PolySigh

About Newt

2012-01-21T09:22:00.002-05:00

Previous posts (here, here, here) contained links to information and documents about Newt Gingrich. Here are some additional items:

Ron Paul Items

2011-12-31T14:30:00.002-05:00

In his 1988 book, Ron Paul did not just disagree with Ronald Reagan, he repudiated the whole administration.

A former aide criticizes "the sheer lunacy of his foreign policy views."

As recently as 2010, Paul spoke to a John Birch Society meeting. It is surprising that this item has not gotten more media attention. Perhaps the reason is that so much of the campaign press corps now consists of twentysomethings who have no idea what the JBS stands for.

Gingrich Items

2011-12-26T21:22:00.001-05:00

The next time you watch a Newt Gingrich speech or debate performance, try Gingrich Bingo, a game deriving from the former speaker's favorite words and phrases.

Gingrich has a longstanding admiration for Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt.

Nicholas Lemann's 1985 Atlantic profile has some fascinating material.

A Couple of Surprising Things about Newt

2011-12-17T02:14:00.002-05:00

He once supported a value-added tax.

He once attacked House GOP conservatives as "the perfectionist caucus."

Gingrich Update

2011-12-13T16:33:00.002-05:00

Newt's use of language.

A 1992 episode suggesting a pragmatic view of religion.

Newt's fascination with science fiction.

New survey data on the GOP race.

Tough new Ron Paul ad attacks Newt.

Fact-Checking

2011-12-11T23:47:00.002-05:00

On CBS, Scott Pelley screws up a key fact about Super PACs

A misquotation on homelessness goes viral

Newt Gingrich makes some historical mistakes in his new book.

Gingrich, Maddow, and Public Goods

2011-12-06T08:14:00.005-05:00

In MSNBC ads this year, Rachel Maddow has been making the public-goods case for government.

It is not surprising that she would offer such an argument. What might be a little surprising is that Newt Gingrich does the same thing.

More here.

Madison v. Gingrich

2011-12-03T20:14:00.003-05:00

As a freshman House member, Newt Gingrich embraced the responsible party school, sounding a lot more like Woodrow Wilson than James Madison.

More here.

The Rise of Newt

2011-12-01T08:37:00.002-05:00

With Gingrich's continue rise in the polls, some may want to see recent items:

Gingrich would abolish the Congressional Budget Office -- but has relied on its analysis whenever convenient.

Videos of Gingrich interviews.

A graphic display of Gingrich's self-image

"Five Myths about Newt Gingrich"

Of Misquotation and Emulation

2011-11-18T16:32:00.002-05:00

The fake Tocqueville quotation has crossed the Pacific, with the leader of the Australian opposition saying that America is great because America is good.

Progressive activists are trying to draw lessons from the successes of conservatives ...

who drew lessons from the earlier successes of progressive activists...

who drew lessons from even earlier successes of conservatives ...

Budget and Management Fads

2011-11-13T11:30:00.001-05:00

The public administration folks must be having a good laugh at current debates.

Six Sigma is not a new idea.

Neither is zero-based budgeting.

About Mr. Gingrich

2011-11-12T10:25:00.002-05:00

Now that Newt Gingrich seems to be surging in the polls, there is renewed interest in his background. This eclectic collection of items may be relevant:

Recent Data

2011-11-05T10:50:00.004-04:00

Romney's religion could still be a problem for him.

The latest Pew survey details generation gaps on key political issues.

Gallup reports on religion and party identification.

Social Security is now cash-negative.

Survey data show that Americans want to replace the electoral college.

Ranked-Choice Voting

2011-10-23T11:56:00.001-04:00

San Francisco is perhaps the most prominent jurisdiction to use ranked-choice (or instant-runoff) voting. Articles here and here describe how the current City campaign has unfolded.

Presidential Candidates

2011-10-18T18:38:00.002-04:00

Poli Sci and the Electoral College

2011-10-01T21:18:00.002-04:00

Political scientists weigh in on the electoral college:

Useful Phrase of the Week

2011-09-24T20:08:00.002-04:00

"Kick-a-puppy syndrome" -- the belief that one's opponents are so mean that they would ... well, kick a puppy. More here.

Helping Students Find Jobs, Internships, Research Sources

2011-09-19T12:06:00.003-04:00

Here are blog posts about practical ways to help students with

Jobs: http://www.bessettepitney.net/2011/09/jobs-in-politics-and-government.html

Internships: http://www.bessettepitney.net/2011/04/internships.html

Research: http://www.bessettepitney.net/2011/09/doing-research-in-american-political.html

Disasters and Politics

2011-08-28T01:54:00.002-04:00

For better or worse, disasters reveal a great deal about the political system:

Hurricanes;
Oil Spills;
Wildfires (This one literally was close to home, as the video will show).

Statistical Abstract No More?

2011-08-23T22:05:00.002-04:00

Is The Statistical Abstract of the United States about to die? More here.

Perry and Poli Sci

2011-08-19T15:27:00.001-04:00

Political scientists weigh in on Perry here and here.

Rick Perry

2011-08-15T00:57:00.002-04:00

Rick Perry is "dismayed" that nearly half of Americans pay federal income taxes. But perhaps he has not considered which half they are, and which president took them off the federal income tax rolls.

See here for some additional poli sci commentary on Perry.

Poli Sci and Current Politics

2011-08-10T13:51:00.002-04:00

Some poli sci views of:

Gangs

2011-07-21T18:19:00.001-04:00

Long before there was the "Gang of Six," there was the Gang of Seven, which included a youngster named John Boehner.

AARP, Social Security, and Boomers

2011-07-10T09:09:00.002-04:00

AARP remains an excellent case study of organizational maintenance and selective incentives. The aging of the baby boom and the growth of the deficit pose new challenges, as Fred Lynch explains at the group's website.

Teachable Moments in the Justice System

2011-07-08T13:48:00.001-04:00

The headlines have recently brought several cases that could be useful in teaching students about the American system of justice:

The Leal execution in Texas;
The Strauss-Kahn case;
The Casey Anthony verdict (also note the importance of jury instructions.)

Deliberative Poll in California -- Update

2011-06-29T16:39:00.003-04:00

Jim Fishkin just held a deliberative poll in California. One of the topics was district size: participants thought that California's legislative districts are way too big for effective representation. (On average, a state senate district has more people than all of South Dakota.)

