NBC poll on the use of online media in the 2008 campaign. (Nov. 2008)
Have you watched
any of the
following online
this campaign?
Candidate
speeches/
announcements
Interviews with
candidates
Campaign
commercials
Candidate debates
Any of the above
TOTAL
18-29
30-39
40-49
50-64
>65
13
22
17
13
10
5
13
23
18
11
9
3
12
25
9
10
10
4
12
24
20
41
16
28
10
20
9
21
2
7
Age is a key factor here and the trend to online campaigning will grow!
As these tools have developed campaign strategists, pollsters, direct mail specialists, fundraisers and media consultants have become the vital management of all political campaigns.
The Campaign in 2008: 5th September – 4th November 2008.
1) Media in 2008
a) TV Advertising
In 2008 Obama spent $235,974,838 on TV advertising to McCain’s $125,530,148, almost
double, and outspent him by $21mn to $11mn on nationally aired TV adverts. This is by far
the most costly single item of campaign expenditure and is the main area in which money
can make a colossal difference to the reach of the candidate to the electorate and help in
winning over independents or leaning voters. Obama also took the expensive decision to
take two 30 minute slots of time on NBC and CBS to explain his message at greater length.
The Obama campaign broadcast 118 different TV ads to McCain’s 75. Obama and McCain
both focused unsurprisingly on the economy but after that the next most prominent issue
for McCain was Energy policy whereas for Obama it was healthcare. (also see money below)
See here for TV ads aired in 2008
Alternatively click on 2008 in The Living Room Candidate here
b) The TV debates (free media)
th
The First Presidential Debate Oxford Mississippi September 26 video
This was meant to be about foreign and security policy (McCain’s field) but the host decided
to use his discretion and the first third was about the economic crisis. Obama addressed
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McCain directly in his answers trying to make it a “debate” but McCain would not be drawn
and simply addressed his responses back to the chair. As in the 1960 debate between
Kennedy and Nixon perhaps the most important aspect of the debate was not the content
but the sight of both candidates beside each other, bringing home the significant age gap.
After the debate the ABC poll participants thought Obama the stronger by 38% - 22% over
McCain with the rest undecided or level.
The Vice-Presidential Debate St. Louis October 2
nd
video
This single clash prompted enormous public attention with 73 million people watching
“Palin live”, 21 million more than watched the first presidential debate! Indeed it was only 8
million viewers below the record high audience for a presidential debate between Reagan
and Carter in 1980. Palin managed to get through it without a major gaffe, although her
“down with the people” informality and incessant winking at the camera became a little
cloying for my taste. Biden by contrast was formal and senatorial in his approach and
appeared rather dull as a result. That said, Palin’s lack of response and knowledge on
economic affairs may also have hurt the ticket as she sought to deflect these questions into
a different area.
th
The Second Presidential Debate Nashville, Tennessee October 7 video
The second debate took questions from the audience directly and was a format that was
meant to play to McCain’s strength at one-to-one campaigning. McCain had stated that he
would be more combative in the debate and his deliberate style was clear from his body
language.
th
The Third Presidential Debate Hempsted, New York October 15 video
The final debate was more feisty again, this time in a round table format which allowed the
candidates to spar off each other more. The constant references to “Joe the Plumber”, an
archetypal white working-class male who had heckled Obama in a rally were a crude
attempt to ensure that the working poor would not remain with the Democrats (a weak part
of the New Deal coalition).
The debates probably entrenched existing views about candidates more than they changed
them in 2008, although some polls had McCain losing a little more support as a
consequence of his performance than others and Obama’s poll ratings improved in their
immediate aftermath. Generally the TV debates do not play a significant role in presidential
elections but are a potential obstacle to be avoided along the way, however there have
been some notable exceptions. Notoriously the 1960 presidential debate between Nixon
and Kennedy resulted in the TV audience voting in surveys that Kennedy won the debate.
He was fresh and young looking, Nixon was older, stern (he had just badly hurt his knee
getting out of the car at the debate and was in pain throughout) and appeared to have a bad
case of five o’ clock shadow. However, the radio audience voted differently in polls,
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believing that Nixon had won the debate. In 1980 Reagan encapsulated the mood of the
country with his closing oration questioning whether “people were better off than 4 years
ago...” and framing the rest of the campaign against Carter. They often are a no-win
situation for the incumbent president who will be attacked on his record throughout
without having a similar opportunity to fight back on outcomes rather than simply policies.
