* I apologize for the delay in getting this post up. I had to let my dog (my
very best friend in the world for the past 15 years) go on Monday night and was
unable to do a post.
The 9/22 meeting was focused on the fallout from the Florida Tea Party
debate and Rick Perry’s fall from frontrunner status due to his lackluster
debate performance. Discussion centered on Perry’s inability to articulate his
points contrasted with Romney’s polished performance which looked even more so
against Perry’s blunders. Clearly, Romney is benefitting from the experience factor
of having competed in the 2008 cycle and the numerous debates he participated
in. In 2008, Romney was seen as the frontrunner in the invisible primary period
and as such, most of his fellow contenders were focused on him. This has no
doubt better prepared him for this cycle’s debates. One group member posited
that it was strange that Bachmann, Cain, and especially Hunstman focused their
attention on Perry, who came into the debate with a modest lead on Romney in
some polls. He argued that despite this modest lead, the other candidates
should focus on Romney because he has been consistently competitive, has the
best organization, and of all the candidates (aside from Huntsman), he has the
best appeal to moderate Republicans and Independents. This point was countered with
the argument that the candidates tend to focus on whoever is leading in the
polls going into the debate in a classic “attack the frontrunner” strategy and
that now that we know beyond a doubt that the field is settled (even though
Palin still refuses to publically state that she is not running, the filing
deadlines are this week and next) we can expect that debates will focus on
trying to mitigate the lead of the frontrunner, which has now reverted to
Romney.
However, the most interesting result of the debate is the surge in the polls
by Herman Cain, who was identified by the FL caucus members as the winner of
the debate. Cain’s surge is largely comprised from people fleeing Perry and
switching their support to Cain, who is now the strongest Tea Party candidate
in the field. We discussed how Cain’s lack of political office experience and
his race might affect Republican primary voters in the early states and in the
general against Obama. Because the Tea Party movement has made “outsider”
status an asset and not a curse, some group members feel that his lack of
elective office experience will only help him with TP Republicans. Additionally,
he has an extensive business resume including his time as CEO of Godfather’s Pizza,
so as he gains exposure to the masses, more moderate Republicans may dismiss
his more extreme right positions and focus on his business credentials as this
election cycle will be all “about the economy, stupid.” I opined that Cain has an advantage over
Romney in IA and SC because he is an evangelical Christian whereas Romney is a Mormon.
Although some of the mystery about his Mormonism will be tempered by the fact
that it was a key issue in the ’08 cycle, it is not clear if social/religious
conservatives will be comfortable with his religion. This will be hard to
determine because they may reject him purely on the basis of his relatively
moderate social issue positions. How this plays out will be one of the more
interesting aspects of the primaries should Romney stay in the top tier. Rob
pointed out that Romney understood and made good use of the debate rules. He
rarely referred to other candidates, particularly Perry, by name because doing
so immediately allows that person a 30 second response. However, Perry did not
seem to be aware of this, or if so could not discipline himself to not say
Romney’s name. This allowed Romney to get a lot of extra talk time, which he
used to his advantage.
The group also discussed the potential role of race should Cain win the nomination.
If this happened then we would again have a historic election as there would be
two African-American candidates as the major party nominees. Should Obama
win-his legacy as the nation’s 1st black president extends to a 2nd
term. Should Cain win, then we would have consecutive black presidents
representing both sides of the political spectrum, neither of whom had substantial
experience coming into the Oval Office- a tantalizing situation for scholars of
presidential politics. Would Cain’s presence on the ticket neutralize the race
factor for Obama? Might it also help to neutralize it for the element of the TP
that were (and in some cases still are) in the “birther movement?” Would Cain
be able to pull any of the solidly Democratic black votes away from Obama or would
it have the inverse affect of galvanizing the black vote like in ’08 as black
voters become aware of Cain’s decidedly conservative social and economic positions?
As far as the primary goes, the group was divided on whether Cain would be
attractive to black voters. Statistics on the black vote show that 95+% of
black voters cast their ballots for Democrats in most cases. However, if Cain
was able to pull even 5% away from Obama it could be decisive in a few cases.
These issues and more are sure to be discussed in this week’s meeting on
Thursday, October 6th at 2:15 in room 302 of Baldwin Hall. Be there
or be square. However, I’ll be tailgating in the parking lot of Autzen Stadium
in Oregon, so the nest 2 weeks will be blogged by a guest blogger. Should you
have any interest in doing the blog for both or either of those weeks-please talk
to Paul Gurian.
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