undecided vote.

Gallup - Reagan 46, Carter 43, Anderson 7 - okay, so Carter got 41, within the 3-point MOE. Reagan got slightly above the MOE, and Anderson got 6.6% nationally. Thus - NOT a BAD poll!! Reagan would top out a 3-point MOE at 49 and there was 4% undecided in Gallup, which split heavily in his favor.

CBS/NYT - Reagan 44, Carter 43 - okay, so we're noticing a trend: the pollsters are UNDERSTATING Reagan's total to varying degrees. But then again, did CBS/NYT include Anderson or not? With 14% of the electorate still with either Anderson or undecided, this wasn't unreasonable.

You have to remember that it was only in 1968 that polling got more refined (and they've had to do more). But 1980 made crystal clear a theory: the undecided vote virtually always breaks towards the challenger by a margin of about 3-to-1. In 1980, there was a huge undecided/Anderson vote until the final days.

4) The lateness of the debate changed everything.

When was the latest a Presidential debate ever occurred?

If you said October 28 - the date of the sole debate in 1980 - you win the prize. No other debate either before or afterwards has been held later than October 22 during the election cycle. So you had a LATE DEBATE that was the ONLY DEBATE, and thus the only time during the campaign that the two candidates appeared on-stage together on television (they had, of course, appeared at the Al Smith Dinner as is the usual custom).

Given the unusually higher number of undecideds and potential third-party voters, this debate was probably the most important televised debate in American history, with the possible exception of the first Kennedy-Nixon debate in 1960. Unlike all other years - where the candidates squared off multiple times and thus enabled a previous bad performance to be offset with a good one - this was the one chance everyone had to compare the two men face-to-face. But it should also be noted that this late debate in an America of a different time also meant that the REACTIONS and consequences of the debate were more immediate and had more effect. When President Ford committed his monumental blunder of declaring there was no Soviet domination of Poland, it was the second of three debates. What is often forgotten is that Ford had trailed by 33 points in August, narrowed the gap, and actually led by one point in the last poll - which is partly why a number of commentators went with the interpretation that Ford had lost the election because of the debate mistake. But Ford was still some 14 points behind when he made it, and as Jules Witcover noted (cf. "Marathon"), the problem was not the blunder, it was the fact Ford had so little time to recover and then wasted another six days before admitting he was wrong.

In this case, you had Reagan in the lead - by however many points - and then the reactions to the debate moving across the country.

5) Was it a landslide?

Yes, but with a bit of a caveat. Reagan won every section of the country by huge margins, and he won virtually every category of voter except blacks. Even his vote among Jewish and Hispanic voters was enough to make it a widespread mandate. But on the other hand, there were several states that were close that broke into Reagan's favor, perhaps due to Anderson.

Consider the margins in the following states and the Anderson vote:

Arkansas - 5,123 (Anderson - 22,468)
Wisconsin - 107,261 (Anderson - 160,657)
Kentucky - 18,857 (Anderson - 31,127)
Mississippi - 11,808 (Anderson - 12,036)
S Carolina - 13,647 (Anderson - 14, 150)
N Carolina - 39,383 (Anderson - 52,800)
Delaware - 5,498 (Anderson - 16,288)
New York - 165,459 (Anderson - 467,801)
Connecticut - 135,478 (Anderson - 171,807)
Massachusetts - 3,829 (Anderson - 382,539)
Maine - 17,548 (Anderson - 53,327)

I'm willing to say that Anderson MORE LIKELY THAN NOT cost Carter the states in bold. MAYBE. On the other hand, it is also true that Carter lost the primaries in Massachusetts (but it was Teddy to be fair) and New York, but Reagan also lost Massachusetts to Bush.

The flip side is that you simply cannot assume that an Anderson voter WOULD cast a ballot for whomever, and Anderson is not Ross Perot in that he actually was a member of the Republican Party, meaning a substantial number of his voters could likewise be assumed to have had Reagan as their "second choice".

6) Could Carter have won?

Very unlikely, even without the hostage crisis.

Carter - despite being a member of the majority party that had won most of the elections since 1932 - BARELY beat an UNELECTED incumbent beset by administration corruption just four years earlier, barely topping 50% nationally. And - key point - his popular votes were HEAVILY concentrated in the Southern United States. Carter had victories in 1976 of less than 4 points in Texas, Mississippi, Missouri, Wisconsin, New York, and Ohio. Again - against an UNELECTED incumbent in a time of high inflation. And those states accounted for 122 electoral votes. Reagan only had to do three things in order to win: 1) be acceptable to the country at large; 2) win the Ford states from 1976; 3) take New York from Carter, or take either Ohio OR Texas and one other state from Carter.

Do you know how many states Ford took by 4 points or less in 1976? 11

Washington, Oregon, California, South Dakota, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Iowa, Illinois, Virginia, New Jersey, Maine

Now look at that listing of states and tell me in 1980 how many Reagan could count as put away early? California, S Dakota, Oklahoma, and Virginia for sure. And probably Illinois and Iowa, since he had a positive history there.

