I usually tell anyone who will listen to avoid pinning your hopes on a single poll, or even a couple of polls. It’s human nature to selectively affirm poll numbers that reinforce your candidate or party preferences, while discounting those that do not. I see this behavior all the time among the voters, party elites, and campaign staffs who closely follow political contests. You are better off looking at how the averages move over time, in order to get a realistic sense of how the race is progressing (for example, Pollster.com aggregates polls for lots of key races).

 

Still, I don’t want to deprive the many New Hampshire Democrats who have been starved for some positive campaign news of an opportunity to feel a bit better about their candidate for U.S. Senate, Rep. Paul Hodes. As we’ve seen this week in new polling results from Public Policy Polling (despite the confusing press releases) and WMUR-TV's Granite State Poll, Hodes has made up some ground against various potential general election opponents. I have been arguing since last February that Hodes will get his best opportunity to close the gap after the Republican primary in September, and my guess is that he will need to do it primarily with the help of a large turnout of our state’s Democratic voters.

 

While it is possible that Gov. Sarah Palin’s recent endorsement of Kelly Ayotte could be a drag on Ayotte’s ability to attract independents in the general election, the Granite State Poll data suggest that Ayotte could still be pretty strong with that group of voters in November. So, Hodes will need to continue bringing heretofore ambivalent Democrats back into the fold. After this week, perhaps a few more of these voters will think he can do it.

I’ve written previously on several occasions about how tiresome I find former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s endless public flirtation with a presidential bid. For all of his political and personal machinations, Gingrich is just as likely to bow out as a potential candidate when other first-tier presidential hopefuls begin their campaigns in earnest next winter. Nonetheless, the media feels compelled to document Gingrich’s every reflection on all of the variables driving his decision, just in case.

 

While Gingrich probably knows he has no chance of being the Republican nominee for president, he engages in this very public dance with the idea of a run because it helps him in several ways. Maybe it helps him sell books and line up paid speaking gigs, but I think his real motivation is that it keeps him relevant to the national political discourse (at least as perceived by the media), which is something I can’t imagine Gingrich living without.

 

So, you can guess how thrilled I was to see a national media figure finally call Gingrich out on this issue in his own backyard, Fox News. Chris Wallace, host of Fox News Sunday, asked Gingrich whether he was playing the candidate card to get more attention. I couldn’t have put the question to Gingrich more succinctly myself. He of course replied that he’s never been more serious about a presidential bid, which should be enough to keep the media along on the ride for now. But it was at least momentarily gratifying to see someone call him on it publicly and face-to-face. Unfortunately for me, Gingrich may now feel the need to appear even more likely to run. As I said in one of my previous posts on the subject, just run already!

 

Note: Back posting on Thursday. -Dean

You can catch me as a guest on New Hampshire Public Radio’s The Exchange tomorrow morning. We’ll discuss the changing (or is it?) partisan demography of the Granite State, and speculate a bit about what our state’s political complexion might look like for the 2010 midterm elections and beyond. You can listen live here (top menu) at 9 a.m., or check out the podcast later here.

For the past few weeks, I have commented in various media outlets that the candidates in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate would soon turn on each other (and especially on Kelly Ayotte) in an attempt to shake up what has been a fairly static race up to this point. Well, from everything I’m seeing and hearing now, that finally appears to be happening in earnest. On a related note, a journalist recently asked me whether the reason the race had previously been so tame was because party chairman John H. Sununu was keeping a lid on any intra-party attacks.

 

While I don’t have any particular inside knowledge on what Sununu is doing behind the scenes, I would suggest that there are limits to what he can do to influence campaign behavior. According to a John DiStaso source in the Union Leader (scroll down to A STERN LOOK), Sununu recently mentioned that he was unhappy with the new tone of the Republican campaigns and planned to reach out to the candidates. But the reality is that party chairs typically don’t have a great deal of control over the tactical decisions of these largely decentralized campaign organizations.

 

The issue here is that thus far the four major candidates have all sounded largely indistinguishable from each other, a common problem in a primary where most of the negativity is directed at the other party. So, the only way for the campaigns to draw distinctions now is to argue that the similar positions of their competitors (especially the frontrunner) are wholly inauthentic. That’s what I expected would happen, and that is what we have seen over the past week. My guess is that it will only intensify as we get closer to the primary, even if Gov. Sununu wishes it were otherwise.

