Two more perspectives on Obama’s speech are worth attention. One is Brendan Nyhan on why people don’t understand that speeches don’t affect poll numbers very much:
bq. What’s so striking is that reporters and politicos alike still don’t understand this point. Why? One explanation is that people tend to conflate domestic policy with foreign policy, where the president has more freedom of action, the public has less information, and the opposition is often more deferential to the president (and is thus less likely to offset his message). In addition, some cases like the Reagan and Bush 43 tax cuts in which the president raised the salience of a relatively popular issue (but didn’t change public opinion) are often misinterpreted. Finally, there’s a tendency to explain away past failures via post hoc narratives of failed presidential leadership, bad communication strategy, etc. However, it’s not likely that any kind of leadership or PR tactic can overcome an offsetting opposition message and change public opinion on a controversial domestic policy issue under normal political circumstances.
And Mark Blumenthal provides an useful summary of the challenges in doing the “instant reaction” polls that are likely to be splashed all over the news tomorrow. His take-aways:
bq. 1) Instant response polls measure only speech-watchers.
bq. 2) The audience is usually skewed toward the President’s fans.
bq. 3) Instant impressions can be fleeting.
bq. 4) Some pollsters have reservations about instant reaction polls.
bq. 5) Focus groups have value, but they are not surveys, and should be treated with far more caution.
And, finally, he notes that speeches don’t tend to create lasting changes in attitudes; here’s a nice post by Charles Franklin on SOTU addresses.