Palin’s Appeal
Posted on October 6th, 2008
by Daniel Larison |
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Ross is correct that Palin’s favorability ratings remain positive (Rasmussen: 53 fav-45 unfav), but it seems to me that this is close to the kind of argument that old Hillary Clinton supporters would trot out whenever someone claimed that their candidate was “too polarizing”: more people like her than hate her, but just barely. The unfav ratings for Obama (42) and Biden (38) are lower, while McCain’s Rasmussen numbers are identical to Palin’s. That may mean that Palin’s appeal is no better or worse than McCain’s declining appeal. Now that the campaign has opted to go almost purely negative and she has taken up the attack dog role I think we are going to see her favorability ratings drop steadily. Perhaps there is an audience for Palin’s remarks about Obama “palling around with terrorists” and declaring that “there is a place in Hell for women who don’t support other women,” but I don’t imagine that it is going to be very large when all is said and done. It may not matter in this election, but some of the bizarre, demonstrably false claims that Palin has made on her own behalf during this campaign, such as the strange Sudan divestment claim, work like acid to destroy her reputation for authenticity. Some of her claims have gone beyond Romneyesque: the claim about her support for Alaskan divestment from companies operating in Sudan makes some of his earnest frauds seem almost admirable in their hypocrisy. So while it is true that Palin still has net positive ratings and has not become a simply unpopular figure nationwide, in swing state after swing state she is becoming precisely that. The old line about never having a second chance to make a first impression is correct.
The reality is that this scarcely matters. Barring some truly bizarre changes over the next four weeks, Palin will be the losing VP nominee, and even if a losing VP nominee later comes back in another election to capture the presidential nomination he almost never wins the general election. Most of the time, the losing VP candidate never wins the nomination in his own right and some never bother to make the attempt. Dole, Mondale, Quayle, Lieberman, and Edwards are all cautionary tales of what happens to losing VP candidates who don’t know that they should have stayed away from the campaign trail. Quayle at least saved himself the embarrassment of primary defeats by having to withdraw so early in the 1999-2000 cycle for lack of any funding. Unless we think that Palin is going to break a rule that only FDR has broken, her national political future with respect to presidential politics should come to an abrupt end next month. No one, least of all her die-hard admirers, wants to see her celebrating a three-way tie for third place in New Hampshire.
Filed under: politics
“No one, least of all her die-hard admirers, wants to see her celebrating a three-way tie for third place in New Hampshire.”
Don’t fool yourself. There’s no way she finishes worse than second in any GOP primary anywhere. I think Palin might be a monster of the GOP’s own making. A Roy Moore with a disarmingly cute (and distinctly non-Southern) accent and nice gams. I have a feeling she’s going to be around clogging the intellectual arteries of conservatism for some time to come. I don’t see how she doesn’t parlay this into at least a Senate seat. She’ll be speaking to packed houses and standing ovations at every mega-church in the nation over the next four years.
No way, eh? Goodness knows I’m not a great one for predictions, but I’m trying to understand how she does that well in most primaries. Regardless, I doubt she’ll win very many. Finishing second in a lot of places–and she won’t be in second in N.H., I am pretty sure–and $2 gets you a cup of coffee in the GOP nominating contest. She isn’t a Southerner, but she is evangelical, so she stands to lose to Huckabee in the South and lose to some non-evangelical everywhere else. Besides, once the need to support the ticket is gone just watch as there is suddenly a lot of rethinking about whether Palin is really qualified to be President after all. Besides, Huckabee has the inside track with a lot of people as an early opponent of the bailout. This is all beside the point. She is about to reprise Jack Kemp’s 1996 role and that will be the end of 2012 speculation about her.
I’d be really interested to see the cross-tabs on her favorability ratings. Are any available? I suspect (hope?) that they are a lot less favorable than one might think among the kind of “Joe six pack” (I always though that that was a faintly pejorative/condescending expressions, btw) people she claims to represent.
Be that as it may, certainly much of her most rabid fans among pundits are the kind of people who will turn on her the minute McCain loses. Maybe “the base” will remain behind her; I’m not so sure. Overall, I tend to think that Daniel is correct, but I wouldn’t count her out entirely as a factor in the primaries. Actually winning the primaries, of course, is a different matter, and if she did somehow manage the trick, she would get creamed in the general election.
I still think that Huckabee would be formidable, though if they are both in the race they would obviosly be competing for many of the same voters. But Huckabee would IMO be a MUCH stronger candidate, with most of her strengths, fewer weaknesses and many strengths of his own. Mind you, from the perspective of a left libertarian he is almost the last person I’d like to see in the White House. Then again, as a non-interventionist, I see some hope that Huckabee might be a little less likely to blow up the world than
hmm, the end of my last comment got cut off. Should be “than most of the “serious” 2012 presidential contenders.
You asked for crosstabs. Here are some of the more striking ones. All numbers are fav/unfav.
Men: 57/42
Women: 52/48
18-29: 34/60
65+: 60/39
White: 59/39
Black: 19/80
Reps: 90/10
Independents: 57/41
Moderates: 46/53
Thanks. Those numbers are, indeed, striking in some respects. (The 18-29 and 65+ are particularly interesting, though I suppose to some extent they just track the demographics of the Obama/McCain race even prior to her selection.) I guess I should (will) do some research on my own, but I’d love to see the cross-tabs on income. Specifically, I’d love to see the numbers on, say, the second from the bottom quintile for family income. From all the rhetoric surrounding her (and coming from her), you would think that she would be wildly popular in that demographic. I’d wager, though, that she is under 50% for that quintile.
Her ratings stay high because people are either willfully ignorant and/or don’t believe the “elitist media” about the faults to her record that reveal that she isn’t quite the fiscal conservative that she sells herself to be, and that she’s just really good at stabbing people in the back, and instead keep drawing the experience strawman “But what about Obama?” for equivalence, when they are very much not equal. He at least has a first-class intellect and is versed in policy matters, however much one may disagree with them. She, on the other hand, has a hard time putting sentences together that she hasn’t memorized, when it comes to national policies, or her own running mate’s platform. No comparison, but they willfully see them as equal.
Let me just say, I am not at all surprised to see high unfavorables among 18-29 year olds. My anecdotal impression is that Tina Fey has done more damage to Palin’s reputation than a thousand Katie Couric interviews.
How do her favorability ratings compare with her ratings as to how many people think she’s actually qualified to be vice-president or president? The last polls I saw showed about a 20 point gap between her and Biden in Biden’s favor. Plenty of people could conceivably find her winky, perky persona appealing, yet still think she’s unqualified for the job for which she’s been nominated.
If the McCain campaign goes down big, I’m betting it will take her future in national politics with it. Thank goodness.
Actually, I think her favs are slightly better than her qualification numbers, but I don’t think they vary that much. In general, if people like her they think they is capable of doing the job. Rasmussen uses a slightly different measure in some of their state polls–the respondents’ comfort level with the idea of the candidate as VP. The Rasmussen numbers in various states show that those who are “not comfortable at all” with the idea of Palin as VP seem to max out at around 45%, which is close to her unfavs nationally. I will keep looking into it.
From Kos: Remember to factor in your standing… it’s not easy for Sarah Palin to attack when you are 41-50 not qualified to serve. Biden’s “qualified” is 74-18, including 62% of McCain voters. That’s what the debates taught the American voters.
So yeah, her qualification numbers aren’t that different than her favorables, but the differential between her qualification numbers and Biden’s are huge.
I’d agree that those who like her are likely to see her as qualified, whereas even those who don’t like Biden tend to see him as qualified.