[Update – eleven candidates have qualified and will appear on the ballot. see below for the list.]
While I’ve been following it since my last diary on February 1, developments since then haven’t been significant enough to warrant a diary update. Minutia isn’t the most scintillating feature of elections. Absent a significant revelation about or move by one of the top five candidates, the dynamics of the race wouldn’t shift until the campaign was officially underway and perhaps not even then.
The official decline to run by Bayrou/MoDem (center) resulted in the predicted shift, most to Macron and some to Fillon. Fillon remains under investigation for “Penelope-gate,” but his poll numbers haven’t dropped since the initial hit on this issue. Jadot/Green dropped out in favor of Hamon, but it’s not clear if his 1-2% has shifted to Hamon. That was enough to put Macron in second place and move Fillon into a strong third place.
There are a few days remaining before the candidates/parties that will appear on the ballot is finalized. Those that have qualified so far are:
Arthaud/LO (left)
Asselineau/UPR (right – split from UMP/LR euro-skeptic)
Dupont-Aignan/DLF (right Gaullist ‘purists’)
Fillon/LR (right – Republican)
Hamon/PS (socialist)
Le Pen/FN (white nationalist)
Macron/EM (new 2016)
Those near enough that they may qualify are [the first four qualified]:
Cheminade/SP (LaRouche party [labeled as centrist])
Lassalle/SE (independent ??? [centrist])
Melenchon/FI (left)
Patou/NPA (left/anti-capitalist)
out — Yade/DVD (far right and not likely to qualify)
Melanchon is the only one of these candidates that has a personal and party base above low single digits. He’s been polling at 11 to 13%.
The official campaign will be conducted from April 10 until midnight April 21. This is the first round. If no candidate gets a majority, the top two advance to a run-off on May 7.
The current top five candidates (based on polling which hasn’t changed since 2/1/17) will appear in a televised debate on March 20. By law, debates after April 8 must include all qualified candidates.
A few notes about the candidates and parties.
While the LR (Republican) party has some things in common with the U.S. Republican Party, they aren’t all that much alike. They were more similar when Sarkozy was the leader. Fillon is following more in the footsteps of Chirac and de Gaulle. They are capitalists and nationalists (roots in the Resistance) and Catholics. As Chirac demonstrated, not given to following the west into wars of choice. Racism is generally soft-pedaled (although Sarkozy put the pedal to the metal in the 2012 election). Not getting busted for financial corruption is apparently difficult for French Republicans. (Fillon won the nomination because he’d managed to avoid that until after he was nominated.) From a review of the 2012 election
Indeed, by their markedly right-wing leanings, artisans and shopkeepers express a strong opposition to the left’s penchant for state intervention and its proximity to salaried employees and trade unions. Artisans and shopkeepers are not generally of the “upper classes”, rather they are a traditional petite bourgeoisie which has lived in constant fear of proletarization and has cultivated a visceral opposition to the left’s historical traditions rooted in Marxist collectivism.
Perhaps French Republican leaders feed and care more about “main street” than U.S. Republicans. Tres cool that it can be killed off and the voters stick with them.
Fillon has been holding steady in third place at around 20%. That’s right at the loyal Republican base. In the first round, he could pick up some of the DLF support (polling at 2- 3%) which may keep him in third and therefore, be eliminated in the first round. Or he could shed a similar amount to DLF.
Since the formation of UNR (now LR) in 1958 only once has it failed to qualify for the second round. That was in 1974 (the Independent Republican, Giscard d’Estaing, went on to win and served one term). A third, or possibly fourth, place finish is unlikely to do irreparable damage to the party but Fillon won’t be leading it. Yet, it’s too soon to count Fillon out as I’ll explain later.
Le Pen – FN. Holding in first place at 25-27%. (Squeaked through to the second round in 2002 and in the final got 17.79%). Not easy to describe because it’s known more for what it’s against than what it’s for. Nativist is the word I’d use, but it’s more often described as nationalist, authoriarian, and populist. Anti-EU and anti-immigration. Pro-police but anti-US wars of choice. Beyond that everything else reads like “neither this nor that.” She and the party sell “pragmatism” unmoored to terra firma. They have been likened to National Socialism, but so far industrialists/owners and bankers want nothing to do with FN. If ever in power, that would change — Le Pen.