And then there are these numbers:
Inflation - 13.5%
Unemployment - 7.5%
Prime Lending Rate - 14.5% (up one full point in four weeks in October 1980)

But there's one more reason I think he couldn't have won anyway. Just look at the change in the makeup of government since the day Carter took office in 1977 and including the 1980 results:

1976
Senate - 61-38 D
House - 292-143 D
Governorships - 37-12 D (Maine had an Independent, some things never seem to change)
State Legislative Seats Controlled Overall - 68%

1980
Senate - 53-47 R (loss of 15 Senate seats over four years)
House - 242-191 D (loss of 50 House seats over four years)
Governorships - 27-23 D (loss of 10 governorships over four years)
State Legislative Seats Controlled Overall - 55%

One look at the overall numbers shows a steady erosion from the Democratic Party to the Republicans AT ALL LEVELS. Now TO BE FAIR, the Democratic numbers were slightly inflated in 1976 due to the fallout against the Republicans due to the Watergate scandal. So they were going to lose some seats anyway.

But movement away from the party with a barely elected unpopular incumbent in a time of severe economic distress and foreign policy questioning did not bode well for Carter or any incumbent. In a sense, other than showing he had to be acceptable, Carter would have lost to damn near anyone in 1980 that the Republicans nominated. Bush would have beaten him. Anderson would have beaten him. Bob Dole probably would have beaten him.

This concludes the POLL ANALYSIS of the 1980 election. Unless there are some objections, I think I'm going to do 1988 next followed by 1968 and then 1992 (where we will measure the Perot effect).

If you have any requests, I'm game. Remember that 1966 thread I wrote on the Tide? Note: polling was quite imprecise prior to 1968 so it's harder to look at and say "they knew what they were doing."

 

[selmaborntidefan]

1988 ELECTION POLL REVIEW

1986
Ronald Reagan was never more popular than he was in 1986. With the threat of nuclear war with the USSR slowly receding, Reagan being seen as both the tough leader whom the Russians couldn't push around and simultaneously the voice of reason alongside Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, his numbers rose to his all-time high of 68 percent in May of 1986. The only other time Reagan was that high was when he was shot in March 1981, an artificially high poll number due to patriotism. Reagan hit rock bottom in late January 1983, when his Gallup approval dropped to 35%. Reagan was a goner until he wasn't. By Election Day 1984, the economy and Reagan both had turned around, and he won one of the most crushing landslides in American history with a 49-1 rout of former Vice-President Mondale and a whopping margin of 18.21 points and nearly 17 million votes. After a couple of fluffs in 1985 - most notably his controversial trip to Bitburg for the 40th anniversary of the end of WW2 - he ended the year on a high note with the first summit meeting with Gorbachev in November. It is believed one thing that made Reagan's numbers rise a bit more in May 1986 were the fact the Chernobyl incident in the USSR gave urgency to his insistence upon agreements to limit nuclear weapons.

But in January 1986, the handicapping of the candidates to replace the Gipper began, and it's quite interesting to put it mildly. Teddy Kennedy was still - yes, after nearly 20 years STILL - the Democratic front-runner. There were two things nobody doubted: 1) he would easily win the nomination; 2) he would get clobbered by Bozo the Clown in the November election. Teddy was only 53 in 1985, eight years younger than VP George H.W. Bush. Kennedy was the name that for 30 years had struck fear into the hearts of all office seekers in the party, but it appeared he was finally facing reality: nobody was ever going to forgive you for killing that woman with your car. The week before Christmas 1985, Kennedy announced he would not run - and Gary Hart shot to the top of the polls for the Democrats.

A look at the remaining names shows some history in the making:

DEMOCRATS
Joe Biden
Mario Cuomo
Chuck Robb (son-in-law of LBJ)
Bruce Babbitt - Arizona governor, later Interior Secretary under Clinton
Richard Gephardt - House Majority Whip at the time
Rev. Jesse Jackson
Dale Bumpers - Arkansas Senator, the best speaker in the party
Bill Bradley - NJ Senator and former basketball star, seeks common cause with conservatives

REPUBLICANS
George H.W. Bush
Howard Baker - former Senate Majority Leader at the time, famous for the Watergate question
Bob Dole - Majority Leader
Jack Kemp - NY Rep and former Bills quarterback, author of the Kemp-Roth tax cut
Pete DuPont - from the famous family, Delaware governor
Elizabeth Dole - Bob's wife, Transportation Secretary, considered the better candidate of the two
Jeane Kirkpatrick - former Democrat and UN Ambassador (no....just.....no)

 

[selmaborntidefan]

1986

Early polls are mindless and largely useless, the equivalent of preseason football polls at the same time. And, of course, the newspaper writers and political junkies can never get enough of them, either.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

1986: FEBRUARY TO OCTOBER

Ronald Reagan was a popular President in 1986. He had reduced the fear of war with the Soviet Union with summit meetings, times were generally pretty good economically, and he even struck back at international terrorism by ordering the attack of Muammar Qaddafi's compound in April. Starting with the Gallup Poll of September 13, 1985 all the way until the 1986 midterm elections, Reagan' approval rating in the poll never dropped below 60%. He peaked with the highest "legitimate" (e.g. not the ones following the assassination attempt when patriotism prevailed) rating of his Presidency in the poll of May 16-19, 1986 at 68%.