AARP's Future

2011-06-24T21:05:00.003-04:00

At The New York Times, Fred Lynch advises AARP to shed its ambivalence and come out strongly against cuts in Social Security and Medicare. He is the author of One Nation under AARP: The Fight over Medicare, Social Security, and America's Future (University of California Press).

Courts and Public Policy

2011-06-21T22:57:00.003-04:00

In AMERICAN ELECTRIC POWER CO., INC., ET AL. v. CONNECTICUT ET AL., Justice Ginsburg's majority opinion emphasized the limits of judicial competence. Her analysis is reminiscent of Donald Horowitz's landmark 1977 work, The Courts and Social Policy.

Ron Paul and Straw Polls

2011-06-20T18:58:00.002-04:00

The case of Ron Paul is a useful case for teaching the difference between straw polls and genuine random-sample surveys. There is a big gap between his performance at events such as CPAC and his standing in national polls. And as the campaign progresses, there will be phone-in and online "polls" showing him far ahead. As ABC News explained years ago, that's because his supporters are unusually motivated to participate in such non-scientific "surveys," rendering them useless as a measure of public opinion.

Gaps in the Web

2011-06-16T18:42:00.002-04:00

It is unfortunate that the administration's report on Libya is not available on government websites. The same is true of other documents, as well as many presidential interviews. True, much of the material is available on commercial sites, but as all internet researchers know, such sites often remove items without notice.

Leave of Absence

2011-06-12T22:48:00.003-04:00

The Weiner case draws attention to two items of congressional terminology: "leave of absence," which is largely symbolic, and "expulsion," which has occurred only five times in the history of the House.

Macroeconomics and Politics

2011-06-07T16:14:00.003-04:00

Conventional poli sci wisdom is affecting the mass media: though there are differences on details, there is broad consensus that macroeconomic variables will have a huge impact on the 2012 election.

Here are some data on unemployment, as well as its impact on electoral outcomes.

California Redistricting

2011-06-06T14:29:00.002-04:00

A preliminary staff draft of the California redistricting plan is available.

Joe Mathews is skeptical about the purported effects:

Redistricting supporters have claimed that this redrawing of districts will remake California's politics by creating more political competition -- and more moderates willing to compromise.
That's total bunk.
The public has grown more partisan, and Californians have sorted themselves into like-minded communities, so there's really no way for the commission to create many more competitive districts. (What's more, the commission isn't permitted to look at party data--so creating competition between the parties is pretty much off the table).

Robert Gates on Institutional Change

2011-06-02T19:15:00.002-04:00

Outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates says that he can't think of any books on leading change in public institutions. Actually, there are a bunch of such books. As the former head of a public policy school, Gates should know that.

Deliberative Polling

2011-05-31T17:17:00.001-04:00

Jim Fishkin is planning a deliberative poll for California.

See here for a brief explanation of deliberative polling.

See here for a comparative perspective on deliberative polling.

Memorial Day Items

2011-05-30T11:39:00.005-04:00

The Jury and Democracy

2011-05-29T11:02:00.002-04:00

Many of us have cited Tocqueville's observation that the jury is a "free school" of democracy. Empirical validation comes in an excellent book from Oxford University Press, The Jury and Democracy: How Jury Deliberation Promotes Civic Engagement and Political Participation. For additional insights, see the website of the Jury and Democracy Project.

I recently served as a juror, and read the book during downtime: observations here.

Material on Newt Gingrich

2011-05-21T15:11:00.004-04:00

Some materials about Newt:

His history with Tom Coburn (who recently advised him to keep his mouth shut);
An interview in which he identified with Woodrow Wilson;
A 1996 APSA paper about him;
Video of his 1984 confrontation with Tip O'Neill;
A collection of miscellaneous Gingrich items.

Majority Size and Legislative Productivity

2010-10-26T23:04:00.007-04:00

I’m a big fan of Ezra Klein’s writings -- and as the folks over at the Monkey Cage have noted, he has been a big booster of political science research. But today he made a few points that invite scrutiny.

Ezra is responding to Ari Berman’s (admittedly provocative) New York Times op-ed from this past weekend, in which Berman argues that Democrats would do well to lose the Blue Dogs in the elections next week and keep a smaller majority, because a smaller majority would likely be more cohesive and productive. The full op-ed is worth reading, if only because Ari showcases some findings from his engaging and extremely well-researched new book Herding Donkeys.

Some of Ari’s op-ed points are surely subject to dispute, but I’m not sure Ezra has hit on them; in fact, he makes some dubious claims of his own. He writes:

“Fewer votes means getting less done. And the proof is in the 111th Congress: Say what you will about the ugly deals and the missed opportunities, but no recent group of congressional Democrats has even come close to their productivity, and that's solely a function of no recent group of congressional Democrats being nearly as large as this one was.”

But is the productivity of the current Democratic majority “solely a function” of its size? Is legislative productivity related to majority size at all? This is an empirical question, and a quick-and-dirty look at the evidence suggests that the answer is no.

Consider the two most recent Democratic presidencies. When Jimmy Carter took office, Democrats numbered 61 in the Senate and 292 in the House; when Bill Clinton took office, they numbered 57 in the Senate, 258 in the House; when Obama came in, they numbered 58 in the Senate, 257 in the House. Klein implies that the current group of congressional Democrats has been more productive than those of the 95th and 103rd –- I don't know if that's actually true (sure seems like it) but if it is, obviously it can't be “solely a function” of this group's numerical size. Something else must explain it.

Of course, many factors could explain it. For starters, Carter and Clinton’s majorities were more heterogeneous and internally divided than Obama’s, containing, for example, many more conservative Southern Democrats. What else? Neither Carter nor Clinton was a particularly adept legislative leader early in his presidency. And the list goes on. If Obama’s 111th Congress has been more productive than the 95th and 103rd, presumably it has something to do with the composition of the party coalition, the president’s leadership, and a whole host of other factors (economic crisis? previous administration in disrepute?). The numerical size of the Democratic majority, however, doesn't seem to be a leading candidate.

But consider further the concept of “legislative productivity.” As David Mayhew has shown in his classic Divided We Govern, even ostensibly crucial systemic factors like divided versus unified government don’t matter all that much when it comes to passing significant legislation. Big-ticket, important laws get enacted at roughly the same clip, irrespective of whether the branches are split between the parties, whether congressional majorities are big or small, whether there’s a Democrat or Republican in the White House, whether the president is popular or not, and so on.

