Listen up, boys and girls. Here’s the deal: in any given, two-candidate race both candidates begin with 30 percent of the vote nailed down, locked up, on ice, in the bag. Both candidates begin with 30. These are the glassy-eyed ideologues, the true believers, the folks who will gulp the Kool-Aid. They are the straight party-line voters. They’re not going anywhere. You can’t run them off. This is the “base” thing you hear about.
For a candidate, there are several real implications to this.
The big one is that Democrats nor Republicans decide the election-independents, the middle 40 percent, the 40 in the 30-30-40, will pick Virginia’s next governor.
There is a second implication that smart candidates know.
They waste time and money playing to the base. They can’t get the base but once-and they already have it. Preaching to this choir is useless-and expensive.
There is a third: folks in this middle 40 percent are single-issue voters. A single issue motivates these folks to hit the button one way or another. It is not the same issue-it may be taxes, abortion, guns, transportation, you name it. It may be any number of things, but make no mistake: these folks are single-issue voters.
And, finally, there is a math implication. Smart candidates know that they don’t need the whole 40 percent-half, plus one, will do it. If you have 30 to begin with, and pick up 21, you win. That’s about as complicated as it gets. The first candidate that bundles together half plus one of these single-issue voters is elected.
You think a vote is a vote?
Forgetaboutit.
As a deciding factor, one of these middle 40 votes is worth twice the value of a base vote. (The startling thing is that 21 percent of the voters, slightly more than 1-in-5, will actually decide an election.)
That’s the candidate’s perspective. What is the voters’? That one is not complicated either.
Candidates are forever blathering on about the “future,” as in “the future of our children” and similar clap-trap, knowing all the time that the future is myth in politics, that the electorate-and the electorate is this middle 40 percent–always, always, always votes the past, the immediate past, and how it relates to their individual issues.
If they feel good about the immediate past, they vote to stay the course and choose Door Number 1. If they don’t feel good about it, they vote for change and choose Door Number 2. All the Big Ideas are behind Door Number 3. Few people wander there.
(A note here: charter schools do not a Big Idea make. No amount of money will elevate it into one. There is simply no market demand for charter schools here in Virginia. Virginians are too satisfied with their public schools to whip this molehill into something bigger.)
This referendum aspect to elections is what makes surrogates so valuable. Those associated in a positive way with the recent past are worth their weight in gold; those associated in a negative way have the value of-and feel like-old millstones.
So, what’s the forecast for November?
If you’ve read this far, you know the answer to that one.
Barnie,
Your 30-30-40 model only works if there is optimal turnout. If there is election fatigue and people may not be excited enough or care enough about an election to turnout (independent voters remaining apathetic and voters on both ends of the spectrum not completely in tune, then it would make strategic sense to energize and maximize the base first (bank the sure votes).
I do like your “doors” example, though. That is a great way to describe your point.
If you have to “energize” or “maximize” your base, save your money. You’re beat already. Thanks for the note. BKD
That’s what makes this election particularly interesting. Nobody has a lock on the independents but nobody has a complete lock on the base. Deeds makes the left wary on issues like guns while McDonnell may give fiscal conservatives some pause with his recent comments to the Washington Times and his role regarding proposing to give the transportation authority taxing power. I think that’s what makes this election particularly fascinating. Both candidates will have to energize their base while appealing to independents and neither Obama nor Bush will be relevant as “boogeyman” figures/foils in the election.