Centerfield

Parties To Ignore Swing Voters

ADAM NAGOURNEY reports in the NY Times that the parties plan to ignore swing voters and focus on mobilizing their base in 2004

In a fundamental reassessment of presidential political strategy, White House and Democratic Party officials say that turning out core Republican and Democratic voters will be more critical to next year's election than winning independent voters, long a prime target in national campaigns.

Parties plan to emphasize their differences with emotional appeals

"There's a realization, having looked at the past few elections, that the party that motivates their base — that makes their base emotional and turn out — has a much higher likelihood of success on Election Day," Matthew Dowd, a senior adviser to Mr. Bush's re-election campaign, said in an interview.

Stanley Greenberg, the Democratic pollster who advised Bill Clinton when he won by appealing to swing voters 11 years ago, said: "Things have changed over the decade since 1992. The partisans are much more polarized. And turnout has actually gone up because the partisans have turned out in much greater numbers and in greater unity."

If people thought politics was dirty before, it sounds like it's about to get worse. Expect more demagoguery.

Update: Matt Yglesias makes a mathematical counterargument to advice to deemphasize swing voters

I kind of hope this is true, since my feeling is that the politics of swing voting produces a combination of the worst qualities of both parties rather than some kind of sensible moderation, but it seems wrong to me. After all, say Gore lost to Bush in Florida by 200 votes (I forget the real number). That means that in order to win he would've needed to either get 101 Bush voters to swing his way, or else get 201 non-voting Gore supporters to come to the polls. Alternatively, he could've gotten 201 Nader voters to swing his way. The numbers are pretty compelling in suggesting that your resources ought to be devoted to the swing voters. I don't like it, but as I see it that's the way it is

I would add that such a strategy runs up against Newton's Third Law. Whatever riles up the partisan base of one party is likely to set off a counterbalancing reaction in the other party. If that's the case, the party with the most money wins, and that's probably the Republican Party.

What one needs to find are "wedge issues" which rile up only one side. That's another way of saying, "appeal to the swing voter."

Posted by rickheller at September 2, 2003 07:49 AM