Gallup on Ideology

Cross-posted from Epic Journey:

New Gallup data suggest that it is an oversimplification to speak of a rightward or leftward shift in public opinion:

Despite the results of the 2008 presidential election, Americans, by a 2-to-1 margin, say their political views in recent years have become more conservative rather than more liberal, 39% to 18%, with 42% saying they have not changed. While independents and Democrats most often say their views haven't changed, more members of all three major partisan groups indicate that their views have shifted to the right rather than to the left.

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Given the stark differences between the current political scene and the one surrounding the 2004 elections, 2004 represents a good comparison point for this analysis. Not only was there a five-point drop between 2004 and 2008 (from 51% to 46%) in the popular vote for the Republican presidential candidate, but there has been a similar drop (from 45% in 2004 to 40% in 2008 and 39% in 2009) in the percentage affiliating themselves with the Republican Party.

Have Americans' positions on major cultural, social, and policy issues shifted left accordingly? A broad review of the available trends suggests not. However, they have not shifted solidly right either, countering Americans' claims in the new poll that they have grown more conservative.

Continuity of Government

Here is a followup to the previous post on the problem of having an elderly senator in the line of succession. The Continuity of Government Commission just issued another report:

The current constitutional and legal provisions fail to take into account the possibility of a catastrophic attack on Washington, D.C. Since all individuals included in the Presidential line of succession are based in our nation’s capital, a catastrophic attack on the city could potentially kill or incapacitate many if not all of these individuals and cause significant confusion about who can assume the powers of the presidency. With the inclusion of members of Congress and acting cabinet secretaries in the line of succession, all of whom must resign from their current positions before assuming the presidency and can then be “bumped” from the presidency by an individual ranking higher in the line of succession, it is possible to have no one remaining in the line of auccession. Current procedures leave our nation especially vulnerable at presidential inaugurations and State of the Union Addresses.

Presidential Succession and the President Pro Tem

Writing in Roll Call, Eric Ueland proposes fixing a problem in presidential succession. Under current law, the president pro tem of the Senate in line after the vice president and speaker of the House. By custom, the senior member of the majority party is the president pro tem, meaning that someone high in the line of succession is likely to be very elderly. (The post currently belongs to Robert Byrd. ) Ueland, a former Senate aide and vice president of the Duberstein Group, says that the Senate should simply give the job to the majority leader.

This worthy idea actually orginated with Professor R. Lawrence Butler of Rowan University. On October 17, 2001, he wrote in The Hill:

The majority leader is the Senate's closest parallel to the Speaker of the House in that he is responsible for managing the Senate schedule and serves as the chief spokesperson and legislative tactician for his party caucus.
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In a time of crisis, it is vital that our leaders have both the political legitimacy and the leadership ability needed to soothe an anxious public. All other posts in the line of succession have some claim to a broad electoral mandate. The entire House chooses the Speaker; Cabinet secretaries are appointed by a nationally elected president and confirmed by the entire Senate. The president pro tem's sole claim to the office is the willingness of the voters in a single state to keep sending him back to Washington decade after decade.

Would the sight of an aging senator taking the presidential oath of office be of particular comfort to a country rocked by the death of its three top political leaders? The times demand that we make a wiser choice.

Obama and a "Joke"

Last night, President Obama laughed as a "comedian" wished for the death of one of his political opponents:



Rush Limbaugh once attacked me by name. I have recently criticized him. But as a kidney donor, I find Sykes's line -- and President Obama's reaction -- to be utterly contemptible.

Campaign Promises and Presidential Realities

Cross-posted from Epic Journey.

On January 19, 2008, Senator Barack Obama issued this statement:

Two years ago, I criticized the Secretary of State for the firing of U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, after he properly used the term "genocide" to describe Turkey's slaughter of thousands of Armenians starting in 1915. I shared with Secretary Rice my firmly held conviction that the Armenian Genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence. The facts are undeniable. An official policy that calls on diplomats to distort the historical facts is an untenable policy. As a senator, I strongly support passage of the Armenian Genocide Resolution (H.Res.106 and S.Res.106), and as President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide.

Yesterday was Armenian Remembrance Day. PolitiFact.com reports:

Obama did issue the statement on the 24th, in which he described the "heavy weight" of history and the "terrible events of 1915," adding "I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view of that history has not changed."But he did not use the word "genocide." ... Obama's April 24th statement still doesn't meet the terms of his promise, and the Obameter stays at Promise Broken.

AP reports: "In breaking that promise Friday, the president did the same diplomatic tiptoeing he criticized the Bush administration for doing."

Mike Pence: Billy Graham Abets Tyrants

Here's a video of the exchange between Mike Pence (R-IN) and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In it, Pence criticizes President Obama for shaking hands with Hugo Chavez, claiming that the greeting undermined support for U.S. values. As an example, Pence quoted Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet dissident and human rights activist:

[W]e could never fully prepare ourselves for the disappointment that came from seeing the free world abandon its own values.

About whom was Sharansky speaking about?

"An example was the trip of the world-famous evangelical preacher, Billy Graham, to the Soviet Union in 1984," write Sharansky. During the trip, Graham was asked about religious freedom in the Soviet Union and he responded, "You have some problems with religion, the United States has some problems with religion." According to Sharansky, "Sitting in my prison cell . . . I was dumbfounded. How could Graham possibly place religious freedom in a free society like the United States on par with religious freedom in a fear society like the Soviet Union?"

There you have it, Billy Graham and Barack Obama are both the cats-paw of dictatorships.

Donkey Basketball

The NYT has a story today on donkey basketball. For those of you not familiar with this particular activity, it's, as you can imagine, a variant of basketball with the players mounted on donkeys. Animal rights groups are complaining that donkey basketball is cruel to the animals. This comment from PETA stuck out:

“Donkeys have no place in a gym,” said Kristie Phelps, a PETA spokeswoman. “They are very easily confused, and they have no idea what’s going on.”

Well, Ms. Phelps, meet Scraps.


2-Year-Old Donkey Called Up To Pro Donkey Basketball League

Research on the 2008 Election

(Cross-posted from Epic Journey)

A new study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project has some findings that cast light on politics in 2008 and beyond:

• Among the entire population the Internet is now equal to newspapers and roughly twice as important as radio as a source of election news and information.
• Voters are moving away from news sites with no point of view, and towards sites that match their own political viewpoints.
• Due to demographic differences, McCain voters were more likely than Obama voters to use the Internet. But online Obama supporters were generally more engaged in the online political process and were more likely to post original content, share content with others, sign up for updates , give money to a candidate online, set up news alerts and sign up online for campaign activities.
• Perhaps most relevant for those planning 2010 campaigns is the following: 83 percent of those age 18-24 have a social networking profile, and two-thirds of young profile owners took part in political activity on these sites in 2008.

In Epic Journey, we place a good deal of emphasis on the rules of the nomination process. In a recent paper at the annual meeting of Midwest Political Science Association, Caitlyn Dwyer confirms the crucial role of the rules. Specifically, she finds that Obama won under proportional representation, Clinton would have been leading in delegates under a winner-take-all system. On the Republican side, conversely, Romney would have been leading in delegates if the Republican Party had used proportional representation.