Balkinization: Picking candidates

Comments:

Actually, the Republican party had something considerably worse than a winner take all system: They had a mix of PR and winner take all. McCain was the fortuitous (At least, he's shown no sign of being brilliant enough to engineer it!) beneficiary of this hybrid system; Due to his tendency to eke out plurality victories in the winner take all states, and lose in the PR states, when he won, he got all the delegates, and when he lost, he STILL got some of them.

I have my doubts McCain would have pulled it off under a pure PR or winner take all system. At the very least, the race would have been competitive much longer.

He was also beneficiary of the widespread Republican expectation that this was a hopeless year due to Bush and the Congressional GOP's unpopularity; Kept some people out of the race he might have had trouble against.

By the way, I notice your paean to the democratic nature of the Democratic party's nominating system omits all mention of "superdelgates"; Kinda get in the way of your theme, don't they?

# posted by

Brett : 7:26 PM

Sandy:

1) Proportional voting among Dems had nothing to do with Obama narrowly winning the nomination. Obama did not win a majority of Dems or a majority of the overall vote in the primaries. Clinton won those primaries. Obama secured the nomination by getting his supporters to caucuses.

2) There is also no evidence to support your contention that GOP winner take all primaries somehow divided the party by choosing McCain who in turn chose Palin.

Do not mistake a couple GOP pundits working for the Dem media going wobbly in the face of cooked polling with some sort of division among GOP voters. There is no historically significant defection among GOP voters to Obama. As for voter intensity, Gallup has early voting tied between Obama and McCain. Our conservative county has been flooding the polls in early voting just as much as the Dem areas covered by the Dem media.

As to the claim that Alaska and hence its governor is atypical with the rest of the country, you are free to show me any other VP candidate in history who has come close to Governor Palin's ability to bring record audiences to her debate, a SNL cameo and her rallies across the country. For example, in Missouri a couple days ago, the 5000 tickets originally printed for the Palin rally were far too few to meet the demand. The rally was moved out to a parking lot to accommodate the over flow and the fire marshal estimated the resulting crowd occupying every square foot of the parking lot to see Palin speak at more than 20,000. She had done that twice out here in Colorado Springs while Biden managed 1500 government union members.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 7:31 PM

Gallup has early voting tied between Obama and McCain.

No. Gallup says, "Roughly equal percentages of Barack Obama supporters and John McCain supporters have taken advantage of the early voting opportunity [...] while equal percentages of Obama and McCain voters have voted early, there are more of the former than of the latter, meaning that early voting generally reflects the same Obama lead evident in the overall sample."

# posted by

just_looking : 7:54 PM

Bart,

You might want to read that gallup report for comprehension. Try to fight the confirmation bias. It says roughly equal percentages of Democrats and Republicans have voted.

It doesn't say what percentage of the sample was Republican or Democrat, so it doesn't say what you implied. Unless you believe that the proportion of people self-identifying as Republican and Democrat is equal today.

# posted by

C2H50H : 8:03 PM

One would expect Colorado Springs to be atypical of the state, given the presence of entities like Focus on the Family and the New Life Church promoting "conservative" Christianity (which sounds like a bit of a contradiction in terms) as a template for public policy.

Fortunately for Colorado, the 20,000 Palin crowds of which LSR Bart speaks so eloquently, really do pale in comparison to the 100,000 who came out for Obama in Denver today see CBS News Report

I see that according to a poll conducted for the Rocky Mountain News Obama is ahead Obama leads McCain by 12 points in Colorado polls
Poll: Unaffiliated voters shifting to Dem candidate.

So there are grounds to hope that Colorado's vote statewide will be rather different to the result Bart hopes for in Colorado Springs.

# posted by

Mourad : 8:41 PM

the fire marshal estimated the resulting crowd occupying every square foot of the parking lot to see Palin speak at more than 20,000.

Not exactly a hu-u-uge surprise, but Bart's link gives a revised estimate of 15K, not 20K.

# posted by

mattski : 10:36 PM

The assumption here is that there was a better candidate for the GOP to pick -- better in the sense that he or she would have performed better in the general (assuming that the current polls hold through the election).

Who is that person? I doubt anyone else running in the GOP primary could have done as well as McCain. McCain's problem is that he is running at a time that really could not be worse for him, given the economy, a drawn-out war, Bush's perceived performance, etc.

Maybe he would be doing better if he picked someone more to the center for the VP nominee, but that is just guesswork. It's hardly obvious that picking Tom Ridge or Joe Lieberman would draw that many independents to him in this environment, or that he would gain more moderates with those picks than he would lose conservatives.

The only other nominees that were possible this cycle were Romney, Huckabee, Thompson and Giuliani, and the latter two did so poorly that they would have been unlikely o have a chance under any system, PR or winner-take-all. So really, the alternatives were Romney and Huckabee. Either pick would have been much worse for the GOP.

Incidentally, if the Dems had winner-take-all, it's not clear they would have been worse off either, since Hillary would have been out much sooner and Obama would not have been damaged in the late spring nearly as much by her attacks. The only revelation that would have been new is Jeremiah Wright, and McCain has refused to go there.

So I think you are wrong on both ends of your analysis: the results are unlikely to have been different under either system of delegate allocation.

# posted by

Zachary : 10:41 PM

This is a nice post, Dr. Levinson, but aren't we taking it a little far here?