Le Pen finished third in 2012. Her endorsement for the run-off was un vote blanc. 13% of her voters did likewise. 24% abstained (didn’t vote in the second round), 11-13% voted PS, and the balance voted LR.
Hamon – PS. In a weak fourth position. This is the Socialist Party. The one that Hollande succeeded well enough in destroying that he opted not to run for a second term. His close associate and PM was rejected in the primary. Hamon is a new face on the national stage and in the unenviable position of having to both advance his candidacy and rebuild the party.
Melenchon – FI. Left party formed in 2016, but Melenchon also ran in the 2012 election and finished with 11.1% which revived the historically strongest of left of PS political party. FI used bottom up, instead of top down, to formulate its current policy positions:
Adopted by 77,038 votes in an Internet poll, these ten measures are based on the seven axioms programme, previously approved by “90 to 95 % of voters”, among 60 proposed measures, including: the formation of a constituent assembly; the repeal of the El Khomri law (labour reform); the implementation of an Energy transition plan and shutting down France’s nuclear power plants, and withdrawal from free trade agreements such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement. Other proposals include withdrawing from NATO, reinforcing the 35-hour work-week and moving towards 32 hours, reducing the retirement age to 60, and raising the minimum wage (Smic) to 1,300 Euros per month net.
Macron – EM. (En Marche — EM is only coincidentally Macron’s initials.) Brand new party with no roots in any old or older party. Although Macron was previously a PS member and served as Minister of the Economy, … until last summer. He’s the only candidate not to have previously held elective office. His “new idea” is socially liberal, pro-EU, pro-capitalism, pro-globalization, pro-austerity (IOW anti-socialism). And it’s selling like crepes.
The calculation is that Hollande was too blah and before him Sarkozy was to “bling-bling” to effectively sell austerity, the EU, and NATO. Can Macron get the job done? (The banksters hope so and that’s who is behind EM.) Blair-Clintonism hasn’t been so directly tried out in France.
A reason why a late realignment can’t be discounted:
Last October, in The Republican primary, Fillon was polling in fourth place with 11%. Then something happened. The debates. By the third one he was running even with the leaders Juppe and Sarkozy — and he cleaned up in that third debate. Why this was notable is that the 2007 general election debate cemented Sarkozy’s win and he made significant gains after the single second round debate in 2012. (Hollande declined Sarkozy’s request for a second debate.) Not enough to win, but enough to maintain his viability for a future run.
The same come-from-behind after debates also occured in the 2017 PS primary. Polling had Hamon scraping along in third place at 11-14%. So, two candidates have had recent and successful debates. Don’t know if Le Pen and Melenchon have participated in election debates, but both have won a number of elections. Macron will be well prepared and rehearsed, but the best preparation is experience in the real thing.
The Guardian – François Fillon placed under formal investigation over ‘fake jobs’
Now we’ll see if this issue has or hasn’t already been fully baked into the poll numbers.
I find it astonishing that after Hollande has managed to become the most unpopular President of France ever with basically the standard neoliberal policy set, the likeliest winner (Macron) is the one pushing – essentially the same policy set. He’ll get the rich somewhat more and everybody else somewhat less, but no big changes to the overall system.
Hey, he’s promised to add thousands more French police along the borders.
Macron does have some factors in his favor: a discredited Parti Socialiste because of Hollande, the fact he’s very young (39 — that’s younger than I am), a fresh face on the political scene, rather dynamic in personality, and (as yet) untarred by any scandal or hint of one, unlike Fillon and to a lesser extent LePen.
If he does make it to the second round, as appears likely, he’s likely to benefit from these personal LQ (h/t Marie) factors as he garners support from many candidate-less PS voters who’ll act to prevent the feared LePen from gaining office (just as they strategically voted in the 2d round against Marine’s father last decade when he faced Jacques Chirac in the finals).
So far, this looks like only a 4-person race in the 1st round, and a likely LePen-Macron finale, with the centrist emerging victorious.
Thx to Marie for the informative post, and for the heads-up on the upcoming debate, which I intend to watch.
