The Bully Pulpit Is Overrated

Dan Hopkins thinks most political messaging typically falls on deaf, partisan ears:

In part, the myth of messaging relies on the idea that there are lots of voters who are at once engaged with politics and without strong party loyalties. But as John Sides has pointed out, such voters are few and far between, since it is the strong partisans whose rooting interest keeps them tuned into C-SPAN. Just as you don’t find a lot of people at football games who will root for whichever team plays the better game, the core audience for contemporary politics doesn’t have many attentive, neutral voters who are simply listening for the best argument. Instead, the voters who follow the ins and outs of politics most closely are those with a strong commitment to a party, making them very unlikely to abandon that party at the turn of a phrase.

Jonathan Bernstein calls out political staffers for exaggerating the power of political messaging:

Within those candidacies/offices, there are a number of people — the communications operation, probably polling, media, maybe more) who have a direct interest in believing that the words that politicians say have a direct effect on public opinion in a way that really matters.