A quick look at the bios of the Justices and an actuarial table suggests that the next President is very likely to have the opportunity to replace at least one of the 'conservative' majority, and a roughly even chance of replacing two, even if he gets only one term. (Granted, Justices probably get better than average health care, but they can end up retiring due to less than death, too.) Unless McCain pulls off a victory, the 'conservative' majority is going to be history quite soon.
 

This is interesting, but wouldn't it require AMK deciding that he been wrong, after all, in Casey? Hasn't he gone as far he wants in Gonzales?

I will say that he seemed to move leftward on the issue from Webster to Casey, and that indicates a willingness to rethink positions.
But I seriously doubt that AMK, given the way he seems to view himself and his role as a justice, wants to be known as the justice who cast the deciding vote to overturn Roe.
 

Scalia is 72. Kennedy will be 72. Roberts and Alito are young. Thomas is 59. Kennedy has a powerful role. Scalia isn't one to want to help the other side and seems to like his job enough. Neither has had major health issues that come to mind.

Putting aside O'Connor (husband sick), what justice retired before they were 76 in recent memorty? Douglas, who has a pacemaker in his heart for years, didn't even do that. Once you live to an older age, chances are you will live older than the "average" age.

OTOH, Stevens is nearing 90. Ginsburg is older than the two 70s conservatives and has had health issues. Souter has made noises about not wanting to die in office. And, Breyer is 69.

It's surely possible, but in no way does it seem "roughly even" that in the next four years TWO conservatives will retire. Likewise, it is as possible (even probable) at least one lib will retire, perhaps the top one. And, the new justice very well might be some wild card.

As to Roe, or rather Casey, Kennedy has supported a right to privacy. He wrote Lawrence. Even when he doesn't like the results (see flag burning), he doesn't seem to like all or nothing results. He even hesistated to do so in the school choice case when he was the swing vote.

Calvin Terbeek is on the right track -- both given how he views himself and his views, it is quite possible Kennedy will vote to uphold regulations that will weaken abortion rights along the edges in troubling ways. But, overruling Roe? Dubious.

This sort of thing is why libs did so much heavy lifting in 1988 to get someone like him appointed. He will bother them but realists will also realize he will salvage important somethings as often.
 

Joe, all I did was step-wise integrate the yearly probability of death for each of the conservative Justices over the 4 year term of the next President, using a standard actuarial table. Sure, any given conservative Justice has a moderately low probability of dying over the next 4 years, but there ARE 5 of them, making the odds of one of them croaking none the less better than 50-50.
 

if i've got a democrat as president ..and a rout in november has placed bulletproof majorities in both houses .. which i think will be the case ..

why not play some bareknuckled politics ...

have the legislature increase the size of the USSC .. let's go to 11 justices .. eh ??

and if i have a democratic prez ..and both houses .. why can't i legislatively fix any policy i want in place ..

replace roe with legislation mirroring roe .. and then remove abortion from the purvue of the courts ..

i mean ... if you're willing to play hardball ........ "play ball" ...

[just a bit tongue in cheek]
 

Apart from smacking more than a little bit of conspiracy theory, the idea that the Supremes are only declining to reverse Roe because such a reversal would split the Reagan coalition would appear to be counter intuitive since the GOP has been winning with pro life candidates since 1980 and has only ceded the presidency once to a Southern Dem who campaigned on making abortion rare.

Conspiracy theories aside, one can very reasonably argue that Roe's remaining viability is in fact in the balance in 2008.

The most likely Supremes to leave are Stevens being by far the oldest and Ginsberg as the second oldest Justice with the most health issues. This is half of the left minority.

If Obama wins, he will most likely be replacing elderly leftists with younger leftists. This should not affect the near term status quo, but will shift the age balance against the conservatives.

For the purposes of Roe, I am not at all certain that the status quo is sufficient to reverse Roe. Roberts is an incrementalist and Kennedy, although he has voted against the penumbral abortion "right" fairly regularly, has recently been a wild card who has a tendency to "evolve" away from his conservative roots.

Thus, the Court probably requires a conservative super majority to finally send Roe the way of Plessy.

