In the general election, a number of landmarks lead the way to Election Day: the traditional Labor Day kick-off, the ad campaign, September debate negotiations, the debates themselves, and a grueling last ditch effort as the candidates go all out to win over a few more voters in key states. Charges and countercharges fly; excitement builds. While all this is happening, the campaigns are operating with one goal in mind: 270. Two hundred-and-seventy electoral votes is the number needed to win, and major party presidential campaigns deploy their resources accordingly.
Battleground/Swing States and Other States
In a real sense the
general
election begins once the nominees are known; then the presumptive
nominee
turns his or her attention from the primary contest to the opponent he
or she will face in the general election and the goal of obtaining 270
electoral votes. The
2012
campaign will be the first since reapportionment following the
2010 Census so a "new math" will be required to reach the magic
270.
In 2008 candidate Obama won states such as Indiana and Virginia, which
a Democrat had not carried since 1964, as well as North Carolina, which
the Democratic nominee last won in 1976. Whether he will be able
to repeat those successes in 2012 remains to be seen; Republicans argue
that his campaign will face"very difficult decisions about which path
to take in 2012 1, 2."
A campaign must determine how best to spend the resources it has available. In some states the campaign will "play hard" or even "play very hard." These contested states receive frequent visits by the candidate, his wife, the vice presidential candidate, and surrogates, and the campaign makes serious ad buys in them. At the other extreme, some states are essentially written off as unwinnable; they receive minimal resources. As the weeks progress a campaign may upgrade or downgrade a state's importance as it becomes more or less competitive. The most obvious examples in 2008 were the Obama campaign's pulling out of North Dakota in the latter part of September and McCain campaign's pulling out of Michigan at the beginning of October. As the campaign progressed, the Obama campaign was able to expand the field, putting a number of red states into play.
Persuadable Voters and Base Voters
Once a campaign has
decided
it will contest a particular state, it does not blindly throw resources
in. A conventional rule of thumb in presidential elections is
that
about 40 percent of those who turn out will vote for the Republican
candidate
no matter what and another 40 percent will vote for the Democrat no
matter
what. Thus much energy and resources are devoted to trying to
reach
the remaining 20 percent of the electorate—persuadable swing voters—with
the
right
message.
Micro-targeting
techniques
allow
this
to
be
done
with
increasing
precision.
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| For a campaign, the electorate can be divided into three groups: those who are for the candidate, those who are "agin" him and the undecided. In the fall, much of the campaign's resources are directed to this third group. Then, in the closing weeks, the campaign makes a substantial effort to mobilize its base supporters. |
Campaign stops are scheduled in media markets with high concentrations of persuadable voters. People in these areas can expect to see a lot of political ads. Direct mail pieces go out to swing voters. The message is carefully tailored to attract persuadables or allay their concerns. To attract persuadables, the major party nominees generally move toward the middle, toning down more extreme elements of their messages that they had used to appeal to party activists during the primaries.
Due to increased early and absentee voting, "Election Day" has become a somewhat variable term, but as it approaches campaigns redouble their efforts to mobilize supporters. Phone-banking and precinct-walking are staples of get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts.
The fall campaigns of the
major party candidates have since the 1970s been financed by direct
grants from the Federal
Election
Campaign Fund, which in turn is financed by the $3 check-off on
individual
income tax returns. The
campaigns
must agree to abide by a spending limit, although they can raise funds
for legal and accounting expenses. The candidates officially
become
party nominees at their conventions. In June 2008,
the Obama campaign announced it would forgo federal funds. On
September 8 the FEC certified
the McCain/Palin campaign to receive $84.1 million (this is the $20
million figure provided for in the
1974 Federal Election Campaign Act adjusted for inflation). In
2012 the Obama re-elect campaign will almost certainly again forego
federal funds.
