Brendan Nyhan

Time’s cover story on Ronald Reagan’s influence on President Obama opens with this anecdote (emphasis added):

In May 2010, Barack Obama invited a small group of presidential historians to the White House for a working supper in the Family Dining Room… [A]s the conversation progressed, it became clear to several in the room that Obama seemed less interested in talking about Lincoln’s team of rivals or Kennedy’s Camelot than the accomplishments of an amiable conservative named Ronald Reagan, who had sparked a revolution three decades earlier when he arrived in the Oval Office. Obama and Reagan share a number of gifts but virtually no priorities. And yet Obama was clearly impressed by the way Reagan had transformed Americans’ attitude about government.

We can’t be sure whether this passage accurately reflects Obama’s thoughts about Reagan or the authors’ own perceptions (they do quote Obama later saying “What Reagan ushered in was a skepticism toward government solutions to every problem”). Either way, though, it’s nonsense — part of a creeping Grover Norquist-ism that distorts our understanding of Reagan’s presidency.

I’ve repeatedly pointed out that Reagan’s powers of persuasion have been wildly overstated. Contrary to the claims of John Judis, George Packer, and others, neither Reagan’s thematic message nor his populist rhetoric prevented him from suffering politically as a result of the 1981-1982 recession. Similarly, despite the claims of his former chief of staff Ken Duberstein (who is quoted making a similar statement by Time), Reagan’s high-profile speeches didn’t build consensus for his agenda — they often increased opposition to it, prompting his own pollster to suggest that he stop using that approach.

The same principle applies here. While Reagan scored some important legislative successes early in his term and was re-elected on the strength of a timely economic recovery, the claim that he “transformed Americans’ attitude about government” is not well-supported. Consider UNC political scientist Jim Stimon’s measure of public mood (Excel spreadsheet), which captures Americans’ demand for more or less government spending over time*:

Stimson’s data suggest that Reagan’s election was a reflection, rather than a cause, of growing anti-government sentiment. Once Reagan took office and began to enact his agenda to reduce the size and scope of government, public demand for government actually grew, reflecting the thermostatic pattern Stimson documents. In other words, rather than decreasing demand for big government, Reagan’s presidency actually increased it. Here’s Stimson in his book Tides of Consent (83):

Conservatism peaked with the election of Ronald Reagan; it was not produced by him. The 1980s did see pretty fundamental change in Washington, but … [t]he first 100 days or so of the Reagan administration produced it all. The spring of 1981 saw Reagan’s tax cut, his one serious effort to limit domestic spending, and the buildup of defense. The rest of the Reagan years, and the 1980s generally, were a time of conservative retreat… [T]he nation saw then a public opinion that encouraged conservative action before it happened and then said “enough” when it did…

Specifically, the public shifted against Reagan in its preferences toward government spending during the 1981-1988 period (Tides of Consent, 8-9):

[A] trend was indeed under way. Something was going on out in the country. Millions of people, having moved away from supporting government spending in the late 1970s, were moving back in support in the 1980s. Those millions were barely perceptible in the survey numbers and hardly noticed in Washington. The percentages of those who thought that “too little” was being spent on education [previously 53% in 1980 and 56% in 1982] moved from 60 in 1983 to 64 in 1984, down to 60 in 1985, then 61 in 1986, 62 in 1987, 64 in 1988. And the opposite numbers advocating “too much” fell at the same time. Over the eight years of the Reagan administration the percentages moved from 53 to 10 (83% too little) to 64 to 4 (94%). On the environment, it was the same, moving from 48 to 17 (74%) in 1980 to 65 to 5 (93%) at the close of the administration.

In reality, the primary political lessons of Reagan’s presidency are (1) beat a weak incumbent in what is perceived to be a “mandate” election and (2) hope economic growth rebounds in the two years before your re-election. Obama’s “bromance” with the phony narrative of Reagan’s presidency is likely to lead him astray.

