The meeting opened with a discussion about the 2 articles Paul emailed group members about Herman Cain. The first article discussed Cain in the context of the conventional (but often wrong) wisdom that the front runner in the invisible primary in the polls usually secures the nomination (think Giuliani and Clinton). The second article, written by Nate Silver on his FiveThirtyEight Blog, talks about how Cain lacks many of the fundamentals seen as critical to winning the nomination. In order to analyze this, Silver runs some simple correlations to measure how quintessential fundamentals such as organization and fundraising prowess (which he combines to form what he calls the candidate's GPA) correlates with poll standings in November back to the 1992 primaries. He finds that his GPA correlates with poll standings at .80-a relatively strong value. There is, however, one data point that is a considerable outlier: showing a weak non-polling GPA of 4.0 with an usually strong polling GPA of 8.0. And that data point belongs to none other than Herman Cain.
We then discussed one critical variable in Silver's non-polling GPA: the puzzling paradox of Cain's current strong showing in Iowa polls (see the latest Des Moines Register poll of likey caucus particpants http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/cain-and-romney-top-iowa-poll/ despite the fact that he has virtually no presence in the state. Only 2 months out from the election, Cain still isn't actively campaigning in Iowa, focusing instead on his national book tour and on appearances on political talk shows. Meanwhile, Romney's substantial organization in Iowa has yet to result in pushing him to front-runner status, nor in more than 23% in most polls. (For interesting and quick analysis of how support breaks down by demographics see The Des Moines Register caucus analysis page.
This led to a discussion of what might happen should Cain win Iowa without engaging in the traditional boots-on-the-ground retail politics long seen as vital to winning the state. With Santorum spending 65 days thus far in Iowa, and scheduled to make his final appearance in the 99th of Iowa's 99 counties (the only candidate to do so thus far) yet failing to make any headway in the Register poll between June and now-some group members opined that a Cain victory might have 2nd and 3rd tier candidates questioning the effectiveness of the the retail politics strategy in future contests. It certainly didn't work for John Edwards in the 2008 cycle. He literally moved his whole family to Iowa for the year before the caucus only to come in 3rd in the caucus and to drop out of the race.Still, pre-contest organization and retail politics is one thing but the real importance of organization becomes apparent on caucus day. Because of the complexities of the caucus system, candidates need to have caucus experts and insiders on hand to wheel and deal for delegates, as well as the organization to get potential supporters to the caucus. Lacking these resources, it is quite possible that the candidate leading in the polls (Cain) will not ultimately prevail on election day. This is why despite the fact that Romney has not yet spent a great deal of time actually in Iowa, he has a substantial organizational presence there.
Other topics discussed: the chatter regarding Perry floating the idea of not participating in anymore debates (which most group members and pundits alike think would be a fatal decision), Cain's flub on the abortion issue, and Romney's flip-flopping on several issues in the lat 2 years. The group agrees that Romney's triangulation is substantive and not similar to Kerry's mistake of trying to explain congressional procedure which led to his infamous quote which was levied as an effective weapon by the Bush campaign team of being "for [the bill] before being against it." In contrast Romney has changed positions on several key issues and not over long period of time. Some of this is a result of Romney's tenure as the governor of Massachusetts, a liberal stronghold. The rest is a result of the sharp turn to the right the Republican Party has taken over the course of the last decade, which has forced Romney to waffle on issues as he tries to address his conservative shortcomings, which ironically are some of his best weapons against Obama should he win the nomination and they are both fighting for the coveted Independent vote. Regardless of the rationale behind these policy position changes- voters may be wary of supporting a candidate seen as blowing whichever way the wind blows and just as his fellow GOP contenders are doing, Obama's team will certainly highlight the issue during the general election.
So, that's what you missed at this week's meeting. Only 2 months out from the first contests, the meetings are heating up. Hope to see some new folks there this week! (Thursdays 2:15-3:15, room 302 Baldwin Hall).
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