I feel underqualified to talk about this one because I don't claim any expertise in the area of foreign policy and have rather ambivalent feelings toward American involvement in Afghanistan. But Obama's speech tonight, whether or not it produces some near-term move in Obama's approval ratings (and it could), is really not the big news of the day. Rather, it's the commitment the White House announced earlier to beginning to withdraw forces by July, 2011 as a condition of the surge.
Politically, this seems very risky: in the long run, there's much more downside to breaking the promise than there would be upside to keeping it. If nothing much has changed in Afghanistan and our troops aren't getting out 20 months hence, we can presumably expect some major blowback, especially from liberals -- a primary challenge from Obama's left flank would not be entirely out of the question.
Of course, it may be precisely because the withdraw timetable is so risky politically that it is in fact credible; a credible withdraw deadline is almost certainly better than a non-credible one, but whether or not it's better than not setting a deadline at all, I don't know. I certainly do hope that Obama set the deadline to achieve policy goals and not to quiesce liberals -- if this was intended purely as a political move, it was probably short-sighted.
12.01.2009
Responsibility, Means and Interests
@ 8:26 PM
Let me share some quick reactions to the president's Afghanistan speech as an admittedly non-military and non-foreign policy expert. I will try to stick closely to the political implications and possible public response to the policy announcement as Obama explained it from West Point tonight. I'll focus on a key, six-paragraph section at the end of the middle third of the speech, breaking it up into component parts:
My main wonder here is how seriously Americans perceive the threat of a regrown terror network, or more to the point how much the investments and knotty implications of working with the Pakistanis will actually yield in terms of snuffing out terror networks in any once-and-forever way.
I'm not trying to get down on the president. He inherited this mess, one of many. He's right that Afghanistan, not Iraq, was the more justified war. He's right about the foolishly asymmetrical investments made in the past and to this day in Iraq relative to Afghanistan. And he's right that what we're doing now is just a long dead end and thus waste of resources. I guess I have to trust him and his military advisers when they tell us that a buffed-up counterinsurgency policy, coupled with a new pact with the Pakistanis, is actually going to work.
Like the punch line to the parable about the boy and the donkey that Gust Avrakatos, portrayed by Philip Seymor Hoffman in the movie version of Charlie Wilson's War, used to invoke, "We'll see."
These are the three core elements of our strategy: a military effort to create the conditions for a transition; a civilian surge that reinforces positive action; and an effective partnership with Pakistan.It seems that in the choice between tilting either toward counterinsurgency or counterterrorism, as with most decisions Obama makes, the president wants to split it down the middle: doing some of both, with a civilian surge--akin, if you will, to a civil investiture to counter the counter-insurgency (presuming that will work), packaged with ramped up cooperation with Pakistan to work the areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan where the terrorist elements are hunkered down.
My main wonder here is how seriously Americans perceive the threat of a regrown terror network, or more to the point how much the investments and knotty implications of working with the Pakistanis will actually yield in terms of snuffing out terror networks in any once-and-forever way.
I recognize that there are a range of concerns about our approach. So let me briefly address a few of the prominent arguments that I have heard, and which I take very seriously.Well, if this is the part of the speech to push back on the left wing elements in his party, I'm not too convinced. Saying something is not Vietnam is a soft case. Of course it's not. And the size and breadth of a coalition does not make or justify a strategy. Indeed, fighting in coalitions, as my colleague Patty Weitsman argues, often is more costly and complicated than its worth. I wonder, too, how many Americans feel that our Afghanistan investment looks even remotely like a proportional burden among allies.
First, there are those who suggest that Afghanistan is another Vietnam. They argue that it cannot be stabilized, and we are better off cutting our losses and rapidly withdrawing. Yet this argument depends upon a false reading of history. Unlike Vietnam, we are joined by a broad coalition of 43 nations that recognizes the legitimacy of our action. Unlike Vietnam, we are not facing a broad-based popular insurgency. And most importantly, unlike Vietnam, the American people were viciously attacked from Afghanistan, and remain a target for those same extremists who are plotting along its border. To abandon this area now – and to rely only on efforts against al Qaeda from a distance – would significantly hamper our ability to keep the pressure on al Qaeda, and create an unacceptable risk of additional attacks on our homeland and our allies.
