The softness of political analysis
In today’s NYT, an article about Obama’s surge has a quick paragraph summing up what it means:
The sheer consistency of Mr. Obama’s victories over the last few days certainly suggests that many Democratic voters have gotten past whatever reservations they might have had about his electability or his qualifications to be president.
Now perhaps there is more polling data or, more important, tracking data, showing that many voters once thought he was unelectable or unqualified have recently changed their minds and think he is electable and qualified. If that were the case, though, why not say “exit polls in the latest string of victories show voters who had once considered him unelectable or unqualified are seeing him in a different light”? Better yet, why not tell us what caused this change?
Presumably there was no data to support that. Instead, there is a hypothesis that voters’ primary reasons for voting for a candidate are: 1) they have the money, organization, strategy, and personality/character/demographic/skin color to be a strong candidate against the likely Republican nominee (electability); or 2) their previous job experience maps to the skill set needed to be leader of the free world. It follows, then, that a vote for someone is based on these two factors and increased numbers of votes means an increase in these two factors.
This is a classic case of an unvalidated assumption. Ever since Nixon’s sweat glands lost him the 1960 election, we’ve had examples of more emotional, thin slice evaluations of candidates. A trip down memory lane:
Don’t trust him, don’t like him.
Wimp. Artificial.
Tough. He paid for the mike and he’s gonna use it, don’t you dare OReilly him.
Cool? Self-confident? Oh yeah: eminently qualified to be the leader of the free world, and with
a good strategy for getting elected.
Not to mention that people will gladly vote for candidates who represent something other than electability or qualifications — hope, trustworthiness, I want this guy to be president even if he’s not electable (Nader), outsiders can shake things up (Perot) . . .
I’m not unhappy about the results, just the poor thinking masquerading as analysis . . . at the NYT of all places.