Obama suffers from high expectations, Clinton benefits from low ones

[wyldwolf]

... judging a candidate based on expectations isn't something just reporters do, but voters do as well. Actually, if you think about your everyday life, you make judgments constantly based on whether a preconceived notion about someone (or some movie or some food) was true or not. "Frog legs aren't as gross as I thought" or "For all the buildup, that movie sure was a disappointment."

(One} candidate in particular (is) benefiting from the voter expectations game: Hillary Clinton.

(She is) courting electorates with some negative preconceptions about (her). Because (she has) been in the media pressure cooker known as New York City, the perceptions of (her) are more hardened. Yet in hindsight, these preconceived notions may prove to be an asset.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard this from a voter: "She's not nearly as cold as I thought she would be." or "She's so approachable." Of course, the "she" in this instance is Clinton.

It's been one of the more remarkable aspects to this campaign. And how Clinton benefits from low expectations from both the press and voters.

It is something the Clinton campaign understands well. She has lower hurdles to convince voters she's not a negative stereotype.

Thus every time she laughs, it proves to some undecided voter that, gasp, she's human.

Contrast that with the high expectations Barack Obama has to deal with. How many times have you read voter reactions to an Obama speech that said something like "I was hoping for more” or “He wasn't as inspiring as I thought he was"?

Many undecided/potential Obama supporters expect to hear Obama give his 2004 DNC convention speech and want to be brought to tears or whatever it is that they were brought to after watching him three years ago.

In many ways, that's an awfully high expectations bar that voters (let alone the media) are setting for Obama. Naturally, this bar is hard to meet or exceed.

This is what is bizarre about how presidential campaigns are often covered.

For instance, there's a poll this week showing Clinton's lead in the New Hampshire primary at 23 points over Obama. If her lead about been 30 points last month and Obama had "closed" the gap to 23 points, it would be Obama that was exceeding expectations.

But instead, because Obama started his campaign with such a bang on the process front (garnering big money, big crowds and big buzz), initial polls had Obama doing very well against Clinton nationally and in states like New Hampshire.

Or to look at it another way, ask the Obama folks six months ago whether by the end of September it would be a plus or a minus to be in a dead heat in Iowa, 20 points behind in New Hampshire and even in the money race. They would have unanimously agreed it would be a plus. But that early start proved to be a problem.

Why? Lower expectations for Clinton (with both the media and voters) and higher expectations for Obama.

Clinton simply needs to prove she's more likeable than her stereotype, less polarizing than how the press perceives her, and less liberal than her critics on the right paint her. It's not a bad place to start. It's always easier to pleasantly surprise someone than it is to please someone who already has high expectations.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20994306/

[papau]

1. I expect more from a Wellesley College/Yale lawyer than I do from a Columbia College/Harvard lawyer

:-)

[reality based]

2. Some interesting points on the Democrats.

I don't think I agree with the article that Ghooliani is benefiting from being not as liberal as expected. I think his standing is due to his well known authoritarian image and 9-11 aura. A lot of Repubs are suckers for that. Southern Republicans are probably perfectly happy with his past run-ins with blacks while he was mayor. He hasn't been able to seal the deal because a)he's been a 9-11 Johnny one note, b) he does have those social liberal drawbacks, and c) even Repubs are uneasy with anyone who supports the Iraq war so strongly.

By trumpeting Hillary's negatives so early and often and then acting surprised when she seems both human and competent, the media has probably contributed to her maintaining dominance at this stage. But she has been the leading candidate since 2004. (I don't view the laugh as humanizing her, incidentally. It seemed to be aimed at aggressively deriding the question and was very effective against Wallace especially. It was an "I paid for this mike" power moment rather than an amiable "There you go again." She shouldn't keep doing it or it will be compared to Gore's strained sighs.) The Iraq vote has hurt her, but really she is ideally positioned to move to the center in the general election without incurring the flip-flopper attack. People can easily envision her as President. Obama's problem is that he has not been able to separate himself enough from Edwards to make it a two person race with Hillary. To some extent he may be suffering from expectations, but his nice guy, new politics, good speech-maker mantra threatens to make him into the "where's the beef?" candidate of 2008. I think that's unfair (as it probably was for Gary Hart) but he should have worked more on communicating substance both before and after announcing his campaign. His recent non-votes and illness induced passivity in the last debate haven't helped him either. All that said, Iowa is three months away. Plenty of time for a change.

This is mostly horse race stuff but that's what the article is about.