The Year of Nomentum
A long time ago in Democratic primaries, there was this thing called momentum. It’s pretty complicated, but basically, momentum meant that if a candidate won one primary, he (we didn’t have women candidates back then) was more likely to win the next one, and if he won a couple in a row — well, things were pretty much over unless he killed his wife in a drunken rage or something like that.
Remember John Kerry in ’04? Everyone thought of him as that boring Senator who looked vaguely like a Muppet until he won the Iowa caucus. The next day, we knew he was the most electable candidate out there.
Okay, so momentum might not be dead. It was certainly a force in the Republican race, helping McCain win South Carolina after his New Hampshire victory. But in the Democratic race this year, momentum was nowhere to be found. It was as if the normal laws of physics governing primary politics suddenly vanished.
The media never quite caught on. After Obama won the Iowa caucus, many thought the race was over. Of course, Clinton won in New Hampshire
You would have thought that at this point, the media would have learned their lesson –even George W. Bush has said, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…we won’t get fooled again.” But as Timothy Noah pointed out in Slate, much of the media remained Momentucrats, Noah’s word for news outlets that believed momentum, not delegates, would choose the nominee.
Super Tuesday was a split decision, but when Obama went on a string of victories, he was said to have the big mo’. Then it was Clinton. Then Obama. Then Clinton.
Even now, after Obama’s victory in North Carolina and strong showing in Indiana, the media continues to use the word momentum as a way of describing the state of the race. But the fact is, the Democratic nominee will be chosen by a delegate total, not by momentum.
Journalists have not only looked to primary wins but have also used trends in opinion polls to determine momentum. If a candidate is losing by 25 points in polls, and weeks later is only down by eight, he is said to have momentum. But this is ridiculous! Opinion polls have been proven time and again to be horrible predictions of the actual vote totals.
One might ask why the media is so slow to catch on. I could say that it’s because they’re stupid, corrupt, or just lazy. But in the interest of being charitable, let’s just speculate that they’re blindly influenced by the fact that momentum was such a force in all of the primary seasons in recent memory.
The real question is why momentum hasn’t been a factor. Mickey Kaus argues that Hillary Clinton benefits and suffers from a phenomenon of mutnemom; that is, reverse momentum. He argues that voters feel sorry for Clinton when she looks like she’s losing, but when she looks like she’s winning, they get to vote for Obama. This theory would certainly explain the seesaw nature of the race, but it supposes that voters act as a sort of single organism. After all, if voters in Wisconsin vote one way and voters in Texas another, that’s not voters acting indecisive — it’s different voters! Of course, this argument could also be applied to momentum itself.
In this Democratic primary season, one thing has remained constant: demographics. Voter blocks, such as African Americans, college-educated white men, and senior citizens, to name a few, have remained fairly consistent. Perhaps this is because of the identity of the candidates themselves. Obama is significantly younger and newer to national politics, and is running as the first African-American nominee. Clinton represents a return to the political concepts of the 1990’s, and is running as the first female nominee. These two identities are like giant icebergs. Compare these to the identities of John Kerry and Al Gore who are, by comparison, indistinct and overlapping. Obama and Clinton may have similar policy positions, but their respective styles and what they symbolize are very different.
Democratic voters aren’t indecisive or ambivalent. They’re just evenly split. Obama doesn’t have the momentum. He has the majority of delegates. And votes.