A few numbers from Divided We Govern: Richard Nixon was incredibly productive despite facing divided government -- he signed 22 important laws in the 1969-70 period. That's exactly the same number (22) that LBJ got in the famously productive “Great Society” 89th Congress. Gerald Ford signed 14 important bills into law in 1975-1976, which is more than Carter (12) or Truman (10) and only one shy of JFK (15) during the first two years of each of their administrations. Eisenhower, Reagan, and Bush each got 9 during their first two years, which isn't significantly fewer than any of the above.

As Mayhew suggests here, over the course of American history, something like national “moods” seem to have produced periodic waves of legislative productivity that have tended to last longer than a single presidency. Our government, in other words, has somehow managed to get big stuff done when it needed to, and the numerical size of majorities in Congress have had little to do with it. Legislative productivity appears to be a function of “the times” more than “the numbers.”

If I’m reading Ari Berman correctly, his main point is simply that slightly smaller Democratic majorities stand a better chance of being more ideologically unified. Greater ideological cohesion might yield a variety of different benefits for the party in the long run, including not only “cleaner” legislation, but concomitantly, a reenergized activist base. In the context of this year’s much-discussed “enthusiasm gap,” it’s hard to argue that such an outcome might not be the worst thing for the Democrats, especially as they start to turn their attention toward 2012.

Democratic Widgets

2010-07-15T17:01:00.007-04:00

You know how the Democrats have always been the party of diversity, the heterogeneous coalition, the party of special interest groups? The party that couldn't get its act together and share resources and information across its various partnerships?

Well evidently the DNC, now controlled by Obama's OFA people, has (at long last) decided to embrace this heterogeneity. Its new voter registration program for 2010, called "Raise Your Vote," comes with an "embeddable widget" that allows state parties, independent Democratic campaigns, progressive groups, and other interested groups to participate in collecting information on folks who register as Democrats. Any “host” site that embeds the registration widget receives valuable, detailed information on individual Democratic voters “downloadable in CSV format,” with all the information stored and processed in a centralized location at the DNC. Everybody wins: Democrats register more voters and progressive groups and Democratic candidates get valuable information about likely supporters of their causes. Here's the story.

This seems rather new and different. Almost seems like the Obama folks want to harness the entire progressive movement to build the Democratic Party, expand its base, etc., while strengthening those groups simultaneously.

Thoughts on Rand Paul

2010-05-20T17:05:00.000-04:00

I guess I'll jump on this particular bandwagon. There's not much to say about Paul, other than he clearly opposes the CRA's ban on private discrimination, but is now forced to backtrack out of political expediency. What's really interesting is how Republicans are shocked, shocked that Paul opposes the CRA. Paul's position on this issue was known to his GOP primary opponent, yet he didn't use it against him for the likely reason that it wouldn't have hurt and might have helped Paul among Republican primary voters. Furthermore, the GOP pantheon is composed of politicians who opposed the CRA: Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, Barry Goldwater, Robert Bork, George H.W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Indeed, the contemporary GOP emerged out of its opposition to civil rights.

Voter Fraud in Puerto Rico!

2010-04-28T13:30:00.000-04:00

Ramesh Ponnuru gives this analysis of a hypothetical referendum on Puerto Rican statehood:

Let's say that 48 percent want the current status, 40 percent want statehood, and 14 percent want independence. If everyone votes that way, then current-status loses the first referendum and statehood probably wins the second one.

48%+40%+14%=102%!

Poland's Tragedy

2010-04-13T21:32:00.000-04:00

More details are emerging about the victims of the plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and nearly 100 other government officials and prominent citizens. It is the equivalent of Air Force One crashing and leaving no survivors.

What makes this event all the more horrific is that Kaczynski and the other were on their way to Russia to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre. In 1940, the NKVD killed approximately 20,000 Poles, mostly military officers captured when the Soviets invaded eastern Poland in 1939 as part of the Nazi-Soviet pact. Stalin ordered the execution to wipe out Poland's military elite and destroy the nucleus of any opposition to Soviet occupation. Thus, the two most tragic events of recent Polish history are conjoined. In this case Marx was wrong. History repeats itself, first as tragedy, and then again as more tragedy.

Rebel, Rebel

2010-04-08T09:47:00.002-04:00

Virginia Governor Bob McDonald recently issued a proclamation honoring Confederate history month. I thought I would help him revise it for historical accuracy:

WHEREAS, April is the month in which the [white] people of Virginia [except the part that seceded from the state and became West Virginia] joined the Confederate States of America in a four year ~~war~~ [treasonous rebellion against the United States of America] ~~between the states for independence that concluded at Appomattox Courthouse~~; and

WHEREAS, Virginia [Whites have] ~~has~~ long recognized her Confederate history, the numerous civil war battlefields that mark every region of the state, the [white] leaders and [white] individuals in the Army, Navy and at home who fought for their ~~homes and communities and Commonwealth~~ [slaves and racial privileges] in a time [obviously not so] very different than ours today; and

WHEREAS, it is important for all [white] Virginians to reflect upon our Commonwealth’s shared history, to understand the sacrifices of the [black] ~~Confederate~~ leaders, soldiers and citizens during the period of the Civil War, and to recognize how our history has led to our present; and

WHEREAS, Confederate historical sites such as the ~~White House of the Confederacy~~ [slave quarters in Colonial Williamsburg and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello plantation] are open for people to visit ~~in Richmond~~ today; and

WHEREAS, all Virginians can appreciate the fact that when ~~ultimately~~ [seemingly] overwhelmed by the [tyranny of slavery, black Virginians] ~~insurmountable numbers and resources of the Union Army, the surviving, imprisoned and injured Confederate soldiers~~ gave their word and allegiance to the United States of America, and returned to their homes and families to rebuild their communities in peace~~, following the instruction of General Robert E. Lee of Virginia, who wrote that, “...all should unite in honest efforts to obliterate the effects of war and to restore the blessings of peace."~~; and

WHEREAS, this defining chapter in Virginia’s history should not be forgotten, but instead should be studied, understood and remembered by all Virginians, both in the context of the time in which it took place, but also in the context of the time in which we live, and this study and remembrance takes on particular importance as the Commonwealth prepares to welcome the nation and the world to visit Virginia for the Sesquicentennial Anniversary of the Civil War, a four-year period in which the exploration of our history can benefit all;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Robert McDonnell, do hereby recognize April 2010 as [ANTI-] CONFEDERATE HISTORY MONTH in our COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, and I call this observance to the attention of all our citizens.

