McMahon as Sylvester...
by Tom Schaller
Sun Jan 18, 2004 at 03:43:17 PM PDT
That is the only issue that matters to political insiders right now. What's a hard count, how is it calculated, what are the campaigns expecting in terms of their hard counts, how much will organization and resources matter to turning hard counts into actual caucus-goers on Monday night, and do these polls mean anything?
Let's start with the last question. Yes, the polls (most recently the Des Moines Register poll released last night with Kerry at 26 pct, Edwards 23, Dean 20, Gephardt 18) have everybody buzzing, although they are inherently inaccurate. Why? For one thing, the Iowa voter list that all the campaigns purchased is not exactly current. The Iowa Democratic Party charged each camp $65K for the list, knowing they had a monopoly to exploit. There are addresses where there is no longer even a physical house, and there are people who have registered recently who are not on the list. And then, of course, campaign rules allow people to register and even change their party registration on caucus night. So, trying to figure out who is voting when there are names on this list that are stale, and people not on the list who are live and in play, is tricky.
No, it's impossible.
Moving backward through our questions, that means organization is important, but NOT just because of delivering people, but by identifying who their "ones" are - committed people who have pledged to show up to their precinct caucuses, the sum of which is the ongoing "hard count" for each campaign, with each candidate hoping the hand he's holding close to the vest reveals the best hard count. Gephardt just said on Russert he thinks a hard count of 35,000 will be enough to win. I'm not sure, because I'm thinking the total caucus-goer total may exceed 160K, and 35K would be a solid 25% of 140k, but not enough of 160K.
And that raises the issue of what, exactly, the denominator will be -- the total statewide caucus-goer turnout Monday night. The higher that number rises, of course, the lower the campaign's hard count ratio translates into total percentage of support. (Of course, the final dominator on Monday is the same for ALL campaigns.) So, if the indications are that turnout is rising, but your hard count is stagnating or only making slow progress, that means you're losing those newly-mobilized caucus-goers to somebody else.
And that's why the question on everybody's lips at Chequers bar last night was this: "What's Dean's hard count?" Steve McMahon, Joe Trippi's partner in the Dean brain trust, looks like Sylvester grinning with Tweety Bird in his mouth. He won't give the number, of course, but he seems very confident that his hard count will be a high enough numerator no matter what the denominator. And here's why: The rumor last night is that, of Dean's hard count "ones", a startling 60 to 65 percent of them are self-identified, first time caucus-goers. McMahon could be spinning, but that doesn't make sense - he surely does not want to raise expectations and then have to explain comparative failure on Tuesday. Second place, certainly third, and definitely fourth, would be comparative failure.
If it's true about the share of committed "ones" that are first-timers, however, and if the total number of hard count Deanies (first time or rarely-participating or newly-affiliating Democrats, whatever) is that high, this is important because this means Dean is toting a disproportionate share of these beneath-the-radar voters. That is, if the demoninator is larger than expected or we've seen historically, those new or newly-engaged people are disproportionately committed to Dean and his growing numerator is pushing up the growing denominator. One related point: The dirtier the list the Iowa Democratic party sold all the campaigns, the better it is for the campaigns with the most field resources, those of Dean and Gephardt, because they have had the time to work through and clean it, tighten it. In theory (and practice?), Dean and Gephardt have worked out kinks that Kerry and Edwards are just now encountering.
Bringing this full circle, the New Republic's Ryan Lizza and I pestered McMahon about whether these late polls, and the whole Kerry/Edwards surge news cycle, is potentially the BEST thing to happen to Dean, because it is lowering expectations for Dean's campaign without Dean having to do a darn thing himself.
McMahon conceded it could be, though he really didn't seem bothered about the polls or any expectations-game post-Iowa spin opportunities. His take is that it is what it is - the number will be what it will be. And he repeats that this is just Moment 1, and that the others cannot keep up over the long haul of the next two months in states where Dean is up and running and they are not.
Still, I think the poll numbers of the past two weeks (especially last 4-5 days) set things up this way: If Dean wins by any margin at this point, suddenly he is again the candidate who continues to surprise his doubters.
But that only happens if the Tweety Bird (Dean's true, undisclosed hard count) is really real, and not just a few feathers poking out of the corners of McMahon's mouth. We'll know in about 34 hours.
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