Brendan Nyhan
Political scientist and media critic
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Rich Galen confuses cause and effect
In today's New York Times, GOP consultant Rich Galen offers an analysis of the Bush administration's predicament that is precisely backward:
"A White House that is aggressively on message is an unstoppable political tool," said Rich Galen, a Republican consultant. "Just as the Clinton White House got itself back together in '95 and after impeachment, this White House will get itself together, too."
Will the Bush administration get itself back together? Sure, at least relatively speaking. It's hard to imagine much more disarray than the last few months. But a White House is not unstoppable because it's on-message. All White Houses try to be on-message. But only the ones with high approval ratings (the politically unstoppable ones, you might say) are allowed to be on-message by the press, which will otherwise keep the White House off-message by focusing on negative stories. And those approval ratings are driven by the political fundamentals, especially the state of the economy.
How do you think Clinton got back on-message so successfully after 1994? The economy started revving up and his approval ratings went up so much that he drubbed Bob Dole in the 1996 election. Afterward, we told stories about how Dick Morris brought Clinton back from the dead. But in reality, every politician looks like a comeback artist when the economy revives on their watch (see: Ronald Reagan, "Morning in America"). Similarly, it was easy for Clinton to stay on-message after impeachment when the economy was at the peak of a bubble.
In practice, what this means is that Bush won't get back on-message unless the fundamentals turn around. And with the economy unlikely to improve much and war in Iraq looking increasingly unpopular, that's hard to imagine right now.
I am Professor of Public Policy in the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at Duke University and served as a RWJ Scholar in Health Policy Research and a faculty member in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College before coming to the Ford School. I also tweet at @BrendanNyhan, contribute to The Upshot at The New York Times, and am a co-organizer of Bright Line Watch. Previously, I served as a media critic for Columbia Journalism Review, co-edited Spinsanity, a non-partisan watchdog of political spin, and co-authored All the President's Spin. For more, see my Michigan website.
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bnyhan@yahoo.com
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