Please report back on the debate back us non-French speakers here at the pond. Macron’s LQ at this point is based on hype (including media) and operating in a vacuum. As I attempted to point out earlier, comparative LQ is what kicks in at the later stages of an election.
(I self-experimented on this in 2004. Watched most or all of five Senate debates with the sound off. Had never seen any of the candidates before and knew nothing more than their party affiliation. I scored them on comparative visual LQ. In four of them, the LQ of one was clearly higher and in the last one, LQ was too low for both of them for me to make a determination. That’s how I was able to project that Republicans would build on their Senate majority.)
I recall the hype about Wesley Clark’s charisma in 2003. (The Clarkies were totally convinced that a retired general was the key to a 2004 win. He’d be like Ike with charisma. They couldn’t even wrap their minds around the fact that Ike was well known from a mega-war and Clark wasn’t.) Then he got onto a debate stage and is was like “where is it?” Or Howard Dean who was good on the stump and close to dreadful in debates. True believers will see what they want to see, but the majority do use their own eyes and ears in their perception of LQ even if the perception is unconscious.
If available, I’ll check out clips from the debate on the 20th. But as an American, I’ll still be handicapped unless there’s a stark difference in LQ.
Did you happen to see the gender swap reenactment of a Trump/Hillary debate? Whoa!
Do you have a link for it?
I had some trouble understanding what she(Trump) was saying.
Better to have watched it live.
http://www.dailywire.com/news/14203/what-if-trump-and-hillary-swapped-genders-james-barrett
Amazingly powerful. Highly recommend.
While I can honestly say that Trump’s antics never got to me and I rated his performance in the first debate with Hillary as dreadful (in comparison with his GOP debate performances). From the clip — the female “Trump” was as cringe-worthy for me. However, my perception/impression/assessment of the real Hillary in debate was nearly the same as what is more obvious in the male “Hillary.” Truly ticks me off that people here accused me of being misogynist when I was only being objective.
Holy shit.
And then some.
I’m v. surprised. My wife’s response to the debate was like yours, I think: ‘Trump is hammering home a stupid message at a tremendously simple level … really effectively.’
I thought he just sounded disqualifyingly horrible.
But in the clip, I appreciate female-Trump far more than male-Clinton. Not sure how much of my reaction is still due to sexism/homophobia–male-Clinton comes across to me as ‘prissy,’ so there’s probably some element of that–but I’m really taken aback.
Sound as if your wife was a more astute and objective observer of Trump in debate than I was. (I only watched the first one; so, don’t know if I’d have done better if I’d watched the second and third. My tolerance for willingly subjecting myself to drivel is rather low.) However, I did note the negatives of Clinton’s debate style in the primary debates. A smug or self-satisfied facial and body posture, propensity to talk on and on without getting to the point, and interrupting and overtalking the opponent. Impressions of that will vary by individual, but except for true believers, the conclusion isn’t positive.
So non-verbal communication was between presumptuous elite vs outrage. It is clearer with gender roles reversed.
The Democrats do something very wrong on-verbally nearly always. Some post-McCarthy/Dallas/Reagan inhibition? Or something more sinister?
If Le Pen were to win, this muddy field of candidates and Macron as the last opponent would be ideal for her.
I’ll be interested to see what happens with Fillon — expect he’ll get hammered with a deluge of Qs over his scandals. Will he react clearly and forcefully and then pivot onto issues, or stay on the defensive? If the latter, he’s finished.
Re Macron, I’d slightly revise what I wrote above re “hint” of scandal, as a few weeks ago a story was reported that he’d been carrying on a gay affair with some guy. He quickly and firmly denied, and seems to have put this behind him, as scandals surrounding others took the headlines.
Macron does have an interesting marriage situation, to say the least — married for 10 yrs to his former lycée teacher, who is 24 yrs older, thus age 63!
Re Wes Clark: as I recall, a big fave of Kos. Also seem to remember he stumbled badly in answering reporter’s hypothetical question — which his campaign should have easily anticipated and prepared for — as to whether he would have gone militarily into Iraq in 2003 had he been president.
