This may not be 1964 but it's certainly not 2008

Probably because it is so recent, 2008 seems to be most people's favorite go to comparison for the current election, but other than crowd sizes, it's a really poor analog. For a historical analogy to work, the significant relationships have to match up, particularly the causal relationships. 

Consider the fundamental components of the race.

1. Barack Obama was one of the most charismatic politicians of the past 50 years. The only other two I would put on his level are Reagan and Clinton. (Trump certainly has something, but I suspect his cult leader hold on MAGA has more to do with him being the perfect candidate for a generation of Republican voters kept in a constant state of anger and anxiety by conservative media than it does on personal charisma. That is also consistent with his losing the popular vote twice.)

2. Obama was still very much a new face 16 years ago. Before his convention speech in 2004, he was virtually unknown. The day after that speech, a lot of people, myself included, called up acquaintances and told them "I think I just saw the first black president of the United States." That newness was a key part of the Obama persona.

3. Republicans were the incumbents and were saddled with the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. This was very much top of mind for voters that November.

4. You can't seriously discuss a presidential election without looking at both candidates. John McCain was a formidable candidate who came into the race with considerable appeal across party lines. Although less charismatic than his opponent, he did have above average stage presence. He was also, despite some notable flaws, a man of great character.


Now let's look at this year.

1.  &  2. Kamala Harris is a very good politician. Nate Silver and almost everybody at the New York Times editorial board needs to admit they were wrong on this one and apologize both to Harris and to their readers. The longer they wait, the more embarrassing it's going to be for them.

That said, in terms of charisma, Harris is simply not on the level of Obama, Clinton, or Reagan. This is not damning with faint praise – – that is the most exclusive of clubs – – but it is important to be clear about what is driving the Harris phenomenon. She is consistently solid in rallies and on the campaign trail, but not nearly exceptional enough to explain the phenomenal crowds and enthusiasm. In terms of star power, she is often outshone by the folksy charm of her running mate (which, it should be noted, does not seem to bother her in the slightest).

Harris is uniting and invigorating a party that desperately wanted to be united and invigorated. It is difficult to express how demoralized Democrats had gotten, ironically in large part because of what had gone right. It is one thing to see your party blamed for policy disasters particularly disasters due to bad luck rather than incompetence, but it absolutely sucks see your party have major, expectation-exceeding successes only to have them ignored or even framed as failures. Though the press has memory-holed much of this, if you go back and check what was being written at the time, the overwhelming consensus was that Biden would not be able to pull off a soft landing, the unification of NATO, holding off Russia in Ukraine, bringing together South Korea and Japan, jumpstarting American manufacturing, or getting substantial climate change legislation through congress plus at least one or two more I can't think of at the moment, but nothing seemed to count.

Part of the remarkable success of the handoff to Harris was the way it allowed Democrats to keep what they liked about the Biden presidency and yet still have a fresh and amazingly chaos-free start. No more old jokes or snide New York Times articles about cognitive decline (which have conspicuously disappeared now that the most obvious example is the Republican candidate). It is entirely possible that this couldn't have happened if Harris had been a fresh new face. Democrats were able to keep a candidate they had voted for explicitly in 2020 and implicitly in 2024 while shedding most of the baggage.

3. This year we're seeing lots of rather silly analyses about Kamala somehow making Trump the incumbent with the issue further confused by the GOP candidate being the previous president, but Harris is the incumbent in the same sense that Bush was in 1988 and Gore was in 2000, making the reaction to her all the more exceptional.

And putting aside all the vibecession bullshit, this is very much not 2008.

JPMORGAN: “.. The US stands out as the only large economy in which #GDP has risen faster than our estimated 2019 potential growth rate path would have anticipated. ..

“.. the US has been deemed exceptional in its ability to generate a complete post-pandemic recovery ..” 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/v9KKERp7bq

— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) August 27, 2024

4. Perhaps the biggest difference between this campaign and that of 2008 is the opponent. With the possible exception of the despicable Matt Taibbi, I don't recall ever hearing anyone say "we can't have a man like that in the White House" about John McCain. Donald Trump gives this race an urgency and a moral clarity both because of his positions and his character. Harris and Walz have struck exactly the tone that Trump's opponents needed to hear, happy and optimistic while at the same time aggressive. This is proven and extraordinarily fortuitous combination.