by Mark Silva
The extraordinarily early-breaking presidential election campaign of 2008 “isn’t making a good first impression’’ on the voters whom candidates are courting, a survey suggests.
“The 2008 presidential campaign already seems to be wearing out its welcome with many Americans,’’ writes Rich Morin, a longtime polling expert for newspapers who has joined the independent Pew Research Center.
“When asked to sum up their impression of the early-blooming campaign in a word, a majority of the public has a negative assessment,’’ Morin writes in a new Pew report, “while just one-in-five has a kind -- or even mildly favorable -- thing to say.’’
It’s not so much the candidates that are a problem, it appears, but the fact that the campaign is unfolding so early.
With 52 percent of those surveyed saying they have a negative impression of the presidential campaign, men appear to be more critical of the campaign (55 percent negative) than women (48 percent.)
And the older people are, the more negative they tend to be about it – 57 percent of those over 50 and 56 percent of those over 65.
“These tough critics tend to be older rather than younger, white rather than black, and men rather than women,’’ writes Morin, who in his time has written about polling for the Washington Post and the Miami Herald. “They're more likely to live in the suburbs than the city or country and more concentrated in the Midwest than in the East. They also are more affluent and better educated than the typical American.’’
There is nothing new about public disdain for political campaigns, he notes -- “it's almost a national birthright.’’
Compared with previous campaigns, the 2008 isn’t looking all that bad.
“A relatively large minority of Americans -- at least in comparison with public opinion at this stage of previous presidential contests -- say they're interested and engaged by the 2008 campaign,’’ Morin writes.
“It's also notable what many of this year's critics are most upset about. Their biggest beef is with the early start of Campaign 2008, rather than with the candidates themselves or the issues or tone of the contest. The single most frequently volunteered impression of the presidential race so far: Too early.’’
The survey of 1,503 Americans was conducted in late July.
Pew asked people in one word to summarize their impressions of the presidential race. Slightly more than half (52 percent) used a negative word or phrase to describe the campaign, while 19 percent had a positive reaction and 10 percent were neutral.
For more of the numbers, see the report.
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Comments
What's their point? They would prefer candidates be chosen in the proverbial smoke-filled rooms by the 'insiders'? They prefer to choose a candidate based on a few soundbites gathered in a few months before the primaries? Their method of winnowing down the list of potential candidates is based on finding a single reason NOT to vote for them, so a long primary season means all of them would eventually be disqualified? They prefer limiting the primaries to already well-known names, as a short primary season means no one new has enough time to become known?
Or more likely...they just don't like politics and don't want to feel guilty that they're not paying attention to their responsibilities as citizens. They probably complain about jury duty, too.
Posted by: Tom J | August 17, 2007 1:05 PM
Maybe they'll give an election and no one will come. Nah, we couldn't be that lucky.
The politicians would show up and vote for themselves.
Posted by: Halsted | August 17, 2007 1:08 PM
Are voters tired of the campaign? Or are they tired of the media's campaign coverage?
Posted by: Bruce | August 17, 2007 4:57 PM
I was tired of it last November.
Posted by: lochnessmonster | August 17, 2007 7:52 PM
Ya think???? This presidential election began last year, for crying out loud!
Posted by: John D | August 18, 2007 12:10 AM
I'd like to a)see even more candidates choose to run, b) disallow the horse race mentality of the media, c) ask people who care to follow to see where candidates stand on tangible issues for us all and d) those who don't follow politics to not vote. If people who don't follow politics vote based on appearance and not on substance, we're all stuck with mediocre candidates. And that, my friends, applies to both major parties. The Democrats and the Republicans both have their share of losers.
Posted by: Tom | August 18, 2007 11:24 AM
A Gore/Richardson team could publish position papers in January and drive all the rest of the candidates home. It seems that the best candidate should be the one that can win with ease. Al Gore.
Posted by: c. perry | August 19, 2007 12:14 PM
Is there anyone out there old enough (like me) to remember the television coverage of J.F.K.'s funeral? It was monotonous, ponderous and mind numbing. The same shots of the same horses, carriages, soldiers and scenes of D.C. on every channel. The announcers, when they were announcing, spoke in hushed tones, as if they were covering a PGA tournament. And then they showed re-run after re-run after re-run. It was so genuinely horrible - especially on top of the grief everyone suffered because JFK was gone - that it had to be a black op. Of this I am sure.
I am seriously beginning to get the same feelings for our current, premature-and-certain-to-take-forever presidential campaign that I had for J.F.K.'s funeral. The same, monotonous clop, clop, clop, except this time from candidates (some of which could use another oat bag 'bout now). We have seen the same scenery over and over, such that no one's political position on anything is left open to question.
In the process, the real important questions facing our nation and society are obscured from the public, thereby insuring they will remain unanswered for the foreseeable future. No one is ever going to ask, for instance, how it is that we are going to: (1) fix our dysfunctional trade agreements; (2) reduce the debt; (3) wean ourselves off of foreign oil; (4) stop using the same monetary policies that drove this country into the great depression 80 years ago; (5) make the federal government practice fiscal responsibility and accountability; or even (6) extract ourselves from wasteful and unprofitable adventurism on foreign soil without making those areas of the world blow up in the wake of our departure. No, it would be too hard to ask those questions, or even to suggest some serious answers.
By my calculations, a good lot of the candidates for president are congress -men or -women. Instead of simply promising what they will do when they are president (when they have no power to introduce legislation), why aren't any of them busy putting their great ideas into bills to turn into laws now? Why aren't those who are not congressmen lobby partisans in Congress to get some laws together to further their agenda? After all, if their ideas are all so great, aren't they going to be more useful if they happen now?
This is what makes the current political campaign worse than J.F.K.s funeral. The funeral, at least, didn't have repetitious billows of hot air.
Posted by: John W. | August 19, 2007 8:28 PM