If he is elected, Mr. McCain has the opportunity to form such a conservative super majority by replacing Stevens and Ginsberg with justices in the mold of Roberts and Alito. Among seven conservatives, a majority of five could probably be found to reverse.

It appears more likely than not that Mr. McCain will be elected over Mr. Obama this fall. Between the Dems and the GOP, the former is far more split than the latter.

Since he became the presumptive nominee, all the polling indicates that the conservative GOP base has fallen in behind McCain. The base is not thrilled with McCain, but they are horrified at the prospect of Obama or another Clinton.

However, Obama appears to have permanently alienated around 20% or so of the Dem base consisting of white working class Reagan Dems. Because McCain is really a Reagan Dem, he will have no trouble attracting the votes which Obama has driven away.

Given that no Dem has obtained a majority of the popular vote since 1976, I do not see how Obama can win after losing 20% of his base. Obama's reduced coalition consists of white liberals, African Americans and young people. This is the same coalition the Dems ran with in 1972, 1980, 1984 and 1988. That coalition did not come close to making up a majority of the vote in those elections and is unlikely to do so this year. Clinton's two plurality victories came when he attracted back many of the Reagan Dems and many of the rest went to Perot instead of the GOP.

The question Court watchers should be asking is whether a likely McCain Administration will appoint actual conservatives in the face of what appears will be a far bluer Senate?

McCain likes to play the bipartisan, but conservative judicial appointments are the concessions he is making to the conservative GOP base to gain their support this fall. Hell, the prospect of a conservative super majority on the federal courts along with the fact McCain will fight the war are about the only reasons this conservative will vote for him. The pressure from the base to take advantage of this window will be terrific and the results will be very interesting indeed.

As an aside, George Packer's article is humorous on a number of levels.

Given that the wealthiest counties in the country overwhelmingly elect Dems and the wealthy are showering millions on Mr. Obama, the idea that the GOP is the party of the rich is, shall we say, rich.

Furthermore, given that the combination of McCain and Obama has put PA and nearly all of fly over country between the NE and the Left Coast in play, the idea that the GOP is limited to the South is even richer.

What is interesting about 2006 and now 2008 is the return of the conservative Blue Dog Democrat to Congress. Between 1994 and 2004, the GOP snapped up the seats of conservative Dems across the South and Midwest. It appeared that the conservative Dem was going the way of the Do Do Bird. However, power corrupted the GOP as it had the Dems before them and starting in 2006 center right Dems started taking back the seats they had lost in the 90s.

Contrary to Mr. Packer's thesis, the country is still very much center right. However, the center right electoral coalition is simply beginning to take a purple hue as more Blue Dog Dems join in. If the GOP wants back its congressional majority, they better stop trying to outspend Dems and return to first conservative principles.
 

Bart,

You are certainly right that conservatives of all hues agree that Roe is illegitimate as a matter of constitutional law. (I share that opinion myself, but that is a different story). But they are by no means as unanimous as you would like in their views on abortion as a matter of policy.

What would happen if McCain wins the Presidency while Democrats enlarge their Senate majority is, indeed, an interesting question. Most likely they will come up with relatively uncontroversial compromise Supreme Court nominations.

You may very well be right that the country remains center-right. The Republicans' problem is that they have forgotten the "center" part and driven way off the edge of the road.
 

EL:

I wish that the GOP had taken the conservative turn which you contend.

Increasing spending by a third, NCLB, an enormous new drug benefit, the grotesquely huge Ag bills and billions in ear marks is hardly Reagan/Gingrich small government conservatism at work.

The GOP took a sharp left turn domestically and tried to out Dem the Dems. In turn, they are actually getting flanked on the right by the Blue Dogs. The Blue Dog Dems won and continue to win GOP seats by arguing for getting DC spending and corruption under control. The pitch sounds very much like the pitch the GOP made in the 90s to gain control of Congress.
 

I've long since concluded that what we've seen since '94 overturned things is the true face of the Republican elected class: That prior to '94 they'd been getting elected under false pretense, and ending up in the majority simply stripped away their capacity to disguise their true nature by putting them openly in charge.