There was also a theory among the Republicans: George H.W. Bush was a wimp, a bad candidate, and a political hemophiliac whose "support" had everything to do with Reagan and nothing to do with him. (Similar assessments - accurate in some accounts - were voiced by Republicans in 1976 with Ford and Democrats in 1984 with front-runner Walter Mondale). Cut Bush once, and he'd bleed to death politically.

Democrats, meanwhile, had actually created the time bomb that was going to help them lose the 1988 election. When the parties moved to the modern primary system in 1972, Democratic politicians in the South talked among themselves about a "regional primary" that would produce a candidate that while maybe not conservative would at least get more than the 18% share of the white vote Walter Mondale got in the South. How could they steal the thunder of Iowa and New Hampshire? Their invention - the Super Tuesday regional primary - would prove the ultimate irony of the 1988 campaign when it managed to ensure the nomination of the "most electable" (ahem!) liberal in the field, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. (We'll see how that happened several posts down). The Democratic in-reach to the south is precisely why the party chose to have their Convention in Atlanta in 1988.

A Newsweek poll of the governors in the spring of 1986 showed a groundswell of support for New York Governor Mario Cuomo as the Democratic nominee. At the end of March, the Lou Harris poll gave us an overview of the REPUBLICAN PRIMARY with predictable results:

Bush 29
Howard Baker 16
Bob Dole 15
Alexander Haig 8 (the only one with previous Presidential experience.....)
Jack Kemp 6
Jeane Kirkpatrick 6


In May, the ABC/Washington Post poll again had about the same numbers we'd been getting, Hart leading Bush, 47-45. This poll, notably, was conducted the exact same days Reagan had his highest ever Gallup Poll approval rating. With the margin of error, of course, the race was considered a dead heat.



Reagan's presidency itself peaked on the weekend of July 4, 1986, when the President appeared at Ellis Island and with fireworks over the newly renovated/restored Statue of Liberty, he gave one of his best speeches. Unbeknownst to the public at the time, his National Security Adviser Oliver North was attempting to free an American hostage held by Hezbollah in hopes of the hostage appearing with Reagan at the July 4 ceremony and boosting his popularity even higher. North hoped to achieve this act through...selling arms to the most unpopular nation in the world among Americans, Iran. Ollie pulled off his part of the arms deal, the Iranians reneged on theirs. But what he was doing was about to blow a hole in the 1988 Presidential election.

BUSH'S BAD START, PART I

Knowing his unpopularity among the conservatives who control the nominating process in the Republican Party, the "squishy moderate" Bush began making appearances in order to carve out his portion of the right-wing support. His ventures did not go well, as he got into a flap with Mario Cuomo over ethnicity, eulogized right-wing publisher William Loeb and looked like a wimp doing it, and commented on oil prices that reminded everyone Bush had become rich as an oil man, which wasn't a good look with the oil patch states going through a rough time. The old Reagan hands wanted Nevada Senator Paul Laxalt, who was known to be Nancy Reagan's idea as the heir apparent.

PRESIDENT IACOCCA?

Thanks largely to his reputation in restoring Lady Liberty as well as his success with Chrysler, businessman Lee Iacocca's name began to be mentioned prominently as a Presidential candidate. The non-political "we need a businessman who has met a payroll choice," Iacocca was leading in the Gallup Poll at a time nobody knew whether he was a Republican or a Democrat. He was a registered Republican, but he defied categorizing, too.




Then on November 4, 1986, the largest window on the Reagan Revolution was abruptly shut by the voters. Seven Republicans lost head-to-head Senate races with Democrats, including FOUR IN SOUTHERN STATES, and the Democrats picked up an additional net margin of one seat when Harry Reid replaced the retiring Paul Laxalt. And then on Election Day, a Lebanese newspaper broke the story of how the Reagan administration traded arms to Iran for the release of hostage David Jacobsen two days before the election, sending the administration's polls into the sewer.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

NOVEMBER 1986 TO APRIL 1987: REPUBLICANS FLOUNDER

The bombshell that the Reagan administration had been selling arms to IRAN of all people enraged, well, everyone. On Election Day 1986, Reagan had a 67% approval rating in Gallup. By the end of November, Reagan's popularity had plummeted to 46%, the largest one-month decline in the history of the poll, which had been around since 1936. Three weeks into the scandal, it became bigger. Two high-ranking officials in the Justice Department began a search of Oliver North's office looking for a signed directive from November 1985 to determine if arms had been traded for hostages. What they found was a document that showed the money from the overcharging of the Iranians had been diverted to a covert war by the contras in Nicaragua. And Bush's popularity, tied to Reagan as it was, was now in trouble. Bush sat in on the meetings, Bush had been head of the CIA. If any person in the US government had the experience and capacity to understand exactly what had happened, it was George Bush. (The later inquiry would determine that while the NSA had thought they were following Reagan's directive in funneling money to the contras, Reagan had been 100% clear to remain within the law in whatever they did in covert war. While it's probable he did approve the diversion, no evidence ever substantiated it). The floundering of White House popularity hit Bush directly in polls taken after the scandal broke, both for the nomination and for the general election.