However, the campaigns are not the only players on the field. The national parties are allowed to spend a fixed amount advocating the election of their nominees; the limit for coordinated party expenditures in 2008 was $19.1 million The parties are also free to make independent expenditures supportive of their nominees. In 2004 Section 527 groups such as America Coming Together and The Media Fund on the Democratic side and Progress for America and Swift Boat Vets and POWs for Truth on the Republican side raised and spent significant sums of money. Such groups were active in 2008 but did not have nearly as significant an impact.
The Obama field organization will be held up as a model for years to come. The fact that Obama was engaged in a competitive primary through until June, while it carried the risk of dividing the party, allowed the Obama campaign to hone its field organization and maintain continuity between the primaries and the general election, rather than having to start afresh. On a technical note, the field organization on the ground in a given state is typically carried out by a coordinated campaign or Victory campaign which is funded by the state party and the national party and seeks to elect party officials up and down the ticket.
Much of the money given to the campaigns goes into television advertising. Generally in the summer, the campaign will have put together an ad team which includes both political and Madison Avenue talent. Based on polling data, the themes the campaign wants to stress will have been identified. The ad team generates ideas to convey those themes, and produces spots which are then tested in focus groups, and, hopefully, approved by the campaign management. However, the work does not stop with an ad "in the can" and approved; careful planning is required to ensure that the ads are seen by the target audience. The demographic watching "60 Minutes" differs markedly from that watching "Oprah." It is left to media planners, juggling GRPs and dayparts, to put together ad buys. Perhaps the most memorable McCain ads were the "celebrity" theme ads it released starting at the end of July. Of note among the Obama ads was the half-hour broadcast the campaign ran on the evening of Oct. 29 on most of the networks.
Of course television is not the only paid medium available to the campaigns. Radio is an effective way to reach some audiences, for example during drive-time. Because of its lower profile radio is sometimes used to deliver negative messages. Persuasion mail and phone calls also conveyed the campaigns' negative messages. Both campaigns ran numerous Internet ads (Obama | McCain). Magazine and newspaper advertising can be very effective, but the campaigns made little use of these media.
2008 Review: An Unprecedented Campaign
President George W. Bush's unpopularity put Republicans at a huge disadvantage in the 2008 campaign, and one might well ask if any Republican presidential candidate could have won. Democrats hammered away at the "more of the same," third-Bush-term theme, but that was just one of many factors of design and chance that aligned to produce Obama's win.
On June 19, 2008, betting on its strong fundraising capability, the Obama campaign announced it would forego the $84 million general election grant under the public financing system. This was something that had never been done under the 30-plus years of the system. Obama had earlier said he would adhere to the system and he came under criticism, but the move paid off in spades as his campaign enjoyed continued fundraising success, raised $233.2 million from Sept. 1 to Nov. 24. The Obama campaign's financial advantage meant more staff, more ads, and more glossy brochures, posters and other such items in key states. The analogy of a fully outfitted yacht competing against a canoe may be somewhat of an exaggeration but does give a sense of the race.
The Obama campaign could have poured all that money into paid media, and indeed it did run an extensive media campaign, but the real star of the campaign was its ground game. The campaign used the intensive field organizing it employed to such effect in the primaries. In a June 9, 2008 e-mail, Obama for America deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand wrote, "...I am proud to announce that our presidential campaign will be the first in a generation to deploy and maintain staff in every single state." By Oct. 24, 2008 Mark Silva of the Chicago Tribune reported that the Obama campaign had 770 field offices around the country. These Campaign for Change offices focused on voter registration, a task which the Democrats had outsourced to a considerable degree in the 2004 campaign. In a conference call on Oct. 24, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said the campaign knew it was "going to have to win a bunch of battleground states by a narrow margin." The campaign's strong ground game put states such as Virginia, Indiana and North Carolina into play. Even if it could not win all of these states, the McCain campaign had to pay attention to them. In the closing weeks the McCain campaign found itself focusing major attention on the less than ideal state of Pennsylvania, where Democrats had a registration advantage of more than 1.2 million, and where, of 712,925 approved new voter applications processed since January 2008, 427,479 registered as Democrats compared to 144,118 registered as Republicans.