The GOP is going to be a long time in the wilderness, because they just don't have the credibility anymore to be believed when they promise what it would take to regain the enthusiastic support of their former base.

That the people responsible for this fall from power occupy "safe" seats, and have managed to retain control over the GOP caucus, and tremendous influence over the party infrastructure, will only slow the rehabilitation of the party: The corrupt rent seekers would rather do their thing as a permanent minority than engage in the self denial necessary to regain the public's approval, and they're able to use the party machinery to hinder the rise of anybody who'd disrupt their comfortable corruption.

This is not to say that I don't expect Democrats to over-reach, and suffer some setbacks. It's just that the GOP won't be able to exploit them properly to make a comeback, with a corrupt leadership, and a base that knows better to trust them.
 

"Bart" DePalma:

Furthermore, given that the combination of McCain and Obama has put PA and nearly all of fly over country between the NE and the Left Coast in play, the idea that the GOP is limited to the South is even richer.

Better lissen to "Bart" and lissen up! He was so "on the money" in 2006. ;-)

Keep it up, "Bart", the Twety-three Percenter need a good marching song....

Cheers,


Cheers,
 

The base is not thrilled with McCain, but they are horrified at the prospect of Obama or another Clinton.

The "base" is 23% and falling.

And now McSame's thrown Parsley and Hagee under the bus. Real good for morale amongst the RW frothers.

Cheers,
 

If the current situation appears really bad for the Republicans/Conservatives, do they really think that they will not be able to benefit from being in the minority and come back to power soon?

A number of conservatives I know don't think that his year is a repudiation of conservatism. Instead they seem to think that they have run into a perfect storm of events out of their control. The war has dragged on a great deal longer than expected, in part because of liberal obstructionism here at home; the uncontrollable business cycle has decided to turn sharply down just when the fed was unable to act to prevent the downturn because of the credit crisis (and the media and liberals are hyping the recession when there really isn't one;) and unfortunately the Republican base could not find a Presidential candidate to get behind, so they had to settle for the "non-Republican" McCain.

See? It's just bad luck that all this occurred in a Presidential election year. And everything could turn around again by 2010 or for certain 2012. And, hey - they are all set to run the nastiest Presidential campaign in living memory, most of it underground with lies, smears and voter suppression. McCain might even pull it off. [*]

Given that a number of conservatives consider that a possibility, wouldn't an effort by the Supreme Court to - as you say - "Shoot the Moon" really poison the well for an early comeback? It would really further damage the "Republican brand" just at the time they should be working to take advantage of being in the minority and able to blame the Democrats for the bad results we all know are going to happen in the next two to four years.

Once Roe vs Wade is overturned, it ceases to be a hot button issue that can be used to raise money and turn out the vote and the volunteers for conservatives. That's a benefit to Democrats, since they get the reverse of that - increased fundraising and turn out.

I'm not sure the SC is ready to "shoot the moon" with a 5-4 decision if it will cripple a potential Republican/conservative comeback.

[*]I just listen to these fantasies, though the nasty campaign is not one of them. It's real. There were good reasons why, after the Republicans lost the House in 1954 because they had been so out of control it was forty years before they could get it back. Those same reasons apply again now, and now the Civil Rights wars and the Cold War are over.
 

Given that the wealthiest counties in the country overwhelmingly elect Dems and the wealthy are showering millions on Mr. Obama, the idea that the GOP is the party of the rich is, shall we say, rich.

Bart, the authority for linking the GOP with the rich was Ed Rollins, not George Packer. Excuse me if I place more confidence in Mr. Rollins understanding of the Republican party than yours.

Speaking of confidence in your judgement, would you describe for us your coming mea culpa after Obama handily defeats McCain?
 

Mattski:

Rollins is a bit of a joke in conservative GOP circles and is a favorite source of quotes for lib publications like the New Yorker.

The guy went off the reservation with the Perotistas in the 90s and has been supporting liberal Republicans like Whitman and Huckabee ever since.

The demographics are pretty clear showing that the Dems have taken over the mantle of the Party of the Rich and appear to be doing their best to run the blue collar folks out to the GOP -at least at the Presidential level.