Update 1/31 2:19 PM: For more, see Jonathan Bernstein and also Greg Sargent, who notes an emerging Democratic strategy of trying to capitalize on public opposition to specific budget cuts:

[A]s I noted below, it seems more and more obvious that Obama and Dems are placing a heavy bet on the very phenomenon Nyhan pinpoints here: People suddenly start to like government once officials start talking specifics about how to downsize it in the real world. Not even Saint Ronald Reagan could talk them out of this apostasy.

Update 1/31 2:34 PM: Matthew Yglesias looks instead at policy outcomes, comparing the size and scope of the welfare state pre- and post-Reagan.

Update 2/1 12:42 PM: See also Paul Waldman.

* See Stimson’s books Public Opinion In America, The Macro Polity (with Erikson and MacKuen), and Tides of Consent for much more on policy mood.

[Cross-posted to HuffPost Pollster]

In the spirit of my election night bingo post, here’s a quick prebuttal to the spin you will hear from the press tonight in its coverage of President Obama’s State of the Union:

-Instant polls of people who watch the speech are meaningless (it’s a non-random sample skewed toward the president’s supporters, among other problems).
-The claim that presidents get a bounce from the speech is a widely debunked myth (most don’t).
-Legislative seating may matter over the long term, but not for one night.

I’ll be watching to see what media outlets hype their instant polls as evidence of a bounce.

As for commenting on the speech itself, I’ll repeat what I said in 2007:

What’s more tedious: the State of the Union, or SOTU blogging? I’ll pass.

It’s the most overcovered event in politics relative to the amount of the news that’s made. Even presidential debates (which rarely matter) have unscripted moments. This is the president reading a highly vetted speech from a Teleprompter.

[Cross-posted to brendan-nyhan.com]

Via email, Alan Abramowitz sends a plot showing that President Obama’s approval levels with various demographic and political groups in the January 17-23 Gallup poll are almost perfectly correlated with his 2008 vote share among those groups:

Abramowitz’s finding is consistent with exit polls which showed that the swing against the Democrats in 2010 was relatively uniform across demographic groups. The implication is that politicians and the media spend too much time worrying about appeals targeting specific groups and too little on what moves support up and down across groups (principally, the economy).

[Cross-posted to HuffPost Pollster]

Sarah Palin’s image problems have gotten even worse. A new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll conducted January 14-16 (immediately after the controversy over her ham-handed response to the shootings in Arizona) finds that perceptions of Palin have declined significantly since October:

A new national poll indicates that 56 percent of all Americans have an unfavorable view of Sarah Palin, an all-time high for the former Alaska governor. That 56 percent unfavorable figure is up seven points from just before the midterm elections, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Wednesday morning.

Thirty-eight percent of people questioned in the poll say they have a favorable view of the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, down two points from October.

…According to the survey, Palin’s unfavorable rating is up 10 points among women, compared to just three points among men, and among independent voters, her unfavorable rating has grown a whopping 14 points.

A new USA Today/Gallup poll conducted during the same three-day period recorded nearly identical results (38% favorable, 53% unfavorable), though the estimated decline since the previous Gallup poll (November) was less dramatic.

If Palin is indeed considering running for president, it’s worth noting just how unsuccessful she’s been at building the necessary public profile. Since last year, I have been tracking her poll numbers relative to the most obvious comparison — Hillary Clinton, another polarizing female politician. Clinton could never fully shed the high unfavorable ratings she acquired during her husband’s presidency, but she worked hard to improve her image and maintained higher favorable ratings during the period before the Democratic primary campaign began in 2007. By contrast, Palin’s ratings have been consistently worse during the comparable 2008-2011 period, and the gap between her and Hillary has widened dramatically in recent months (data from Gallup):

In this sense, Sarah Palin is more like Dan Quayle, a former vice president who never recovered from his image problems, than Hillary Clinton, who came within a few primary votes of being the Democratic nominee in a favorable electoral environment. Back in September, I argued that the the Intrade contract for a Palin run, which was then trading at 69%, was too high. It’s now at 60%, but that still looks overpriced to me.

