Bitter By The Numbers

[Austinitis]

There's a pretty strong case to be made that Obama has been hurt far more by Bitter-gate than his supporters or the MSM admit. I've put the argument up on MyDD:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/17/133655/194

mainly because I can't embed the graph from my Google-Docs spreadsheets into DU. In any case, I'd like to have a discussion about the impact of bitter-gate here (if anyone is interested).

Here's the text:

Bitter By The Numbers
by Austinitis, Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 01:36:55 PM EST

There's been a lot of discussion recently asking how much Obama's recent comments have hurt him. The Gallup analysis linked to above suggests that there's not a lot of movement - even among the people who should be most offended - but I don't think that quite settles the issue. For one, the Gallup poll analysis doesn't go past polling results from Monday and includes results from the weekend. Since this bitter-gate story broke late on a Friday (4/11/08) after a slow news week, most people probably didn't have anything beyond a passing familiarity with during much of the analysis period. Certainly it seems unlikely that they would be exposed to the Hillary campaign's framing of the issue (exposure to which can be just as important in shaping opinions as what actually happened).

Second, the Gallup poll analysis looks at head-to-head results between Hillary and Obama, and such results are inherently comparative. This means that, so long as Hillary also gets hurt, Obama's polling numbers won't necessarily change with a decline in support. And since candidates who go on the attack with strong comparative arguments are usually hurt themselves, and since Hillary has been going on the attack, it's unsurprising that when we look at her favorability ratings we see this happening:



It would be a mistake, then, to, without looking at other relevant numbers, see Hillary's head-to-head numbers against Obama and conclude that voters don't care about Obama's comments. And, in the same vein, it would also be a mistake to look at the head-to-head numbers and dismiss out of hand Hillary's argument that the "Bitter-gate" controversy will harm Obama's electoral prospects this fall. As I show below, her argument, rather than being undermined by recent numbers, is actually supported by them.



So if we want to know what sort of wound has been inflicted on Obama, we need to put down the comparative numbers and look instead to metrics which only talk about Obama. And when we do that - when we look instead to how his comments have influenced the way voters see him - we see that Obama really has been hurt, seriously by the recent scandal.





A look at the two charts above shows that Obama's recent comments have, for only the second time in the race (I count the stuff around early April as a continuation of the Wright controversy) managed to push his favorability ratings into the red. Moreover, when we look at the impact of the Wright controversy on Obama's numbers (Reminder: The Wright controversy broke around 3/13):
.


We see that Obama's recent comments have actually hurt him roughly as much as the Wright controversy initially did.

(Interesting tangent: A lot of you may be surprised to see just how long the Wright controversy hurt Obama for . By 3/20 Obama was tied again with Hillary in the head-to-head numbers, but his favorablility ratings didn't recover until early April. This is an example where head-to-head numbers are misleading in the manner I mentioned above .)

Getting back to the main topic, we should also note that a lot of the damage done to Obama from Wright didn't really emerge until after Obama gave his big race speech (on 3/18). (That's not to say that Obama's speech hurt him - it's just that political damage can take a while to sink in.)

And so I think people who want to put a positive spin on Bitter-Gate for Obama are going to be stuck picking between two unhappy (for them) alternatives. Either:

(i) They can admit that bitter-gate is really hurting Obama; or

(ii) They can insist that bitter-gate isn't that big a deal.

The problem for the Obama camp is that if they go with (ii), as I'm sure many of them will want to do, they're going to have to explain why Obama's numbers now look like Obama's number right after Wright. And the only real way to explain that, short of (i), is to suggest that, post-Wright, Obama is damaged goods; that it just doesn't take that much of a controversy to send Obama's number back into the toilet.

And I don't think either of those is a fun story for Obama's people to tell.

For those of you who are interested, two more graphs (and some useful dates):

Texas & Ohio Elections: 3/4
Wright Controversy: 3/13
Bosnia Controversy: 3/24
Bitter Controversy: 4/11

.



.
And all of my raw data is publicly available online from Rasmussen. All of my charts were made with Google-Docs.

And at some point I want to do an Obama vs. McCain by the numbers entry, but I don't have McCain's numbers into my spreadsheet yet (it takes a bit of work). (If anyone wants copies of my spreadsheets so they don't have to enter the data, PM me and I'll send them over.)