Bush had been hit by a bombshell, and now it was the Democrats' turn. After being hounded for several months (years?) about running for President, NY Governor Mario Cuomo zinged everyone on February 18 when he used the closing moments of a radio call-in show on WCBS in New York to tell everyone he wasn't running for President in 1988! It angered the press corps, whom he stung, and doing it at the end of the show meant he didn't have to answer any questions from callers. Reagan's disapproval rating hit an all-time high (52%) in the week between the issuing of the Tower Report, laying the blame for Iran-contra directly on Reagan, and the President's mea sorta culpa admitting it was his fault on March 4, 1987. And it was at this point the candidates began to enter the race. In February, Michael Dukakis let it be known he was running, and the results were immediately good for him in the New Hampshire poll:



By April, Hart had a clear lead over everyone:



But a simple phone call on April 27 would be the first pebble in the avalanche that ended the Hart campaign

 

[selmaborntidefan]

THE SUMMER OF DISCONTENT: BOTH SIDES

On April 13, 1987, Gary Hart officially entered the 1988 race with the picturesque mountains in Colorado (Red Rocks Amphitheater). And almost immediately, rumors about his alleged extracurricular activities were rampant. Hart had earned a reputation among the political press as a galloping womanizer, so much so that when he tried to get his 1984 campaign off the ground in New Hampshire and sought quality women for the campaign outreach, he was asked, "Do you want all of them or just the ones you (had sex with euphemism)?" He and his wife had been separated twice, and he had never pretended that he was faithful to her during their separations. But he now sought to make an issue of the "immorality" of the Reagan administration, what with all of the special counsels appointed (most of them little more than political nonsense - but not all) as well as the selling of arms to Iran. Two weeks into the campaign, on April 27, a phone call to the Miami Herald set into motion a series of events that destroyed Hart's campaign, rocked the Democrats as badly as the Republicans were reeling, and called into question journalistic ethics.

Clothing designer Dana Weems called Tom Fiedler, almost taunting, saying that she had pictures of Hart with a model, and the two were having an affair. Fiedler dismissed the pictures upon seeing them, noting that politicians have pictures taken with strangers every day. But Weems gave him enough information that the Miami Herald staked out Hart's townhouse in Washington and while the execution was less than perfect, they established he was in the townhouse with a woman young enough to be his daughter, Donna Rice. Over the course of the next week, the drip drip drip of revelations and lies in which Hart got caught suddenly made him "the hunted." And what is usually forgotten is that Hart DID NOT withdraw from the race because of his affair with Rice nor the later picture on a tabloid with her on his lap. Hart withdrew when the Washington Post called him with proof of a romantic liaison with a different woman the previous December, established by a private investigator and admitted by the woman to the Post. Hart flew back from New Hampshire to Denver and withdrew, with a defiant blast at the news media he blamed for his demise.

Less than 90 days after the Democratic Party had two front-runners, both were gone, one by choice and one by necessity. Bush was now rid of the two Democrats polls showed could beat him. And who replaced Hart atop the poll for the Democrats? The most unelectable candidate in America, Reverend Jesse Jackson. The Republicans, meanwhile, suddenly had a seemingly good problem on their hands: Bob Dole had risen in stature enough that it appeared either Dole OR Bush could not possibly lose to the mostly anonymous Democrats entering the race.

But the Republicans had two prominent problems across the time frame of June through October 1987 as well. Three rockets hit the party that turned what could have been a cruise to victory back into a race while another one took out another Democrat.

1) Lewis Powell stepped down from the Supreme Court.
On June 26, conservative jurist Lewis Powell stepped down from the Supreme Court and the Republicans now had an opportunity. When Reagan took over in 1981, the Burger Court consisted of a 4-3-2 ideological makeup (4 liberals, 3 centrists, 2 hard conservatives), and Reagan replaced centrist Potter Stewart with right centrist Sandra Day O'Connor, centrist Warren Burger with literalist Antonin Scalia, so the Court was now sitting at 4-1-3 and a chance to swing it further to the right. To do so, Reagan nominated Robert Bork to the Court, and all Hell broke loose. Between June 1987 and February 1988 - when Anthony Kennedy was approved for the High Court - the Reagan administration suffered the rejection of Bork and the withdrawal of Douglas Ginsburg, showing largely that Reagan was already a lame duck. Plus, destroying a SCOTUS nomination presented a chance for Judiciary Committe Chairman Joe Biden to make his bones and name and become the nominee.

