Comments on: The Convention Timing Game

By: Enrique

Enrique — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 17:04:30 +0000

I stand corrected. But (as per the other replies) isn’t the sequence of the conventions determined by an informal convention, or is such sequence “up for grabs,” so to speak?

By: Alex F

Alex F — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 04:48:45 +0000

Jeff– the incumbent party also has to formally nominate a candidate. President Obama had to wait until after the conventions to use his “general election” campaign money, just like Romney did. So… that all seems pretty symmetric.

By: twicker

twicker — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 13:36:18 +0000

Here’s even more data (feel free to expand; I only went back to 1964):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtKyc8VvcF1XdFRnVXBubmtuQWEtVzFGS2RYTkV1R3c

Note that the challenger party goes second; i.e., even in years – well, depending on how you define it, “the year” – when there wasn’t an incumbent president (or vice-president) at the top of the incumbent party’s ticket, the challenger went first.

My guess is that the challenger needs more time to introduce him- or herself (so far himself, but that’s likely to change relatively soon, IMHO). The incumbent is a known quantity, and, thus, doesn’t need to do that; s/he can sit back and hope that the challenger missteps. Thus, there’s an unequal payoff for challengers v. incumbents: challengers benefit by going early (if they’re going to benefit at all – that last part’s crucial in my hypothesis), while incumbents benefit from having a later bounce (again, if they benefit at all).

Thus, the two are coordinated.

Now I’m wondering who announces convention dates first – challenger party or incumbent? That seems to be a critical element, though one would assume that *someone* always announces first, and everyone (so far, with a small-n problem here) has set dates that correspond to the challenger-party-first setup.

For 2012, it was the GOP (who announced their date in early 2010: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/03/2012-news-rnc-has-its-convention-date/36950/ ). I’ve set it so that anyone with the link can edit my Google spreadsheet; I need to do other things, so someone’s free to fill that in.

By: Thierry

Thierry — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 13:35:47 +0000

As a matter of fact, the party of the sitting President always goes last.

By: dan

dan — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:55:26 +0000

the data-
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781449.html
from quick scan of recent ones, your theory is looking very good – nice!
Of course another advantage to moving second is ability to respond to first mover’s arguments

But I’m not clear on why challenger has to choose their date first. As you say, the nominee is decided much earlier, so that’s not relevant. And the campaign law issue would seem to apply to both challenger and incumbent. Maybe you’re implying incumbent is formally nominated beforehand, and challenger isn’t. But seems if incumbent could do this, challenger would/should too

By: jeff

jeff — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 09:10:38 +0000

Note the order of modifiers: either *always* before or *always* after. That’s not the same as always either before or after. The latter is not falsifiable in the strong sense that it is always true. But the former is falsified if you find two years and in ont the incumbent is before and in the second the incumbent is after.

By: Evan

Evan — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 07:22:50 +0000

From Nate Silver, en passant: “conventions are being held later and later, meaning that the incumbent-party candidate, who holds his convention last”

By: Enrique

Enrique — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 05:49:04 +0000

“In every election with an incumbent candidate the incumbent party’s convention is either always before or always after the challenger’s.”

The above statement is not falsifiable.