'Change' campaigns: Can they deliver?

A president needs inspiring rhetoric, savvy, and a like-minded public.

from the April 10, 2008 edition

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This is where Clinton supporters say their candidate's strength lies. On this point, political analysts and the public give her the advantage. The March CNN/Opinion Research poll found that Clinton beat Obama 61 percent to 40 percent on who "has the right experience to be President of the United States." She plays up her experience in one of her recent campaign ads in Pennsylvania, which holds a crucial primary April 22. The ad opens with Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter saying: "I know. You want to know why I'm supporting Hillary. Easy. She gets it, and she gets the job done." Mayor Nutter continues by saying that's what's really needed in Washington right now.

"Clinton's real problem is that she has experience, but she doesn't really have strong grass-roots support the way Obama does," says Darrell West, a political scientist at Brown University in Providence, R.I. "If you're a president wanting serious change, you have to have strong grass-roots support."

Of the three '08 contenders, McCain scores highest in many public opinion polls on the question of experience. In the mid-March CNN/Opinion Research poll, he topped both Clinton and Obama on who has the "right experience" to be president with 68 percent.

Some analysts note, too, that McCain has been the most articulate of the three in giving details on how he would change Washington.

However, that can be a double-edged sword. "McCain is in fact a lot more specific than either of the Democrats in that way, at least if you define change as earmarks, campaign legislation and so forth," says Mr. Hess. "That's why there are those in his party who are less than enthusiastic that he's going to be the nominee."

Of the three leading candidates, Obama is the most likely to fulfill the key requirements for change, according to Professors McElvaine and West and other political scientists. The reasons: He has a unique status as an outsider who also has Washington experience and he is someone who can inspire people.

"He's the one who's really aroused the grass-roots activists in the same way that Reagan energized conservatives 30 years ago," says West. "Reagan then used that conservative support to push the policy agenda."

But other political analysts are skeptical, not just of Obama, but of the whole idea of change.

"With all due respect, if Obama does become president, he'll leave Washington more or less the way he found it," says Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. "There are reasons why Washington works the way it does; there are reasons the institutions of government have become entrenched the way they have. It's just not possible to move in and change human nature or reality the way presidents think they can."

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