This election will be decided primarily by voters who disapprove of President Bush but are uncertain that Barack Obama is the right person to replace him. And the decisions of those voters may turn largely on which candidate succeeds in persuading them to view the choice through the frame that he prefers.
In their daily jousting, Obama and John McCain are not only arguing about specific issues, they are also dueling to influence the factors that these wavering voters will weigh most heavily on Election Day. Each campaign wants conflicted voters to focus on a different contrast -- a different frame -- as they reach their final decisions. Call it man versus plan.
McCain wants voters to focus on personal comparisons between him and Obama. At various times, McCain has stressed different aspects of that comparison -- experience, values, ideology, or commitment to reform. He has touted his own qualifications and fiercely derided Obama's. But the common theme is that McCain wants voters, as they step into the booth, primarily to be asking themselves: Which of these two individuals possesses the experiences, skills, and values I expect in a president?
Obama wants voters to see the election less as a referendum on two individuals than on two divergent directions for the country. He presents the fundamental choice in terms more generic than personal: "change" away from Bush, or "more of the same." Obama wants voters, as they step into the booth, primarily to be asking themselves: Do I want the country to continue on Bush's course, and, if not, which of these candidates is most likely to provide a new one?
The candidates' initial responses to this month's financial crisis perfectly captured their contrasting strategies. Obama immediately released an unusual two-minute TV ad in which he talked directly to the camera about his economic agenda, promised "real change," and asked viewers to "read [his] economic plan." McCain fired back with an ad that promised: "Experience and leadership in a time of crisis." Obama stressed the plan; McCain, the man.
The principal audience for these arguments is voters who disapprove of Bush and are unhappy with conditions in the country but remain torn about this election. McCain is already squeezing out about as much support as he can expect from the one-third of voters who approve of Bush's performance: McCain is winning about 85 percent of them. That's about the same share as George H.W. Bush won in 1988 among voters who approved of President Reagan and slightly more than Al Gore won in 2000 among those who approved of President Clinton, according to exit polls.
There has been more volatility this year among the much larger group of voters who disapprove of George W. Bush. His negative rating consistently exceeds 60 percent. That means that McCain can't win unless he attracts almost one-third of the voters dissatisfied with the president. To put that challenge in perspective consider this: On average, George H.W. Bush in 1988 and Gore in 2000 won only 10 percent of the voters who disapproved of their party's incumbent.
Through mid-September, the Diageo/Hotline tracking poll found McCain winning just under one-fourth of voters who disapprove of Bush, Obama nearly two-thirds of them, and the rest undecided. McCain gains among those discontented voters when he can focus them on personal comparisons -- as he did at his party's convention or through the summer ad offensive dismissing Obama as a vapid celebrity. Obama rises when those voters focus on their discontent over the country's direction. Sometimes Obama steers them that way through his own arguments; more often, he polls best when circumstances push voters in that direction, as the financial crisis has done. All this means that in the competition to frame the choice for the voters who could decide this election, events may play at least as large a role as either nominee.
Ronald Brownstein is Atlantic Media's political director.
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