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Already the results of two focus group projects in different places (Nevada and Michigan) already strongly suggest that Palin did not sway the independents or the Clinton supporters that she needed to in order to overcome their concerns about her experience. Thing is, that shouldn't have come as any surprise to anyone who has ever done a political focus group this election season.
You see, I moderate focus groups for a living--mostly on the corporate side, but with some political work thrown in. I've done a couple of projects for non-partisan 527s and NGOs who are nonetheless on the progressive side, talking about what matters this election season. I was a precinct captain for the Obama campaign, talking to conservative Dems and independents. I also live in a Republican district, and don't miss an opportunity to talk to regular voters about what's on their minds. And anybody with half a brain who does this for a living could have told you that Palin's speech wouldn't work to persuade the independents and Clinton supporters McCain needs.
Without revealing too much (my clients' research results are proprietary), what I can tell you without hesitation are four universal factors:
1. Most importantly, times are too tough and the public too worried about their economic security to sweat the small stuff.
2. Issues trump personality this year. I know we say this every election cycle, but it really is true this year. People are apprehensive about the issues, and they're paying more attention than ever. Allow me to give you a quote from a Republican I talked to in a focus group setting:
I like McCain personally. He's a war hero. I would have voted for him eight years ago, four years ago. But the issues are way too important now. People are in trouble.
3. Voters have very low tolerance for partisan red meat this year. This cuts both ways: voters no more want to hear about the reasons we got into Iraq (though many acknowledge it was for oil) than they want to hear about God, guns or gays. They want solutions.
4. Economics trumps all. Only in the Midwest does Iraq play even a close second fiddle to economic concerns. Voters want solutions to stagnant wages, massive debts, gas prices, healthcare and a host of other economic concerns. They're sinking, and they want the government to do something.
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By all four of those measures, Sarah Palin's speech was an absolute disaster.
1. In an election where the voters find "small" unappealing and want big, bold solutions to weighty problems, Palin's speech did little but extol the virtues of small: small towns, small government, small-scale issues and small-ball politics. She gave voters nothing profound, no inventive solutions or even inventive perspectives. At the end of the day, voters still had no idea what she would do to solve their problems.
In fact, she did spend an inordinate amount of time criticizing Democrats for wanting to increase the size of government. In an environment where voters are worried that politicians are selling out government infrastructure and not paying attention to job losses, and where "high taxes" don't even break the top five issues, selling the governor's plane on eBay and firing the governor's cook aren't exactly selling points.
2. As a personality on stage, she was terrific. Too bad that voters aren't really interested in personality this year. They want problems solved, they want change and they want answers. Sarah Palin talked a lot about her family and her values, but she provided no answers and talked very little about the issues that matter most to Americans.
3. It was a great piece of Ciceronian oratory--but like most Ciceronian oratory, it was nasty, cutting, vicious and full of divisive red meat. It was exactly the sort of grating partisan rhetoric that voters have said repeatedly they are turned off by.
4. Outside of oil drilling, there was almost nothing about core economic issues in her speech. In fact, they were so assiduously avoided that I can't help but wonder if independent voters felt almost insulted by the nonchalance of it all. Coupled with Rudy 9/11's rhetoric about "giving workers the right to work", Republicans clearly have no understanding what the problem is. It's not that workers can't find jobs necessarily: it's that the jobs they can find don't pay enough to cover the bills.
What she did manage to do without a doubt is motivate and mobilize to a certain degree the evangelical base. But Republicans must take that for granted, else Obama will win in a devastating landslide. What the Palin pick was designed to do was appeal to independents and to Hillary's voters. By that measure, I'm almost certain that she flopped terribly. I could be horribly wrong, of course, but already the data are appearing to bear me out.
Of course, insofar as the speech was written for her she may escape much of the blame for this debacle. But that doesn't matter now: she gave the speech. She owns it.
And now the GOP will get to pay the price.
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