Warrior Nation

Ruy Teixeira posts some interesting observations by Frank Newport of Gallup which seem to indicate that Kerry should concentrate on the economy instead of terrorism:

The public's rating of the economy's direction is significantly worse in states that are considered to be Democratic or battleground states than in states considered to be safe for the Republicans. In other words, the economy has a high probability of being of the most importance in precisely the states Kerry must win in order to become president.

As noted, independent voters are more likely than Republicans to say the economy is the top problem they will consider in their presidential vote.

There is evidence from data analysis from three key showdown states that voters' perceptions of the economy in their state is related to their propensity to vote for Kerry.


Texeira endorses the idea that Kerry should run the fall campaign on the economy and maybe he's right. My feeling, however, is that the issue of who should be commander in chief in an era of terrorism, which will be endlessly and repetitively flogged by the GOP, is actually a proxy for the concept of "leadership" and that kind of "leadership" is something that people, particularly undecideds and mushy swingsters, are likely to see as dispositive.

I have no doubt that most people when asked what issue they "care about" the most say they the economy or jobs or health care. But, voting is a more complicated equation than where politicians stand on the issues no matter how much people in focus groups claim otherwise. (Frank Luntz certainly knows this.) And swing voters in particular are looking for certain personal characteristics because if they had any kind of political philosophy they would choose a party and vote for that party's candidate. (Most independents actually vote consistently for one party.) In America 2004, the warrior king will beat the policy wonk. That's the zeitgeist.

I'm reminded of the 2002 election in which the polls all stated that people really wanted to talk about kitchen table issues. Then Bush launched his "triumph of the will" tour and engaged the emotion of people with a lot of pomp and pageantry. We came close, but no cigar. I'd hate to see that happen again.

I think this is a gladiator fight not a civil debate. We should battle Bush on his own turf this time out.