The Rise Of The Unfavorable Candidate
From the Drum:
As further evidence, Sarlin and Leighton cite a new PPP poll showing that Romney’s unfavorables are high. But let’s take a look at everyone, not just Romney. Here are the unfavorables for all five candidates still in the race as of early this week:
Rick Perry: 63%
Newt Gingrich: 60%
Ron Paul: 57%
Mitt Romney: 53%
Rick Santorum: 51%Not bad! Especially for a candidate that everyone knows is starting in a hole because a certain segment of the evangelical community is just never going to approve of a Mormon for president. The fact is, these are just not the numbers of a guy that no one can stand. Rather, they’re the numbers of a candidate in a tough race, where negative ads have forced everyone’s unfavorables pretty high.
The moment I saw these numbers, something started tickling the back of my memories. So, I sent myself on a quick trip a-wassailing through the RCP archives to find something to slake my curiosity. And I found myself a long cool drink of factual water. (PDF warning.) Here’s a brief synopsis of the negative numbers from four years ago:
Barack Obama: 25%
Hillary Clinton: 41%
John Edwards: 27%
Mike Huckabee: 29%
John McCain: 22%
Rudy Giuliani: 40%
Mitt Romney: 32%
Fred Thompson: 26%
Ron Paul: 25%
Michael Bloomberg: 18%
These aren’t exceptionally vile numbers from last season, yet last season was one of the most hotly contested campaigns in recent memory: a fully up-for-grabs free-for-all campaign with no incumbent President or Vice President in the running on either party. Yet even so, most of them easily pulled their unfavorable numbers down to a point where they were still believable as candidates even in the face of attack ads from both sides.
Mitt is a known milquetoast. Newt is a known philanderer. Ron is a known crazy. Rick S. is a known pile of santorum. Michelle was a known idiot. Rick P. was a known imbecile. Herman was a known incompetent. Tim was a known bumbler. And John was a known competent, which is terminally fatal in any presidential campaign.
So I’m disagreeing with Kevin here. The current crop of candidates isn’t simply suffering from negative advertisements fueled by Citizens United-fueled SuperPACs. They are suffering because they have been, as a whole, a completely unaccessible set of human beings with the common likeability of a pack of starving hyenas. That is why the negatives are so high.