[Writer]

1. Okay, but could we please start by NOT calling it "Bittergate?"

That implies that Obama's statement is somehow on par with the GOP's theft of the Democratic HQ in the Watergate Building in 1972. It's a tacky, intellectually lazy way of encapsulating these non-scandals that distract us from any real discussion.

Just like Snipergate, Pastorgate... God, we really need to get over ourselves! Stop griping at people to just "vote on the issues," when we're making so much hay out of these strawmen and red herrings.

But go ahead now...

~Writer~

[Austinitis]

3. I like the whole "-gate" suffix

It tells me what's supposed to be a scandal without my even knowing what happened.

And I think it's losing most of its original Watergate connotations - it mainly means "scandal" now. It doesn't really imply that it's a big deal. And I'm fine with "sniper-gate."

[madwivoter]

11. Good for you!

Hey, look! Someone added the word "gate", it must be a scandal! :sarcasm:

Christ.

[TwilightGardener]

2. Wow. Get a life.

[Austinitis]

6. Important Message: You're lurking on a message board

I mean, maybe you could sit there and say "get a life" if you were out having fun, at the beach, doing all sorts of cool stuff. But you're not. You're trolling a message board.

[TwilightGardener]

8. My crap took 3 seconds to type. Your crap obviously took the

better part of a day, and the end result is the same--still crap.

[Austinitis]

12. You have 1000+ posts

So even if this one message didn't take long for you to type, you're still obviously sinking a lot of time into message boards.

I mean, come on. Seriously. You're obviously not "too good" for message boards. You sound kind of silly making this attack...

[babylonsister]

4. mydd? Nuff said. nt

[azmouse]

5. I guess we'll find out next week if there was any effect from HRC's smear campaign.

I don't think it hurt him one bit.

[Life Long Dem]

7. The primary was over on Super Tuesday.

So I don't understand what you can possibly be talking about. Remember? Hillary was go for broke, and then deciding to stay in and donated $5 million of her own money? That's when it became a McSame thing.

[thevoiceofreason]

9. Pretty weak case, actually

Your causal ties are flimsy. Rather than specific instances you list, a better overall causal factor for both democrats' relative weakness is the media's attention and focus on all things negative. Look at Hillary's numbers. They suck. All we have heard about since early march is Bosnia, NAFTA, drinking and hunting. But she has come out with some well reasoned proposals and position papers on a variety of topics, like energy and trade, to name two. They get zero attention. The media does not care to fix America - the media cares only for ratings and, in the end, profits.

Same thing with Obama. Great proposals and specific points made. Anyone home? Nope. because the mediaa just does not cover this stuff - and if they do, it is only Charlie Gibson saying "You'll only take away my capital gains tax breaks when you pry them from my cold, dead hands."

So, my point is that the media narrative regarding the democratic candidates has been negative, and that is atrificially dragging their ratings. Once there is a candidate chosen, and once the focus on the democratic side of the field turns to interparty warfare, instead of intraparty warfare, you'll see a dramatic change.

[Barack_America]

14. Listen to TVOR, DU's delegate-hunting lawyer. Austinitis, your Kung Fu is weak.

:hi:

[Austinitis]

15. The media hasn't changed since January

but Obama's numbers have. And they changed right after the Wright controversy. So there are two problems with your alternative explanation:

a) Obama's numbers change all at once with Wright, which they shouldn't do if we're just looking at a slow media grind. and

b) Obama's numbers recovered, which also shouldn't happen with a constant media grind.

So I think the case for a link between events in the campaign and poll numbers is pretty strong.

[AtomicKitten]

10. Obama is in a statistical dead-heat in Penn, +5 in Indiana, and +13 in No. Carolina.

Next time best bring kryptonite.

:hi:

[Austinitis]

13. Just like in Ohio

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/oh/ohio_democratic_primary-263.html

Those numbers look pretty familiar...

[AtomicKitten]

16. America has reached its saturation point with negative campaigning.

This time it's biting her in the ass. Her negatives are increasing exponentially and solidifying Obama's lead nationally. His delegate lead is insurmountable but, hey, keep hope alive. ;)

[MethuenProgressive]

17. So, after Swiftboating the Clintons on race, BO is going to go easy on McCain?

BO has an odd idea of who the enemy is.

[AtomicKitten]

18. Ha, ha. It's Opposite Day again at DU!!