Stanford’s Krosnick, who is a co-principal investigator of ANES — a nonpartisan group that receives funding from the National Science Foundation — said Dukakis’s loss proved that voters do not respond well to candidates who fail to connect emotionally with them.
“Dukakis was not an emotion activator,” Krosnick said, adding, “He didn’t connect with enough voters.”
Dukakis squandered his chance.
Now, Krosnick is contemplating 2012, raising possible scenarios while carefully avoiding judgments.
“In some ways, Romney resembles Dukakis, in his cerebral approach,” Krosnick said. “But it’s way too early for Americans to show some kind of emotional responsiveness either to him or his policies.”
* * *
No presidential campaign has been mocked more than the 1948 misadventure of Dewey, a New York governor who enjoyed a commanding lead in misguided polls over Democratic nominee Harry S. Truman. Four years earlier, a sometimes-biting Dewey had lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt, but this was a new Dewey on display, said admirers and analysts. A less frosty Dewey. A happy Dewey.
The candidate played it safe with a campaign praised at the time for its low-key respectability. “Dewey’s was the kind of campaign we always claim we desire in politics: no cheap shots, no terrible attacks, no unnecessary emphasis on personality,” said historian Richard Norton Smith, who wrote an acclaimed biography of Dewey.
According to Smith, Dewey could see his lead dwindling in the campaign’s final days. Yet his cautious streak left him unwilling or unable to respond. “Never talk when you’re ahead,” Dewey told an aide. He was the president-in-waiting whom America never really knew.
In any case, a remote candidate gets defined whether he likes it or not, a reality grasped by Romney’s most devoted supporters, who want to preempt any problems.
During a private conference call last month with a bloc of his congressional supporters, Romney listened as several Republican House members urged him to open up and let Americans better understand his joys and travails. One supporter said he had been moved by a television interview in which Romney touched on the health struggles of his wife.
Chaffetz, a devoted Romney supporter who organized the call, said he believes that Romney has come a considerable way during recent interviews in revealing himself to voters. Chaffetz paused, having thought of a contrast between Romney and the former presidential candidate whom he had long ago helped: “When Governor Romney is talking of his family instead of something like Belgian endive, he’s doing a much better job.”
Meanwhile, Krosnick, who has been pondering the ANES numbers from the 2008 election, said that at least one number will change this time: the 60 percent of respondents who said that Obama made them feel “hopeful,” a number that equaled Reagan’s towering appeal in 1984. With the economy ailing, Obama’s hope numbers will doubtless fall, Krosnick said.
“It’s an uphill struggle for Obama there,” he said, adding that the numbers present an opportunity for a Republican nominee. “If it’s Romney, a question is whether Romney becomes another Dukakis, with low numbers of his own. Or does Romney create numbers of higher hope and optimism? If he does, it could work out well for him.”
A congressional supporter of Romney says his colleagues have made peace with the notion that Romney might be limited in his ability to thrill voters. “During our conference call, Mitt was open to us about who he is,” he said. “He said to us, ‘I know I could be more sensational in my comments to the media, but that is not who I am. But I am well-vetted. I’m not going to embarrass you.’ That message counts for a lot with us. President Obama will unite a lot of people for Mitt. We just need to win. . . . If Mitt can make some people feel closer to him, that’s even better.”
The long history of presidential politics is filled with reconstituted candidates. The new Dewey. The new Nixon. A more affable Dukakis.
As for Romney, “he’s a better candidate this time,” but he remains a work in progress, Duncan said.
And as Romney’s advisers work with him, tweaking his speeches and one-liners, trying to strengthen that connection with voters, they will learn that aspiring leaders have limits like the mortals they yearn to lead.
“You can talk all you want about changing a candidate, but eventually the candidate will go back to his default position — he is who he is,” said Duncan, who along the way with Dukakis learned the most humbling truth of all, one that Romney likely has already discovered. “The attention of a presidential campaign is so glaring, so unrelenting for a candidate. Those parts of you that make you who you are eventually get exposed.”
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