John McCain has clinched the Republican presidential nomination, and the Democratic contest has come down to just two major candidates. So it's time to think about what will happen in November.
In the months ahead, much of the commentary will focus on tactics. Pundits will be tracking the latest maneuvers of handlers such as Barack Obama guru David Axelrod. That approach isn't all wrong, since campaigns do make a difference. But it's a mistake to think that campaign activity is the whole story.
To understand this point, think of a candidacy as a house up for sale. A real estate agent can help a seller reach many potential buyers and get a better price. Yet there are limits to what agents can do. While they can suggest cosmetic improvements, they cannot change a house's basic condition or age. They cannot stave off the effects of a poor housing market. And they cannot protect homeowners from losing their property to wildfires, earthquakes or mudslides.
Campaign handlers are like real estate agents. Skillful ones can be a major asset, and bad ones can botch the whole effort. Either way, however, there is much that they cannot control. To a large extent, they don't act: they react.
In 1992, Clinton operative James Carville became famous for the saying, “The economy, stupid.” He got it right, since the economy has always shaped presidential races. Scholars have drawn up statistical models to gauge the political impact of such variables as unemployment, inflation and personal income. At the core of these models are some simple rules of thumb that politicians have always known.
When the economy is booming, the president's party has the edge. When the economy is struggling, the other party is likely to win. When the economy is so-so, noneconomic forces may have more effect.
The most dramatic case of a struggling economy came with the Great Depression, which brought Franklin Roosevelt to the White House and locked Republicans in the minority basement for years. Even mild slumps have carved the political terrain. Although many accounts of the 1960 campaign hyped the role of rhetoric and TV debates, Richard Nixon knew better why he lost. In October of that year, he later wrote, “the jobless rolls increased by 452,000. All the speeches, television broadcasts and precinct work in the world could not counteract that one hard fact.”
Similarly, recessions before the 1980 and 1992 elections denied a second term to Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush.
A strong economy helped the younger Bush over the line four years ago. In 2007, however, the money news was so-so at best, and now some economists are warning of a recession. If their dire forecasts come true, then all the straight talk in the world may not be enough to rescue John McCain.
Economists define a recession as two consecutive quarters of shrinkage in gross domestic product. Even if we dodge that bullet, McCain could still have trouble. At least two-thirds of voters own stock, either directly or through retirement plans. If stock prices plunge, most of them will feel worse off, and many will take out their feelings on the incumbent party.
A great majority of voters are also homeowners. Recent events on the housing front do not put them in a jolly mood.
Elections may involve more than the economy. Issues of war, peace and national security have driven presidential races. In the early stages of a conflict, Americans will rally around their president. Then they want results. If victory remains out of sight while casualties keep mounting, they will turn against the president and his party.
In September 1864, General William Tecumseh Sherman seized Atlanta, putting the Confederacy on a death march and assuring Abraham Lincoln's re-election. Before that victory, however, the political battlefield looked different. For much of 1863 and 1864, the Civil War seemed to be dragging on. “I am going to be beaten,” Lincoln told an Army officer in the summer of 1864, “and unless some great change takes place, badly beaten.” Indeed, if the “great change” hadn't taken place in Atlanta, Democrat George McClellan probably would have defeated him.
In the 20th century, stalemates in Korea and Vietnam sent Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson into early retirement.
During the “Mission Accomplished” days of 2003, it seemed as if Iraq would be a political boost to President Bush. By the 2004 election, the bloody rise of the insurgency had led about half of the voters to disapprove of his war policy. This shift put Bush's re-election in doubt, but with a strong economy, it was not enough to elect John Kerry. Two years later, a strong majority opposed Bush's handling of the war, which was a major reason for the Democratic takeover of Congress.
The success of the “surge” has taken Iraq off the front pages and blunted some of the damage to the GOP. Nevertheless, McCain cannot regard the issue as a political plus, and it could be a large minus. Polls show that most Americans still oppose the war and think that it is going badly. Tragic news from Iraq would deepen such sentiments. In that case, McCain would suffer, since he has tied his reputation to the surge.
Other national security issues could work in the opposite direction. After a terrorist strike or foreign crisis, more Americans would want a seasoned leader as the commander in chief. The demand for experience would benefit McCain. After his years of captivity in North Vietnam, he commanded the Navy's largest squadron, the Replacement Air Group in Jacksonville, Fla.
By contrast, neither Obama nor Clinton has served as a military officer or an executive of a government organization. The last president to lack any such experience was Warren G. Harding.
Scandal is another yet force that haunts political handlers. Here, candidates have more control than with the economy or the international scene. If Gary Hart had just avoided marital infidelity in 1987, he might have been the Democrats' presidential nominee in 1988.
But candidates cannot change their own pasts. In his novel, “Primary Colors,” Joe Klein writes of a Bill Clinton character from “Mammoth Falls” (a fictional Little Rock). After a scandal erupts, an old friend of the Clinton character reflects: “I hadn't really thought about Mammoth Falls' ability to reach out and pull us back.”
Sen. Clinton and her staff may be worrying that old news from Little Rock could turn into new problems for her campaign. She is not the only one who can't stop thinking about yesterday. As she pointed out in a debate, Obama did business with a Chicago slumlord. Even McCain, the champion of campaign finance reform, was one of the Keating Five, a group of senators with links to a crooked businessman.
Expect to hear more as the campaign wears on.
On the day after the election, we will read profiles of the winning candidate and all the clever moves that led to his or her victory. But in large measure, that victory will be the product of circumstances that the candidate did not create or could not control. As Nietzche said, “Success has always been the greatest liar.”
Campaign handlers are like real estate agents. Skillful ones can be a major asset, and bad ones can botch the whole effort.
Pitney is the Roy P. Crocker Professor of American Politics at Claremont McKenna College.