Second, there are those who acknowledge that we cannot leave Afghanistan in its current state, but suggest that we go forward with the troops that we have. But this would simply maintain a status quo in which we muddle through, and permit a slow deterioration of conditions there. It would ultimately prove more costly and prolong our stay in Afghanistan, because we would never be able to generate the conditions needed to train Afghan Security Forces and give them the space to take over.I think this is inarguable. What we're doing now is a waste--it's not working. We either need to do more or do less, or more of some things and less of others, or just something different.
Finally, there are those who oppose identifying a timeframe for our transition to Afghan responsibility. Indeed, some call for a more dramatic and open-ended escalation of our war effort – one that would commit us to a nation building project of up to a decade. I reject this course because it sets goals that are beyond what we can achieve at a reasonable cost, and what we need to achieve to secure our interests. Furthermore, the absence of a timeframe for transition would deny us any sense of urgency in working with the Afghan government. It must be clear that Afghans will have to take responsibility for their security, and that America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan.Immediately after the speech, you had Sen. John McCain and the Council of Foreign Relations' Richard Haass saying that setting a timeline or deadline is dangerous business. They have a point, Haass specifically arguing that Obama is betting that ramping up now will cost more in troops and money in the short term but save in the long term. What you have here, in both policy and political gambits, is the equivalent "surge" for Obama in Afghanistan to what Bush did with his surge in Iraq. I suppose violence is down in Iraq post-surge, but the long-term situation there isn't going to be any better as a result, is it? And although Obama's less-in-Iraq-means-more-for-Afghanistan argument is better than a more-in-both-countries further over-extension of our military and treasury, scaling back in Iraq is not in by itself a rationale for ramping up in Afghanistan. Failure at a lower cost-per-fatality, cost-per-casualty, cost-per-dollar-spent investment is still a bad return. What matters is whether this counterinsurgency strategy really can work. I'm still not sure it will, and given that the president's Afghan approval numbers are lower than his overall approval numbers, I wonder how many Americans believe it will work.
As President, I refuse to set goals that go beyond our responsibility, our means, our or interests.Well, now. We are already living beyond on means in terms of spending outside our borders, not to mention what we're spending back home. Maybe Obama should have left "means" out of the equation, especially after making the politically-astute admission elsewhere in the speech that Americans are very likely thinking about how every dollar sent overseas is one less dollar that could be spent here. Responsibility? Well, we started in over there, so hard to dispute that. But "interests," well, that's the real question.
I'm not trying to get down on the president. He inherited this mess, one of many. He's right that Afghanistan, not Iraq, was the more justified war. He's right about the foolishly asymmetrical investments made in the past and to this day in Iraq relative to Afghanistan. And he's right that what we're doing now is just a long dead end and thus waste of resources. I guess I have to trust him and his military advisers when they tell us that a buffed-up counterinsurgency policy, coupled with a new pact with the Pakistanis, is actually going to work.
Like the punch line to the parable about the boy and the donkey that Gust Avrakatos, portrayed by Philip Seymor Hoffman in the movie version of Charlie Wilson's War, used to invoke, "We'll see."
A Cop-Killer's Impact on 2012
@ 2:09 PM
Our deepest sympathies to the families of the four Seattle police officers -- Mark Renninger, Ronald Owens, Tina Griswold, and Greg Richardson -- who were brutally slain over the weekend by a felon named Maurice Clemmons. The story has taken on political dimensions with the revelation that Clemmons received clemency from then-Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee in 2000. Although the facts of the case are somewhat complicated -- Clemmons had received a 108-year sentence for offenses committed as a teenager, and after leaving Arkaansas, had subsequently fallen out of the grasp of the Washington State criminal justice system -- there are nevertheless a lot of fingers pointed at Huckabee.
