Carville: Blaming Bush Moves Voters (To Voting For Republicans)

This isn't just opinion. This is data collected from focus groups.

He finds the Blame Bush message actually costs the Democrats 2% at the polls.

The weakest messages assert we should “go forward, not back.” Voters are not moved by Democratic messages that say ‘go forward, not back,’ mention President Bush, compare then and now, or even that hint the economy is “showing signs of progress.” No matter how dramatically these messages set out the record of Republican obstructionism, their work for the wealthiest and Goldman Sachs, the millions of jobs lost and Democrats’ support for jobs, small business and new industries – these messages falter before the Republican attack.

The messages get lower scores and lose voters. After hearing this battle of Republican and Democratic messages, 8 percent shift their vote to support the Republican, while only 5 percent move to the Democrats. We lose ground. These messages are helping the Republicans.

But, as we can see in the rank order summary of the different messages tested, this is the weakest way to go into the election.

This framework provides the least help to Democrats running in this election, indeed, leaves the Democratic congressional candidate a net 2 points weaker, which we can hardly afford. This is the only framework tested in this project that leaves the candidates in a weakened position.

When listening to people react to this message in focus groups or watching them react to video clips of this message, they respond with a common sense that we should heed. People are intensely dissatisfied with the economy and are looking for solutions – anything less sounds like excuses or some political blame game. Though voters agree the economy was an “inherited” problem, they do not like to hear politicians blaming Bush or looking backwards.

For some, going back to four years ago does not look so uninviting right now: “I was doing a heckavah lot better under Bush.”

“Who wouldn’t want to go back to 6 or 8 years ago? There was less unemployment back then. I’d rather go back. I’d go back to 8 years ago. I would rather go backwards than forwards right now.” White non-college female.

Because a “go forward” framework implies that Democrats and Congress have made progress those voters do not feel, the message re-enforces the Republican framework for the election – a referendum on the Democrats’ performance on the economy. In the experiment described above (where voters read the two Republican messages and the two Democratic ‘go forward, not back’ messages), votes shifted to the Republicans not only on which party can best handle the economy but also on the congressional vote. The 5 percent who shifted to the Democrats was exceeded by the 7 percent of voters who moved to the Republicans – a net negative 2-point worsening of the race.

But what else do they have?

Thanks to Purple Avenger.

posted by Ace at 08:01 PM

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