What there are is a series of Election Days, which begin weeks before the first Tuesday in November. Early voting is taking place in more states than ever before this cycle, and while it has been far from problem-free — see Ohio and Florida — it has significantly changed the landscape.
The Obama campaign has made a huge early-voting push over the past several weeks, incorporating that effort into its playbook and trying to bank as much of the vote ahead of time as possible.
The Romney campaign has pooh-poohed such efforts publicly, insisting it’s actually doing very well in this metric — better than John McCain, who was not a high bar in this regard — and arguing that the Obama camp is “cannibalizing” its Election Day share of the vote.
We’ll know soon which of them is right and which, as David Axelrod said two weeks ago, was bluffing. But the reality is that the landscape has changed in terms of how voting is conducted, and both parties need to adapt or face consequences.
5. Bill Clinton. Forever.
This is not a commentary on whether people do or should like the 42nd president. It is instead a reflection of his durability on the national stage.
There are few others in the Living Presidents Club, so it’s a tough metric. But Clinton’s love of campaigning and desire to be on stage is epic and empirical throughout 2012.
Yes, there are personal reasons why he’d want to lay groundwork nationally by helping Obama and down-ballot candidates — a big one being his wife’s potential political future. But the man also clearly enjoys this, and a lot more than either of the candidates currently running for the White House.
Clinton talked himself hoarse stumping for Obama over the weekend. He’s had advisers to the man who beat his wife in the 2008 primaries openly praise him to the press as the missing ingredient from the campaign this cycle. His positions — and his place in history — have been ratified by the Obama campaign.
And no one can argue he didn’t work hard enough for Obama.
6. About all that fact-checking…
The advent of fact-checking websites and reporters who crunch dubious claims from both sides has been a running theme this cycle. Both campaigns have alternately embraced the fact-checkers and slammed them.
The irony is that for all the fact-checking, both campaigns have invented their own narratives when it’s suited them — not to the same degrees but certainly for the same purposes.
The Obama campaign has made claims about Romney’s stand on abortion and the degree to which he’d curtail it a major focus of ads, despite the fact that they haven’t been totally accurate. The Romney campaign was slammed by Democrats for ads that accused Obama of “gutting” the Clinton-era welfare reforms, a claim that also was not quite based in fact.
But both candidates have, through selective media usage — soft interviews like “The View” and “People” for Obama, and friendly conservative outlets like Sean Hannity for Romney — been able to circumvent the mainstream press to say what they want.
The fact-checking industry is crucial. But it has also been thwarted plenty this cycle.
7. Ads don’t matter, unless they’re good
Given the plethora of ads aired in the presidential race on both sides, it’s remarkable how divided polls are at the close.
Between the campaigns themselves, and super PACs and other outside groups, the crush of TV spots in battlegrounds was impressive. So much so that it was hard to distinguish them after a while.
The Obama campaign made an early bet in terms of ad spending, placing heavy buys throughout the summer to define Romney early. Not all the ads were winners. But they had the benefit of airing before the commercial breaks during every show became clogged.
To that end, what matters more than ads themselves is making good ones — ones that stand out. That was an elusive goal on both sides this cycle.
For Democrats, the Priorities USA Action spots about Bain Capital were emotional gut-punches, using workers laid off from factories taken over by Romney’s company. On the Republican side, the most memorable spot was one by the Republican National Committee’s independent expenditure arm saying it was “OK to make a change.”
8. Both parties have soul-searching to do
This is less true for whichever party wins. But the Democrats and Republicans are facing questions about who will lead them, and what they will make their defining platforms, heading into 2016.
Obama has shown almost no interest in party-building, which is part of why Clinton has been able to enjoy the seventh or eighth of his nine political lives this year. He doesn’t want to do the grip-and-grins on behalf of other candidates.
Neither does Romney, who has never quite warmed to the world of retail politicking. If he becomes president, the party will need someone else — perhaps a Vice President Paul Ryan? — to tend to that effort in the way that Vice President Joe Biden has for Obama.
But Romney’s party is weighted with conservatives who may not embrace him in primaries, just as moderate Democrats held Obama at arm’s length in 2010 and this year.
That leaves an opening on both sides for someone to become the face of the party, if not the de facto leader.
9. Neither party has a deep female bench
In terms of field teams, most of the attention this cycle has been on Hispanic candidates — Julian Castro for Democrats, and Marco Rubio for Republicans.
Yet it’s notable how thin the benches on both sides are in terms of credible female candidates for the presidency (there were a large number of female Senate candidates running in 2012).
The obvious exception, of course, is Hillary Clinton, who may consider a 2016 bid — she has said she isn’t, but people close to the family are not convinced — and would likely be field-clearing if she does launch another campaign.
Beyond Clinton, there’s New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar for the Democrats. On the Republican side, there’s New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez — a friendly Hispanic face who is pro-abortion rights, meaning she would have difficulties in the party primaries.
The decades of candidate-grooming on the GOP side has been largely focused on black and Hispanic officials at the local and state level. And the Democrats have not quite figured out what the next wave of strong female candidates looks like in the post-Clinton era, whenever that arrives.
Given that this is probably the last cycle in which a ticket will be all white and all male, it’s something both sides have to work toward.