Here’s one for my burgeoning file of pointless opinion poll stories. This one talks about new Gallup data showing that former President Bill Clinton is currently more popular than President Obama, who is himself trailed by former president George W. Bush. So, perhaps we should repeal the Twenty-second Amendment to the Constitution (presidential term limits), as I can’t think of much else we can do with this particular tidbit of information, and we already know from Clinton that he would have liked to run for (and probably would have won) a third term.

 

These kinds of presidential comparison polls get a lot of extra attention in the media when a sitting president’s numbers are down (as are Obama's), and they typically feed into the buyer’s remorse meme often pushed by his opponents. The reality is that like virtually all former presidents, Clinton has benefited from the passage of time. He’s just further down the road to redemption than former President Bush. For my readers who can’t fathom an eventual Bush rehabilitation, check back with me in about 10 years, and you just might be surprised.

 

The appropriate comparison is of course to look at public approval at the same moment in time across all three presidencies, so just before the respective first midterm election for each of the three men (1994, 2002, and 2010). I can tell you without even looking at the data that President Bush wins that popularity contest hands down, as the 2002 midterm elections were in some respects the apex of his popularity and power in office. I recently wrote about why I don’t find these sorts of contemporary comparisons to be especially useful.

I have always been somewhat ambivalent about the power of political endorsements. They may serve as a useful signal among political elites about where political loyalties reside, and they can potentially provide lesser known candidates with desperately needed credibility. But like a lot of political scientists, I am skeptical about their ability to ultimately drive voters to pull the lever for specific individuals.

 

So, what about Gov. Sarah Palin’s endorsement of former New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte’s bid for the U.S. Senate? I can’t say that it comes as a big surprise to me. The move fits with Palin’s desire to build a network of up-and-coming female Republican leaders, and Ayotte is sufficiently viable as a candidate that the move doesn’t represent a huge risk for Palin.

 

As for how it might affect the race, I guess it could give Ayotte some much-needed conservative cred among primary voters, but it’s probably more problematic for Ovide Lamontagne, who has worked hard to position himself as the true movement conservative in the primary race. A Palin endorsement of Lamontagne over Ayotte certainly would have spiced things up a bit.

 

But Palin’s blessing is the proverbial double-edged sword. If she were to insert herself more fully into the race, her polarizing nature could potentially hurt Ayotte with moderates and independents in the general election. Also, I can think of few things more likely to mobilize Democrats to turn out for Congressman Paul Hodes in November, who will gladly hammer away at this on a daily basis from now until Election Day.

 

In the end, the Palin endorsement is likely to quietly fade away by November, as Ayotte positions herself more centrally for the general election. I’ve written previously about the limitations of Palin as a political force in New Hampshire. I will say that I felt bad watching Ayotte (who ostensibly wanted this endorsement) on television last night having to say that she too is a proud Mama Grizzly. She seemed to take to the task with good humor and a relatively straight face.

 

Note:  Back posting on Thursday. -Dean

If you have been paying attention to New Hampshire’s electoral politics over the past week, you’ve probably noticed the remarkable amount of attention being given to Republican Senate candidate Bill Binnie’s new television ad, Jail or Jobs, which mentions former New Hampshire Attorney General and primary opponent Kelly Ayotte by name.

 

I can’t really call the spot a negative ad, since it doesn’t actually say anything bad about Ayotte. It’s more of a true contrast ad, which attempts to paint Binnie’s strength as job creation, and thus as more appropriate for the current economic climate than Ayotte’s strength, which would be putting people in jail. So, it’s really an extension of Binnie’s earlier biographical ads in its essential claim that his background in business makes him best suited for the job at hand, but at least someone is finally moving to directly engage others within the primary field.

 

That the ad has gotten so much attention underscores just how tame this particular party primary has been thus far. With less than two months left before the September 14^th vote, almost no sharp elbows have been thrown among the group of Republican competitors. Whether this is a result of the candidates” personalities or intentional campaign strategies, the tenor of the race (with its relentless focus on President Obama and Congressional Democrats) makes it difficult for primary voters to draw distinctions between the candidates on any dimension other than personality.

 

Perhaps that is sufficient for voters to make up their minds, but Binnie’s ad suggests that at least he knows a continuation of the status quo campaign environment would favor Ayotte, who is still the nominal frontrunner. We’ll see if the other candidates come to the same realization and finally engage Ayotte and each other, while they still have a little time left to act.

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