Babbling Brooks

2010-04-08T09:39:00.001-04:00

I like that David Brooks uses social science research to inform his writing, but he does have a tendency to interpret that work in ways that reinforce his own political preferences. In today's NYT, Brooks comments on data showing that wealthier Americans work more hours than poorer Americans and asks, "How do you construct a rich versus poor narrative when the rich are more industrious?"

But are the rich more industrious or just better rewarded for their industry? Recently The Economist took up this issue and pointed to research showing that class mobility in the US in much lower than in many European nations. As a result:

With only an 8 percent shot at joining the richest quintile, it's not surprising that America's poor work far fewer hours. If working harder is a key ingredient in growing per capita income, then America ought to be interested in increasing the return to work across all income categories. The poor, like the Europeans, are rational, not lazy.

The Economist also points to the relationship between hours worked and marginal tax rates. If we are, as many conservatives claim, on the downslope of the Laffer Curve, then the higher tax rates of the wealthy should cause them to work less, not more than the less wealthy who have lower tax rates. But that's not the case.

Year 1 of Organizing for America

2010-01-14T13:16:00.004-05:00

Ari Melber, of Personal Democracy Forum and The Nation magazine, has written the most comprehensive and insightful account of Obama's "Organizing for America" (OFA) to date, at techPresident. Settle in, it's 74 pages long. Find the report here:
http://techpresident.com/ofayear1

Not Your Run-of-the-Mill House Candidate

2009-12-18T16:27:00.003-05:00

You may remember that a burly protester interrupted the start of John McCain's acceptance speech in 2008. The protester, Iraq veteran Adam Kokesh, is now the front-runner for a GOP congressional nomination. See a profile here. (Declaration of interest: Adam was my student.)

Textbook Costs

2009-11-25T22:02:00.003-05:00

Via Matt Yglesias, here's John Holbo on the high cost of academic books:

I hereby declare – for the benefit of anyone at Oxford UP who might be reading – that I was going to require my (probably 50-or-so) students next semester to buy your serviceable little paperback volumes: Woolhouse’s The Empiricists and Cottingham’s The Rationalists. I assigned them when I last taught History of Modern Philosophy, a few years back; and it worked out fine. But now that I see they cost $45 each, for a lousy sub-200 page, 7” x 5” paperback and pretty cheap paper. What’s that about? Do I really want my students to hate me? (Do I want to hate myself?) I am quite sure they were not this pricey a few years back. There is such a thing as charging too much, given that these books are not actually so good that they cause one’s head to explode with insight into the history of modern philosophy. So I am going to put these particular books on reserve in the library, and recommend them to my students as resources, but I am re-doing my syllabus in protest at absurd pricing. So there. Oxford UP has lost a course adoption – the holy grail of textbook publishing. Let that be a lesson to you.

Let me second his complaint with my own recent experience. Next semester I'll be teaching political parties and elections for the first time in nearly five years. I usually begin the course with Anthony Downs's, An Economic Theory of Democracy, a political science classic. Yet Pearson Publishing wants $86.67 for the book. Amazon is offering it for about $60, but that's still way too expensive for a paperback. Plus, it shows that that Pearson is already marking it up by $25 or 40% for those, like college bookstores, who buy directly from them. The book has been in print since 1957, so I'm assuming that Pearson has made its money back and then some decades ago. I strongly doubt that Pearson needs to charge $60, let alone $86, to cover printing costs along with a reasonable profit. As with Holbo, I can't in good conscience require my students to pay this much for just one book.

Danger! Beware of Falling Names

2009-11-25T08:54:00.001-05:00

Eric Alterman shows new levels of humility:

I took a seminar at Yale in 1985 when I was getting my master's with Edward Said on the role of the intellectual. Everyone in the class wore black and quoted Derrida (with whom I also took a seminar, in French, of which I understood very little). Anyway, there was a rather imposing African-American fellow at the seminar table on the first day with a vest and tie, etc., and a big afro. He said nothing for the two-hour class and then at the end, was called and ripped into Said with every three-dollar word I had ever heard and many more I had not. It was like a fantasy come true--going back to school to show off how smart you were now; perhaps the coolest moment I've ever seen in a classroom. Then Said said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Dr. Cornel West," who apparently was an assistant professor in the Divinity School, letting the rest of us in on the joke. The amazingest thing about Cornel is what an original he is; there's never been anything like him: "Gramsci and Sly Stone both understood..."

California Politics

2009-11-15T18:04:00.003-05:00

The Rose Institute offers a good overview of California congressional races. The post nicely summarizes the statewide setting following the withdrawal of Gavin Newsom from the gubernatorial race last week:

Jerry Brown will likely be the Democrats’ gubernatorial nominee, and incumbent Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer will be the nominee for Senate. While both Brown and Boxer may run strong campaigns, neither one will create the excitement that Obama created in 2008 that helped Democrat congressional candidates down the ballot. Republican incumbents who had close elections in 2008 because of Obama will likely face a more favorable climate in 2010.

In a forthcoming issue of The Forum, I have a review of Seth Masket's excellent No Middle Ground: How Information Party Organizations Control Nominations and Polarize Legislatures. A recent article in The Sacramento Bee tends to confirm Masket's analysis:

On average, individual Democrats in the California Legislature voted with the majority of their party or abstained 99 times out of 100 this session. Republicans, on average, voted with the majority of their party or abstained 96 out of every 100 times. "California is by far the most polarized state legislature" in the nation, said professor Boris Shor, with the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy Studies, who recently published a study on the ideological composition of legislatures. "California makes the U.S. Congress look like tiddlywinks."

An analysis in the Los Angeles Times describes the geography of state polarization:

There is a yawning gulf between the left-leaning coastal regions that feed California's stereotype and the right-leaning inland areas that seem firmly planted in Middle America rather than the land of the Beach Boys.

Demographically, the poll demonstrated, the two populations are distinct.

Inland voters are far more likely to be religious. Almost half were Protestant -- a reflection of the strong evangelical movement -- though that was true of only three in 10 coastal voters. Church attendance, which political analysts see as a key indicator of political behavior -- the more often one attends services, the more reliably conservative the vote -- was also different. In inland areas, almost four in 10 voters said they went to services at least once a week, while three in 10 coastal voters made that claim.

Inland voters were older, more conservative and more likely to be married and white than coastal voters. Interestingly, location seemed at times to trump race or gender. Latino voters who live in the area espoused more conservative views than their coastal brethren. Two-thirds of coastal Latinos were registered Democrats; fewer than half of inland Latinos were. One third of coastal Latinos described themselves as "liberal," twice the proportion of inland Latinos.