Agree on Dean’s debating skills, or lack thereof. It’s another specialized skill that most practice and prep for, especially when they don’t come naturally to it. Someone — either the candidate or his handler in charge of speaking up — failed to address it.
If debate skill is not natural or learned earlier, it’s too late to pick it up in the midst of a campaign. Improvements will be limited and there’s the risk of worsening the original baseline.
The age difference is only interesting to some because it’s not a younger woman and older man. What makes it interesting is when the relationship began. Quickly shipping the kid off to finish high school at a boarding school is an uncommon parental response.
A close friend who sadly died a few years ago of colon cancer was similarly married to a much older woman. That marriage was a strong one.
Discouraging, but such is the power of flattering media coverage combined with a new and young face. Relatively young (and consequently with little political/legislative/policy experience) is an asset in US politics as well.
While your characterization of Macron as essentially Hollande isn’t exactly wrong, it’s too superficial. Valls ended up running in that role. Macron is worse. He(and his backers) assumed that he couldn’t beat Hollande (or Valls if Hollande decided not to run) in the PS primary. The “I’ll take my marbles and set up new party” is common in France, but generally it’s a split from a preexisting party and the leader is a recognized political figure. For public consumption, EM is a “party” of one and not touted as a split from PS (although behind the scenes it is but that faction is tiny). It was the only way to get him into the first round and hype him as exciting and charismatic without any direct challenge and comparisons to other candidates until the last three to four weeks of the campaign season.
Macron is more like all the bad bits of Hollande’s policies on steroids and the good bits lopped off except for cultural/social issues which don’t cost the state dollars and why neoliberals highlight them (and would be politically useless if the other side stopped pitching regressive and anti-social (and cheap) cultural/social issues). I have no idea if French voters, particularly young voters, will see through the ruse.
My understanding is Macron is the Hollande’s right.
It doesn’t appear Le Pen can win.
Didn’t look like Trump could win, either.
Very true. But the gap is much bigger here.
Hatefulness wasn’t what won it for Trump and it won’t win it for Le Pen. It only got them into the game. Trump could skate on “we’re going to take a look at that” on policy matters because he wasn’t a politician (and not being a politician was attractive in 2016), Le Pen won’t be cut that much slack.
The Trump win is an anomaly an unique to the US and 2016. Le Pen’s challenges are only vaguely similar. France was an occupied country and therefore, echoes of National Socialism is both easier to hear and reject by French voters than US voters. Le Pen has to be a much better politician than Trump to get over that hurdle.
Therefore, it’s wise to be cautious in tossing around that reference.
Two new polls this morning: basically the same
27 Le Pen 25 Marcon 19 Fillon 12 Melenchon 13 Harmon
Marcon leads Le Pen by 20: 60-40. Fillon leads Le Pen by ony 10.
It’s Macron and Hamon.
No need to watch the polls that closely. As I pointed out in the diary, polls before the primary debates this time were useless. And off by too much after the debates as well.
What’s the abstention/protest/un vote blanc in those two second round hypotheticals? Would have to be high for Fillon to have such a small advantage over Le Pen. The crossover from LR to FN (and vice versa) may be reluctant but it’s high. It would be like a US general election where the only two candidates are Christie and Trump.
But I LIKE to watch polls that closely…
An excellent way to miss the forests.
I will do that irregardless of whether I look at them or not.
Avoid the middle ground (no man’s land) and you won’t. Glance at them and ponder and watch for trends materializing (that’s the forest) and how does that integrate with the small patches (states) being observed.
Last year I couldn’t wrap my mind around the LATimes/USC tracking poll. I discounted it as an DT biased outlier. They didn’t get it right but it did highlight that DT wasn’t as weak as other polls indicated.
All number watching and crunching all the time hasn’t demonstrated any superiority over casual observations by those that can read polls. Having some education in statistics seemed to be helpful to me, but maybe that’s an artifact and something else made it easier for me than others on my first attempts back in ’02.
If by “Hollande’s right” you mean that he disdains socialism, then yes. But it’s not like what French Republicans stand for, nor phrased venomously.
Until Trump got on a debate stage, nobody expected him to win the GOP nomination. After that, most people still couldn’t see that. How many here even put him in the could happen category?
