2008 U.S. presidential election
Kevin Hassett used the idea in its traditional sense when discussing Ray Fair's model, which ties the incumbent's party to the current state of the economy. In 2008, however, argued Hassett,
- "it may not be possible for the Democrats to portray the Republican candidate, who has taken his own principled stands on any number of issues throughout the past seven years, as a virtual incumbent. Hence, Senator John McCain may be spared the typical negative incumbent bounce in a recession." [2]
The concept was used in a different way on Face the Nation on November 2, 2008 by Senator Lindsey Graham to describe Barack Obama's candidacy. [3] In that case, the assumption was that the virtual incumbent, like an actual incumbent, would be held to a higher standard by the electorate, and would therefore be less likely to win in a tight race in a given state. [4] This argument had been previously made by Dick Morris to suggest the likelihood that undecided voters would overwhelmingly vote for John McCain:
Face the Nation is a weekly news and morning public affairs program airing Sundays on the CBS radio and television network. Created by Frank Stanton in 1954, Face the Nation is one of the longest-running news programs in the history of television.
Lindsey Olin Graham is an American politician serving as the senior United States Senator from South Carolina, a seat he has held since 2003. Since 2019, he has been the Chair of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He is a Republican.
Barack Hussein Obama II is an American attorney and politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American to be elected to the presidency. He previously served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008.
- "But as Obama surged into a more or less permanent lead in October, animated by the financial crisis, he has assumed many of the characteristics of an incumbent. Every voter asks himself one question before he or she casts a ballot: Do I want to vote for Obama? His uniqueness, charisma and assertive program have so dominated the dialogue that the election is now a referendum on Obama." [5]
John Fund described Obama as the "quasi-incumbent" on CNN Late Edition on November 2, 2008, by which he also meant that the election had become "referendum on Barack Obama". [6]
John H. Fund is an American political journalist. He is currently the national-affairs columnist for National Review Online and a senior editor at The American Spectator.
David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, had previously described Hillary Clinton as the "quasi-incumbent" during the primaries. As in the case of Obama himself, the characterization is intended to "downplay expectations of [the challenger's] performance in upcoming polls". [7] Katrina Vanden Heuvel has also used this term to describe Clinton: "Hillary Clinton started this race last year as the one to beat--she had the money, the machine and the name recognition that assured her of quasi-incumbent status. And, indeed, she ran as a quasi-incumbent, an establishment candidate in a change- year election." [8]
David Plouffe is an American political strategist best known as the campaign manager for Barack Obama's successful 2008 presidential campaign. A long-time Democratic Party campaign consultant, he was a partner at the party-aligned campaign consulting firm AKPD Message and Media, which he joined in 2000.
Hillary Rodham Clinton is an American politician, diplomat, lawyer, writer and public speaker. She was First Lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001, the United States senator from New York from 2001 to 2009, and the 67th United States secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. Clinton was the Democratic Party nominee for president of the United States in the 2016 election, the first woman nominated by a major U.S. political party.