What impact could the tragedy have on Huckabee's political future? I had previously developed a qualitative battery of questions, known as the EMPSCAT, which I periodically apply to matters such as these. The test, although hardly authoritative, suggests that the incident could indeed cause some damage to Huckabee's prospects.
1. Can the scandal be reduced to a one-sentence soundbyte (but not easily refuted/denied with a one-sentence soundbyte)?
Obviously yes. "Mike Huckabee released this scary black[**] dude from prison, and he went off and shot four police officers." This story has a visceral, human connection that will be hard for Huckabee to rebut, notwithstanding that the facts of the case are somewhat more complicated. And it's anyone's guess as to which of Huckabee's Republican opponents would be the first to use the Clemmons killings in a 30-second spot on the eve of a critical primary.
2. Does the scandal cut against a core element of the candidate's brand?
Not in the sense that it makes Huckabee look disingenuous or hypocritical -- which is what this question is generally getting at -- but in other ways it causes problems. Huckabee's brand is essentially that of the authentically compassionate conservative (that is not intended to sound ironic). But in the context of a Republican primary, his opponents will try to twist that theme into a negative, implying that Huckabee's "compassion" makes him a pushover, a rube, or (gasp!) perhaps even something of a closet liberal. In other words, Huckabee's opponents will try to cast him as "bleeding-heart conservative", rather than "compassionate conservative". The Clemmons case makes this line of attack considerably more challenging for Huckabee.
3. Does the scandal reify/reinforce/"prove" a core negative perception about the candidate, particularly one that had henceforth been difficult to articulate (but not one that has become so entrenched that little further damage can be done)?
See above -- Huckabee is already a candidate whose positives are also his negatives, and this incident tends to exacerbate that. Also, since there have been questions about some of Huckabee's previous pardons -- particularly that of the rapist Wayne DuMond -- people will assert that there's a pattern here.
4. Can the scandal readily be employed by the opposition, without their looking hypocritical/petty/politically incorrect, risking retribution, or giving life to a damaging counter-narrative?
In the context of a Republican primary, probably yes, unless one of Huckabee's opponents -- most of whom will also be ex-governors -- have similar skeletons in the closet. Particularly since the issue is (ostensibly) not a personal, ad-hominem attack, but rather a direct and tangible indictment of his competency as his state's chief executive, it can probably be used somewhat liberally by his opponents (although they'll need to be somewhat sensitive to a perception that they've exploited the tragedy for political gain).
Were Huckabee to make it to the general election, the issue becomes somewhat dicier, as Democrats could look hypocritical for trying to 'Dukakis' him, and the racial narrative lurking beneath the surface of the Clemmons case might be riskier for an African-American candidate to employ. But Huckabee, obviously, needs to get through the nomination process first.
5. Is the media bored, and/or does the story have enough tabloid/shock value to crowd out all other stories?
This question is more intended for when a scandal develops during the heat of a campaign, and not during the long, cold war that precedes it. For the time being, the story has received a moderate, but not overwhelming, amount of attention. More importantly, it has enough tabloid value that it can be probably counted on to re-surface at some point during the primary campaign. If Huckabee is lucky, this would happen in a controlled setting such as during a debate -- in which case he'll have two years to start preparing his rebuttal. If he's unlucky, it will be at the behest of one of his opponents, perhaps as a result of additional facts uncovered by opposition research, and will be deployed (such as through a leak to Drudge or Politico) at a time when it might do maximum damage.
***
In summary, I think this is in fact somewhat damaging to Huckabee, and could tangibly affect his odds of winning the 2012 nomination. It might also impact his desire to run for office. Over the winter, I had heard from a reasonably well-connected insider that Hucakbee was somewhat more likely to wait until 2016 to run, and Huckabee himself had recently claimed to be leaning against a 2012 bid. The 2016 race, indeed, could be a better bet for Huckabee on several levels: he won't have to run against an incumbent; Sarah Palin will probably have burned herself out; the current, strongly libertarian brand of economic populism (which does not play to Huckabee's more communitarian leanings) is liable to have faded, and the impact of the Clemmons killings, such as it is, may be somewhat diminished.