At this point Le Pen is poised to make it to the second round. However, she’s not there yet. This isn’t like 2002 when daddy skated through to the final before appearing head-to-head against other candidates. After a debate with Chirac, he only added less than a point to his 16.9% in the first round. Marine is reportedly savvier and smoother in her self-presentation, but the big league is different from little leagues (as fifteen GOP candidates experienced in 2016).
Several things to watch for. Do her post debate poll numbers go up or down? Does she get 25+% of the first round vote and does that put her in first or second place? And if she does make it to the second round, who is her opponent? Fillon will blunt her 2017 calling card, Euro-skepticism which is high in France at the moment. If she’s skilled enough, Macron will enhance it.
He reminds me an awful lot like Tony Blair – young, charismatic. The story of he and his wife is kind of compelling – certainly not the typical take.
His would be a win for the establishment/center.
He was, as I understand it, part of Hollande’s economic team and that may not fair well in a debate.
With the spread this narrow between this many candidates you would think the debate might be decisive.
Blair-Clinton-Obama. But took a break from public employment to build a small fortune as a banker. So, he’s more one of them that the others were in seeking high office.
Not sure how he’s distancing himself from Hollande’s economic policies. My guess is by using rhetoric that sounds like something new, progressive, and positive and not having been challenged on it. Will be interesting to see if Le Pen makes any effort to do so. (She’d be smart to hold off on that.) Hamon and Melenchon have to hit Macron hard on this.
The spread before the LR and PS primary debates was wider. Just because recent and general election debates back to 2002 changed from the expected outcomes doesn’t mean that it will be replicated in the first round this year. But it’s a damn good reason for folks not to predict the election outcome before for debates take place.
Another Blair-Macron comparison: both when younger were either professing loyalty to the socialist agenda (Blair) or aligning officially with the PS (Macron), and both later drifted/shifted rightward.
(Some similarities with the young Al Gore of 1988, who, like Macron, ran for prez at age 39, handsome and smart, and also shifted rightward for that campaign. But Al had years in Congress before that, and of course came from a political family.)
A difference though with Blair and Clinton is that this is Macron’s first try at elective office; all previous jobs were appointed, or he was in banking.
So, much more of a fresh face on the national scene. That could bode well for him, or it could mean he risks stumbling badly in the debate or down the stretch.
It’s very difficult to assess the political maturation/development of politicians. The politicians themselves may have the least insight as to theirs and if those that do, usually have many years lying that they are unlikely to be honest of this.
That said and in general, people don’t actually change that much as they age. (At least not unless dementia develops.)
I don’t know if Gore was inclined to enter politics or just delayed it after his father lost his Senate seat. Rather stunning that with a solid progressive record that Sr. joined the filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Not a minor move since back then 67 votes were needed to break a filibuster and it took some time to break it. Seems clear enough why he did that. So, Gore learned early that winning in TN meant not challenging the culture there. Reinforced by Senior’s loss in 1970 after being one of the most progressive Senators in his last term. Might explain Gore’s timidity, cautiousness, and outwardly conservative on social issues. Wear that suit long enough and only strips of it can be taken off when it’s no longer needed.
Clinton wanted to be JFK and Blair wanted t be Mick Jagger. There’s a common theme right there, fame. And what good is fame without wealth and power?
PS may have been expedient for Macron – his “interesting” marriage would have drawn more negative attention for a Republican politician and may not have been acceptable at all. Otherwise, his education and class screams Republican.
I don’t know why thirty-five was set as the minimum age for a POTUS. The first three were well over fifty before being elected.
A wise person once said Presidential Contenders are all just so many guys/girls in suits until they start to campaign. You learn things very fast about them when they start.
And so it is with debates.
Should add I am rereading a book on the ’76 Campaign.
He may be a little like Carter. Carter avoided specifics like the plague, and talked in vague terms about re-organizing the government and tax reform.
I could make a few more comparisons. I have read two books in the last 18 months about ’76. Jimmy Carter ran a very successful, but really bizarre campaign in a lot of ways.