President Obama Should Refuse the Nobel Prize

2009-10-09T09:08:00.003-04:00

Winning the Nobel Peace Prize is likely to be more of a headache to President Obama than an honor. It reinforces the perception, held among many, that he is philosophically more European than American. And it's not hard to imagine the reaction should he decide to increase troop levels in Afghanistan - "Some advocate for peace!"

As a result, President Obama should refuse the Nobel Peace Prize. He should simply say, "I am honored and humbled by the decision of the Nobel Committee. But there are dozens, if not hundreds, of others who are far more deserving than I am." By doing so, he would reap the benefits (in terms of world opinion) of having been chosen for the award, but stymie critics by acting honorably and with humility and grace.

The Scots-Irish

2009-10-06T15:07:00.003-04:00

An excellent analysis of the Scots-Irish vote by Cameron Joseph at The Atlantic:

The populist fury aimed at President Obama and his fellow Democrats may have roots much deeper than health care. In fact, it may be that it can be traced back to the emigration of the Scots-Irish, the first white group to settle interior America.They've been called rednecks, hillbillies and crackers. In the modern parlance of political correctness, they've been referred to as the Bubba vote. They live in Sarah Palin's "real America," and they make up the majority of Reagan Democrats. They count as distant relatives at least twelve U.S. presidents, from Andrew Jackson to Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton and even to Barack Obama, yet the Scots-Irish remain largely ignored as an ethnic group in America.

A Bleg on Technology and Teaching

2009-08-09T10:34:00.003-04:00

I'm giving a talk at APSA about the classroom use of Internet resouces, including social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. You are all cordially invited:

http://www.signup4.net/Public/ap.aspx?EID=MORT69E

Right now I would be grateful for any thoughts on how you use the Internet. What are your favorite sites? What online interactive resources do you find most helpful? How do you teach students the research uses of the Internet?

Gallup on Ideology

2009-07-07T20:12:00.003-04:00

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.
...

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

2009-07-03T10:15:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-17T15:21:00.002-04:00

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.
...
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"

2009-05-10T11:10:00.002-04:00

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

2009-04-25T09:26:00.002-04:00

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

2009-04-22T16:28:00.002-04:00

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

2009-04-18T17:44:00.003-04:00

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

2009-04-18T13:58:00.003-04:00

(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.

Politics and Autism Awareness

2009-04-02T19:50:00.003-04:00

Today, April 2, is World Autism Awareness Day.

The issue of autism recently touched our profession in a tragic way. Professor Gertrude Steuernagel of Kent State's Department of Political Science was one of the very few scholars studying public policy on autism. In early February, she died from injuries that she suffered in a beating in her home in late January. Her 18-year old son, who has low-functioning autism, is under arrest for the murder and has pleaded not guilty.

I never met Trudy, but for years we had a friendly e-mail correspondence stemming from our shared experience as the parents of autistic kids and our interest in autism policy.

It would compound the tragedy of Trudy's death if it led to the impression that autistic people are violent. Actually, the data show that serious crime is rare among people with such disorders.

Congressional Simulation

2009-03-31T22:17:00.003-04:00

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

2009-03-31T17:50:00.001-04:00

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

Turnout

2009-03-30T09:50:00.001-04:00

(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?

2009-03-14T10:15:00.003-04:00

(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

2009-03-13T17:27:00.005-04:00

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

2009-03-03T16:00:00.003-05:00

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."

Live From New York, It's Minority Status

2009-02-16T13:27:00.004-05:00

This Saturday Night Live sketch is not especially funny (the writers sorely miss President Bush), but the first couple of minutes nicely explain one political advantage belonging to an out-party that is in the minority in the House. Bill Connelly and I discuss this strategic posture in a recent Forum article. (h/t to David Franzel)

An Ironic Tom Daschle Ad

2009-02-03T01:35:00.000-05:00

From 1986:

I Can't Wait!

2009-01-26T15:54:00.001-05:00

Just got this email today:

Dear friend of The Washington Times,

Here's your chance to be one of the very first to own "W, The Legacy of George W. Bush" the compelling coffee table styled book about an extraordinary president in turbulent times. "W" is packed with gripping pictures and stories all beautifully presented in this historical keepsake presentation of all eight years of the Presidency of George W. Bush.

Save $10.00, just $24.99 plus shipping and handling, by pre-ordering this memorable book today -- be proud to share it with your friends and family!

Headline of the Day

2009-01-22T09:20:00.001-05:00

From the Daily Mail:

Former French President Chirac hospitalised after mauling by his clinically depressed poodle

Flubbing the Oath of Office: Not the First Time

2009-01-20T20:16:00.007-05:00

Lots of flap about Chief Justice John Roberts flubbing his administration of the Oath of Office, and whether Obama is actually president, given that he didn’t repeat the Oath exactly as it is written in the Constitution.

Here’s the text in Article II of the Constitution:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Here’s Obama’s oath, as spoken:

"I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear that I will execute the office of President of the United States faithfully, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God.”

Obama's spoken misstep was the misplacement of the word “faithfully.” (Roberts also said “president to the United States,” but Obama wisely did not repeat the incorrect “to.” )

A cursory look at past inaugurals reveals that Obama is not the only one to take a slightly altered Oath.

Dwight Eisenhower added an extra “the,” saying: “...the office of the President of the United States...” in 1957.

In 1965, Lyndon Johnson said "the Presidency" rather than just "President," saying "...the office of the Presidency of the United States..."

And in 1973, Richard Nixon added an "and," saying “...preserve and protect and defend...”

ABC notes that in 1909 William Howard Taft also misspoke, saying "preserve, maintain and defend the Constitution."

Clearly, these little errors didn't stand in Taft, Ike, LBJ, or Nixon's way of serving as a legitimate president (well, OK, but Nixon's legitimacy problems had nothing to do with his Oath!). Taft even went on to become Chief Justice himself.

Two other tidbits: George H. W. Bush also started to interrupt during the first clause, just like Obama; and try repeating the whole thing at once, like FDR had to do in 1933!

One last comment about the Oath today: Did anyone else find it slightly offensive the way Roberts asked Obama "...so help you God?" as if to question Obama's faith? Of the Oaths I listened to, Roberts is the first to pose it as a question like that.