And the drawn-out process means that the Democratic candidate, whether Obama or Clinton, really had to visit and become familiar with the length and breadth of this complex country in a way that John McCain simply did not...nor did he really have to dig deeply into finding out about much of the country. (Does he realize how truly atypical of the rest of the country Alaska is, for example?)

Surely you don't think that if the primary season had gone longer, he would've campaigned some in Alaska and learned how atypical it is. (Unless you're arguing that because he didn't see the rest of the country he doesn't know that it's nothing like Alaska... but he is familiar with Arizona, and Northern Virginia, and Michigan, and South Carolina, and New Hampshire, and Florida, and they aren't anything like Alaska.)

# posted by

Asher : 10:41 PM

crh50h:

The key is that equal percentages of McCain and Obama voters have already cast their ballots.

Gallup games their registered voter polling to overcount Dems and undercount GOP, so Gallup is overcounting Obama early voters and undercounting McCain early voters. Thus, the absolute numbers of Obama and McCain early voters in this skewed poll are irrelevant.

In fact, the proportions of Dem, GOP and Indi voters who cast ballots in the last three general elections have been remarkably stable, only varying by a point or two. I expect this election to be Dem heavy as were the 1996 and 2000 elections where the exit poll proportions were 39% Dem, 35% GOP and 26% Indi with about a roughly 2% overcount of votes for the Dem candidate by the exit poll workers. As a point of comparison, the big Dem 2006 election had a proportion of 38% Dem, 36% GOP and 26% Indi. As you can see, I am envisioning an even larger Dem turnout in 2008.

The media polls in 2008 are grossly overcounting Dem and undercounting GOP voter weights with Dem advantages of +5 to +12 with the predictably ridiculous claims of enormous Obama leads.

In fact, when you correct the partisan weighting of the more reliable likely voter tracking polls (LVTPs) to conform to the historical heavy Dem years, the average results are a much more believable Obama 47.69% / McCain 45.91% / Undecided 6.30% for an Obama lead of 1.78%.

If you assume just a 2% Bradley Effect of the polls overstating the support for Obama because voters do not want to be accused of being racist, then McCain has a 2.22% lead. It has been reported that Dem campaign professionals are assuming a 3% to 6% Bradley Effect based upon the polling overestimate of Obama votes in the Dem primaries. I am again giving Obama the benefit of the doubt.

In sum, both of these adjusted leads are well within the range of error and are a fraction of the unusually large percentage of undecided. In other words, the race is much closer than is being reported by the Dem media and will be decided by the way the undecided break in the last few days.

If the actual number of Obama and McCain voters are statistically tied, then so are the number of early voters.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 10:56 PM

As to the claim that Alaska and hence its governor is atypical...

Alaska's Biggest Newspaper Isn't Atypical

# posted by

mattski : 10:59 PM

Bart,

Thanks for the explanation. It should go far to convince anybody who wades through it that you have no clue whatsoever what you are talking about. I love the link to one of your own blog entries. Need the hits? The only thing demonstrated by your post is that your theories of statistical inference basically amount to wishful thinking.

# posted by

C2H50H : 11:18 PM

i'd hate to drive across a bridge which had been built using such statistical assumptions ..

# posted by

Jkat : 11:49 PM

Mourad: "One would expect Colorado Springs to be atypical of the state."

Until 2006, when I became a regular here, Colorado Springs was 1) the promised land, i.e. home of the Colorado College to which I aspired in 1982, 2) the site of the Air Force academy and it's redoubtable fencing team (according to perhaps too much Robert Heinlein in my impressionable youth). Ah, but now that I'm on trolling terms with someone from that locale, well, my opinion of the joint has undeniably suffered. You've given me insight into that.

Cheers,

rl

# posted by

Robert Link : 12:07 AM

Bart said:

In sum, both of these adjusted leads are well within the range of error and are a fraction of the unusually large percentage of undecided. In other words, the race is much closer than is being reported by the Dem media and will be decided by the way the undecided break in the last few days.

If you really believe that, you should be doubling down on your Intrade bet. The odds are now 87.9-12.5 Obama. You’ll make a killing!

# posted by

Hank Gillette : 1:21 AM

I'd hate to drive across a bridge which had been built using such statistical assumptions

As Feynman famously put it: "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."

In engineering, this is understood.

In law, at least for John Woo and his indulgence buyers, there is some confusion on this point.

# posted by

jpk : 1:23 AM

Bart is just mouthing the party line. Obviously, if Palin is blamed for the loss, it's awful for conservatives because it will provide ammunition for those who want to sensibly move the party towards the center and stop giving conservatives everything they want as if winning conservatives is how you win elections.

The truth is that as bad as Palin is as a candidate (and she's terrible, easily the worst major party VP candidate since Spiro Agnew and the biggest single political mistake in my lifetime), we do have to remember that the economy, not opposition to Sarah Palin, is driving this election. And beyond that you have the residual voter anger over the pointless and counterproductive Iraq War and the administration screw-ups during Katrina. Votes are really mad at Republicans right now, Palin or no Palin.

She does, however, deserve part of the blame. I guess she excited some conservatives who were going to hold their noses and vote for McCain anyway, because they think Obama is dangerous. The rest of the electorate, however, correctly sees her as unqualified to be President, especially given McCain's age. Certainly the correct course for the GOP in the next 4 years is to do what Bill Clinton did for the Dems in 1992-- tell the base to go screw itself.