2) July 1987 was marked by the Iran-Contra hearings on national television.
While the hearings largely focused on Admiral John Poindexter saying the buck stopped with him, the biggest foreign policy fiasco of the Reagan years was being wrapped around the neck of his Vice-President. Every time Bush was tout his foreign policy credentials, Democrats would roar back, "You mean like Iran-Contra?"

3) The stock market crash of October 19, 1987
The Dow lost 22% of its value in a few hours, and just like that the "Go-Go 80s" were looking like a stage being set for the next Franklin Roosevelt.

It was at this point that the polls being reported switched from national polls to the upcoming Iowa caucuses to be held in February 1988. And the frontrunner was a guy who was about to get a bunch of TV time. Not all of it would be good.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

On August 23, 1987, Joe Biden gave a closing summary at a debate that would ultimately destroy his candidacy, what with the press preoccupation on the issue of "character." Having begun to use the rhetoric of Welsh labor leader Neil Kinnock, Biden got to the Iowa State Fair and gave a closing statement that was a literal plagiarism of Kinnock. There's a legitimate reason this didn't become a story: the reporters covering the debate had heard Biden use the same speech numerous time WITH CREDIT. Thus, "it was an honest omission" was legitimate. But two consultants for the Dukakis campaign, Paul Tully and John Sasso, seeing Biden's rise in the polls had a chance to sting him good. They created a videotape of Kinnock's speech followed by Biden's plagiarism of same and mailed it to the networks. One worker at NBC News put the tape in his desk and went to play tennis - to his ultimate sorrow since the other networks ran with it. Had this one speech been all there was to the story, it is unlikely Biden suffers any damage. It's just that plagiarism is the kind of thing that when somebody has done it, it's not usually the first or even second time, and that's what undid Biden. Over the course of the next ten days, the news media learned that Biden had had to repeat a law school course because he failed to cite five pages in a law review article. Then they learned he had plagiarized a speech by Bobby Kennedy. Drip drip drip and in no time, Joe Biden was forced to withdraw from the campaign and focus on the Robert Bork hearings. Two leading Democrats had taken fatal hits in the campaign, another had not run, and yet another was about to catch some heat as well.

Dukakis went out on a limb and said his campaign had had nothing to do with the video. Meanwhile, a number of Dukakis' underlings were suggesting the Dick Gephardt campaign had done it, and it was GEPHARDT who suffered in the polls. In fact, the rumor circulated that Dukakis was running a kamikaze campaign basically, as it looked like he set out to demolish both Biden and Gephardt by first circulating the plagiarism video and then by blaming it on Gephardt. In the interest of accuracy, Dukakis himself did not do it nor did he approve of it and when his consultants informed him it was them, Dukakis had no choice but to fire both of them and publicly apologize to the Biden campaign. In fact, it was his willingness to go to town halls and let Biden's supporters cut into him and blast him for allowing it that enabled Dukakis to weather the storm.

There was also the terrifying reality that Jesse Jackson might well win the Democratic nomination. In a Gallup Poll published October 11, 1987, Jackson led the Democrats with Dukakis second and nobody else even close.



Then in November - a month after the stock market crash on October 19 - the Gallup Poll showed exactly what Republicans wanted, Bush running against Jesse Jackson in 1988:



But another bombshell was about to hit the Democrats: on Tuesday, December 15, 1987, Gary Hart was back in the race for president.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

JANUARY 1988 - THE REPUBLICANS
There is a key point to understand what happened next: Ronald Reagan was very unpopular in Iowa entering 1988. And because of that, his appointed (anointed?) heir, George Bush, continually polled behind Kansas Senator Bob Dole in the leadup to the Iowa caucuses. Bush had won Iowa over the mighty Reagan in 1980 and for 8 years, his most committed supporters kept together a group designed to help him win the nomination. But some of the group tailed off as Bush over those 8 years became more conservative, and they'd hoped for a more moderate choice. Meanwhile, with a heavy religious vote and a contest reliant upon turnout, televangelist Pat Robertson entered the fray and traveled the state attempting to get Christians involved in politics. There was zero visible support to the naked eye for Jack Kemp, Pete DuPont, and Alexander Haig.