I say welcome to them.
 

Baghdad, given your "success" in predicting the 2006 Republican "victory", it's tough to ignore your political "insights"...
 

Packer seems to have neglected the conservatives' use of race going back to the '60s to pave the way for Nixon, and on through George W to the present. He does mention race in a limited way with several references to "white working class voters" who might not vote for Obama for reasons of race. Packer quotes John Preson in Inez, KY: "Obama is considered an elitist" adding "There's a racial component, obviously, to it. Thousands of people won't publicly say it, but they won't vote for a black man - on both sides, Democrat and Republican. It won't show up in the polls, because they won't admit it. The elephant's in the room, but nobody will say it. Sad to say it, but it's true." Does anyone doubt that McCain's campaign will be riding that elephant?

A most interesting aspect of Packer's article is David Brooks. For several years now, Brooks' columns in the NYTimes has been having quite a bit of difficulty in adhering to the conservatives' message in supporting George W, although he takes every opportunity to knock Democrats. He no longer comes through as so positive and cocksure on conservatism as practiced by George W's Administration. He has been lost. His comments to Packer reflect this. But rest assured conservatives, in his columns and TV appearances Brooks will take every opportunity to try to salvage a victory for John McCain by savaging Obama, including with favorable commentary on Hillary Clinton, to drive the wedge into the Democrats. He shows more integrity in his comments to Packer than he does in his columns.
 

shag from brookline said...

Packer seems to have neglected the conservatives' use of race going back to the '60s to pave the way for Nixon, and on through George W to the present. He does mention race in a limited way with several references to "white working class voters" who might not vote for Obama for reasons of race.

When most respondents say that race played a role in their votes, they are not speaking of their own racism (which most people are hardly going to admit to pollsters), but that of Mr. Obama's "spiritual advisor" the Right Reverend Wright. Those same voters who say that race is playing a part in their vote also tell pollsters that they believe Obama shares some or all of Wright's racist views.

Obama did not have this problem prior to Wright, so it is unlikely that it is Obama's skin color which is at issue.

Packer quotes John Preson in Inez, KY: "Obama is considered an elitist" adding "There's a racial component, obviously, to it."

Nonsense. The GOP has been playing this card against white Dem candidates since Nixon, who had a near pathological hatred of Ivy League elitists. The last Dem to get skewered with that label was Kerry.
 

they believe Obama shares some or all of Wright's racist views

What "racist views" are you talking about?
 

To the limited extent that I'm familiar with Wright's views, I'd characterize them as more paranoid than racist, though perhaps a race oriented paranoia. If there's racism involved anywhere, it's an explanation for why we are so accepting of Wright's ranting, which would be instantly recognized as deranged coming from a lighter colored source. A kind of "What can you expect from them?" kind of tolerance.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

A kind of "What can you expect from them?" kind of tolerance.

If you read up on the Tuskegee syphilis experiment you might see why there is some tolerance for Wright's views.
 

shag:

You can find the polling data to which I was referring here and here.
 

I dunno, does anyone here find Wright's rants that the US is run by a cabal of rich white KKK members who sent AIDS and drugs into black communities and operate a terrorist state to mass murder brown and black foreigners to be just a wee bit racist?

How about when Wright claimed that white and black kids use their brains differently?

Then there is this paisan's favorite:

"(Jesus') enemies had their opinion about Him," Wright wrote in a eulogy of the late scholar Asa Hilliard in the November/December 2007 issue. "The Italians for the most part looked down their garlic noses at the Galileans."

Wright continued, "From the circumstances surrounding Jesus' birth (in a barn in a township that was under the Apartheid Roman government that said his daddy had to be in), up to and including the circumstances surrounding Jesus' death on a cross, a Roman cross, public lynching Italian style.

Wright is nothing less than a paranoid racist demagogue. However, the scary thing is that we actually have a presidential candidate with a reasonable shot at the White House seeking out and supping on Wright's bile for 20 years.
 

Then there is this paisan's favorite:

Your favorite what? Roman rule was extremely brutal.

Wright is nothing less than a paranoid racist demagogue

Takes one to know one?
 