# posted by

Dilan : 4:18 AM

I doubt there is an "ideal" way of selecting candidates in any political system. What the party base may want is not necessarily that which will appeal to the electorate.

In a parliamentary democracy, one gets to see the "chief executive in waiting" in the legislature - in the US system that "ain't necessarily so" - so selection is rather more hit and miss.

I think there would be a great deal to be said for greatly reducing the number of "superdelegates" in the Democratic Party process, but I do not think they should be abolished altogether. There should be some input from those who hold legislative or executive office, but I am not so sure about party chairs and the like.

For Republicans there would probably be those who would go for nomination by acclamation - a sort of Nuremberg Rally, but moderates might prefer a series of hustings at state level followed by a mail in ballot of registered party members.

I'd be interested to see how the party machines react to the outcome of this election.

# posted by

Mourad : 5:22 AM

BTW - in relation to "hit and miss", this post on Sarah Palin is worth a read: That Sarah Palin is one unreal Alaskan.easum

# posted by

Mourad : 5:36 AM

Those who think Palin was a bad pick misunderstand McCain's purpose in picking her. She wasn't supposed to pick off marginal voters who could go for McCain or Obama. That's Mr. "Maverick"'s job. She was supposed to give Republicans a reason to give a damn whether McCain won or went down in flames. So that they'd actually work for his victory, instead of giving up the Presidential race as a bad deal, and spending all their efforts on the races down the ticket, or worse, just staying home.

And for that purpose she is a raving success.

# posted by

Brett : 6:50 AM

hank gillette said...

Bart said: In sum, both of these adjusted leads are well within the range of error and are a fraction of the unusually large percentage of undecided. In other words, the race is much closer than is being reported by the Dem media and will be decided by the way the undecided break in the last few days.

If you really believe that, you should be doubling down on your Intrade bet. The odds are now 87.9-12.5 Obama. You’ll make a killing!

I did not predict a McCain win, I stated that the evidence shows the race to be far closer than the Dem media spin meant to suppress GOP turnout.

I have my money down on McCain to beat 46% of the vote and at 6-1 to win outright. I will win the first bet, the latter one is up in the air.

However, I will not be making any more wagers of any kind. In case Obama does win, I have cut way back on my spending and have withdrawn all of my money from the markets because we will be in for a longer and far more brutal recession if this fool actually pulls a Hoover and raises taxes during a recession resulting in a Depression and pulls an FDR by raising labor costs by expanding unions resulting in a deepening and prolonging of the Depression.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 9:57 AM

" ... and have withdrawn all of my money from the markets .... "

Will Motley's Cramer see little Lisa's bro's action as a sign that the market has indeed bottomed - as has little Lisa's bro? Time to buy, Warren Buffett.

And his spending less may mean he will continue to overstuff his backpack and bring down the economy in Colorado Springs.

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 10:32 AM

Those who think Palin was a bad pick misunderstand McCain's purpose in picking her. She wasn't supposed to pick off marginal voters who could go for McCain or Obama. That's Mr. "Maverick"'s job. She was supposed to give Republicans a reason to give a damn whether McCain won or went down in flames.

I've seen various explanations of the political logic in the choice of Palin. This is one, but I've also seen claims by Republicans that she was chosen to appeal to disaffected Hillary voters and Independents.

In retrospect, I think a ticket of Mittens and Huck would have worked better for the Rs. I'm not sure that was ever viable, though -- it's kind of a shotgun marriage.

# posted by

Mark Field : 10:42 AM

Shag:

I sold my stocks when the Market was back near 11,000. I am sorely tempted to get back in now, but the word on the street is that the market will continue to decline in anticipation of an Obama win.

If McCain wins, I will be back in the market immediately. There are many bargains to be had.

However, if Obama wins, I will wait until I see whether Obama goes with his neo-socialist philosophy and offers economically harmful legislation and then whether the Blue Dogs and GOP will stop it. I will not let this fool destroy my retirement.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 10:49 AM

Mark Field: "...political logic in the choice of Palin..."

I think energizing the base is more credible than stealing the pants-suit vote. No one in their right mind could think for a second that someone supporting Hilary Clinton would be swayed to vote for such an aggressively anti-woman candidate. But the angry ignorant old white folks who keep the GOP politi-tainment machine in the black love, love, love her.

As for her being a "raving" success, well, I agree on the "raving" part.

# posted by

Robert Link : 11:15 AM

word on the street is that the market will continue to decline in anticipation of an Obama win.

Show me the data or tell me the street name, because this doesn't make much sense. For an older examination of the post-election years of the Dow Jones, check out this nifty set of charts

The end result is that historically there hasn't been a statistically significant difference on the basis of party alone. Obviously, data points are lacking, but then, that'll be the case for the near future (unless we get that time machine working).

# posted by

PMS_CC : 11:39 AM

I think energizing the base is more credible than stealing the pants-suit vote.

I agree that the claim was implausible. But they did say it.

# posted by

Mark Field : 12:24 PM

PMS_Chicago: "Show me the data..."

That's one of the troll's most valuable tricks: the contentious assertion. But if you talk about what the troll wants to talk about then the troll wins. There's better people with whom to spend your time and you could probably find a way to introduce your data in a manner which engaged the folks from whom you want to hear more.

