No Momentum, Momentum, Momentum

If you have ever tuned into or read a piece on the presidential primary, you have probably heard of Momentum. To hear people tell it Momentum, or the Big Mo as it is sometimes known, is to the primary as location is to Real Estate. It must really be the end all be all of a political race right? Well ah, no. The ill defined but much beloved momentum that the pundits speak of does not exist. Once again pundits and commentators have taken one observance and blown it out of context and applied it to situations it has no business being applied to. This race has not had momentum, or if it has its not what the commentators are talking about.

What is the biggest issue with momentum as a concept or electoral force? It is totally undefined. It is an intangible and as such is not borne out by numbers. We need to define what it is we are talking about and stick with it. To give the benefit of the doubt I will examine several different metrics. I will look at fundraising levels, delegate levels and contest wins. After each of these shows how poorly the idea bears out I will advance my own theory about momentum.

First up is the delegate battle. This contest is about delegates and that’s what matters right? Delegates are supposed to be a measure of how much of the vote you are getting and that idea also fits the momentum concept. Back in the beginning of this contest was Iowa. Iowa is supposed to give serious momentum to the winner giving him a ten point bump and helping him/her to win New Hampshire. Senator Obama won the first and lost the second. Senator Clinton and her comeback victory in New Hampshire were suppose to lead to a win in Nevada but Obama came out of there with more delegates. South Carolina was supposed to give Obama help in Florida but that never happened. All of this was before Super Tuesday. Here is a graph of the delegate totals before Super Tuesday.

If Delegates are what matter then there were no major shifts in the delegate lead. It looks like Obama was winning the entire time and whatever the narrative says there was no Clinton Momentum showing up. Before Super Tuesday, the candidates were very close and both a good chance of winning. February 5 was supposed to be the big momentum builder for either side. It was make or break and Clinton won the PR war. Her wins in California and Massachusetts despite big time endorsements where supposed to giver her the momentum going forward. In addition, this was the first time that she took the lead in pledged delegates. She had the wind at her back and the momentum going forward. That is until Obama won 11 strait contests. It looked like he was going to steam roll Clinton in Ohio and Texas and Rhode Island. He was unstoppable. Kos predicted a ten point win in Texas. Clinton won. Those big wins kept her in the game and provided her with new momentum driving her right into losses in the next two contests. Penn failed to give Clinton momentum into Indiana or North Carolina. Here is the Post Super Tuesday delegate battle and Obama’s delegate lead Post Super Tuesday.

You can see the massive momentum shifts there. See the lead changes? No? well that’s because those things are not there. Obama has been winning for almost the entire time. The pledged delegate fight has not bourn out any idea of momentum where it matters, in the delegate count.  The picture is even worse when you look at the super delegate numbers. Clinton has been steadily losing her edge in that category. That lead has been in a steady and precipitous decline since feb 5.

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There has been no momentum shifts in the delegate count. The objective story is that Obama is winning and has been for a long time. He has increased his lead as time has gone on and none of the supposed game changers has really changed anything. The only possible momentum interpretation that makes sense is that Obama has had the momentum on his side the entire time.

Maybe momentum is not actually measured in delegates. I mean nothing seems to be measured in delegates anymore so we can try something else like fund raising. I did a long version comparing the fund raising efforts of both Clinton and Obama. No matter how you slice it Obama crushes in fund raising. Clinton is carrying way more debt and has raised far less money. The big divide is January. Pre and post January are two different worlds. Pre January Clinton was actually ahead in fund raising. Since then though Obama has dominated in every month. It is not even worth graphing. If you want a full breakdown of the fund raising war click here and it will take you to the full diary. There have been no major shifts in the fund raising totals. You can check out the day by day or month by month totals at:

http://opensecrets.org/...

The most obvious metric left to demonstrate if there is momentum is national head to head polls. The most commonly approved means for this is to use the Real Clear Politics average and that suits me just fine. Check out the graph here:
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The national polls do seem to show dramatic shifts. If you look closely, you can see Obama with momentum after Iowa flattening out at around March 4 then coming down after Wright, Penn, Bitter, etc. Clinton has stayed in a narrow 36-45 point band on the graph. You can see her start to decrease and revive at March 4 and again after Penn. These do seem to show some type of momentum. However, I think that it is faux momentum.

Remember that all the pundits love to talk about momentum and game chargers. There are underlying narratives that are pumped out in the media. The media coverage for this race has focused on creating some swings or dynamic changes to keep the race fresh. What these polls show is the effect of the media narrative over time. The media would tell everyone that she was back in it after these contests when there was no corresponding difference in the delegate math. They created artificial comebacks.

Where did this idea of momentum come from? Two places: sports and Iowa. Sports announcers and analysts love to talk about momentum in football and basketball games. Some sports video games even include the momentum meter that measures whether one side is dominating the game. Like most concepts in the American sports world it has been adapted to serve in other areas. Everything is just a big sports metaphor if you have not noticed.

The second and more politically relevant idea is strategic voting. This is where Iowa comes into play. Commentators love to talk about that ten-point bump. I think this comes from the people who originally believed that their candidate was not going to have a chance at winning. They thought that their guy was not going to win and did not want to waste the vote so they were backing a lesser favorite. When the person they actually want wins, voters can switch allegiance to the person they really wanted all along without fear of a wasted vote. These people combined with people who’s previous candidate no longer appears to have a shot at winning combine to give that bump to the winner of Iowa. People do not want to vote for a loser.

That leads to the last aspect of Momentum. There generally comes a point where it is obvious one candidate is going to win. At this point people will look at other candidates as probable losers and bandwagon to the winner. I do not really count this under the heading of momentum because at that point it is the end. The soft support is gone and not coming back.

The concept the media calls momentum is actually viability. When a candidate becomes viable or unviable are when real shifts occur either spring boarding or drowning candidates. You are either viable or not. Therefore, there is momentum in the beginning and at the end of campaigns. Candidates who lose viability are not going to get it back. While candidate stay equally viable there are not momentum shifts.

Wild momentum shifts as the media likes to portray are not there. They are not represented in the real measure that matters delegates. Delegates are what nominate and there have been no shifts there for a long time. So there is no momentum.

Science is actually split about whether momentum exists in anything even sports.
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