Stanley Greenberg argues that candidates running with the economy against them have a tougher go, but that its possible to win by changing the conversation:
No future candidates for president and few of their advisers will read Lynn Vavreck’s new book — her statistical methods and academic style guarantee that — but they will miss it at their own peril. This is not just another book about the impact of the economy on elections. The Message Matters breaks new ground in showing how presidential candidates effectively use the economy when it works in their favor and how some candidates win even when the economy is working against them.
For decades political scientists have tried to predict the outcome of elections by constructing statistical models that use different measures of economic performance and ignore the character of the candidates and the choices of their campaigns. As a pollster who has helped direct campaigns, I have never found these academic models all that convincing. Missing the final vote by up to 8 points, as their forecasts often do, would have gotten me fired. And in most presidential elections, predicting the winner is not rocket science, and barbers and bartenders do as well as the modelers.
