This is not 1948

Every losing political candidate, no matter the office, cites Harry Truman’s dramatic comeback in the 1948 election as a reason for hope. If “Give-em Hell, Harry” could come back and salvage victory in the face of certain defeat, surely Candidate X could do the same! Alas, some McCain partisans are invoking the old “Dewey Defeats Truman” error as inspiration.

But is there really any parallel between 1948 and now? Is there any resemblance between McCain today and Truman in 1948? What actually happened in 1948 anyway?

Well, as a professional historian, I revel in these sorts of historical comparisons. My own classes have provided great examples of historical parallels – 19th century panics and today’s financial crisis, party identification in Jacksonian America and party ID today, etc. So what about 1948?

First of all, why was Truman such an underdog? Three reasons:

1. Like all post-WWII leaders Truman faced a massive economic contraction. Churchill got ousted in Britain and Truman’s party faced a lashing in the 1946 Congressional elections. Truman’s personal popularity never recovered (and he was never very personally popular to begin with).

2. The Democrats were horribly divided. At the DNC the Dixiecrats walked out after the party adopted a civil rights platform; a new States’ Rights party nominated Strom Thurmond. On the left, Henry Wallace built the Progressive Party based on opposition to Truman’s Cold War policy and vigorous support for black and women’s rights. The Republicans had their divisions but nothing like the Democrats.

3. Democrats had won four straight Presidential elections and the electorate seemed primed for a new direction.

So what happened?

1. Thomas Dewey ran the worst campaign in recent American history, even more inept than Michael Dukakis. Like Dukakis, Dewey refused to respond to any attacks. He offered absolutely zero specifics on any policy matter – and I’m talking comically vague like “tomorrow is the future.” He was aloof and made absolutely no major effort to change that. For all intents and purposes, he did not even campaign for the job.

2. Harry Truman caught fire in the summer by speaking in populist tones to rural America. He ran against the “Do nothing, good-for-nothing 80th Republican Congress,” which was as unpopular as Truman. He exploited divisions between moderates like Dewey, liberal Republicans like Harold Stassen and conservatives like Robert Taft; in fact, he conflated Dewey and the conservatives and ran hard against the whole conservative ideology. He toured every small town and worked to convince voters one at a time.

3. The polls were horribly flawed. Pollsters relied entirely on telephone surveys. But only the affluent – most of whom were Republican – had telephones. The responses were so lopsided that most pollsters stopped bothering to conduct polls in the last month of the campaign. The last-minute surge from Truman might not have been so last-minute when you consider the lack of late polling. Most likely, Truman caught on in early September and not right before the election. Modern polling would have picked it up.

4. The Democratic split proved to be overstated. Upper South states like TN, NC and VA stayed loyal to Truman. And Henry Wallace, accused of being a Communist, pulled very few votes from Northern liberals and blacks after the Democrats embraced civil rights. Again, modern polling would have uncovered that months before the election.

The election was not particularly close in the Electoral College in the end, and Truman won the popular vote by three million people. With little or no late polling, the media – and Truman himself – guessed that he’d lose in a landslide.

So is there any parallel to today? Is McCain catching on and making a great comeback in the end that will surprise observers around the world?

No.

There are literally dozens of scientific polls being conducted every single day – some at the national level and some in the states. While there is some variability between those identifying a 2004-style electorate and those adjusting party ID to account for new registration numbers, the results are the same: not a single poll has McCain ahead.

What’s more, the Obama campaign has been aggressive right up to the very end, taking no chances and flooding the media. McCain, on the other hand, has altered his message on a daily basis and found little narrative a la Truman. If there is an enthusiasm gap, it favors Obama and not McCain.

So whenever you hear people say, “Harry Truman came back and we can too,” just remember that a pep rally is not a substitute for reality. Theories on the Bradley Effect or massive undecided movement to McCain are not backed up by any evidence at this point, and few people give them much credence. Unless some major external event intervenes between now and Tuesday, or all the Obama supporters decide to stay home complacently, Barack Obama will win.