Obama's DNC and the "New" 50-State Strategy

2009-01-16T15:05:00.005-05:00

Many people have been following Obama's evolving relationship with the formal Democratic Party organization with great interest. Will he abandon the 50-state strategy? Will he become complacent with respect to organizational party-building now that the Democrats are in the majority?

When DNC chairman Howard Dean was excluded from Obama's press conference announcing Gov. Tim Kaine (VA) as Dean's successor, many feared that Obama's new team would dismantle the 50-state strategy.

Turns out the slap was probably just a clash-of-personalities thing with Dean. Seems that Kaine intends to continue along the party-building path while updating the strategy to new conditions. Kaine just released a 27-minute video answering people's questions about what lies ahead. Here's a rush transcript with Kaine's notable quotes about the 50-state strategy:

“The 50-state strategy is really important going forward…President-Elect Obama and me, we very much are believers -- the results that the DNC has achieved under the strategy speak for themselves. Now, exactly what is the “new” version of the 50-state strategy: You never should just do what you did yesterday. You’ve got to analyze everything and figure out what’s the right way to do it for today and tomorrow. And what we need to do is sit down and analyze everything in the campaign and everything about the 50-state strategy to determine what is exactly the best thing to do in Texas, and in Idaho, and in other states, to keep pushing forward, so that we can be successful as Democrats. And I think it’s fair to say that the right strategy for Texas might be a different strategy than for Georgia. What we’ve done in Virginia gives me some ideas, but I’m not going to say that should apply equally to every other state. But we’re past the point where we’re going to write any state off or any region of the country. The 50-state strategy has been a success, and we’re going to continue it in new and exciting ways going forward.”
...
“Yes, the 50-state strategy –- investing in each state and each community –- we’ll continue it. We may do it in different ways, obviously, everything you do, you ought be asking yourself, can I do it better? And the answer should always be yes! We could always be better tomorrow than we were today. Chairman Dean’s strategy was successful –- the results speak for themselves –- and we’re going to make sure that as a party we continue to play strong in every state and in every community.”

In other breaking news from Marc Ambinder, another tidbit to suggest that new administration will enjoy a very close working relationship with the DNC after all. Obama's choice for DNC Executive Director, Jennifer O'Malley Dillon -- who will be basically running the DNC in 2009 while Kaine finishes out his term in VA -- will presumably get along well with the new deputy director of the White House Office of Political Affairs, husband Patrick Dillon. (Congrats and good luck to the Dillons.)

UPDATE, 1/18: Obama announces the merging of his campaign organization with the DNC. "Organizing for America" (aka "Obama 2.0") will be housed within the DNC but will presumably operate independently to some extent (how much is not yet clear). At first glance, this would seem to be a novel arrangement -- no Democratic president going back to JFK has tried to leverage his independent base of support for the benefit of his party and its regular operations. Yet how, specifically, these two entities will work together remains to be seen. Will OFA help with the party-building activities mentioned above? Or will the regular party apparatus be subordinated to OFA, overshadowed by its campaigns to build support for the president's legislative priorities? Time will tell.

Patrick McGoohan, RIP

2009-01-14T15:13:00.003-05:00

Patrick McGoohan has passed away at the age of 80. During the 1960s, he created and starred in The Prisoner, a surreal television series that explored ideas about individualism, freedom, and power. AMC has now put the entire series online.

Forum Article

2009-01-12T11:23:00.003-05:00

The most recent issue of the Forum includes an article on the 2008 election that I co-authored with Tom Schaller. Here's a link to the article and you can join the discussion on it (along with the other articles in the issue) over at the Monkey Cage.

"Loveable" Dick Cheney

2009-01-07T19:47:00.002-05:00

The Politico reports that Dick Cheney thinks his negative public image is a bum rap. In fact, he describes himself as "a warm, loveable sort."

Words fail.

A Double Standard in Transcription?

2008-12-30T09:27:00.005-05:00

Caroline Kennedy has gotten bad reviews for repeatedly saying "you know" in a New York Times interview. This case points out a little-noted aspect of journalism. Unlike court transcripts, news transcripts are often not verbatim. News organizations frequently "clean up" quotations by fixing grammar or deleting verbal fillers such as "like," "uh," and "you know." But this time, the Times seems to have been unusually strict. By way of comparison, consider how it treated an interview with Barack Obama a few weeks ago. Here is a passage as it appeared in print:

It is not clear that an ongoing, open-ended presence has prompted political change in Iraq either. The fact of the matter is that we still don't have an oil law. We still don't have provincial elections. We haven't dealt with Kirkuk, and the argument for staying is that we haven't made sufficient political progress. So it strikes me that for us to deliver a message of clarity to the Iraqis and to the surrounding countries that we are not looking at a permanent occupation, but we want to partner with you to structure a stable and secure Iraq -- that actually will force the Iraqis to make some decisions that they would not otherwise make

To its credit, the Times included an audio link, so we can tell how it actually sounded. See the transcription below, with "cleaned-up" material in bold:

It is not clear that, uh, uh, an ongoing, open-ended presence has prompted political change in Iraq either. I mean, the fact of the matter is that we still don't have an oil law. We still don't have pro-, provincial elections. Uh, we haven't dealt with Kirkuk, and the argument for staying is that we haven't made sufficient political progress. So it, it strikes me that for us to deliver a message of clarity to the Iraqis, to the surrounding, uh, the surrounding countries that we are not looking at a permanent occupation, but we want to partner with you to structure, uh, a, uh, a stable, uh, and uh, secure Iraq -- that actually will force the Iraqis to make some decisions that they would not otherwise make.

Reproducing the verbatim text is no knock on Obama: a precise speaker, he uses fewer verbal fillers than most people. But it's also obvious that the Times cleaned up his language.

Why the apparent double standard? During the interview, it seems, Kennedy annoyed the reporters by dismissing one of their questions: "Have you guys ever thought about writing for, like, a woman’s magazine or something?"

Perhaps, like, the verbatim transcription was, you know, uh, payback.

Politics and Organ Donation

2008-12-02T21:55:00.005-05:00

Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) is circulating draft legislation called the Organ Donor Clarification Act. The bill would make clear that federal law does not forbid states from sponsoring non-cash incentives for organ donation. Such incentives might include tax credits or health insurance for living donors, or funeral benefits for deceased donors.