I dunno, does anyone here find Wright's rants that the US is run by a cabal of rich white KKK members who sent AIDS and drugs into black communities

You must have heard of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment by now.

and operate a terrorist state to mass murder brown and black foreigners to be just a wee bit racist?

I think the decision to invade Iraq was racist to the core.
 

I dunno, does anyone here find Wright's rants that the US is run by a cabal of rich white KKK members who sent AIDS and drugs into black communities

You must have heard of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment by now.

Not this canard again. What happened was bad, but whites did not invent syphilis at Tuskegee. Whites did not infect the patients with syphilis at Tuskegeee. The study began seventy-six years ago, and ended almost four decades ago.
 

What happened was bad

It was a lot worse than bad.

I'm curious how much you would trust the government if whatever ethnic group you belong to were subjected to that kind of treatment (not to mention the treatment over the preceding 200+ years)?
 

A kind of "What can you expect from them?" kind of tolerance.

I assume the "them" refers to Protestant preachers.
 

It appears that Obama got caught making up family war stories in 2002 and again during his Memorial Day speech. I am sure this will endear him further to vets among the Reagan Dems.
 

brett wrote:

Joe, all I did was step-wise integrate the yearly probability of death for each of the conservative Justices over the 4 year term of the next President, using a standard actuarial table. Sure, any given conservative Justice has a moderately low probability of dying over the next 4 years, but there ARE 5 of them, making the odds of one of them croaking none the less better than 50-50.

Whatever you did, you did it wrong. Applying that table gives less than 40% probability that a conservative Justice would die between now and November 2012. (That's about 4.4 years, and I picked November because a lame duck president wouldn't be able to nominate the successor. Anyway, picking Jan 2013 wouldn't make a significant difference.)

And, of course, using a general-poipulation life table on Supreme Court Justices is beyond ridiculous. Cut the probability in half and you'll get something close to realistic. So about 20%.
 

"Whatever you did, you did it wrong."

Yup. Think I hit return one too many times while entering the string of probabilities into my calculator program, and ended up squaring the resulting probability.

Well, anyway, we can agree it wouldn't be particularly shocking if Obama gets to replace one of the conservatives. 40% isn't long odds.

Oh, and I'm aware that they've got better than average odds, I figured the fact that they can end up retired as a result of something short of death compensated for that.
 

On the OT stuff that "Bart"'s flinging like newly found feces, see here.

Yes, maybe the "uncle" was his great-uncle, and there might have been some confusion about the specific camp.

But given the low bar set by the maladministration WRT the truth, are these slips de minimis?

And if we're to talk about honesty, "Bart" is hardly in a position to criticise anyone (plenty of other examples too).

Cheers,
 

"What is interesting about 2006 and now 2008 is the return of the conservative Blue Dog Democrat to Congress."

Bart--myth. Among people elected in 2006--Jerry McNerney in California, Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) & Sherrod Brown (ohio)--extremely liberal, Carolyn Shea-Porter in New Hampshire, and Jon Tester in Montana, who made opposing the Patriot Act the centerpiece of his campaign.

As for this nonsense about conservatives being unpopular because they abandoned conservative principles--*what* conservative principles? Conservatives were all too happy to hold up Bush as a true-blue conservative when he was riding high in the polls--see Greenwald. Read the whole thing:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/04/fraud/

Among the best quotes there are those of true conservative Rod Dreher:
"This failure is not President Bush's alone. The Republican Party owns it. The conservative movement, with some exceptions, owns it. . . "

"It doesn't take much courage to stand up for conservative principle to a president as weak as this one has become. It would have taken real courage to stand up for conservative principle in 2002, 2003, 2004, even early 2005. How many did?. . .
It is tempting to blame Bush for everything. But it's not fair, and it's not honest. Bush is today who he always was. The difference is we conservatives pretty much loved the guy -- when he was a winner."
 

gregm said...

"What is interesting about 2006 and now 2008 is the return of the conservative Blue Dog Democrat to Congress."