2) Events and the effect on Opinion Polls throughout the race
Find the NYTimes page on different polls over time here (click to change the organisation).
As we saw earlier McCain came out of the conventions with a slight lead over Obama in the
opinion polls for the first time since May. This was however very short lived and the single
factor that caused the growing Obama poll lead more than any other was the state of the
US economy. As Bill Clinton famously said in the 1992 campaign, “it’s the economy, stupid”.
On September 15th Wall Street was rocked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the
systemic weakness that suddenly became all too clear in the American banking system. The
Dow Jones (the US stock market) collapsed by 500 points in a day and it was clear that the
economy was potentially heading into a 1920s style depression caused by a collapse in
credit availability. As with all bad economic news, this was likely to hit the incumbent party
worst and all the more so because of McCain’s statements on economics:
•
•
McCain had previously admitted in a 2005 interview with Stephen Moore in the Wall
Street Journal:“I don’t understand economics very well” (WSJ article) which Obama
used consistently throughout the presidential nomination process as well as in the
campaign period (see Obama here 13/02/08) – surely a devastating admission at such a
huge time of economic uncertainty.
On the day of the collapse itself, McCain was still uttering the same soothing mantra
consistently that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong” when it was
patently obvious that it wasn’t. (This YouTube clip features his utterance of the phrase 18
th
times right up to and including the 15 September 2008).
Obama and McCain were tied at 47% each on 15th September but McCain declined almost
consistently in the polls from that moment on while Obama’s position strengthened.
Obama released an expensive 2 minute TV advertisement explaining how his plan to revive
the economy would work while McCain’s adverts merely stressed how in such a time of
uncertainty “experience” was the all-important quality that voters should look for.
Even McCain’s handling of the subsequent congressional bailout debate was botched. He
chose to suspend his campaign and return to Washington to support the passage of the
bailout package through Congress, stating that he would not participate in the first
scheduled presidential TV debate on 25th September if Congress failed to pass it as putting
together a bailout package that they would accept would be crucial for the sake of the
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economy throughout the next president’s term whoever it might be. Obama kept
campaigning but participated in the talks about the bailout with the congressional
leadership and the White House.
In the end Congress did block the bailout package and McCain did participate in the TV
debate anyway – he was left looking as though he had poor judgement on the crucial issue
of the day.
Given the extent of the public dissatisfaction with the Republicans and Bush in particular,
the enormous problems in the US economy that hit during the campaign itself, McCain’s
weak response to the crisis and weaker choice of Vice-Presidential running-mate and
Obama’s enormous financial advantage it was somewhat surprising that McCain kept the
election close until late October in the polls. This led some commentators to hypothesise
about a possible “Bradley effect” – would race play a role in denying the popular candidate
a victory at the polls. This is named after Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley who lost in 1982
to a white opponent in the Californian gubernatorial election after significant leads in all the
available polls.
3) Money and Organisation
Perhaps one of the biggest factors in the campaign itself was the colossal advantage that
Obama had over McCain financially (a rare feat for a Democratic presidential candidate).
Obama rejected the $84 million of federal funds for the election campaign because this
would mean that he could not raise more money privately and that he would be capped on
how much he could spend in particular states. McCain accepted the restrictions and took
the public money. He was therefore limited to what he had left over from the primary
campaign and this $84 million for the remainder of the campaign.
Obama raised $66 million in August, $150 million in September and over $50mn in
October giving him almost triple the amount of additional finds at his disposal over this
period of the campaign, with fewer restrictions than McCain had on his federal financing.
This was spent primarily on airtime for his television advertisements (see (1)). Not only
could he afford more advertisements but they were also targeted at the key states and
increasingly more and more states which had been McCain leaning tipped into being
competitive and then too close to call. This was nowhere more true than in North Carolina
and Virginia, in the latter Obama spent three times as much on advertising as McCain in
October.
Obama also used his funds to finance his HUGE organisation which conducted the most
effective “voter registration” drives and “get out the vote” operations ever seen. He had
more than twice as many field offices as McCain in most of the states and his long primary
campaign had also served an important purpose in mobilising interest among Democratic
supporters about the race. The Democrats registered many more new voters than the
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Republicans, and in particular 2008 saw a large increase in turnout among 18-29 year olds
and black and Hispanic voters. (see USA Today article here about new wave of Democrat voter
registration during the primaries, including many switching allegiance so that they could
vote in the Democratic primary). Black voter registration was 10% lower than white
registration in 2004, but due in large part to the efforts of the Obama campaign black
voter registration was only 4% points lower than white voter registration in 2008.