$.02 (and more to follow backchannel)

# posted by

Robert Link : 12:38 PM

pms:

BD: word on the street is that the market will continue to decline in anticipation of an Obama win.

Show me the data or tell me the street name, because this doesn't make much sense. For an older examination of the post-election years of the Dow Jones, check out this nifty set of charts. The end result is that historically there hasn't been a statistically significant difference on the basis of party alone.

We are not talking about party. We are talking about Mr. Obama's individual plans to raise taxes and labor costs during a recession like Hoover and FDR and how the anticipation of these eventualities are depressing the markets.

Your chart misses nearly all of the stock market crash during the latter part of the Hoover Administration, but does include the market free fall during the 1937 recession following Roosevelt's first term policies which increased labor costs and unemployed millions.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 1:50 PM

"Bart" DePalma:

For example, in Missouri a couple days ago, the 5000 tickets originally printed for the Palin rally were far too few to meet the demand.

Wow, she's a veritable Brittney Spears, I tellya. A pop phenomenon.

Cheers,

# posted by

Arne Langsetmo : 2:11 PM

A celebrity, one might say.

# posted by

Mark Field : 3:11 PM

pms_chicago said:

The end result is that historically there hasn't been a statistically significant difference on the basis of party alone.

One the other hand, the historical record shows that the stock market has done better under Democratic Presidents than Republican Presidents, and it’s not particularly close.

# posted by

Hank Gillette : 5:16 PM

Your chart misses nearly all of the stock market crash during the latter part of the Hoover Administration, but does include the market free fall during the 1937 recession following Roosevelt's first term policies which increased labor costs and unemployed millions.

The New Deal didn't get us out of the Depression, but it didn't exacerbate it either-- the Depression lasted just as long worldwide as it did in the US, so attributing its length to the first term policies of FDR (I assume you mean the National Recovery Act, which was only in effect 2 years and which involved 1/5 as many regulations as are now in place with no detriment to the economy) is ridiculous.

And, of course, plenty of FDR first term initiatives-- the CCC, the WPA, and the TVA-- employed people. It was the private sector that wasn't hiring.

Bottom line, too many conservatives can't accept that there is a such a thing as booms and busts. And some of those busts are more spectacular than others. The Great Depression was one of the more spectacular ones. Once you are in a situation where there is no liquidity or credit and nobody has any confidence in the economy, you're stuck. FDR didn't create that situation and he couldn't do much to solve it. Only WW2 could.

# posted by

Dilan : 6:00 PM

In a post above, our resident loathsome spotted reptile, describes Senator Obama's philosophy as "neo-socialist" and offers in support a link to a You-Tube posting of a 2001 interview Senator Obama gave.

Poor dear Bart has committed one of the elementary errors of our profession - he has failed to seek out the best evidence.

What he offers is a heavily edited version of the original which featured on the Drudge Report. However, over at the Volokh Conspiracy, David Bernstein has done his homework Obama on Redistribution of Wealth and provides a link to the whole interview.

Bernstein's post includes the following observations:-

"Obama gives a very impressive performance as a constitutional scholar. Even though he was holding down other jobs while teaching at Chicago, he clearly had thought a lot about constitutional history, and how social change is or is not brought about through the courts."

"The way to change judicial decisions, according to Obama, is to change the underlying political and social dynamics; changes in the law primarily follow changes in society, not vice versa. Again, he's channeling Rosenberg and Klarman. And this attitude on Obama's part shouldn't be surprising, given that he decided to go into politics rather than become a full-time University of Chicago constitutional law professor, as he was offered. Had he been committed to the idea that courts are at the forefront of social change, he would have been inclined to take a potentially very influential position at Chicago. (And judging from this interview, he would likely have been a great con law professor, both as a teacher and scholar, and, had he been so inclined, legal activist.)"

"At least since the passage of the first peacetime federal income tax law about 120 years ago, redistribution of wealth has been a (maybe the) primary item on the left populist/progressive/liberal agenda, and has been implicitly accepted to some extent by all but the most libertarian Republicans as well. Barack Obama is undoubtedly liberal, and his background is in political community organizing in poor communities. Is it supposed to be a great revelation that Obama would like to see wealth more "fairly" distributed than it is currently?

It's true that most Americans, when asked by pollsters, think that it's emphatically not the government's job to redistribute wealth. But are people so stupid as to not recognize that when politicians talk about a "right to health care," or "equalizing educational opportunities," or "making the rich pay a fair share of taxes," or "ensuring that all Americans have the means to go to college," and so forth and so on, that they are advocating the redistribution of wealth? Is it okay for a politician to talk about the redistribution of wealth only so long as you don't actually use phrases such as "redistribution" or "spreading the wealth," in which case he suddenly becomes "socialist"? If so, then American political discourse, which I never thought to be especially elevated, is in even a worse state than I thought.

Bart concludes his case on Obama economic policy with this priceless remark: "I will not let this fool destroy my retirement".

Bart, in common with all his fellow citizens, has the democratic right to stand for political office, he has the right to campaign for others, he has, by the custom of your country if not of mine, to spread scurrilous and even defamatory statements if he thinks that will advance his political cause. But what is undeniable is this: Senator Obama may well be elected President of the USA on 4th November 2008. If that be the case, Senator Obama will have been elected by the people who are the supreme judges as to which of the candidates is best fitted for that high office, and if they elect "a fool", that is their sovereign prerogative.