I have skin in this game – literally. In the summer of 2007, I donated a kidney to an in-law. We’re both doing fine, but many others are not. Over 100,000 people are on the waiting list to receive an organ, more than three-quarters of whom need a kidney. Some of them may die before their names come up. The proposed legislation would save make it easier for them to get transplants.

A 1984 law, the National Organ Transplant Act, forbids trafficking in human organs. Although its language is unclear about noncash incentives, most state officials think that this law prohibits them. Recognizing widespread concern about the marketing of body parts, Senator Specter’s bill keeps the ban on organ sales. It merely clarifies that the government may lawfully provide non-cash incentives to honor and reward organ donation.

The American Association of Kidney Patients backs the measure. Curiously, the National Kidney Foundation opposes it. The Foundation says: “Providing any form of compensation for organs may be an affront to the thousands of donor families and living donors who have already made an altruistic gift of life and it could alienate Americans who are prepared to donate life-saving organs out of humanitarian concern.”

To that statement I reply: “Not in my name.” This living donor most certainly does not regard the proposal as an affront. I think it’s a great idea.

For me, donation was relatively easy. As a college professor, I had plenty of free time during the summer. (The old joke is that the three best reasons to join academia are June, July, and August.) For several weeks after surgery, a donor must limit physical activities. But those limits hardly affected me at all. Academic research is not exactly strenuous, especially in the era of the Internet. I was surfing the Web within 24 hours of the operation.

Other would-be donors have a tougher time. Studies have found that most living donors worry about financial consequences of lost worktime, childcare, job security and future health insurance coverage. Even when insurance covers the surgery itself, a donor’s out-of-pocket expenses may run into the thousands of dollars. (In my case, for example, preliminary tests required several flights to the hospital where the transplant would take place.) Such concerns keep many potential kidney donors from going through with the surgery.

Even modest noncash incentives could counterbalance some of these concerns and encourage many people to donate. The Specter bill would save lives.

Change.gov

2008-11-07T12:44:00.000-05:00

President-elect Obama's official transition website (change.gov) has this invitation on its homepage:

The story of this campaign is your story. It is about the great things we can do when we come together around a common purpose. We want to hear your inspiring stories from the campaign and Election Day.

The site also contains issue statements that come directly from campaign materials.

The official guidelines for the use of the .gov domain include this restriction:

The Gov domain is for the operation of government, not the political, political party, or campaign environment. No campaigning can be done using Gov Internet domains. The Gov Internet domain websites may not be directly linked to or refer to websites created or operated by a campaign or any campaign entity or committee. No political sites or party names or acronyms can be used. Separate websites and e-mail on other top-level domains (TLDs), such as .org, will have to be used for political activity.

Is the transition site in violation? A former administration official says:

It's certainly reasonable to have pictures of Obama and Biden and links to job materials and the like. Part of the purpose is, after all, to collect resumes for political appointments which are perfectly legal. The questions in my mind are whether they can transfer material from the barackobama.com website and whether they should be collecting campaign stories and generally trying to keep a campaign flavor going. If any Federal agency is to collect historical material, it should be the National
Archives, not the Office of the Presidential Transition. The blog needs to be non-political as well.

The Operating Style of the New Chief of Staff

2008-11-07T11:00:00.002-05:00

From Naftali Bendavid, The Thumpin': How Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats Learned to Be Ruthless and Ended the Republican Revolution (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 53.

“I think Katrina just did us a really big favor, to be crass about it,” Emanuel said. He called Bill Burton, his communications director at DCCC, and ordered him to find out which Republican congressmen from the Gulf region had voted to cut the budget for the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps was responsible for New Orleans levees, and given the levees’ fate, such a vote would now look reckless. “Hey, look, if the AP doesn’t do it, let’s see if either the [New Orleans Times] Picayune would do it or we can go to a blog,” Emanuel said. “No fingerprints,” he added curtly, meaning the news item should not be traceable to the DCCC.

Life Imitates the Simpsons

2008-11-05T12:47:00.002-05:00

I just recevied this email from a conservative news website:

McCain was terrible, a guest-worker amnesty loving neocon.

But make no mistake about it. The victory of Obama in the recent election is nothing short of a declaration of war upon European Americans (i.e. whites).

This Cultural Marxist, Barack Hussein Obama, at one time or another has supported:

(1) Reparations. Redistributing money from European Americans to blacks, mestizos, and Asians.

(2) Criminalizing white parents who refuse to let their children practice miscegenation.

(3) Using "hate crimes" to silence any criticism from European Americans.

(4) Using Third World immigration to overwhelm European American majorities.

This is a sad day indeed. Don't let the Cultural Marxists divide us. Now, more than any time in American history, European Americans must stand together. Our white brothers and sisters need us. (What is race but extended family?)

Here's Another Email:

Blacks have the NAACP to promote their interests.

Mestizos have La Raza to promote their interests.

Asians have the 80-20 Initiative to promote their interests.

What do European Americans (whites) have?

This reminds me of the episode of the Simpsons when Mr. Burns loses his race for governor:

Mr. Burns: This anonymous clan of slack-jawed troglodytes has cost me the election, and yet if I were to have them killed, I would be the one to go to jail. That's democracy for you.

Smithers: You are noble and poetic in defeat, sir.

Debate Reaction

2008-10-15T22:41:00.002-04:00

Both candidates were good, so I'll call it a draw except that I think McCain's dismissive response on women's health exceptions for abortions will come back to haunt him.

Update: Chris Matthews agrees.

From My Cold Dead Hand!

2008-10-14T14:50:00.003-04:00

Lots of buzz about the "kill him" shout at today's Palin rally in Scranton, PA, but I thought this was a much more interesting item. From the newspaper description of the event:

One man walked the length of the line shouting out "reminders" to those waiting that " loaded firearms are not allowed inside."

I don't see any loophole in the Second Amendment for campaign rallies. I'll assume that the NRA is on the case.

What Goes Around . . .

2008-10-09T17:15:00.003-04:00

On MSNBC, Pat Buchanan just claimed that the attacks on Obama's patriotism are payback for the "Daisy Girl" ad.

Live Blogging the Debate

2008-10-07T21:24:00.019-04:00

Concluding Thoughts:

I thought McCain won the last debate, so what do I know, but I thought Obama dominated tonight. The townhall format didn't help McCain. Moving around, he looked much stiffer than Obama. It really highlighted the age difference in a very unflattering way. Obama's answers also seemed more fluid and thoughtful. McCain had a few good moments, but most of time I got a sense that he was reciting talking points. I don't how much this will help Obama, but I don't think there was anything tonight to change things in McCain's favor.

