The Absurdity of Political Writing.

http://news.yahoo.com/i/742;_ylt=AjzI6ndYgeJ7lAa7IrQNAaCs0NUE

During the six weeks between the Mississippi and Pennsylvania primaries, a poorly phrased statement and an uncharacteristically weak debate performance by Barack Obama combined with relentless attacks by the Clinton campaign to raise some doubts about Obama as a candidate. Those doubts were most cogently put by George F. Will in a column a week ago. Will's suggestion that Obama could prove to be another Adlai Stevenson sent a shiver down many Democratic spines.

Yep. Many Democrats voting in the PA primary read George F. Will, saw his comment about Adlai Stevenson, and freaked.

Here's why this is absurd:

1. Adlai Stevenson probably has, oh, 8% name recognition in the modern US, tops.
2. I would venture to say that there aren't very many PA Democrats reading George Will.

And yet, you get this ALL THE TIME.

Bill Bennett on CNN said something like, "voters thought and said, 'nope, we need this to play out more.'" No! Voters don't work like that. They didn't say, "nah, we're not quite ready to give the nod to Obama, so some of us need to vote Hillary." No one votes that way. They vote based on who they perceive best represents them.

Jay Cost hits on this a lot, and I can only reiterate. The public pays infinitely less attention to politics than pundits. The analysis has to be tailored to those norms, not to the norms of a former Secretary of Education.

PA Results

RAW EXIT POLL NUMBER:

Clinton 54, Obama 46

With the fact that Obama's exit poll numbers have frequently been overstated, this doesn't look like a good night for him.

More later.

Jon Meachem Speaks...

It's been a long time since I've posted. The primary season has only been interesting in the media sense, roughly since Super Twosday. And I've been working on my thesis and a million other things.

I did, however, have time to go see Jon Meachem, editor of Newsweek, deliver a talk on religion in politics. His talk was mostly historical, and he was pretty funny. He said that he was heartened by the fact that religion has not been particularly divisive in this cycle.

But I think he's wrong about one key point. In answering a relatively unrelated question, he said, "Governor Romney didn't lose because he was a Mormon; he lost because he was Governor Romney" and then clarified what he meant.

I disagree with this assessment. I think that he lost because he's a Mormon.

Romney's defeat comes down to two things, I think:

1. Bad luck: Check out Michael Barone's take on Romney's loss. Basically, if Romney had picked up THREE percentage points in various states, he would have been in far better position post Super Tuesday, maybe even good enough to win. Romney was VERY close. He lost the momentum campaign far sooner than he lost a delegate race (and the GOP's winner-take-all rules didn't help either).

2. Iowa: The Iowa caucuses are a huge deal. Mike Huckabee didn't have much clout anywhere that didn't have heavy Evangelical populations, so, save a miracle of some sort, Huckabee was not going to win the nod in 2008 (by 2012, he may have made himself more appealing to non-Evangelical Republicans). Romney, though, had some support everywhere, certainly the beginnings of a coalition to win the nomination.

Romney lost Iowa by 9 percentage points, and he outspent Huckabee by tons. Republican caucuses aren't as convoluted as Democratic ones (the Dems' method may or not be better for caucusing, honestly), so it's pretty straightforward to do a quick-and-dirty calculation.

36% of Iowa Republican caucusers said that the candidate's religion mattered a great deal (42,729, overall). Those people supported Huckabee over Romney 5:1. Yeah, 5:1. Here's the details for that 36% of caucusers:

Huckabee - 56%
Romney - 11%
Thompson - 11%
McCain - 11%
Paul - 8%
Giuliani - 2%
Hunter - 1%

Huckabee got 23,928 voters who said that religion was greatly important. Romney got 4,700.

Let's pretend for a bit that Romney was a serious Methodist. Imagine if the 36% of Iowa Republican caucusers had supported Huckabee 3:2 because he's a minister. Here's the new adjustment:

Huckabee - 40%
Romney - 27%
Thompson - 11%
McCain - 11%
Paul - 8%
Giuliani - 2%
Hunter - 1%

In my imaginary scenario, Huckabee got 17,092 votes, and Romney got 11,537 votes. What would this swing do to the overall vote totals?

Original Vote Totals

Huckabee - 40,841
Romney - 29,949

Mormon-Adjusted Vote Totals (Huckabee gets 3:2 edge on people who said that religion is "greatly important")

Romney - 36,786
Huckabee - 34,005

Now, my scenario is SPECULATIVE, but to dismiss the fact that Romney's Mormonism hurt him is unfounded, when it's this easy to concoct a scenario like this.

For the record, the break-even point on my little study was if Huckabee had gotten 2.23x as many voters who said that religion was "greatly important." Those numbers:

Huckabee - 46%
Romney - 21%
Thompson - 11%
McCain - 11%
Paul - 8%
Giuliani - 2%
Hunter - 1%

Pretty stark. I think his Mormonism did matter, at least enough to make that kind of swing. A Romney win in Iowa might have netted him New Hampshire, which might have put him on a clear course for the nomination. It certainly would have changed the race a lot.