The etch a sketch Week

After an unscripted week, Republicans, and the Romney campaign in particular, must be looking forward to their scripted National Convention week.  The past week started off with Romney’s campaign being forced off message by the “legitimate rape” comments of the once unknown House member and current – yes, he’s staying in the race – Senate candidate Todd Akin.  The week ended with a self-inflicted wound: Mitt Romney’s “joke” that “No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate.”  It’s the economy, stupid!

The Republican National Convention could not come too soon.  But damn the weather: Tropical Storm – soon to be upgraded Hurricane – Isaac is making his way up the Florida coast.

The start of the convention is delayed a day because of the weather, but the GOP has nothing to fear.  Let us not forget that the first day of the 2008 GOP convention was essentially delayed a day because of Hurricane Gustav. The McCain campaign still got a 6 point bounce in the polls.

The Gallup Poll shows that from the conventions from 1964 to 2008, the median “bounce” from a convention is 5 points.  The bounce alone is not very predictive of electoral success, in 1980 Carter’s bounce was 10 points were as Reagan’s was 8 points and in 2008 McCain’s bounce was 6 to Obama’s 4.  So, we need to add another layer to this puzzle. 

The Gallup Poll reported that “[s]ince 1964, the first election year for which Gallup could reliably measure convention bounces, there have been only two examples in which one candidate consistently trailed until the time of his party's convention, but took the lead after and never relinquished it. Those occurred in 1988 for the elder George Bush and 1992 for Bill Clinton.”  They added: “[t]he most common pattern has been for one candidate to consistently lead prior to both conventions, and to maintain a lead during the convention period, even if his opponent got a convention bounce.”  (http://www.gallup.com/poll/110110/Gallup-Daily-McCains-Bounce-Gives-Him-5Point-Lead.aspx) 

So, as the conventions roll along it is essential to watch the national tracking polls, but more importantly to watch the state polls in critical battleground states such as Ohio (but that's for another posting).

Related to bounce, the convention week gives the campaigns an opportunity to introduce the candidates to the American public, or at least the public paying attention.  And for Romney this week is critical.  The question that the Romney campaign needs to answer is: Who is Mitt Romney?   

In answering this question, the Romney campaign must make connections between the candidates and the viewing public.  The problem for Romney is that President Obama not only leads him in most polls, Obama also leads Romney in the "favorability" category.  Sure, the Presidential Election is not, and shouldn’t be, a popularity contest, but voters find it difficult to vote for someone that they can’t connect with or they don’t like.

The highest hurdle for Romney is that he does not have a strong personal narrative that can be used to connect with most Americans.  Just by looking at the last three presidents we see strong personal narratives used in connecting to voters.  Obama and Clinton told similar biographical stories: raised by their mother and grandparents, worked their way through school or took out loans, and wanted to give back to the community so they bypassed high paying jobs on Wall Street.  For George W. Bush the narrative was somewhat different: quite literally a born-again narrative.  Bush was a "compassionate conservative," and his faith was central to his life; he had been down and out but he had worked his way to being a successful governor of Texas.

Romney needs a lasting bounce . . . so, what will be the story that Romney tells?