JANUARY 1988 - THE DEMOCRATS
Based on the surprise showing of Jimmy Carter's second place finish in Iowa in 1976, contenders began to attempt to start the race even earlier than Carter did, when he arrived in Le Mars, Iowa, in 1975. Dick Gephardt, who had run as a conservative Democrat in his predominantly Catholic district prior to the spring of 1985 suddenly began sounding like a left-leaning populist, suddenly shifting from opposing abortion to endorsing it and attacking the same Reaganomics he'd supported in the House for years. Because Missouri bordered Iowa - and Gephardt figured Dukakis was likely to take New Hampshire for the same reason - Gephardt focused on winning Iowa to get name recognition. Paul Simon, now a Senator and a longtime friend of Gephardt's who used to travel back to the Midwest with him when both were in the House - their districts touched, in fact - began running as a plain spoken honest unreconstructed New Dealer in a bow tie. Seeing the two border politicians in Iowa, Dukakis circulated the idea that finishing third was acceptable to call his sojourn to the Midwest successful. Then there was Senator Al Gore, who waltzed into Iowa and began attacking the state and the nominating process by noting no Democrat had carried Iowa in the fall since 1964. And then there were Jesse Jackson, Bruce Babbitt, and the returning Gary Hart, rounding out a field the press called "the Seven Dwarfs." Jackson and Hart were the best known names - they were also the only candidates on the Democratic side with higher negative ratings than positive.

Because Iowa (as in 1984) was only 8 days before New Hampshire - as opposed to 36 days (1976 and 1980) - there would not be much time to bake a first-place finish into the polling. But there was another problem brewing: the South.

THE SCHEDULE

On January 14, there was a thoroughly convoluted contest for the Republicans only in the state of Michigan. It was far from certain - at the time - what happened on the day of the contest but eventually George Bush prevailed.

Iowa - February 8
New Hampshire - February 16
Minnesota/S Dakota - February 23
S Carolina - March 5
Southern Regional primary - 20 Republican contests and 17 Democratic on March 8.

SUPER TUESDAY - WHY?

Super Tuesday was the invention of a bunch of Democratic Governors, primarily in the South, who were sick and tired of being left out of the nominating process. It was the result of years of infighting in the Democratic Party and the constant insistence from northern Democrats on a "loyalty oath" from Southern Democrats when it came to the Presidential race. One of the last things President Kennedy did in the days before he died was he approved of reducing the number of delegates assigned to the Southern states back when delegates were NOT selected by the voters. Over the next 8 years, the South's politics spun out of control with the South going Republican for Goldwater in a fit of rage over the Civil Rights Act of 1964, George Wallace running as a third-party candidate in 1968, and the South abandoning George McGovern as too liberal in the first series of contests chosen mostly from voting booths in 1972, the same year Wallace was shot and incapacitated during the race. Southern politicians at the time began to propose the idea of a "regional primary" that would produce not necessarily a CONSERVATIVE Democrat so much as a MODERATE one that was not an easy target as a northern liberal along the lines of McGovern and (later) Walter Mondale. The idea was set aside when Southerner Jimmy Carter won in 1976, but his defeat began the rumblings again, particularly when they saw the attention being gained in Iowa and New Hampshire. Southern states were discovering that by the time they got around to voting in primaries, the candidate was almost always chosen before they got any input. So the idea was that they would cluster the primaries in one day early and see if they could get a nominee that could carry more than the 28% of the white vote Mondale captured in the South in 1984.

They were warned it was not a good idea. After all, if the huge number of delegates in Florida and Texas are on the same day, who is going to bother themselves with a trip to Arkansas and few delegates? But the rationale was, "Look, they've been screwing up our party for years, so if it goes bad, it's just another bad idea."

But Super Tuesday would be the ultimate irony in the year. In fact, Georgia Speaker Tom Murphy predicted that the Super Tuesday primary was going to choose the next President. He was right - just probably not in the way he wished.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

FEBRUARY 1988: THE IOWA DEBACLE

Okay, you have to go back and forget what you already know.

Polling the Iowa caucus is damned near impossible. That's because: a) people notoriously lie to pollsters; b) in the caucus gathering, all of your friends see whom you support, which might lead to pressure to vote a certain way; c) there is absolutely no way to know the turnout until the night of the caucuses. The most noted example of the latter is when Ronald Reagan's team calculated that 30,000 votes would carry the 1980 caucus, they got a little over 31,000 - and lost anyway. So let's not get hung up on polls too much because they can easily be wrong on a caucus. Let's instead focus on two things, the candidates competing and the NEW HAMPSHIRE POLLS both before and after the Iowa caucus.

THE CONTENDERS (FOR THE NOMINATION, NOT JUST IOWA)

1) George Bush - Vice-President of the US and the best-known name on either side, he had won the 1980 Iowa caucuses, meaning he went in as the expected winner.

2) Bob Dole - Senate Minority leader and the Republican most feared on the national ticket by Democrats (my how times change!), he came from a farm state and farmers loathed Reagan.

3) Dick Gephardt - House Majority Whip and a centrist in the center of the center, Gephardt had changed his persona so many times that the question was how much of him was opportunism and how much was core. The fact he entered early and moved all his chips to the center in Iowa meant he was done if he lost the caucus. Gephart met the criteria of "white centrist who can carry some Southern states" best.

4) Michael Dukakis - ten years as governor of Massachusetts and balanced budgets every year, Dukakis tapped into a huge fundraising apparatus through rich Greeks that built his campaign infrastructure. He was hoping for third or better with the argument he'd carry New Hampshire if he was winnowed in.

