Tomorrow is the big day, and the small handful of political reporters (along with the pair of go-to academicians – with no disrespect intended to recent GMD discussion participant Eric Davis…) are covering the print and TV media with their analyses. Unfortunately, more often than naught, the same conversations among the same few people within the same Montpelier-Burlington bubble makes for a narrow conventional wisdom which, while true in many cases, also creates oversimplifications (sometimes self-serving ones) that can range from simply simplistic to outright inaccurate.
The biggest point about tomorrow is one the experts do have right: anything could happen. All the prognostication and analysis you can conjure is vulnerable to the simple reality of a tiny, tiny turnout (even if it’s a record primary turnout in Vermont) – and a tiny turnout makes trends softer, data unavailable, and firm predictions impossible. With campaign ID phoning suggesting as many as 30% of potential primary voters still undecided, turnout could end up quite a bit lower than the astronomical projections people like me were predicting early on.
But there are six bits of conventional wisdom in circulation that probably necessitate some addressing. They are:
1. The primary has been bad for Democrats.
2. The primary shows that Democrats are in bad shape.
3. Low turnout helps Racine, Markowitz, high turnout helps Shumlin, Dunne.
4. There is no difference between the candidates on the issues.
5. The general election has always been Dubie’s to lose.
6. The national Democrats will (somewhat) equalize things after the primary.
A closer look at these assumptions below the fold…
1. The primary has been bad for Democrats.
Simplistic at best. The primary makes it all more complicated, this is a fact. Those complications have positive and negative effects. Which has more impact depends on the campaigns themselves, as well as the history.
There are good and bad effects of the primary. In the short term, the bad is obviously that the Dems are tearing through money while Dubie isn’t (on the other hand, there’s a lot more money already in the election then there otherwise would be – and few on that list have maxed out. As long as the losing candidates support the winner, that gap could close quickly). You could also argue that the bad is that Dubie is getting that “free pass” and is not getting attacked.
That last one I don’t buy at all. Why? Because of the biggest good of the primary – the increased excitement and media attention. In recent years, the unchallenged Dem nominee hasn’t been able to get any meaningful coverage from the Vermont media until scant weeks before the General Election. Effectively, that meant that the Republican (Douglas) was – that’s right – getting a “free pass.” I’d be willing to bet that more criticism of Dubie is getting covered and penetrating into voters’ minds through this primary as compared to previous cycles.
And that excitement matters. Name recognition for the winner will be significantly magnified, and name recognition has been the biggest factor working against Democrats. Add to that the fact than a primary forces issues to the forefront, and that process has largely united the Vermont left, Dem and Prog, heightening enthusiasm – not to mention building fundraising and GOTV lists.
2. The primary shows that Democrats are in bad shape.
This is a Garrison Nelson bit that has been picked up in recent days. The argument goes that a healthy party is a command-and-control institution, because that is more “organized” – and if healthy equals organized, than a healthy party would be one where somebody like Patrick Leahy swooped in and informed the candidates who was running for what and avoided the dirty primary. This is simplistic thinking at its clearest, because the history of the last two decades shows the precise opposite. Both locally and nationally, the party bigwigs swooping in and deciding the candidates behind closed doors has led to a steady string of electoral failures as the Democratic brand has been watered down to nothing. At every level, it is with the decentralization of party control – the “devolution” if you will of power through grassroots and netroots networks and the plethora of primaries in its wake – that Democrats electoral fortunes have turned around. This line of Nelson’s is simply an ahistorical, lazy repetition of extremely tired conventional wisdom.
All around the country, we are seeing that -in terms of general trends (if not in every single instance) diversity is indeed strength.
3. Low turnout helps Racine, Markowitz, high turnout helps Shumlin, Dunne.
The logic here is that Shumlin and Dunne are bringing in new voters, because Dunne works outside the usual circles, and Shumlin has been surging in poularity.
Eh. There’s certainly truth to that thesis, but it really depends on a lot of things, one of which is where we’re talking about. For example, Washington County Democrats have an actively contested Senate primary – and one of the candidates is Anthony Pollina. Washington County is also a hotbed of Democratic primary voters, and will therfore have an impact on the primary greater than its impact on General Elections.
An increase in turnout in Washington will largely come from Progressive supporters of Anthony Pollina picking up a Dem ballot. Who will these voters break for in the gubernatorial? Largely Doug Racine, who is well liked by Progressives. Yes, Peter Shumlin has also made inroads with Progressives due to his promotion of single-payer health care, and the high profile backing of Progressives such as Addison County’s Ellen Oxfeld, but the mistrust among Progs of Shumlin still runs deep. This largely goes back to the 2002 Lietenant Governor’s race, where Shumlin ran against Pollina, coupled with the history of Pollina’s supporters (both Prog and Dem) history of personalizing challenges against him from Democrats such as Shumlin. In other words, the very fact that Shumlin did not drop out in that race many years ago has permanently damaged him in the eyes of many Progs.
So increased turnout in Washington County probably helps Racine, as well as Markowitz, since Montpelier is her home and will drive much of that increased turnout.
Chittenden County is even more complicated. Racine is immensely popular in greater Chittenden County. To say categorically that he is hurt by greater turnout from his geographic base is goofy. On the other hand, there is the media narrative that he has stumbled, so larger turnout of undecideds will have a tendency to break along that narrative and work against him.
The result? A slightly elevated turnout likely helps Racine, while a highly elevated turnout could indeed hurt as observers like Shay Totten and Eric Davis have suggested.
