Congressional Simulation

Those of you who teach Congress courses may have some interest in the legislative simulation we have under way right now in Claremont. The main page is http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/govt/jpitney/sim09.htm

Students in my politics of journalism class are covering it with text, video, the works. The blog is at http://claremontbeat.blogspot.com/ They are even Twittering at: http://twitter.com/ClaremontBeat
And they have a YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/ClaremontBeatTV

An example:

New Research on 2008 Nomination Politics

Cross-posted from Epic Journey:

A new report from the American Association for Public Opinion Research examines the polls that falsely indicated that Barack Obama would win the New Hampshire primary. It concludes:

• Given the compressed caucus and primary calendar, polls conducted before the New Hampshire primary may have ended too early to capture late shifts in the electorate’s preferences there.
• Most commercial polling firms conducted interviews on the first or second call, but respondents who required more effort to contact were more likely to support Senator Clinton. Instead of continuing to call their initial samples to reach these hard‐to‐contact people, pollsters typically added new households to the sample, skewing the results toward the opinions of those who were easy to reach on the phone, and who more typically supported Senator Obama.
• Non‐response patterns, identified by comparing characteristics of the pre‐election samples with the exit poll samples, suggest that some groups who supported Senator Clinton—uch as union members and those with less education—ere under‐ represented in pre‐election polls, possibly because they were more difficult to reach.
• Variations in likely voter models could explain some of the estimation problems in individual polls. Application of the Gallup likely voter model, for example, produced a larger error than was present in the unadjusted data.

A new experimental study finds:

After Clinton's concession in June 2008, Democrats were more generous toward supporters of their own preferred candidate than to supporters of the other Democratic candidate. The bias observed in June persisted into August, and disappeared only in early September after the Democratic National Convention. We also observe a strong gender effect, with bias both appearing and subsiding among men only

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Turnout

(Cross-posted from Epic Journey)

In California, the 2008 campaign does not seem to have left a legacy of civic engagement. From the LA Times:

Voters streamed to the polls in November, lining up from before dawn until after nightfall, a tableau of involvement that cheered fans of democracy whether or not they supported the winners.In California, almost 80% of registered voters turned out, the highest percentage in 32 years. In Los Angeles, almost 83%. If not as dramatic as Iraqi citizens confirming their rights with ink-stained fingers, it was enough to suggest heightened interest in things political.Not so fast. Last week in parts of Los Angeles, voters were called to the polls once again, to elect a state Senate replacement for Mark Ridley-Thomas, a Democrat who had moved to the county Board of Supervisors. Little more than 6% showed up.It was not an anomaly: When the area's first post-presidential election, the Los Angeles mayor's race, was contested earlier this month, a muted 17% of the city's registered voters turned out ...

Robert Cole was the director of Obama's get-out-the-vote effort among African Americans in California, which succeeded dramatically. Last Tuesday, he was the third-place finisher among Democrats in the state Senate race. Rather than inspire heightened turnout, he said, Obama's campaign appeared to have left many voters burned out. "They felt they had performed their civic duty by voting for Barack Obama for president," he said.

Pasadena also had low turnout.

(More from the very useful Election Administration Research Center at Berkeley.)

Blue Orange?

(Cross posted from Epic Journey)

Orange County, birthplace of Richard Nixon, may be on the cusp of political upheaval. In the Orange County Register, Dena Bunis reports:

Orange County Democrats have become so emboldened by how well President Barack Obama did here on election night that as far as they're concerned they can compete for any seat in this Republican rich environment. Case in point: Irvine Councilwoman and former Mayor Beth Krom. She made it official this week that she is going to take on Republican Rep. John Campbell.

Outside of Southern California, Orange County is synonymous with wealth, glamour (e.g., The OC) and conservative politics. The reality is more complicated. Republicans have generally won there, but in 2008, McCain took the county by a slim 50-48 percent margin. What's up?

• First, it's now a majority-minority county, about 33 percent Hispanic, 16 percent Asian, and 2 percent African American.
• Second, while coastal areas are indeed as affluent as the stereotype holds, there are gritty working-class areas farther inland. (I used to live in one of them.)
• Third, it is home to large numbers of high-income professionals, who liked Obama. Nationwide, he won narrowly among voters making more than $200k a year, and by a 58-40 percent margin among those with postgraduate study. As Michael Barone has argued convincingly, The GOP cannot take upscale voters for granted.

Orange County Republicans will have to work hard to keep their turf from turning blue.

Devine Judgment

At Exacting Editor, Don Devine, the political scientist who had a controversial tenure as head of the Office of Personnel Managment under President Reagan, offers some surprisingly critical reflections on the Bush administration:

• "[Bush people] they managed the government by getting political people who would follow the Bush line -- which might seem to be what I'm saying. The difference was the absence of a coherent philosophy."
• The main lesson[of Iraq] is one that George W. Bush originally said himself: You can't `nation-build.' That's number one. Number two, you should be careful getting in. No matter how weak the opposition looks, they're a lot stronger once you are dealing with them [on the ground].
• When editor Frank Gregorsky asked who was the better president, Bush or Clinton, Devine said: "Bill Clinton."

California Ballot Trick

Here are five words I never thought I'd write: I agree with George Lakoff.

In the aftermath of the California's budget crisis, the legislature put a spending cap on a special-election ballot. But the ballot summary leaves out a crucial detail: the measure would extend the tax increases in this year's budget deal. Instead of making a straightforward case for additional revenues, the legislators are trying to get their way by slight of hand. As Lakoff says, "the language prejudices voters towards passage of the proposition and toward the political and economic views of the proponents of the proposition."