Something else which the incident not so much caused but revealed is that Huckabee is not particularly well-liked in the conservative blogopshere; many of the blogs were perfectly happy to throw him under the bus. Although Huckabee's part of the Republican base does not overlap heavily with the well-educated and well-informed blog-reading crowd, the blogs are nevertheless important players in shaping the narrative about a candidate, and so could cause some 'trickle-down' damage to his chances.
Increasingly, I tend to see the 2012 nomination fight as one between Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and X, where X is somebody who may not be receiving a lot of attention right now (not someone like Tim Pawlenty or Newt Gingirch, who receive more than their fair share, and who are satellites in the Romney and Palin orbits, respectively). Huckabee's odds have fallen from about 11 percent to 8 percent over at Intrade, which feels like a reasonable assessment.
[**] I certainly do not mean to imply that the Huckabee's critics have intentionally or unintentionally played up the racial elements of this case (they categorically haven't). But the fact is that to a certain part of the electorate, race and crime are intimately linked, and the fact that Clemmons is black and killed four white police officers will give the matter some additional resonance with them. Needless to say, we are not a color-blind nation.
What impact could the tragedy have on Huckabee's political future? I had previously developed a qualitative battery of questions, known as the EMPSCAT, which I periodically apply to matters such as these. The test, although hardly authoritative, suggests that the incident could indeed cause some damage to Huckabee's prospects.
1. Can the scandal be reduced to a one-sentence soundbyte (but not easily refuted/denied with a one-sentence soundbyte)?
Obviously yes. "Mike Huckabee released this scary black[**] dude from prison, and he went off and shot four police officers." This story has a visceral, human connection that will be hard for Huckabee to rebut, notwithstanding that the facts of the case are somewhat more complicated. And it's anyone's guess as to which of Huckabee's Republican opponents would be the first to use the Clemmons killings in a 30-second spot on the eve of a critical primary.
2. Does the scandal cut against a core element of the candidate's brand?
Not in the sense that it makes Huckabee look disingenuous or hypocritical -- which is what this question is generally getting at -- but in other ways it causes problems. Huckabee's brand is essentially that of the authentically compassionate conservative (that is not intended to sound ironic). But in the context of a Republican primary, his opponents will try to twist that theme into a negative, implying that Huckabee's "compassion" makes him a pushover, a rube, or (gasp!) perhaps even something of a closet liberal. In other words, Huckabee's opponents will try to cast him as "bleeding-heart conservative", rather than "compassionate conservative". The Clemmons case makes this line of attack considerably more challenging for Huckabee.
3. Does the scandal reify/reinforce/"prove" a core negative perception about the candidate, particularly one that had henceforth been difficult to articulate (but not one that has become so entrenched that little further damage can be done)?
See above -- Huckabee is already a candidate whose positives are also his negatives, and this incident tends to exacerbate that. Also, since there have been questions about some of Huckabee's previous pardons -- particularly that of the rapist Wayne DuMond -- people will assert that there's a pattern here.
4. Can the scandal readily be employed by the opposition, without their looking hypocritical/petty/politically incorrect, risking retribution, or giving life to a damaging counter-narrative?
In the context of a Republican primary, probably yes, unless one of Huckabee's opponents -- most of whom will also be ex-governors -- have similar skeletons in the closet. Particularly since the issue is (ostensibly) not a personal, ad-hominem attack, but rather a direct and tangible indictment of his competency as his state's chief executive, it can probably be used somewhat liberally by his opponents (although they'll need to be somewhat sensitive to a perception that they've exploited the tragedy for political gain).
Were Huckabee to make it to the general election, the issue becomes somewhat dicier, as Democrats could look hypocritical for trying to 'Dukakis' him, and the racial narrative lurking beneath the surface of the Clemmons case might be riskier for an African-American candidate to employ. But Huckabee, obviously, needs to get through the nomination process first.
