New School Politics

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Losers like me who have been paying close attention to the 2008 presidential race, including the polls, since at least two years before the election are already beginning to feel frisky. Looking at the polls (yes, I watch the polling 340 days before the first primary vote is cast) I noticed a glaring hole in the opinion of each party to date: about 10% of the each party says they support a candidate who is not running. For the Democrats, Al Gore (frm. VP); for the Republicans, Newt Gingrich (fmr. Speaker of House).

Click here for the Democrat’s polls. Click here for the GOP polls.

The point of this observation is that a significant portion of each party is swayed towards a particular point of view that will be up for grab assuming that their choice does not run, which in all likelihood (moreso for Gore) they will not. In two crowded primaries (primaries are always crowded) 10% is a large chunk of the vote, and it would be gold if any one of those running could pick up a large portion of that persuasion.

Now, the Newt constituency is probably less significant for a couple of reasons: (a) that Newt has a less ideologically defined following and (b) that Newt himself may run.

The former Speaker’s support comes from an array of strong, base (but not necessarily evangelical) conservatives–of the inside-the-beltway variety–who likes him because he has experience and is an intelligent conservative politician. But at the same time Gingrich is pragmatic and not even as ideological as others running within his own party. There is probably not any one candidate who would take a very large portion of Newt’s following, nor is there any one thing that any of the Republican candidates could do to take it. There are any number of capabilities not limited to Giuliani and/or McCain taking fiscal and/or hawkish conservatives, Huckabee or Brownback taking social conservatives, Duncan Hunter taking the boarder-enforcement interests, or even Ron Paul taking the libertarian wing of Newt’s constituency.

As we will see, a major theme of the GOP primary will be contenders jockeying for the support of institutional conservatives. Gingrich’s 10% represents much of this group. And if no one is able to court those voters it is not out of the question that we could see a late, dramatic entry from Speaker Gingrich for the Republican nomination.

On the democrat’s side, the Gore constituency may be far more important for the opposite reasons that Newt’s is probably less significant. Namely that (a) Gore’s following does have a definitive identity and (b) Gore will not run.

While Gingrich’s level of support makes more sense, because he has not ruled out a run, Gore has repeatedly said that he will not run. Why then has he consistently received 10% of the support in the polls including 14% in the latest poll (USA Today/Gallup)? Its because Gore’s following represents a devoted ideological interest: environmentalists. The environmentalist base is loyal and devoted–so devoted their support of the Green Party ironically cost Gore the election in 2000–and growing. Strangely, despite all the commotion about global warming none of the democratic candidates have really pushed the environmentalist stance to appeal to the green vote which is why Gore is still receiving such a large fraction in the polls. If any one of the Democrat candidates does go strong for the environmentalist vote it could make a very significant increase in support (try 7-8%), possibly big enough to put them over the top. Still, Mrs. Clinton’s lead appears to be very big and even an 8% for Edwards or Obama may not be enough.

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The Gore and Gingrich leave 10% vacuum in each primary by New School Politics, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.