And then there’s the wild card in this race – Windham County. Windham County is the most reliably liberal county in the state (it was the only county that went for Peter Clavelle against Jim Douglas). It also has a very strong Prog contingent, and is – in fact – evolving into the new hub of the Progressive Party as the Prog’s influence is Burlington has been declining. And with a contested Senate primary, turnout will be up.
Good for Racine, again? Maybe – but (anecdotally at least), Shumlin seems to own Windham County, so an increased turnout could put him over the top. On the other hand, a strong first place showing in Chittenden with an accompanying second place showing could win it for Racine. All of which is to say that Racine’s and Shumlin’s are not direct reciprocals, as this conventional logic suggests.
But there’s also the question of who is voting. While an enormous amount of voters seem to be undecided – listening to the campaigns regarding their ID calls, it’s likely a good 30% of the potential voters – it does seem that undecided women are trending towards Markowitz, and that’s a trend that encompasses all areas.
The candidate’s field operations do tend to support this conventional wisdom, though. Racine has IDed more supporters than the other campaigns from all reports – in some cases significantly so. Markowitz has put the most professional boots-on-the-ground resources into field. Shumlin has blanketed the state with paid vendor IDs which have annoyed some folks and led to some funny situations (at least one rival candidate, as well as a family member of another, have been called by Shumlin ID callers), so his IDs are likely to be plentiful, but less solid.
And Dunne? He’s been working the field for so long, it’s hard to know – and again, it’s in this context where he becomes the “wild card” so many observers have tagged him as. While his support is somewhat mercurial, conventional-wisdom-practitioners have consistently underestimated him (against John Tracy in 2006, in fundraising two months ago), those Montpelier-Burlington-bubble denizens are finally waking up to the fact of that consistent underestimation and are hedging their bets.
Bottom line? This low-turnout-helps-Racine/Markowitz-hurts-Dunne/Shumlin is way too easy.
4. There is no difference between the candidates on the issues.
Of course there is. Anybody who’s spent any time on this site knows that. Primary voters know that, or we’d all be undecided among all five candidates.
This line is essentially a repetition of the “West Wing” notion that the only issues distinguishing Democrats are environmentalism and gay rights (read: Vermont Yankee and marriage equality). Racine is open to rejiggering the tax structure to make it more progressive, Shumlin and Bartlett aren’t. Shumlin advocates for single-payer healthcare, Racine would consider it, Markowitz probably won’t. Dunne would make campaign finance transparency a priority, the others aren’t so interested. Bartlett supports the 2-vote school budget process (albeit somewhat disparagingly), the others don’t (although it’s a bit unclear with Markowitz). The list goes on.
This, again, has become a lazy mantra among the “experts.”
5. The general election has always been Dubie’s to lose.
Ppplt. This is both the most frustrating bit of “conventional wisdom” and the most dangerous, as it’s held among the Vermont media (and clearly not shared by their counterparts in the national media). Dangerous because the media professionals who adhere to it become invested in it, and then perpetuate it in subtle ways through what they choose to report and how they choose to report it.
And its nonsense. The national media has this exactly right – and it has been so for better than the last year. Polls have consistently showed multiple Democrats within the margin of error – and one Democrat in the lead at times. And that’s been early in the process, when Dubie is clearly in a stronger position from name recognition. This is the only actual data we have to work from, as opposed to experts letting their conversations with other Montpelier-Burlington-Bubble experts guide them. Sure the Republican has more money – but since when is this a new situation? Even a cursory reading of Brian Dubie’s campaign finance report reveals the same kind of wild, unfocused and unrestrained spending that characterized the Jim Douglas campaigns… a weakness that remains ripe for exploitation by a smart, efficient Democratic campaign.
And the fact that the polls we do have are unreliable (WCAX’s Research 2000 polls are now in question, after R2Ks professionalism has been assailed by Daily Kos, and Rasmussen has a well-documented history of oversampling Republican supporters) simply makes this conventional wisdom that much sketchier.
Turnout patterns. Voter enthusiasm. Political trends. Those are more telling. And all those point to a nailbiter.
6. The national Democrats will largely equalize things after the primary.
Don’t count on it. This race was targeted early on by the Democratic Governor’s Association, but while that organization (which has undergone a recent leadership change) has blown away fundraising expectations recently, its a bit of a mess. Targeting means little when its resources and priorities seem to be at the whim of more powerful Washington interests that have never cared about Vermont.
An example? Insiders were urging the DGA to make their presence known in a small, inexpensive way at the beginning of the year, when some Republicans – concerned about settling for Dubie as their standard-bearer – were trolling for a primary challenge. A simple online viral video designed to maximize those concerns could have initiated a GOP primary, largely nullifying the Democratic primary negatives indicated above.
The DGA wouldn’t give such ideas the time of day, partly due to disorganization, and partly because they really don’t give two craps about Vermont.
And the national new media/blogosphere? Forget it. Again, Vermont is like some quaint little foreign country to the national netroots leaders. Encouraging them to get involved just seems to annoy them.
No – if the winning campaign tomorrow is counting on being bailed out by the national Dems, they are already ceding the contest. If we’re going to win this, we have to do it ourselves.
Couple of things to deal with, here…
Deb Markowitz: Wonder Woman (Diana Prince)
Matt Dunne: Iron Man (Tony Stark)
Peter Shumlin: Captain Marvel (Billy Batson)
Doug Racine: Spider-Man (Peter Parker)
Summer is the season where the local papers run their various readers contests to drum up a little interest and ad revenue, and sadly Green Mountain Daily did not repeat its sweep of 2009.