10:25 Nice touch with McCain and the CPO.

10:14 Obama is really taking it to McCain on the "speak softly issue." McCain sounds defensive.

10:11 Pakistan is such a weird issue. Obama sounds like Patton and McCain sounds like McGovern.

10:04 Obama seems flat footed on the "Obama doctrine" question.

10:00 McCain had a few attacks on Obama's connection to Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, but none of the serious Wright/Ayers stuff so far.

9:58 I'm not sure Joe Biden's running mate should have called out Delaware as an example of loose banking regulations.

9:56 Obama is strong on health care.

9:50 Health care as a commodity? Huh?

9:48 Obama gives a great set speech, but his extemporaneous speaking is full of umms and ahs.

9:47 Brokaw should just cut them off when they run over time.

9:45 I'm not anti-nuclear, but McCain seems a bit sanguine when he talks about how safe it is.

9:41 Brokaw now mentions Social Security and Medicare. Medicare is a problem.

9:38 Brokaw is an idiot. Social Security is not a "ticking time-bomb."

9:36 McCain's incessant use of "my friends" is getting annoying.

9:32 It seems that every answer on the economy comes back to energy. My guess is that both candidates A) don't really know what to do, B) don't want to spook the markets by saying something stupid.

9:28 No one wants to cut anything, but in a recession, do we want to cut?

9:25 Is it just me or does McCain sound wheezy? He might want to back off the mic a bit.

Taxes and Patriotism

2008-10-07T10:26:00.002-04:00

My friend Tom S at Rustbelt Intellectual has a nice post about taxes and patriotism. Let me put it more succinctly. Taxes are the rent we pay to live in the greatest country in the world.

The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations

2008-10-03T10:15:00.001-04:00

David Brooks on Sarah Palin's debate performance:

Was this woman capable of completing an extemporaneous paragraph — a collection of sentences with subjects, verbs, objects and, if possible, an actual meaning?

By the end of her opening answers, it was clear she would meet the test.

Just Asking

2008-10-02T09:07:00.002-04:00

After watching this, how long before John McCain says that he's behind Sara Palin "one thousand percent"?

Tells

2008-10-01T08:16:00.001-04:00

Read this. Now watch this.

Just Asking

2008-09-29T18:23:00.003-04:00

So, if the financial crisis was so dire last week that John McCain had to suspend his campaign, isn't there even more reason for him to do the same this week?

Sara Palin's Haastattelu

2008-09-28T12:43:00.002-04:00

Hendrik Hertzberg has the most devastating take on Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric:

The whole thing reads like something rendered from the Finnish by Google Translate.

Just the Ticket

2008-09-26T14:06:00.004-04:00

Pool Report from the McCain Campaign:

McCain now boarding plane at DCA with Cindy, Salter, Rudy Giuliani, wife Judith, and other aides plus pool.

Heading to Memphis, 1:50 minute flight, then motorcade to site

General atmosphere is utter confusion.

That's what you want when the wheels are flying off your campaign--Rudy and Judy.

The Ownership Society

2008-09-24T22:48:00.002-04:00

I see from various points of the blogosphere that the real reason for the financial meltdown is the push for more home loans in poor and minority communities, using impractical instruments like zero-down mortgages. Well, if that's the case, then the electorate should punish the party that had this in it's 2004 platform:

Ownership should not be the preserve of the wealthy or the privileged. . . . [We] believe in the power of ownership to create better lives, we want more people to own a home. . . .

Homeownership is central to the American dream, and [we] want to make it a reality for everyone. That starts with access to capital for entrepreneurs and access to credit for consumers. Both have improved immensely in the past four years, resulting in record levels of homeownership. For the first time, more than half of all minorities own their home.

We support the . . . goal of increasing the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million families by the end of the decade. Since . . . 2002, an additional 1.6 million minorities have become homeowners. The Self-Help Homeownership Opportunities Program helps low-income families purchase a home. The most significant barrier to homeownership is the down payment. We support efforts to reduce that barrier, like the American Dream
Downpayment Act and Zero Downpayment Mortgages.

Diversity, GOP-Style

2008-09-19T11:03:00.003-04:00

The Virginia Republican party has decided to have George Allen speak at a rally to reach out to minorities. Allen, of course, went down to defeat in the 2006 U.S. Senate race in no small part because of his use of the slur "macaca" for an Indian-American at one of his campaign events. I totally, get this. The GOP is a big tent. It isn't enough for them to rely on anti-black prejudice or even anti-Latino sentiments. Allen helps them respond to a more diverse America by including prejudice against Indians and Pakistanis.

George W. Buchanan?

2008-09-19T09:33:00.006-04:00

From PolySigh

Lots of questions about where President Bush has been during the financial crisis of the last few days. My quick response is to say, "Thank God. Things are bad enough without having him around." More seriously, Bush is a lame duck, but his no-show passivity is really amazing. Say what you will about Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression, but compared to Bush, the man was a bundle of energy, making lots of statements and trying to do things, albeit to little positive effect. The closest comparison is, perhaps, James Buchanan, who basically fiddled while the Union burned during the secession crisis of 1860-1861.

Update: This is how real presidents do it.

McCain and Spain

2008-09-18T08:26:00.002-04:00

Josh Marshall thinks that McCain's statements about the Spanish Prime Minister are a gaffe. I think they are a clever attempt to steal the Joad Cressbeckler vote:

Old, Grizzled Third-Party Candidate May Steal Support From McCain

Palin's Colleges

2008-09-06T09:32:00.002-04:00

Lots of buzz over the fact that Palin went to six colleges in six years. Does this matter? No. Sounds like someone who, like lots of young people, didn't know what she wanted to do or where she wanted to do it. She probably also felt isolated and lonely, since all but one of the colleges were far, far away from home, friends, and family. I would also guess there's a fair probability that she was suspended from at least one of these schools since this type of behavior isn't exactly a recipe for academic success.

But again, who cares? She was a young women from a very small town far away from home and on her own for the first time. Cut her some slack. Her record as an elected official and her stands on the issues are what really matter.

McCain's Speech

2008-09-04T23:08:00.003-04:00

All in all, not a strong speech. The pacing was horrendous. The slow, halting pace emphasized his age. It probably won't hurt him, but it's not going to help him much. If not for Palin, Republicans would be pretty dispirited by this convention.

He did mention Bush, but only as "the President." On the other hand, Laura Bush was mentioned by name.