In fact, Bart's ire might be better directed at the succession of Administrations from Reagan to G.W. Bush who designed the economic policies which have brought the US economy to its present parlous state and a record deficit.

So far as the epithet "fool" is concerned, it would be excessively unkind to compare Bart's academic record to that of Senator Obama. But, it does seem to me, that all poor Bart achieves by trolling on this site is to demonstrate his own personal and professional inadequacies.

BTW - It says a lot about our legal profession that Bart with his "little learning" is able to make a sufficient living out of his DUI practice to have money put by for his retirement. Mind you, it's true in England too: I saw this on a UK professional web site recently:

Due to means testing and the general willingness of people to pay to save their driving licences, road traffic law is big business. A few firms are capitalising on this hitherto neglected area and raking it in with private fees, leaving the rest of us to scrape by on legal aid. Legal aid lawyers can no longer afford to ignore this important revenue stream - make it your New Year resolution to kick-start your road traffic law department."

One never knows - in the coming recession Colorado firms that thought DUI was beneath them might also want to branch out and give Bart some competition.

# posted by

Mourad : 7:30 PM

hank gillette said...

pms_chicago said: The end result is that historically there hasn't been a statistically significant difference on the basis of party alone.

One the other hand, the historical record shows that the stock market has done better under Democratic Presidents than Republican Presidents, and it’s not particularly close.

Actually, the argument is nonsense.

1) The proper measure is not party, but whether the Presidents freed or punished the marketplace. For example, the Dem LBJ freed the markets by enacting the Kennedy tax rate reductions while the Republican Nixon punished the markets with socialist nonsense like wage and price controls.

2) A President cannot claim his policies boosted the markets when the policies were not yet in place or had no time to work. This takes roughly two years - one year to assemble an administration and enact the policies and another for the policies to take effect. For example, you measure Reagan's effect starting in 1983 and ending in 1990. Thus, Carter gets proper credit for the recession he left Reagan, Clinton for the one he left Bush and Bush for the one he will leave McCain.

3) A President needs a Congress who will enact the legislation implementing the policies. The Clinton Administration is a good example. The Dem Congress' tax increases slowed growth, failed to bring in even 1/2 of the projected revenue and was in deficit. In contrast, the GOP Congress cut taxes, slowed the growth of spending, causing the economy to boom and we ended up in surplus. Same President, two very different results.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 8:58 PM

dilan:

The country had weathered numerous financial panics before Hoover and FDR, but nothing like the Great Depression. There is no free market reason for a decade long economic meltdown.

Hoover kicked things off with two enormous tax increases - an Obama-like income tax increase on those making a million+ per year punishing those who do the hiring and a comprehensive set of tariffs which caused foreign retaliation and a world wide crash in international trade. The result was turning a garden variety panic into a depression.

FDR made things even worse. A free economy pulls out of unemployment by reducing wages to to allow unprofitable businesses to become profitable and hire new workers. This is simple supply and demand. When the supply of labor remains the same, but demand for labor falls, the price labor charges to work must also fall to meet equilibrium and maintain employment.

However, rather than allowing the labor market to reach equilibrium by allowing wages to fall, FDR artificially inflated wages through make work programs and government support for union expansion and strikes. The result was long term massive unemployment as the private sector simply stopped hiring. You can see the same result on a smaller scale in the EU over that past couple decades as government interventions increasing the cost of labor has caused chronic high unemployment.

We did not pull out of the Depression until WWII removed the unemployed to the battlefield and we freed up international trade after the war. It had nothing to do with the New Deal.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 9:12 PM

Mourad:

The money passage of the Obama interview has nothing to do with his analysis of the Warren Court, which is essentially right a a matter of law. Rather, it was Obama's labeling a "tragedy" the failure to organize the elected branches into a leftist coalition to impose "major redistributive change" (read theft through the force of state power) upon the citizenry.

As this interview, his comments to Joe the Plumber, and is long term radical left associations demonstrate, Obama is an unreconstructed socialist masquerading as a Reagan tax cutter of everyone's taxes and a Gingrich budget cutter who will pay for a trillion dollars in additional spending by off setting budget cuts. This liar knows he cannot elected if he ran openly as a leftist so he calls his leftist past a "distraction" and pretends to be a center right politician.

Obama's argument that we tax payers do not have to worry about him imposing any "sudden lurches to the left" because congressional Dems have "made a commitment to their constituents to be centrist" and because "I don’t think we’re going to have time to engage in a bunch of crazy things" is hardly reassuring in this regard.

You will notice that Obama did not say that he would not make any sudden lurches to the left because he does not believe doing so would be bad policy, but rather because he does not have the votes in Congress and because he for some reason will not have time. Will not have time? Does he plan to be on vacation for four years if he wins?

This spin reminds me of another speech Obama gave claiming that he could not take the voters' guns if he wanted to because he does not have the votes in Congress.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 9:32 PM

Actually, the argument is nonsense.

Actually, Bart has a proven track record of ignoring facts which undermine his religious beliefs. You're a true believer, Bart, which is why rational people don't heed you.