Update 1/20 6:59 AM: Andrew Sullivan points out that Palin’s numbers among Republican are still competitive with other well-known presidential contenders:

Her unfavorables are indeed impressive. They just reached a new high in CNN's poll of 56 percent. But what I'd note as well is that her favorables remain at 38 percent, which is obviously concentrated in the GOP base. The poll of polls puts it at 35 percent – again roughly the core GOP vote. Huckabee is more popular as a person among Republicans, according to Gallup, but when you combine star power and favorability in the GOP, Palin is very much in the running:

Update 1/20 9:42 PM: Similarly, the new CBS/New York Times poll conducted January 15-19 puts Palin’s ratings at 19% favorable/57% unfavorable, which is down from 22% favorable/48% unfavorable in early October.

[Cross-posted to HuffPost Pollster]

One of the ways that the media hypes the significance of events in the news is by declaring them “turning points.” It’s important to be skeptical of these statements, which frequently don’t hold up to scrutiny. Despite the literal meaning of the term, journalistic claims about “turning points” are best understood as metaphors that are used to used to manufacture dramatic narratives.

The headline of Matt Bai’s first story in the New York Times after the shootings in Tucson was titled “A Turning Point in the Discourse, but in Which Direction?” In it, Bai used the event to set up a series of false oppositions between possible future outcomes:

The question is whether Saturday’s shooting marks the logical end point of such a moment — or rather the beginning of a terrifying new one…

The more pressing question, though, is where this all ends — whether we will begin to re-evaluate the piercing pitch of our political debate in the wake of Saturday’s shooting, or whether we are hurtling unstoppably into a frightening period more like the late 1960s.

The country labors still to recover from the memories of Dealey Plaza and the Ambassador Hotel, of Memphis and Birmingham and Watts. Tucson will either be the tragedy that brought us back from the brink, or the first in a series of gruesome memories to come.

Just to point out the obvious: If you don’t even know which direction the trend is moving yet, it’s not clear you’re at a turning point. Bai’s headline enhances the dramatic contrast between two extreme scenarios — a rosy world of civility or a doomsday scenario of political violence. In reality, neither is likely to occur.

Within a week, Bai was backtracking — his Week in Review piece on Sunday can be read as a struggle to reconcile the dramatic “turning point” frame he had created with the more mundane, complicated reality of what we’ve seen since the Arizona massacre:

If the shooting didn’t feel like the turning point in the civic life of the nation that some of us had imagined it might become, then it may be because such turning points aren’t always immediately evident. Or maybe it’s because the murder suspect appeared to have no obvious ideology, his crime an imperfect parable for the consequences of political rhetoric.

Perhaps, though, we have to consider another explanation — that the speed and fractiousness of our modern society make it all but impossible now for any one moment to transform the national debate…

None of which is to argue that the country and its dialogue can’t be reshaped by events. But it may mean updating our theory of fundamental change to rely more on the power of cumulative, smaller revelations, rather than singular, transformational ones. Perhaps the modern society just changes more grudgingly and more gradually than it did before.

Bai contrasts a series of claims about supposed “turning points” in the past (such as the Army-McCarthy hearings) with the failure of the Oklahoma City bombings and 9/11 attacks to transform American society. He could be right that “modern society just changes more grudgingly and more gradually than it did before.” It’s far more likely, however, that single events almost never reshape social and political life. The turning points of the past seem more clear in large part because the messiness of those events has faded in our memory and we remember the narratives that have been constructed after the fact. Consider, for instance, the much-hyped moment in which Walter Cronkite condemned the Vietnam war and Lyndon Johnson realized he had lost the country’s support — it turns out to be a myth.

A related narrative speculates about whether President Obama’s speech at the Arizona memorial service will have dramatic effects. These accounts typically invoke President Clinton’s speech after the Oklahoma City bombing, which Clinton and supporters frequently cite as a turning point that revived his presidency and paved his path to re-election. Here, for instance, is how Clinton and an aide portrayed the events in a postmortem on the 1996 election:

One aide close to Mr. Clinton called the speech given by the President ”perhaps the single most important turning point,” in restoring the President’s voice and sense of purpose. On Air Force One today, returning to Washington from Arkansas, Mr. Clinton, too, called the bombing a turning point but said it was because it changed the public mood. ”The American people sort of began to move back to the vital center after Oklahoma City,” he said. Recalling the ”bitter, bitter rhetoric” of the time, he said the bombing ”broke the spell in the country as people began searching for the common ground again.”