5) Jack Kemp - House Congressman from Buffalo and former NFL Hall of Fame quarterback, Kemp had been involved with politics since Reagan's first gubernatorial race in 1966. The most electable conservative in the race but having to hope Iowa wiped out either Dole or Bush to make him the alternative.

6) Paul Simon - no, not the singer, the Senator from Illinois, who looked like popcorn salesman Orville Redenbacher had decided to run for office. It was unlikely Simon could win or so it seemed. But when "character" destroyed both Gary Hart and Joe Biden's candidacies, Simon suddenly was propelled to the front as a man of character who wanted to end Reaganism and turn the country back to the New Deal of FDR. The fact his state bordered Iowa and he could discuss farm issues might help him win.

THE PRETENDERS

1) Alexander Haig, Retired General, US Army - the guy who memorably told the world "I'm in charge" during the crisis hours after Reagan was shot, he had no constituency, no hope, and he would be gone before New Hampshire voted.

2) Reverend Pat Robertson - the son of Virginia Senator A. Willis Robertson (a staunch segregationist), the host of "the 700 Club" had everyone in the GOP scared because of his presumed ability to turn out the religious right vote on his behalf. The biggest fear? Robertson turning out enough votes to finish second in Iowa and knocking either Bush or Dole into third (and likely knocking Kemp out of the race completely).

3) Reverend Jesse Jackson - the main attraction to the clown wing in 1984, Jesse was running again despite everyone with a brain knowing his approval ratings were about the same as those of Fidel Castro among those purged in the Mariel boat lift. And let's be crystal clear: Jesse Jackson was immune to scrutiny because of his race. No reporter wanted to risk being called a racist by pointing out "You know, Jesse, there's no chance in Hell of your colossal defense cuts, mammoth tax increases, and tripling of the welfare state passing an all-Democratic Congress." And none of the politicians wanted to speak up because criticizing Jesse would be cut off with a simple, "Racist (Name of Candidate)".

4) Pete DuPont - the Delaware Governor born to the aristocratic family and leader of a small state was basically considered the annual "what the hell" candidate. Thus, he was able to make proposals that sounded good because he had no chance to win, and DuPont thus tried to get attention with what he called "damn right ideas," including teens being drug tested before being allowed to get a driver's license.

5) Bruce Babbitt - the highest rated governor (by observers) in the race, he was not telegenic, he droned, and he was basically considered a hot prospect for the Cabinet if one of the contending Democrats became President.

6) Gary Hart - when Hart re-entered the race in December, he was nothing short of a laughingstock. How can you run on the basis of "the administration is morally bankrupt" when you'd, well, you know.,

THE POTENTIAL

Senator Al Gore - could he or couldn't he? Gore was considered a conservative Democrat in the mold of Sam Nunn or Lloyd Bentsen at the time. He'd not yet completed a full-term in the Senate, he was locked on the Defense issue because it separated him from all the other candidates and he had not yet written "Earth in the Balance" to cement his legacy as an environmentalist, although he was the one candidate in the race talking about "the greenhouse effect." Gore's chances depended upon getting into a one-on-one race with a liberal BEFORE the March 8 vote and sweeping the South.

The New Hampshire poll from CBS at the beginning of February had Bush leading Dole by a solid 2-1 margin and Dukakis, who was in the news often in New Hampshire because of the Boston television stations, also leading the Democrats. Of course, once the caucus knocked it down to 2-3 candidates per side, the NH polls would shift.



Dole, meanwhile, was enjoying a lift in Iowa, even having a 14-point lead over Bush in the last poll prior to the balloting on February 8. Note that if you look this up on Wiki, it shows the results of the LATER PRECINCT CAUCUSES in May, which were but a formality since withdrawn candidates didn't qualify.



IOWA CAUCUS RESULTS GOP
1) Bob Dole - 37%
2) Pat Robertson - 25%
3) George H.W. Bush - 19%
4) Jack Kemp - 11%

IOWA CAUCUS RESULTS DEMOCRATS
1) Dick Gephardt - 31%
2) Paul Simon - 26%
3) Michael Dukakis - 22%
4) Jesse Jackson - 11%

 

[selmaborntidefan]