# posted by

mattski : 9:35 PM

mattski: "...religious beliefs..."

Odd that some sects seem more concerned with pulling their camel through the eye of a needle than with feeding the Master's lambs. Pity, but it does explain a lot.

# posted by

Robert Link : 10:38 PM

"Bart" DePalma:

This liar [Obama] knows he cannot elected if he ran openly as a leftist so he calls his leftist past a "distraction" and pretends to be a center right politician.

It's a matter of perspective. To "Bart", anything to the left of the proto-fascist Rethuglican core of today is "leftist", nay, Marxist.

You will notice that Obama did not say that he would not make any sudden lurches to the left because he does not believe doing so would be bad policy, but rather because he does not have the votes in Congress and because he for some reason will not have time. Will not have time? Does he plan to be on vacation for four years if he wins?

Ummm, Obama's no Dubya.....

Cheers,

# posted by

Arne Langsetmo : 3:21 AM

One can understand poor dear Bart's predicament.

The USA is 8 days away from its general election. Nate Silver's projection at FiveThirty Eight is for Barack Obama to win 351 electoral votes to John McCain's 187, and to win the Electoral College 96.7 percent of the time to McCain's 3.3 percent. Both numbers are unchanged from yesterday. Electoral Vote is projecting Obama 375, McCain 157 with 6 ties. Real Clear Politics has Obama winning between 375 and 306 electoral votes. Intrade Market Odds are 87.7 Obama against 12.1 McCain.

The poor LSR has to find comfort somewhere and he is presently fastening on early voting.

Professor Michael McDonald at George Mason University is aggregating the available data here: 2008 Early Voting Statistics Were I Bart, I would find these pretty cold comfort.

Still, as Benjamin Disraeli said, there are "lies, damned lies, and statistics" and Bart will doubtless tease from the data whatever temporary solace he needs to sustain him through the difficult (for him) transition
to the probable outcome of the general election.

Of course,being a loathsome spotted reptile, Bart will stay "on message" parroting the "myth of the day" from the moribund McCain machine which is, apparently, that redistribution of wealth equates to socialism.

In fact, over the years since the advent of Saint Ronald Reagan to the presidency there , has been a major redistribution of wealth - away from the middle class to the top 1-2 per per cent of the population.

Redressing that trend is not 'socialism' but it is 'social justice'. It also happens to be good economics.

I don't expect Bart to understand that, but I do understand that it will have come to a considerable shock to him that there has been a fundamental shift in the popular mood and probable electoral rejection of the policies he espouses.

We are looking at the demise of the "Greed is Good" era of Reaganomics.

When Republicans politicians re-learn the fact that sustainable growth comes from "trickle up" not "trickle down" and that buying on credit is no more good for nations than it is for individuals, then they may again become fit for office. Let's hope it's soon.

# posted by

Mourad : 4:41 AM

Mourad: "..."trickle up" not "trickle down"..."

Actually, I've always been bothered by that disarming little word, "trickle". It's a tricky one. One would suppose resources should flow throughout a social group, be it family, neighborhood, nation, should flow for the combined good of the group and the individuals which comprise that group. But trickle? That sounds so stingy to begin with, it is no wonder that the ruling elite like the idea. But why a worker would sign on for such a plan is beyond me---except for the sad, sad fact that our workers today are too well fed to be rallied and too deeply immersed in popular cultural activities to notice they have been programmed to accept a pig in a poke, programmed to feel grateful for whatever milk of human kindness might trickle down from the teat of the elite.

Resources should not trickle. They should be dammed, allowing the valley below to be cultivated, and they should flow in a controlled fashion, protecting and nourishing that development. No one need thirst.

Instead, under the false flag of a "free" market, the rich get richer, with resources flowing to them, and the more they get, the less they seem to let trickle through their clenched obscene fists, and so most all of us are parched.

In fairness, however, I have to point out that a nation's economic system is only as good as the individual protections of that nation's government. Mao and Stalin and the National Socialists proved that for us. Absent a strong recognition that tyranny can happen anywhere and an equally strong will to fight it systemically then any economic system yields suffering for all.

# posted by

Robert Link : 7:20 AM

Robert:-

I approve of your corrective analogy. "Flow" is an improvement on "trickle".

And I'd be the last to object if the flow washed away some of the loathsome spotted reptiles from under the rocks and downstream into the ocean.

# posted by

Mourad : 7:59 AM

@Mourad, peace in the valley may require considering even the serpents Allah's creatures, so long as they don't come into the house or bite the livestock. ;)

# posted by

Robert Link : 8:13 AM

mourad said...

Nate Silver's projection at FiveThirty Eight is for Barack Obama to win 351 electoral votes to John McCain's 187, and to win the Electoral College 96.7 percent of the time to McCain's 3.3 percent. Both numbers are unchanged from yesterday. Electoral Vote is projecting Obama 375, McCain 157 with 6 ties. Real Clear Politics has Obama winning between 375 and 306 electoral votes. Intrade Market Odds are 87.7 Obama against 12.1 McCain.

Silver's methodology is sound, but his inputted polling data are for the most part complete fiction created by grossly overweighting Dems and underweighting GOP voters for differentials between +5 and +12.

In fact, the historical partisan differentials range between Dem+4 on the best Dem years (1996 and 2000), Dem+2 on a great Dem year (2006) and a tie on other years.