Bart--myth. Among people elected in 2006--Jerry McNerney in California, Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) & Sherrod Brown (ohio)--extremely liberal, Carolyn Shea-Porter in New Hampshire, and Jon Tester in Montana, who made opposing the Patriot Act the centerpiece of his campaign.

You are speaking of only a handful of the seats the Dems gained in 2006.

Chris Bowers over at Open Left broke down all the new Blue Dogs (who he derogatively nicknamed Bush Dogs) elected in 2006 and before who joined the GOP to torpedo the Dems retreat and defeat initiatives. These 38 make up the balance of power in the House and are the reason the Dem leftist leadership accomplished nothing of substance.

The Dem between election pickups are more of the same.

This is why I am not particularly concerned about the nominal Dem majorities in the Congress. There is still a center right majority in both Houses and will be for the foreseeable future.

As for this nonsense about conservatives being unpopular because they abandoned conservative principles--*what* conservative principles? Conservatives were all too happy to hold up Bush as a true-blue conservative when he was riding high in the polls--see Greenwald.

Voters are not stupid. If the GOP govern from the left, the voters will not take them seriously when they call themselves conservative.

Greenwald is not a serious political analyst. Rather, he makes his living tweaking the hypocrisies of the GOP political class to amuse fellow leftists. This has been a target rich environment for Glenn recently because the GOP have been acting like hypocrites. In this, Greenwald is simply joining the far more talented conservative pundits in the alternative media and the blogosphere who have been skewering the GOP for years for their apostasies.

The way for the GOP to cure this problem is to stop acting hypocritically and to walk the conservative walk again. The political class as a group is not all that bright so it may take a while and a few more Blue Dog beatings for the GOP political class to wake up and smell the coffee.
 

May I just reiterate the fact of "Bart"'s stellar perspicacity and prognostication ability in 2006....

Not to mention he still hasn't figured out just how wrong he and the other RW foamers were in 2002 and 2003....

Must be nice to be immune to reality.

Cheers,
 

This has been a target rich environment for Glenn recently because the GOP have been acting like hypocrites.

They should get a collective Oscar. I couldn't even tell they were acting.
 

This is why I am not particularly concerned...

Bart, I salute you for your commitment to civility, but beyond that, no, I'm not impressed with your claims to insight.

Your attempt to label Dems the party of the rich is a wonderful example of your will-to-believe completely crushing your faculties of observation. It's quite true that there are many affluent liberals in this country. That has little to do with which party traditionally and to this day caters to the wealthy and eagerly does their bidding. I don't need or care to wrestle with you on the subject.

I'll just remind you that it wasn't for nothing that FDR was considered a traitor to his class by the robber-barons of the day. And some things have little changed.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

Like it or not, the days of BDP will never be. His "middle" is "crass" not "class", especially with professional career reliance upon the consumption of adult beverages and the suburban, exurban and rural sport of DUI. In urban communities, we walk it off.
 

mattski:

Your attempt to label Dems the party of the rich is a wonderful example of your will-to-believe completely crushing your faculties of observation. It's quite true that there are many affluent liberals in this country. That has little to do with which party traditionally and to this day caters to the wealthy and eagerly does their bidding.

Through the 20th Century through today, the GOP has been the party of business and the Dems the party of government. The term party of the rich was a simply derogatory shot at business to justify Dem efforts to increase the size of government.

However, there have been some important demographic shifts which have more sharply defined the parties and made the Dems the party of the rich.

The Dems have become primarily the party of urban areas, representing the rich and the poor, secular and unmarried.

In contrast, the GOP has become primarily the party of suburban and rural areas, representing the middle class, religious and married with children.

There are of course exceptions to these trends, but these are the predominant demographics of the current parties.

In a post entitled "Rich Man's Blues," I explored these demographic trends in detail. Wealthy counties elect Dems, while the conservative GOP base comes from middle class counties.

The Dem presumptive presidential nominee's coalition consists of primarily wealthy liberals, African Americans and the well to do college kids. The blue collar portion of the old FDR coalition is leaving Mr. Obama and his campaign has all but written them off to the GOP.

Like it or not, the days of FDR are long, long gone.
 