NEW HAMPSHIRE 1988

It was the best of times and also the worst of times for both Dick Gephardt and Bob Dole. Gephardt actually had the bigger problem on his hand. Sure, he'd won Iowa - but since he'd had the lead, came from a neighboring state, and had spent more time there than anyone, it wasn't much news that he won. He did not get a bang out of the news coverage. Plus, he would later admit, it would have been best for Gephardt (not to mention the party) if Dukakis had finished second and ended the Paul Simon candidacy. When Simon finished second, he suddenly got $137K in donations in one day that he used to go after Gephardt in New Hampshire. The other thing that hurt Gephardt was the fact Vice-President Bush finishing THIRD was the big story. Could Bush, the New England native who'd attended high school in Massachusetts, was the son of a Connecticut senator and had a house in Maine get on the winning trail in New Hampshire? And it was right here that Dole messed up. With campaigns collapsing all around them, Dole committed the same blunder Bush himself made in 1980: instead of politics or policies, he talked process and how if he could win New Hampshire, he'd be the nominee. Bush, meanwhile, got out and pressed flesh with the voters, had town halls, answered questions - and on the final weekend bought an advertising blitz with a commercial alleging Dole was "Senator Straddle" and had come down on both sides of the issue regarding the INF treaty, energy costs, and taxes. When Gephardt spent his eight days fighting with Paul Simon but not engaging Dukakis - who was basically able to stand above the fray as a statesman - Dukakis was home free. And it was left to Al Gore, who needed Gephardt gone and quick to unload on him repeatedly in debates. Gore developed the debate style that would later prove his undoing in 2000 - make a harsh accusation, exaggerate in the process, and then whine about being "attacked" when the opponent defended himself. (One of the best remembered was when Gore referred to the 1981 Reagan tax cut as the "Reagan-Gephardt tax bill", a cheap shot that ignored Gephardt's attempts in the House as budget reconciliation). Simon undercut Gephardt with the more centrist liberals by pointing out Gephardt had voted for Reagan's budgets, and Dukakis already had the liberals solidly in this camp.

Once the Iowa result - and the endorsement on the Friday before the vote by Alexander Haig of Dole - the news coverage began to seriously suggest Dole was going to win the Granite State.




And Dole's failure to soften expectations, to say, "Look, we were down 2-1 so if we finish second but it's sorta close, it'll be a two-horse race" destroyed his candidacy on primary night. If Dole had just said coming out of Iowa, "we'll call it a win if we stay within ten points," he may not have won the nomination, but he assuredly would have been considered a viable candidate rather than one who lost a race he (never really) had in the bag.

NEW HAMPSHIRE DEMOCRATIC RESULTS
1) Michael Dukakis - 36%
2) Dick Gephardt - 20%
3) Paul Simon - 17%

NEW HAMPSHIRE REPUBLICAN RESULTS
1) George Bush - 38%
2) Bob Dole - 29%
3) Jack Kemp - 13%
4) Pete DuPont - 10%
5) Pat Robertson - 9%

 

[selmaborntidefan]

SETTING THE STAGE...AND SUPER TUESDAY 1988

The Republican Party had actually held a delegate contest in Michigan on January 14 that was so confusing everyone wanted to forget it. Pat Robertson had won the uncontested Hawaii caucus, and Bob Dole won his home state, so it wasn't even mentioned in press coverage.

Two days after New Hampshire, Bush finished second to "uncommitted" in Nevada and again, nobody cared. But he then showed how much sway a Vice-President has when he didn't even bother to campaign in the South Dakota and Minnesota contests on February 23, both won by Dole. News media coverage was practically nonexistent as everyone focused on the upcoming South Carolina primary on March 5, the Saturday before Super Tuesday. When Bush won 48% of the vote in Lee Atwater's home state, the pugnacious consultant said, "George Bush was running unopposed three days later." And he was, as Bush splattered his Republican rivals into retirements and withdrawals by winning 16 out of 17 contests, losing only the "who cares" Washington caucus to Pat Robertson. It was over, and Bush went to port to await the fall campaign and plot strategy. Meanwhile, the Democrats - so often typical of the party between 1956 and 1988 - flirted with disaster again.

Dukakis the liberal won Minnesota (no big surprise), but he made a major blunder that cost him South Dakota, which kept Gephardt around. A loss might have ended Gephardt's campaign, so he pulled out the negative ad. In early 1987, Dukakis used his first visit to Iowa as part of a hearing with the National Governor's Association to address the agricultural crisis in the state. Dukakis' solution to the farm problem was to tell the Iowa farmers to do what Massachusetts farmers had done and diversify, by growing apples, blueberries, flowers and...Belgian endive. This last was so hilarious that his fellow governor, Bill Clinton, called it "yuppie agriculture." Facing an 11-point deficit in the polls, Gephardt unleashed his negative ad that showed an announcer looking at the screen quoting Dukakis and then saying, in incredulous tones, "Belgian endive?"

Dukakis' polls collapsed over the final weekend, and Gephardt won South Dakota. Dukakis then made a promise he would ultimately not keep - never again would he let the opposition run a negative ad on him without hitting back. AGAIN...it is very difficult to poll caucuses where there's a huge undecided vote or when contestants that had percentages withdraw as was happening in both parties. Whether or not the Belgian endive ad destroyed Dukakis, who really knows? But it became an article of religious faith: Bush beat Dole because of the negative straddle ad (never mind he'd been leading until the previous week) and Gephardt beat Dukakis with the negative agricultural ad (also unproven).

Unlike the Republicans, the Democrats had TWENTY contests on Super Tuesday, and they were delaying South Carolina (Jesse Jackson's home state) until the Saturday after the Southern regional primary.

On the morning of March 9, 1988, the Democratic Party woke up to an absolute disaster politically.