When it comes to elections, does being likable make you winnable? President Obama will have the opportunity to put this to the test.
With the two political parties’ conventions over, it appears that the president has been able to capitalize on last week’s performance in Charlotte and increase his lead over Mitt Romney in the national polls. The Democratic based is fired up, and overall, a majority of voters think Obama paints a more optimistic picture for the country’s future than his Republican opponent.
The more positive, upbeat and likable approach of the Obama campaign seems to be working. Some of the most recent examples of the Democrats’ friendlier face include VP Joe Biden’s cozy sit down with a group of bikers, and the moment the president was lifted off the ground—literally—by a hulking pizza shop owner in Fort Pierce, Florida.
Then there was Obama’s lighthearted birther humor during an encounter with a boy in Orlando who was born in Hawaii. “You were born in Hawaii?” the president asked, adding: “You have a birth certificate?”
Much is said of the importance of likability in presidential elections. That blueblood patrician George W. Bush had those everyday, regular type of guy qualities — the kind of candidate you’d want to sit down and have a beer with — which reportedly helped him in his contests against the comparatively stiff and wooden Al Gore and John Kerry. The Supreme Court may have helped Bush even more against Gore, a subject for a separate discussion.
Conventional wisdom suggests that a bad economy portends bad things for an incumbent president. The recent August jobs report shows the economy is still stuck in neutral, with official unemployment slightly above 8 percent. Unofficially, we know it is much higher. The middle class has contracted a great deal over the past decade and lost much of its net worth, as a record number of people are plunged into poverty and relying on food stamps. Among the common folk, blame for the economic mess is assigned to various actors, including Wall Street, to the policies of President Bush, and ultimately to President Obama himself.
And yet, despite the economic uncertainty, a post-convention Obama is increasing his lead both in battleground swing states and nationally. It’s gotta be the positive message, and the lack of one on the other side.
Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham seems to agree. “If you can’t beat Barack Obama with this record, then shut down the party,” said Ingraham. “Shut it down, start new, with new people because this is a give-me election, or at least it should be.”
“If I’m hiring messaging people — I’m finding out for instance who did the original GEICO gecko commercial?” she said. “Because that guy or gal who did actually knows how to brand something,” she added.
At the convention, Obama benefited from an upbeat convention with strong, effective and moving speeches from first lady Michelle Obama and President Clinton that helped seal the deal for the president. The members of the crowd—not merely the roster of speakers at the podium– was diverse like America. This election season is all about political theater, to be sure, but the Democrats have been able to capture a sense of honesty in their game. And people know when you’re faking it.
Meanwhile, with viewership way down from 2008, this year’s Republican convention in Tampa did not connect with voters. For Romney— some of whose major gaffes included insulting his British hosts at the London Olympics, and telling a Pennsylvania baker that his cookies tasted like they ”came from the local 7 Eleven”—there was a lot on the line. Conveniently transforming himself from a moderate former governor of liberal Massachusetts to an arch conservative far to the right of Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater, Romney has exuded the trustworthiness of a used car salesman. Relentless attacks from the Obama camp on his days running Bain Capital only made things worse.
And the GOP’s Tampa convention did not help Romney in his quest to sell a product that an apparently insufficient number of Americans want to buy.
Any attempts to appear upbeat, inclusive and friendly clashed with a Republican platform hostile to women’s rights, gay marriage and immigrants, and a crowd of convention delegates that was over 90 percent white. Two delegates were removed for throwing peanuts at a black camerawoman and calling her an animal. Further, Clint Eastwood’s viral performance in Tampa helped to solidify the notion that the GOP is a party of elderly white folks arguing to an empty chair.
Moreover, does anyone really believe, as Ann Romney insisted, that she and her husband, the wealthy son of a wealthy governor, fell on hard times and ate tuna fish and pasta on an ironing board in the basement?
Meanwhile, the Tampa convention has helped to paint a negative image of Romney running mate Paul Ryan. Once hailed as a no-nonsense, straight-shooting budget wonk, Ryan now comes off a truth-challenged candidate who cannot come clean about his marathon finishing time. In addition, his working class image is betrayed by his wealthy family background, and the way in which he, like a bully, would seek to take away Medicare, giving the elderly coupons for private health care they cannot afford in the first place.
Most of all, despite attempts to convince us otherwise, Mitt Romney appeared cold, stiff and out of touch at his own convention, what MSNBC host Chris Matthews compared to Prince Charles visiting New Zealand, only without the kilt.
And with 56 days left until Election Day, President Obama has an 80.7 percent chance of winning reelection, according to Nate Silver. If he wins, he may very well attribute it to a genuinely positive, forward-looking attitude— an inevitable retooling of the symbolic “hope” and “change” message that comes after four years of growing gray hairs in the White House.
Republicans are off message and grasping for straws, united only in their hatred of the other guy and anger towards those who don’t look like them. Voters want more than that it seems. Romney could learn a lesson from Obama right now, but will likely continue to wage race card politics in a nod to his base, through thinly-veiled references to welfare and birth certificates. It may already be too late for him.
Follow David A. Love on Twitter at @davidalove