In a really sort of odd way there is a mild similarity to the Trump campaign. Bob Shrum was brought on board to become a speech writer, and in his short tenure concluded Carter really had no real ideology at all. Shrum would later of course write Ted Kennedy’s 1980 Convention speech and if you like you can be pretty dismissive of him (I worked on one campaign where in the NH HQ we called his firm Dumb and Soak us).
Anyway he was brought on board to inject experience into the campaign. Carter would have none of it.
But all the early Presidents had had critical roles at much younger ages. Adams and Washington were Revolutionary War leaders in their early 40’s; Madison was “father of the constitution” in his late 30’s and Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in his early 30’s. None of them would have thought 35 is necessarily too young to be President.
Yeah — they had like experience that was relevant to the job as POTUS.
I know he isn’t running as a continuation of Hollande but my point is that his policies are broadly similar to Hollande’s (and, as you point out, generally worse insofar as they’re different). All the other candidates, by contrast, are substantively different from Hollande. It’s just strange that when voters are looking for a substantive change the leading candidate is the only one who isn’t offering it. It’s also kind of depressing that so many voters looking for change will fall for somebody who isn’t offering it because he’s good-looking and calls himself independent.
Also depressing: as usual, splits on the left put us out of the running. Hamon + Melanchon is competitive with either Macron or Fillon, but, sorry, lefties gotta fight, so the question is which righty gets to enact noxious policies for the next 5 years.
Agree on Macron. He’s using the Giscard d’Estaing playbook. Only without prior electoral experience and out of PS instead of LR (to use their current initials). Although d’Estaing was honest about his divergence from LR which was to set aside all the discriminatory social issues.
It looks odd from a US perspective because of the limitation of our two party system with third parties not only being fringe but also never get so much as a dinner invitation to the big table. But dig a bit below the surface and similar dynamics play out here. In ’92 WJC and GHWB both ran on NAFTA that was being blocked by old school Congressional Democrats and wasn’t supported by a majority of the public. ’08 BHO was the charismatic young face that used language to mask that he wasn’t anything new or different at all.
It’s the “centrists” that I find depressing. Always selling the mythical center from which all good things come and when elected only sell-out to the right. A center that’s just a bit to the right of weak tea democrats. That’s because Socialism is the only real center between communism and capitalism.
I don’t view the French left “splits” as depressing at all. The alternative is that they permanently collapse into one heap and are then co-opted by powerful and monied elites.
It’s the combined left v. combined right split of 50% (+– 3) and 50% (+– 3) in western democracies for the past few decades that’s depressing. It’s a stalemate. And that allows those with power and influence to be the deciders.
Saw this comment on the Dutch elections at NC:
drexciya
March 16, 2017 at 9:46 am
I’m getting sick of the reports about the Dutch elections. The media are seeing this as a loss for populism, but that’s just spin. There was a very high number of people that voted, which is quite something to begin with. Next up is the “fact” that “far-right”/populist parties didn’t “win”. Actually, they did win:
What I really don’t understand is that there’s no attention being given to DENK, which is a party aligned with the dictatorial regime in Turkey. These people used to stay undercover inside other parties, but they’ve shown their true colors.
Denk was mentioned in the thread dealing with the Dutch election.
Wilders/PVV were flying high in polls a few months ago as compared to election results. Seems noteworthy to me.
Analysis of and commentary on election results is fairly low level.
We in the US can’t see the rise and fall of similar factions here because the factions are subsumed in the two parties. Until recent times, emigration kept Dutch society more homogeneous and culturally much older than the US. Splits along religion, occupation, and wealth.
I think I appreciate what happened in the Dutch election, but can’t articulate that well. In my clumsy view, it would be as if the neoliberalcons had split off from the D and R parties several decades ago. Adn as more people gained more higher education and then white collar jobs it grew, but D and R continued to alternate as to which was in the lead. Then a more purely nativist/racist party emerged in the early naughts.
In 2010 the pecking order became: neoliberalcons, democrats, racists, republicans. In 2012 the top two significantly increased their numbers, the racists lost 37.5%, and number four dropped to number five and socialists moved into fourth. Now it’s neolibercons still in first but with fewer numbers, the racists in number two but still with fewer numbers than they had in 2010, republicans tied for third with a liberal progressive party, followed by a socialist and green tie, and democrats in single digits in seventh place.