Bart, stop being obtuse. County-level data is irrelevant, because of the confounding variables. What is needed is multivariate data analysis on individual voters' choices. People have studied this, and shockingly, the more money you make the more likely you are to vote republican. See here.
 

In contrast, the GOP has become primarily the party of suburban and rural areas, representing the middle class, religious and married with children.

Wow. Nixon's "silent majority" (and Falwell et al.'s "Moral Majority" rises from the grave like an undead ghoul.

But that "fuzzy math" gets a little less fuzzy come election time. 23% just doesn't cut it....

BTW, a new Field poll in California has a majority for gay marriage for the first time (destroying another myth that "Bart" has been flogging here recently).

And McClellan's new book won't make "Bart" happy either.

Tell us, "Bart": How does it feel to be inconsequential and irrelevant?

Cheers,
 

The inestimable Digby weighs in on the demographics.

Cheers,
 

My 9:11 am comment was triggered by Bart's (yes, I do dare speak his name!) 8:57 am comment which he subsequently removed. I guess the trash can wasn't big enough to accommodate him as well, so he re-commented (perhaps with some corrections) at 10:30 am with basically the same closing line as his trashed:

"Like it or not, the days of FDR are long, long gone."

I incorporate my 9:11 am comment so viewers will understand its inspiration.
 

x. trapnel said...

Bart, stop being obtuse. County-level data is irrelevant, because of the confounding variables. What is needed is multivariate data analysis on individual voters' choices. People have studied this, and shockingly, the more money you make the more likely you are to vote republican. See here.

You are offering a study comparing states, not individuals. Individual congressional districts are a far closer proxy to individuals than are entire states.

More to the point, congressional districts more accurately reflect the urban v. suburban/rural segregation of the parties to which I pointed. States mix the two in varying and incomparable ratios.

Furthermore, your study's other variable is arrived at by subtracting "poor" GOP voters from the "rich." Given that my demographic data indicates that the GOP is primarily middle class and the Dems primarily rich and poor, the variable comparing rich and poor GOP voters appears to have limited to no utility in addressing my point.
 

shag:

My 9:11 am comment was triggered by Bart's (yes, I do dare speak his name!) 8:57 am comment which he subsequently removed. I guess the trash can wasn't big enough to accommodate him as well, so he re-commented (perhaps with some corrections) at 10:30 am.

My original post had a bad link so I reposted with the correct link.
 

arne langsetmo said...

The inestimable Digby weighs in on the demographics.

The eminently estimable Digby does not dispute the demographic facts at all.

Rather, Digby whines about David Frum taking group identity shots at what digby calls the "secular, cosmopolitan (read urban), educated, egalitarian" Dems and then gets in a group identity shot of his own labeling the GOP "salt of the earth" voters as a bunch of unreformed Confederates.

Classic reasoned analysis that.
 

Classic reasoned analysis that.

As opposed to the "classic reasoned analysis" that caused you to predict a Rethuglican victory in 2006?
 

"Bart" DePalma:

[x. trapnel]: Bart, stop being obtuse. County-level data is irrelevant, because of the confounding variables. What is needed is multivariate data analysis on individual voters' choices. People have studied this, and shockingly, the more money you make the more likely you are to vote republican. See here.

You are offering a study comparing states, not individuals. Individual congressional districts are a far closer proxy to individuals than are entire states.

"Bart", you need to click through to the QJPS study and read it. They looked at county and individal preferences as well.

Their conclusion based on individual income is that higher income is correlated to Republican preference in voting. They were trying to explain the state-by-state patterns given that this individual presence was noted across all states. They did so. They discussed it. You just didn't read it, or didn't understand it.

More to the point, congressional districts more accurately reflect the urban v. suburban/rural segregation of the parties to which I pointed. States mix the two in varying and incomparable ratios.

Let us know when you get your first paper published in a peer-reviewed journal.

BTW, your links are broken. And they're to news articles (if we can charitably call OpinionJournal and the Moonie Times such), not actual published studies.

Furthermore, your study's other variable is arrived at by subtracting "poor" GOP voters from the "rich."...

This was to tease out the between-states variation, and examine its roots. The question was whether the stonger correlation of individual wealth with Republican preference in the poorer states was responsible for the overall tendency of the poorer states to vote Republican The answer was yes.

