Conventional Wisdom and the 2008 Election: The Nomination Fight

by Jody C. Baumgartner and Peter L. Francia

A recent article in the New York Times ("Soothsaying: A Scorecard on Conventional Wisdom,"March 9) provided a scorecard surveying what political pundits have gotten right and wrong in the election of 2008.

The article's author, Mark Leibovich, takes issue with the conventional wisdom that "money is everything." On this point, we have no substantive disagreement with Leibovich, only a point of emphasis. Leibovich is correct to note that this oft-repeated claim has been wrong--at least on the Republican side--in 2008. However, some developments have been more surprising than others. The failure of Republican millionaire Mitt Romney, for example, is not unprecedented. Many well-funded candidates have failed in the past: Howard Dean in 2004, Steve Forbes in 1996 and 2000, and John Connally in 1980 immediately come to mind. What is surprising is that Dean, Forbes, and Connally all lost to other very well-funded candidates. This makes John McCain's victory the real head-scratcher in 2008. As recently as the past summer, the McCain campaign was effectively broke, forcing him to make major changes to his campaign staff. McCain's ability to persevere under these circumstances is almost unheard of and certainly did break with the conventional wisdom. In short, the "money" story of 2008 is not the failure of Mitt Romney and his large wallet of money, but the success of John McCain and his comparatively limited resources.

Leibovich also argues that the "Iowa is everything" assertion is overblown. Again, we mostly agree with Leibovich, but would add an important caveat. The Iowa Caucuses may not be everything to everyone, but they are everything to some. After all, Iowa did serve to narrow the field of presidential contenders in 2008. Democrats Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, for example, were officially finished as presidential candidates after their poor showings there. For them, Iowa certainly was everything. Indeed, for other long-shot candidates, such as Jimmy Carter in 1976, success in Iowa was critical to his eventual nomination victory. For frontrunners, however, Leibovich is correct about Iowa. In addition to John McCain, who finished fourth in Iowa in 2008, Bill Clinton (1992), Michael Dukakis (1988), George H.W. Bush (1988), and Ronald Reagan (1980) all survived Iowa defeats and went on to win their party's presidential nomination. Put simply, "Iowa is everything" for underdogs, but not so for frontrunners who have the resources to overcome any early troubles.

Finally, Leibovich writes that the "young people don't vote" claim has been incorrect for the 2008 primaries. While the early returns are undeniably promising for a large youth turnout in the general election, November is still months away. And past history does make clear that young people vote--consistently--at lower rates than their older counterparts. This has been true ever since the 1972 election--the first to follow the ratification of the Twenty-sixth Amendment, which lowered the voting age to eighteen. The excitement that Senator Barack Obama's campaign has generated may certainly change this if he is the Democratic nominee; however, that still remains to be seen.

Jody C. Baumgartner and Peter L. Francia are assistant professors of political science at East Carolina University and the authors of Conventional Wisdom and American Elections: Exploding Myths, Exploring Misconceptions
(Rowman and Littlefield, 2007).