In reality, as Mark Blumenthal points out, Oklahoma City wasn’t a turning point in any measurable sense. It produced a “small, temporary increase [in Clinton’s approval] that faded by summer’s end;” “the real engine of his rebound was the ongoing revival of the U.S. economy.”

It’s possible, of course, that the Tucson shootings or the president’s response to it will have some small effect on our nation’s politics, but the idea that it will restore civility or decrease polarization is implausible. What’s more likely is that the president’s speech in Arizona and/or his State of the Union address will be framed as “turning points” if the economy improves and Obama wins re-election in 2012. If the economy continues to perform poorly and he loses, however, some other “turning point” will be selected to “explain” his defeat (the outburst of anger against health care reform in summer 2009, the Republican landslide in the midterm elections, etc.) — whatever best fits the narrative.

Update 1/18 11:21 AM: Right on cue, Hotline on Call chimes in with the same narrative (via Mark Blumenthal):

If Pres. Obama earns re-election in 2012, expect most pundits to point to his gripping speech in the wake of the tragic Arizona shooting as the turning point in his first term. New polling from the Washington Post and ABC News shows why.

Obama’s approval rating has jumped to 54 percent — his highest in months. Eight in 10 respondents approved of how he responded to the tragedy, including 71 percent of Republicans. Even his approval rating among Republicans jumped from 8 percent to 22 percent.

The reason? Obama has reminded people why they like him — even if they don’t necessarily like his policies. Obama’s personal ratings are very high in the poll. Nearly six in 10, for example, say Obama understands the problems of people like them — his highest rating on that question in more than a year.

Even if this bump holds up in other polls, it will dissipate quickly (just as Clinton’s did after Oklahoma City). The turning points that matter will come in the form of economic performance, not dramatic speeches.

Update 1/20 10:13 AM: W. Joseph Campbell, the author of Getting It Wrong: Ten of the Greatest Misreported Stories in American Journalism, did some digging into the supposedly transformational exchange between Joseph Welch and Joseph McCarthy that Bai cites in the piece, and finds that it doesn’t appear to have been a turning point either:

[Bai] went on to consider a few supposedly “transformational moments” of the past, such as the televised Senate hearing in 1954, when lawyer Joseph N. Welch upbraided Senator Joseph McCarthy, declaring:

“Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

It was a moment, Bai wrote, that “resonated throughout a country that was just then discovering the nascent power of television. Years of ruinous disagreement over the threat of internal Communism seemed to dissipate almost overnight.”

The sweeping claim caught my eye…

As Thomas Doherty pointed out in Cold War, Cool Medium, a fine study of television during the McCarthy period,the hearings “were not a saturation television event in the modern sense. The refusal of NBC and CBS [for commercial reasons] to telecast the hearings blacked out whole regions of the country from live coverage.”

…Welch’s comment certainly attracted attention. But briefly.

…[A] database review of the reporting in the Times and four other leading U.S. newspapers indicates the Welch-McCarthy encounter was at the time essentially a one-day story.

The database search for articles, editorials, transcriptions, and letters to the editor that contained “McCarthy,” “Welch,” and “sense of decency” returned 14 items in the period from June 9, 1954, to June 30, 1955.

Ten of the 14 items were published June 10, 1954, a day after Welch rebuked McCarthy. The remarks were reported that day on the front pages of all five newspapers–the Times, Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post.

But none of the 14 items was published after June 25, 1954. In other words, none of the items was published during the time late in 1954 when the Senate voted to censure (“condemn” was the term) McCarthy’s conduct…

The Welch-McCarthy encounter assumed “turning point” status in the years after 1954. But in the moment, in June 1954, it was recognized as dramatic but not “transformational.”

[Cross-posted to HuffPost Pollster]