Do Campaigns Matter?

To understand what effect they can have, let’s talk about curling.

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I’ve always been a fan of the Winter Olympics. Maybe it was Kristi Yamaguchi’s amazing ponytail in 1992 or the Mariah Carey “Hero” montage of Dan Jansen in 1994. By 2002, as I sat in my dorm room watching the short track competition, I very much entertained the possibility of marrying Apolo Ohno … if only I could figure out a way to meet him. 

I say all this to make clear that I know nothing about the mechanics of curling beyond what I’ve seen since it returned to the Olympics in 1998. And like a good American, I didn’t give it much thought until our men’s team won the gold in 2018. 

But then it hit me like a blast from the hammer: Curling is the perfect analogy for political campaigns. 

The underlying dynamics of an election cycle (the economy, the popularity of the president, national events driving the news cycle) are like the 44-pound “stone” hurtling toward the (please hold while I google what the, you know, bullseye thing is called) … “house.” Once the stone is moving, this thing is heavy and it’s got momentum that is out of the “skip’s” control. 

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  1. Avatar photo
    C C Writer

    Yeah, the manner is important, but not the way they think it is. Come to my door without an invitation, and I will ask you to leave my property immediately. Call me on MY telephone (it's not yours), even a non-robocall, and I will not vote for your candidate, even if I would have otherwise.

    Their continued wrongheaded behavior is one of the main factors that prejudices me against politicians until they can prove to me that they respect me and my privacy, that not everything is about them. That proof is something they can supply without trying to make unwanted personal contact. They can demonstrate it publicly, and it is something I will be watching for.

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  2. Cody Passman

    Interesting topic of an article but definitely think it needs more fleshing out. Unclear exactly what Sarah is talking about when she says "elections". Do elections include general v primary? Local v state v federal? If it is general federal elections only, then very easy article to write: Vast majority are won by 6 points or more, so no, campaigns dont matter. There done. I think it would be more convincing if a case was made that campaign strategy does not matter regardless of the type of election. Also, a very obvious example comes to mind that campaigns may matter a good bit: election of Obama. A great deal of credit was given to his campaign regarding their use of technology and grass root activism. He was a relatively unknown national figure that came out of obscurity. Did his campaign strategy have little to no effect on him overtaking the anointed Clinton?

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  3. Avatar photo
    Not Jonah Goldberg

    I really enjoy the analysis of campaigns. I find the details to be super interesting and hope you write more on the subject in the future.

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    Kyzyl Tuva

    Using this great analogy, is Donald Trump the Stone, the Broom or the Sheet?

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    Bill Nelson

    I believe that it was the Canadian women’s team, when a woman made the winning throw, her husband missed it because he had gone to the bar to get a beer. Just like politics.

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  6. BIgMack

    Sarah,
    Argh, you missed a perfect opportunity to use the term BONSPIEL in a sentence! You may never have that opportunity again, alas opportunity wasted! ;-) Otherwise a splendid article! Thanks for the analogy and thoughts.

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  7. Bruce Choi

    Is it possible that the "mythical middle" exists but the way to persuade them to your party or platform is not through the tried-and-true tactics, but through substantive debates in addressing the issues and responding to criticisms in a coherent manner?
    I'm thinking that the voters would benefit greatly from the old-school debates where the floor is open to the candidates uninterrupted and have opportunities for rebuttal after hearing from the opposite side. Then perhaps open the floor for some traditional Q&A style, moderator-driven discussions relevant to the current issues or controversies.
    The tiresome bickering about one's hand size or platitudes regarding who they like or do not like are damaging the legitimacy of democracy.

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    Sam B

    The cultural bases for your analyses are always on point, and it makes my day to see the incorporation of curling into that select company. Further, I'm on board with all the points that you made in the piece.

    There's a part of the analogy that I think you're missing though: the ice. Regardless of the skill of the skip and the vigor of the sweepers, if the ice has melted, that stone is going nowhere. And if my opponent sneaked into the curling arena the night before a big match with a hair dryer to thin the ice in certain spots, I for one would be upset. The "taking a hair dryer to the ice" of the political world, in my opinion, is the manipulation of the information environment using disinformation tactics.

    My basic thesis is that if a politician can successfully distort public perception of the underlying facts to fit their chosen narrative, then they can have an outsize impact on the results of the race. Of course, the ice might be too thick to be melted by a hair dryer or a security guard might catch the melter in the act, but I think the fundamental idea is sound.

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    Ethan Cordray

    Curling is, so far as I am aware, the only Olympic sport that is regularly played -- including at the Olympic level! -- while drinking beer. That in itself makes it the best Olympic sport.

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  10. CatoTheElder

    Something I kinda-sorta learned when Bill Clinton won the WH: if a candidate or campaign can persuade voters that the candidate “feels your pain”, they’ve got a very good shot at winning, almost regardless of what the factual details of a campaign message might be. After all, everyone beyond a certain age recalls how empathetic Clinton managed to seem, and few recall much of anything about his campaign platforms in ‘92 or ‘96.

    The lesson was affirmed, negatively so, when Bill’s wife failed to defeat Trump in ‘16. Despite what she and the overwhelming majority of Democrats saw as huge advantages in substance of message, she actually lost because she couldn’t convince quite enough people that she actually cared about them. Trump, on the other hand, did manage to pluck empathetic chords with the emotional gut-strings of a disillusioned right-wing working class, and combined that with natural mutual attractions between himself and high-level money-grubbers to eek out a win.

    Tip O’Neill famously said, “All politics is local.” That locale is located between the gut and the heart of most voters, it seems. If a personal, conversational, empathetic message can soothe the gut and warm the heart, it might just be that the “sweepers” can indeed take the day off.

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