Folks simply do not change their party affiliations suddenly. Indeed, there was no substantial change in party affiliations during the Reagan landslides. He simply drew Dem and Indi votes.

If you take the historically accurate likely voter tracking polls IBD/TIPP, Rasmussen and Battleground and then adjust them to conform to the most Dem historical partisan weighting, Obama and McCain are essentially tied with each having a little over 47% of the vote leaving about 5.5% undecided.

Because the polling is so corrupted and the number of undecided amazingly high for this close to the election, I would be guessing if I tried to predict a winner at this point. I am hoping the undecided will break before the election and I will be able to make an educated guess at that time. The gallup traditional tracking poll has the undecided breaking to McCain today. I am waiting on the other polls to follow suit.

However, I do know that Silver is engaging in garbage in, garbage out. Silver is currently projecting Obama 52.4 to McCain 46.0% I will wager $100 with you that the actual vote will be more than a total of 2% different from those two figures. (For example, if the vote ends up being Obama 50%, McCain 49%, Silver would be off 2.4% on Obama and 3% on McCain for a total of 5.4%).

Are you game?

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 3:36 PM

The country had weathered numerous financial panics before Hoover and FDR, but nothing like the Great Depression.

Really? So there was no 7 year depression in 1807? No 6 year Panic of 1837? No 23 year depression starting in 1873?

There is no free market reason for a decade long economic meltdown.

Bart, I assure you there are hundreds of peer reviewed economics articles, as well as books, which provide rational economic explanations for the Great Depression.

But thanks for proving my point-- conservatives can't accept that there are booms and busts, and therefore they tell themselves that FDR must have done something to lengthen the Great Depression.

FDR made things even worse. A free economy pulls out of unemployment by reducing wages to to allow unprofitable businesses to become profitable and hire new workers. This is simple supply and demand. When the supply of labor remains the same, but demand for labor falls, the price labor charges to work must also fall to meet equilibrium and maintain employment.

In other words, you have to allow the economy to inflict a bunch of pain on workers.

The problem, Bart, is that you can't let tens of thousands of people starve in bread lines waiting for wages to go down. If FDR had done what you wanted him to, this country would have had a Marxist revolution. Seriously.

We did not pull out of the Depression until WWII removed the unemployed to the battlefield and we freed up international trade after the war. It had nothing to do with the New Deal.

I agree with that. But the New Deal helped a lot of people cope with the consequences of the Depression in the meantime. "Let them starve" is not a tenable political OR economic philosophy in a depression. Microeconomics is as important as macroeconomics, or, to put it the way Lord Keynes did, you can't focus inordinately on the long run, because in the long run, we're all dead.

# posted by

Dilan : 3:37 PM

dilan said...

BD: The country had weathered numerous financial panics before Hoover and FDR, but nothing like the Great Depression.

Really? So there was no 7 year depression in 1807? No 6 year Panic of 1837? No 23 year depression starting in 1873?

Using Wikipedia again?

None of those events even begins to approach the Great Depression in unemployment, lost GDP and lost value of financial markets apart from the 1837 Panic, which still falls short.

However, it is interesting to note that all of these Panics were caused by government screwing up the economy.

The 1807 recession was caused by Jefferson's moronic Embargo Act which is analogous to Hoover's Smoot Hawley Act and Obama's threats to withdraw from NAFTA and other free trade agreements.

The 1837 Panic was caused by Jackson's Specie Circular executive order forcing people to use specie rather than bank notes and his refusal to renew the Second Bank of the US.

The 1873 "Long Depression" was actually no such thing. The US GDP boomed during this entire period and we employed hundreds of thousands of immigrants.

But thanks for proving my point-- conservatives can't accept that there are booms and busts, and therefore they tell themselves that FDR must have done something to lengthen the Great Depression.

The business cycle has never been repealed. However, as the history above demonstrates, government restrictions on the markets turn down cycles into severe recessions and depressions.

In contrast, freeing up the markets keeps down cycles like those in 1991 and 2001 from being much more than light recessions. If the US does not do anything stupid to the markets over the next four years, this next recession should also be relatively light. If a hypothetical President Obama raises taxes, labor costs and the costs of imports, welcome to economic hell.

FDR made things even worse. A free economy pulls out of unemployment by reducing wages to to allow unprofitable businesses to become profitable and hire new workers. This is simple supply and demand. When the supply of labor remains the same, but demand for labor falls, the price labor charges to work must also fall to meet equilibrium and maintain employment.

In other words, you have to allow the economy to inflict a bunch of pain on workers.

Better short term pain than a decade of economic hell cured only by the slaughter of a world war. You cannot repeal the laws of economics. Socialists have been trying this for over a century and destroyed the economies of entire nations.

The problem, Bart, is that you can't let tens of thousands of people starve in bread lines waiting for wages to go down. If FDR had done what you wanted him to, this country would have had a Marxist revolution. Seriously.

If you have jobs, you do not have starvation. We had serious hunger in the United States during the Depression because a quarter of the work force was unemployed. I have no problem with unemployment benefits as a bridge while folks find new work. However, when FDR offered make work jobs as higher than market wages and bolstered the union movement whose entire purpose is to blackmail employers into offering above market wages, he caused massive unemployment by artificially increasing labor costs past what employers could pay.

