ANDRES: Victory or defeat?

OPINION:

Conventional wisdom about American voters is a powerful currency in the pundit economy. Reporters and consultants trade generalizations like legal tender in their political commentary. Unfortunately, some of their factual coinage turns out to be counterfeit.

As this election year unfolds, it’s helpful to separate myth from fact. Much of what we think we know — and that which gets repeated as gospel in explaining election results — turns out to be apocryphal.

Those are the main conclusions from an insightful new book titled, “Unconventional Wisdom — Facts and Myths About AmericanVoters,” by political scientists Karen M. Kaufman, John R. Petrocik and Daron R. Shaw. Reading this book will help anyone interested in understanding the 2008 election, avoid common pitfalls in political interpretation that are perpetuated by the absence of rigorous analysis.

Take the “gender gap” - the tendency for women to align more with the Democrats than men. Many media accounts conclude that this phenomenon first began with the 1980 election, when a higher percentage of women supported Jimmy Carter over Ronald Reagan. In reality, the “gap” initially emerged in 1964 (Johnson vs. Goldwater), and then widened in the next two presidential elections. It nearly disappeared in 1976 in the Ford vs. Carter contest and then re-emerged in 1980 - leading many to conclude it was a new development that year. Conventional wisdom also suggests the “gap” is due to the Republican Party falling out of favor among females over the past 20 years due to the GOP’s position on issues such as abortion. In reality, the opposite is true, according to Ms. Kaufman and her colleagues. The growing political difference between men and women has come from increasing GOP alignment among men over the last three decades. “The structural foundation of the modern gender gap is a direct result of white men moving from the Democrats to the Republicans,” the authors write.

What about defining “swing voters” based on certain demographic characteristics? Are “soccer moms” or “security moms” or their male variation - “office park dads” or “NASCAR dads” - true swing voters? Ms. Kaufman, Mr. Petrocik and Mr. Shaw maintain a great deal of confusion exists here as well. Some think the “swing” universe is the same as “undecided.” This also turns out to be a piece of false conventional wisdom. Many who might tell a pollster they are “undecided” end up voting for the same party year after year, or don’t vote on Election Day at all. These are hardly examples of “swing voters.” The authors show that about a quarter of all voters fall into the category of voting for different parties over a series of elections, but these Americans are best defined by psychological characteristics - such as lack of political engagement and information - that can reach across a variety of social groups. “Soccer moms” may be a provocative way to label a potential set of pivotal voters, but it doesn’t stand up to empirical analysis. Some of them may indeed be swing voters, but it has more to do with their individual level of political engagement than with driving their kids to sports practice.

Then there is the enduring myth that Americans “vote for the person, not the party.” Wrong again. The authors note: “As a matter of fact, most voters identify with one of the two major parties and, when all is said and done, most partisans (even having flirted with defection) come back to their own parties when November rolls around.” Political commentary often neglects the powerful role of partisanship in American elections. It strikes many in the media as too mundane. Yet partisanship is such a commanding force, we already know how most Americans will vote -not a great fact to drive a dramatic media story line about the uncertainty surrounding the election. But no matter how prosaic, the fact that most Americans identify as Republicans or Democrats and will vote their party affiliation in November, is one of the inescapable “hard facts” of U.S. elections over the past half century.

You can excuse the press for perpetuating all these myths. After all, there are more media outlets covering the longest campaign in history, and they can only fill so much time saying we already know how about 80 percent of Americans will vote. But that doesn’t mean we can’t dig beyond the false conventional wisdom. Books like “Unconventional Wisdom” provide a truer perception of voter behavior. And for candidates, this volume’s insights could mean the difference between victory or defeat in 2008.

Gary Andres, who served in the first Bush administration, is vice chairman of Dutko Worldwide.