Given that my demographic data indicates that the GOP is primarily middle class and the Dems primarily rich and poor, the variable comparing rich and poor GOP voters appears to have limited to no utility in addressing my point.

I didn't see any data (much less methodology), "Bart".

Cheers,
 

"Bart" DePalma:

Rather, Digby whines about David Frum taking group identity shots at what digby calls the "secular, cosmopolitan (read urban), educated, egalitarian" Dems and then gets in a group identity shot of his own labeling the GOP "salt of the earth" voters as a bunch of unreformed Confederates.

Digby points out (through the link there) that this is a major predictor of Republican sentiment. The QJPS article touches on this too. It's true. Both Digby and QJPS say that the "income v. Democratic preference" is artifactual, and can be explained by other factors, while the QJPS expicitly points out that, on a personal level, ignoring other factors, greater income is correlated with Republican preference. In fact, that was one of the major claims that occasioned the QJPS analysis of other factors that might be in play. They discuss potential reasons for their findings in the discussion section.

Cheers,
 

arne:

1) Every QJPS graph uses states as a variable and none of them uses individuals, but rather groups of respondents broken down broadly by income and race.

2) Here is why generic party preference is irrelevant and an inaccurate way to measure voter income.

Roughly 12% of those claim to have a generic Dem party preference actually vote GOP.

These are the Reagan Dem middle and lower middle class blue collar workers which we keep discussing.

Thus, when you rely only upon generic Dem party preference, you include Reagan Dems who vote GOP. This artificially depresses the Dem party income statistics and artificially inflates the GOP party income by including middle and lower middle income folks in the Dem column who actually vote GOP.

My data showing the income and actual voting patterns of House districts puts the Reagan Dems in the GOP column where they belong. In real life, rather than in the fantasy world of generic preferences, wealthy districts disproportionately vote Dem and the GOP conservatives come from middle income districts assisted by Reagan Dem voters.
 

"Bart" DePalma:

1) Every QJPS graph uses states as a variable and none of them uses individuals, but rather groups of respondents broken down broadly by income and race.

That's in part because individuality is not even an ordinal measure, much less a cardinal one. I think you need to take Stats 001 and find out what a "variable" is.

But, if I can cut through your confusion as to terminology, Figure 2 of the study is precisely what you say doesn't exist, a correlation of individual income with Republican preference:

"We fit a logistic regression to the reported Republican presidential vote preference on personal income, fit separately to each presidential election since 1952. Figure 2 shows that higher-income people have been consistently more likely to vote Republican, especially since 1970."

They also looked at county results, something that you thought was preferable to examining state-by-state figures. See pp. 353-54 of the study.

Sucks to be so wrong, eh, "Bart"? Or is it clueless? Or both, perhaps....

2) Here is why generic party preference is irrelevant and an inaccurate way to measure voter income.

The QJPS article looked at "support for Bush in 2000 and 2004", not at party affiliation.

WTF you meant by "an inaccurate way to measure voter income" is between you and your personal confusion.

Roughly 12% of those claim to have a generic Dem party preference actually vote GOP.

Cites?

These are the Reagan Dem middle and lower middle class blue collar workers which we keep discussing.

You misspelled "asserting".

Thus, when you rely only upon generic Dem party preference, you include Reagan Dems who vote GOP.

No. See above. Sucks to be so wrong all the time, eh?

... This artificially depresses the Dem party income statistics and artificially inflates the GOP party income by including middle and lower middle income folks in the Dem column who actually vote GOP.

Cites?

My data showing the income and actual voting patterns of House districts puts the Reagan Dems in the GOP column where they belong....

What "data"? I didn't see any on your site, and your links were: a). Links to newspaper/op-ed articles, and b). One link was busted.

... In real life, rather than in the fantasy world of generic preferences, wealthy districts disproportionately vote Dem and the GOP conservatives come from middle income districts assisted by Reagan Dem voters.

That's not what the QJPS article finds (which is the only published study at bar here). Maybe you can explain what's wrong with their data or analysis.

Cheers,
 

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