The power of emotion is humiliating the quants
by David Atkins
If President Obama manages to hold onto his lead and win in November, one of the most pleasant side effects will be the humiliation of elections models (such as this much ballyhooed one from Colorado University) based on economic determinism. It will be a pleasant reminder to all the Ivy-educated poli sci quants that context, emotion and qualitative factors are what carry the day in politics. That in turn should take some of shine out of the advocates of bloodless technocracy as good political policy. Jamelle Bouie steps in for Greg Sargent today and points out the obvious:
As Greg has been pointing out, it’s clear that the Romney campaign is governed by a crude economic determinism — “as long as the economy is bad, all we have to do is show up, and voters will reward us with the presidency.” Hence Romney pollster Neil Newhouse’s declaration that “the basic structure of the race hasn’t changed.” This is true, but not in a way that helps Romney. Simply put, the “basic structure of the race” still favors President Obama. The economy is poor and job creation is sluggish, but growth is on an upward trajectory, and according to most election models, this makes Obama a slight favorite for reelection. That the Romney campaign fails to see this explains everything from Romney’s refusal to provide policy detail to his team’s inexplicable decision to cede summer advertising to the Obama campaign.
The simple fact is that voters aren’t making a crude economic calculus based on objective conditions — they’re weighing context and evaluating both candidates’ plans for the future. And when it comes down to it, they’re not necessarily convinced that Obama has completely failed to fix things. If Romney can’t overcome and account for that, he’ll lose.
They’re doing even more than that. They’re actually weighing a deeply personal, almost romantic soap opera triangle between themselves and the two candidates.
Which is perfect. Mitt Romney is the ultimate bloodless quant. As Biden said, he looks at the world as a series of spreadsheets, with the goal of tilting the balance sheet toward the wealthy. The President, meanwhile, has a natural gift of emotive power in his campaigning, but governs like a technocratic quant who often underestimates the power of symbolism and values-driven policy.
Hopefully if the President defeats Romney handily, it will help sully the reputation of the quants and validate those who know that elections, like life, are much more fluid and emotional than deterministic models would suggest.
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