Compounding the
Republican ticket's difficulties, the playing field
shifted markedly in September
2008.
The center of discussion, which had been the war in Iraq during the
early primaries, then energy as gas prices soared, turned to the
financial crisis.
McCain himself had conceded that his strength was in defense and
foreign policy, not economics. Additionally McCain's announcement
on Sept. 24 that he would suspend his
campaign came across to many observers as a political stunt.
McCain's selection of Gov. Palin also prompted considerable questioning, particularly given his age. The pick provided a much-needed shot of adrenaline to the campaign and energized the base, but ultimately it did not help with independent voters.
McCain's message also had some weaknesses. His ad campaign focused heavily on painting a negative picture of Obama but failed to elaborate on his own vision and plans. He could present himself as a maverick and call for change, but Democrats pointed out that he "voted with Bush and Cheney 90% of the time." Meanwhile Obama, although he too ran some negative and distorting ads, was most identified with his message of hope and unity, even if it didn't get into specifics. In mid-October, the McCain team found a decent theme they could use in the closing weeks of the campaign: Joe the Plumber. On a more narrow point, in the closing month or so Democrats and allied groups savaged McCain's health plan, and the Republican campaign did not effectively respond to those attacks.
Regardless of his views, as a candidate McCain fell short of Obama in a number of areas. Obama was a figure out of central casting—young, attractive and able to give a rousing speech. Much was written about the Bradley effect and whether it would cost Obama votes, but McCain's age probably cost him votes. Although McCain was a genuine hero, it was Obama who had star quality and was seen as a transformational figure. Obama seemed calm and unflappable, while questions had long been raised about McCain's temperament.
In 2004, the electorate was highly polarized; people were for President Bush or they were against him. 2008 had a different dynamic. While there remained anti-Bush sentiment, in comparison to Kerry, Obama inspired more voters to actually vote for him rather than just vote against Bush.
Finally,
quite a few
conservatives point to unfair coverage from the media as a factor in
this race. The problem wasn't just with the
New York Times, a
favorite target for conservative criticism.
A
Center
for
Media
and
Public
Affairs
content analysis
of 979 election news stories on the ABC, CBC, NBC and FOX evening
newscasts, released on Oct. 30 >,
found that, "On the broadcast network newscasts, evaluations of Barack
Obama and Joe Biden have been over twice as favorable as evaluations of
John McCain and Sarah Palin– 65% positive versus 35% negative for the
Democratic ticket compared to 31% positive verus 69% negative
evaluations of the Republican ticket." An
Oct.
22
study
>
by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found
that "coverage of McCain has been heavily unfavorable--and has become
more so over time." The
Washington Post's
ombudsman
Deborah
Howell acknowledged "An Obama Tilt in Campaign Coverage" at her paper
(Nov. 9). On
the other side of the
equation, it must be acknowledged that conservative talk radio
hammered away at the Democratic nominee daily.
| June | July | Aug. | Sept. | Oct./Nov. | By State |
||
| Sen. John
McCain |
x |
|
x |
|
|
> | |
| Gov. Sarah
Palin |
|
x |
|
|
> | ||
| Cindy
McCain x |
|||||||
| Todd Palin x | |||||||
| Sen.
Barack Obama |
x |
|
x |
|
|
> |
|
| Sen. Joe
Biden |
. |
x |
|
|
> | ||
| Michelle
Obama |
|
x |
|
|
|||
| Jill
Biden
x |
|||||||
| Rationale, Methodology and Limitations | Ralph Nader |
| Selected states in detail: CO | FL
| IA
| IN
| MI
| MN
| MO
| MT
| NV
| NM
| NC
| OH
| PA
| VA
| WV
| WI More states: CA | NH | NJ | NY | TX | WA |
