Obama’s Speech and the Needle

Cover of The Monkey Cage

Let’s continue with two themes: What determines presidential approval and linking to The Monkey Cage.

Along those lines, here’s a question: Can President Obama’s speech on health care tomorrow move the needle? That is, can it rescue his sinking approval ratings and move the ball forward on passing some form of health-care reform?

On the first part of that question, the conventional wisdom among the punditariat is perhaps best summed up by a post by David Johnson over at Political Wire:

traditionally after a President addresses the nation on an issue we see between a 5% to 10% increase in support

Actually, not so much. Mr. Johnson quickly issued this correction to his initial post:

A Political Wire reader emails to say that a systematic study of whether presidential speeches have an impact on poll numbers is reported in the book, On Deaf Ears, and finds shows that in general, major presidential speeches do not lead to a significant shift even in short-term polls.

This exchange was flagged by The Monkey Cage, which goes on to quote from On Deaf Ears:

statistically significant changes in approval rarely follow a televised presidential address. Typically, the president’s ratings hardly move at all. Most changes are well within the margin of error— and many of them show a loss of approval.

Some 56% of Americans claim they plan to watch the president’s speech. Putting aside how many of them are lying (a lot), remember that it’s the most engaged — the ones who’ve already made up their minds — who are most likely to tune in. No wonder a speech does so little to move the needle.

The speech could affect the media narrative; it could change the terms of the debate; etc. But it’s not going to create a groundswell of support for reform that will make skittish Congress-critters feel all warm and cozy in their beds at night.

Obama can win health care reform by some clever legislative maneuvering. He can’t win it by talking. Problem is, he has a lot more experience talking.