Nate Silver on Herman Cain’s candidacy:
Has there ever been a candidate with such strong polling but such weak fundamentals? Almost certainly not, at least not at this relatively advanced stage of the race.
Read the rest of Silver’s statistical analysis here.
4 Comments
Christiane
IIf Romney is not that popular, then the choices are Cain or Perry.
Since this article was written, Cain has had to deal with . . . well, with some issues.
And Perry gave a speech where people questioned if he was still on pain medication for his back surgery.
The impact of the last few days is showing up in the polls.
Now, Perry has a war chest reportedly of fifteen million dollars.
And Cain says he has been getting more and more donations.
So, it’s not about the money, or lack of funds.
People are asking questions, based on what they see of the candidates on the telly.
People want answers to their questions about these candidates.
Derek
The basis of Silver’s fundamentals seems to be the following:
What Silver doesn’t even seem to acknowledge is that people are deeply distrustful of Washington insiders, politicians and media spinmeisters. What he and many other political professionals (e.g. Karl Rove) consider to be credentials and fundamentals, many of us mistrust, because we have been burned so many times. This is the common denominator between the “Occupy” crowd and the Tea Party. We are sick of being told to “eat our peas” while Fannie Mae executives and Goldman Sachs and GE get sweetheart deals from the politicians who the insiders say are “fundamentally solid”. We think it means that they have been consumed by the massive beauracracy that has become Washington DC and Wall Street.
Derek
I tried to put a block quote in to that last comment – I hope Denny can delete the previous post and use this one instead.
The basis of Silver’s fundamentals seems to be the following:
QUOTE FROM THE ARTICLE: Mr. Cain has no endorsements from Republican members of Congress or Republican governors, and very few from officials in key early voting states. He has raised very little money. He has not hired well-known names for his campaign staff. He does not have traditional credentials. He has run for elected office just once before. He has begun to get a fair amount of media coverage, but the tenor of it has been fairly skeptical.
Here’s what Silver and the NYT doesn’t even seem to acknowledge: people are deeply distrustful of Washington insiders, politicians and media spinmeisters. What he and many other political professionals (e.g. Karl Rove) consider to be credentials and fundamentals, many of us mistrust, because we have been burned so many times. This is the common denominator between the “Occupy” crowd and the Tea Party. We are sick of being told to “eat our peas” while Fannie Mae executives and Goldman Sachs and GE get sweetheart deals from the politicians who the insiders say are “fundamentally solid”. We think it means that they have been consumed by the massive beauracracy that has become Washington DC and Wall Street.
Jim W
“Has there ever been a candidate with such strong polling but such weak fundamentals? Almost certainly not, at least not at this relatively advanced stage of the race”
Well, not since Obama ran for President.