I believe that FDR was a great leader, but he made some serious economic mistakes that we would be fools to repeat.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 7:05 PM

"Bart" pretends to know something about statistics, sampling, regression, correlation, and metastatistics:

Silver's methodology is sound, but his inputted polling data are for the most part complete fiction created by grossly overweighting Dems and underweighting GOP voters for differentials between +5 and +12.

His methodology doesn't rely on "proper" sampling. His methodology would be just as sound were he using data from numbers on a Las Vegas roulette wheel, or highway traffic fatalities.

I think that "Bart" is clueless as to what it is that Silver is doing....

However, I do know that Silver is engaging in garbage in, garbage out....

How so? What's the "garbage" here?

Silver is currently projecting Obama 52.4 to McCain 46.0% I will wager $100 with you that the actual vote will be more than a total of 2% different from those two figures. (For example, if the vote ends up being Obama 50%, McCain 49%, Silver would be off 2.4% on Obama and 3% on McCain for a total of 5.4%).

Is that a one-tailed or two-tailed alternative hypothesis, "Bart"? It does make a difference. Reading it literally, it sounds like a two-tailed one.

I can't find a MOE for Silvers total popular vote projection on his site. Anyone know what it is (it is possible that his Monte Carlo runs simply don't calculate it)? I think that Silver's primary emphasis (as his website name indicates) is the EV probabilities, and he does give MOEs for the individual state calculations.

But "Bart"'s bet would be a sucker bet if the usual MOE for a national poll of around 3% pertains. "Bart"'s 2% total deviation would be a 1% deviation on the part of each candidate (it's effectively doubled, as votes are almost all for one or the other, and thus a lost Obama vote is a gained McSame vote). Assuming a normal distribution of error (which, FWIW, Silver does not), that would be the central area of -0.3333<Z<0.3333, which is 26%. "Bart"'s betting even up on 3-1 odds (although I suspect he couldn't have told you that if you asked). If, OTOH, his wager was a one-tailed wager that McSame will over-perform, the bet would be worth taking on even odds. The math there is left to the interested reader....

Cheers,

# posted by

Arne Langsetmo : 11:28 PM

If you take the historically accurate likely voter tracking polls IBD/TIPP, Rasmussen and Battleground and then adjust them to conform to the most Dem historical partisan weighting

Why is it that all of the polls show a higher Dem advantage? Why are they all getting biased samples (in your view)?

# posted by

just_looking : 5:58 AM

Just looking:

I want to be clear that I am not challenging the samples taken by the reputable pollsters, but rather the partisan weights they are assigning the responses to come up with their likely voter responses.

For example, the polls basically agree as the the percentage of support given by GOP, Dem and Indi voters for each candidate. Naturally, a poll which assumes that Dem voters will outnumber GOP voters by double digits (like yesterday's Pew poll) will naturally arrive at a large Obama lead. Conversely, if you assume the Dem advantage is in line with the historical patterns of low single digits as does 2004's most accurate poll IBD/TIPP, then you have a far closer race.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 10:45 AM

The undecided appear to be breaking for McCain. Gallup's "Traditional" likely voter tracking picked this up yesterday and Rasmussen followed today.

It will be interesting to see what the polls with longer tracking cycles - IBD/TIPP and Battleground - start showing over the next couple days.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 10:49 AM

but rather [I am challenging] the partisan weights they are assigning the responses to come up with their likely voter responses [...] Naturally, a poll which assumes that Dem voters will outnumber GOP voters by double digits [...]

Where do you think those partisan weights come from? For some polls, there is no assumption, no adjusting. The partisan weights are whatever the sample says they are. For other polls, they combine the actual survies with historical results.

But in all cases in this election year, the raw partisan weights from the surveys are showing a higher percentage of Dems than in the past. So, I ask again:

Why are they all getting biased samples (in your view)?

# posted by

just_looking : 1:38 PM

just looking:

I broke down the exit polling upon which I base my historical partisan weights here.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 4:59 PM

just looking:

"Bart" thinks the Rethuglicans are the "Silent Majority". He just chooses not to believe that Democratic registration and party affiliation is up since 2004. Fine, but reality is conveniently unconcerned with his opinions.

Cheers,

# posted by

Arne Langsetmo : 5:53 PM

The 1873 "Long Depression" was actually no such thing. The US GDP boomed during this entire period

Actually, the US suffered a severe depression for at least the first 6 years of the period, and economic performance was anemic thereafter.

In contrast, freeing up the markets keeps down cycles like those in 1991 and 2001 from being much more than light recessions.

And here I thought most of the economics profession attributed that to countercyclical monetary policy. But then, what do they know?

Seriously, in the end, your faith in free markets can only take you so far. If you believe in the free markets, follow your policy, and it doesn't work, you have sown the seeds for revolution and discord. In contrast, if you try to inject a Keynesian stimulus and create whatever public works programs you can to stimulate employment, like FDR did, you can mitigate the pain.

Free market types, like Communists, like to say that their ideology has never really been tried. But the real issue is that it is too big a risk to try it.

# posted by

Dilan : 6:28 PM

Bart,

I know the math you used to convert the raw polling data into numbers that are partisan weighted based on historical results.

But that math does not answer my question. One more time, rephased. Why are all of the raw data from the polls so far off from those historical weights?

# posted by

just_looking : 8:06 PM