OK, so this should be the last post on the Mayer Model for a while. Whew.
The thing about the Mayer model is that its prediction failed in the only competitive race in 2004, and it looks as if it will fail in one or both of the competitive races in 2008. Howard Dean, of course, had been leading in the national polls before the Iowa caucus, and had also, I believe, led in fund-raising in 2003. If you look at the national polls at Pollster.com on the Republican side, it’s clear that Rudy Giuliani, who the Mayer Model predicts will win, is sinking fast. And the Mayer Model predicts that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee, which seems likely, but far from certain.
So, does the Mayer Model only describe the process between 1980 and 2000, a matter of six cycles? Was there a change between 2000 and 2004 that widened the difference between the Mayer Model and the world? I think there may have been. I’m not sure, but here’s some of what I think happened.
First, I think fund-raising changed, particularly on the Democratic side. Dr. Dean was able to nearly bypass the old-guard establishment, so his fund-raising ability did not represent the approval of any substantial part of that old guard. I don’t want to overstate it, and it’s the lesser of the two criteria anyway, but I do think that Dr. Dean and Mayor Giuliani enjoyed a substantial boost from fund-raising sources that would have been considered non-traditional, and which affect the predictive power of the model.
Second, the primaries moved earlier and have been bunched differently. That’s been a gradual process, and I don’t know how strongly I believe that there was a tipping point between 2000 and 2004. The ability of earlier frontrunners to recover from losses in Iowa and New Hampshire was greater. They had longer to do it, and could focus on a few states to claim recovery in. Now, Hilary Clinton has to be quick. In 2000, Super Tuesday was March 7, in 1996 March 12, in 1992 March 10, in 1988 March 8. In 1984, there was a drawn out succession of Super Tuesdays throughout March. This year, a gazillion delegates will be chosen on February 5, and it’s not even remotely regional. There’s less chance for the frontrunner to wear down a challenger with superior organization.
It’s also possible that traditional organizing is playing less of a role than it did, so the frontrunner doesn’t have as many volunteers in place, and has a harder time turning the volunteers (and the money) into votes. I also would guess that money is cheaper, in a sense, that the increase in political donations generally means that challengers have enough money to have some organization on the ground everywhere, which erodes the advantage of the candidate with the better, earlier organization.
Finally, it’s possible that after twenty years of talk about momentum, after enough people bought the story about a volatile primary season and the hijjus influence of Iowa and New Hampshire, after a generation of people were fed the Drama Model rather than the Mayer Model, we simply made it true. After Howard Dean lost in Iowa, we (in the Party) panicked and, believing that he no longer had any momentum, gave him none. If enough Republicans believe that Rudy Giuliani can’t be the candidate without the delegates from Iowa and New Hampshire, then he can’t. The Parties have always had the choice to give Iowa and New Hampshire the disproportionate influence we were told they had. On the whole, though, we preferred to vote for the candidates we liked. Maybe that’s not true anymore.
Perhaps, in fact, we prefer a dramatic selection process to a democratic one. Or we would rather have the reality match the story than somehow make the story match the reality. I think the former is easier. But I think that if we had believed, as a Party, in the Mayer Model, the cycle four years ago would have been different. And some of what happens over the next month will depend on what we believe about this process of selecting a candidate.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.