See this excellent Washington Post article for more detail about the advantage in registration of
new voters that the Democrats enjoyed over the Republicans in key states such as Florida,
Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Iowa, Indiana and North Carolina. All of these states
would turn blue in 2008 to make the victory for Obama a far more convincing one than most
analysts had predicted – certainly when the campaign started back in September.
Throughout the final weeks of the campaign Obama was increasingly forcing McCain to
campaign to hold onto states that should have been firmly Republican rather than allowing
him to attack the Democratic states.
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The 2008 Result.
Obama won all of the 19 states that Kerry won in 2004 and added an extra nine states
(Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and Virginia
plus the vote of the 2nd congressional district in Nebraska) worth an additional 113 votes.
This meant that Obama won in the Electoral College by 365 – 173.
Obama won 69,460,000 votes out of a total of 131,260,000, gaining 9.63 million more votes
than were secured by McCain – in modern terms this was a convincing election victory. He
increased the Democratic share of the popular vote to an impressive 52.9% (up by 4.6%
points on 2004). This was the highest share of the popular vote since Bush defeated
Dukakis in 1988 with 53.4%. The Republican popular share fell by 5% points to 45.7%.
National Popular Vote: 52.9% Democrat 45.7% Republican.
Obama won 6 of the 7 big seven states in 2008: California (55), New York (31), Florida (27),
Pennsylvania (21), Illinois (21) and Ohio (20). McCain only won Texas (34). For the first time
ever in 2000, the Democrats managed to win a majority of the seven big states but still lose
the election, by carrying California, New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois. They repeated the
“feat” in 2004. This was why the Electoral College vote in 2000 and 2004 was very close
despite Bush winning in 30 and 31 states respectively. McCain still managed to win 22 states
(44%) in 2008, but because they were predominantly smaller population states and due to
the winner take all system his electoral college share (32.2%) significantly underrepresented his share of the popular vote (45.7%). Obama’s success in gaining large
increases in Democratic support in states such as Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado,
Nevada, New Mexico and even Indiana broadened their coalition of states considerably and
may have a long term effect on the shape of future presidential contests.
Excellent detailed figures for the 2008 election results are available here.
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The Demographic Breakdown of Voting in 2008
This Guardian interactive state of the nation site is useful for a basic demographic introduction via maps.
More detailed demographic information is available here
GENDER
MEN (47% of electorate)
In 2008 Obama won the male vote 49% to 48%. This was the first such win since 1976
(excluding the plurality for Clinton over Bush in 1992, because of the effect of Perot on the
data). This was despite the fact that in 2008 McCain won the white male vote by 57% to
41%, demonstrating that the Democrats performance in this category was dependent on
their even larger majorities amongst black and Hispanic males.
WOMEN (53% of electorate)
Obama gained 56% of the female vote in 2008 up from 51% for Kerry in 2004. Since 1996
the Democrats have won a majority of the female vote and this is often attributed to their
position on abortion since the notorious Roe V. Wade judgement and to their more proactive approach to ensuring equality. Other policy areas which may bring more female
support are reduced defence spending (not in 2004), opposition to capital punishment (this
depends on the Democrat – Clinton was pro-capital punishment and indeed signed the
warrant to execute a mentally retarded murderer in Arkansas in the days running up to the
1992 election) and support for gun control (unless you’re a “hockey mom”!). A better
measure though, because it factors in the strength of the Democratic candidate of that year,
is how women voted compared with how men voted – the difference is known as the
GENDER GAP. In all of the elections since 1964 a higher proportion of women have voted
Democrat than men except in . In 2008 the gender gap opened up to a 12% point
difference. The party platforms of the two parties were unequivocally different on where
they stood in the abortion debate in 2008, unlike on many other issues. (Reagan briefly won
the female vote in 1984 and Bush held on in 1988).
RACE
WHITE (74% of the electorate)
Obama only gained 43% of the white vote (to McCain’s 55%) but this was the highest level
of support for the Democrats amongst white voters since 1976 (1996 tied at 43%) and it was
up 2% points on 2004. It is probable that the cross-cutting cleavage of income is at work
here with richer groups tending to vote more conservatively (see INCOME below). Only 1829 year old white voters favoured Obama (54%) with white voters aged 30 or above
supporting McCain at a pretty consistent 57%. White women also favoured McCain 53%46%. In Indiana (a state that voted for Bush over Kerry by 21% points) Obama won 45% of
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