5. Is the media bored, and/or does the story have enough tabloid/shock value to crowd out all other stories?
This question is more intended for when a scandal develops during the heat of a campaign, and not during the long, cold war that precedes it. For the time being, the story has received a moderate, but not overwhelming, amount of attention. More importantly, it has enough tabloid value that it can be probably counted on to re-surface at some point during the primary campaign. If Huckabee is lucky, this would happen in a controlled setting such as during a debate -- in which case he'll have two years to start preparing his rebuttal. If he's unlucky, it will be at the behest of one of his opponents, perhaps as a result of additional facts uncovered by opposition research, and will be deployed (such as through a leak to Drudge or Politico) at a time when it might do maximum damage.
***
In summary, I think this is in fact somewhat damaging to Huckabee, and could tangibly affect his odds of winning the 2012 nomination. It might also impact his desire to run for office. Over the winter, I had heard from a reasonably well-connected insider that Hucakbee was somewhat more likely to wait until 2016 to run, and Huckabee himself had recently claimed to be leaning against a 2012 bid. The 2016 race, indeed, could be a better bet for Huckabee on several levels: he won't have to run against an incumbent; Sarah Palin will probably have burned herself out; the current, strongly libertarian brand of economic populism (which does not play to Huckabee's more communitarian leanings) is liable to have faded, and the impact of the Clemmons killings, such as it is, may be somewhat diminished.
Something else which the incident not so much caused but revealed is that Huckabee is not particularly well-liked in the conservative blogopshere; many of the blogs were perfectly happy to throw him under the bus. Although Huckabee's part of the Republican base does not overlap heavily with the well-educated and well-informed blog-reading crowd, the blogs are nevertheless important players in shaping the narrative about a candidate, and so could cause some 'trickle-down' damage to his chances.
Increasingly, I tend to see the 2012 nomination fight as one between Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and X, where X is somebody who may not be receiving a lot of attention right now (not someone like Tim Pawlenty or Newt Gingirch, who receive more than their fair share, and who are satellites in the Romney and Palin orbits, respectively). Huckabee's odds have fallen from about 11 percent to 8 percent over at Intrade, which feels like a reasonable assessment.
[**] I certainly do not mean to imply that the Huckabee's critics have intentionally or unintentionally played up the racial elements of this case (they categorically haven't). But the fact is that to a certain part of the electorate, race and crime are intimately linked, and the fact that Clemmons is black and killed four white police officers will give the matter some additional resonance with them. Needless to say, we are not a color-blind nation.
11.30.2009
This is Great News!!! For Progressives!!!
@ 6:13 PM
Chris Bowers is feeling kind of "meh" about the prospect of large-scale Democratic losses in the 2010 midterms:
I've compiled a list of the 39 Democratic-held House seats that are rated as "lean Democratic" or more vulnerable by the Cook Political Report; these include 35 seats held by incumbents and 4 where the Democratic incumbent is expected to retire. This echoes an analysis that Chris himself conducted -- it's just that I read the data very differently. Rather than worry about whether or not these Democrats label themselves as capital-P Progressive, I've instead compiled their votes on three key issues: the stimulus package, which passed the House 244-188 (with 11 Democrats in opposition); the health care bill, which passed 220-215 (39 Democratic nays), and the climate bill, which passed 219-212 (with 44 Democrats against).
On all three issues, the vulnerable Democrats were more likely than average ones to have voted against their party. Nevertheless, solid majorities were in support of each of these agenda items. The Most Vulnerable Democrats (MVDs) voted for the health care bill 22-17, the climate bill 24-14, and the stimulus package 34-4. Only 12 of the 39 voted against at least two out of the three initiatives, and only three of the 39 (Bobby Bright and Parker Griffith of Alabama, and Walt Minnick of Idaho) completely struck out.
Now, I would agree that Democrats have no use -- I mean, almost literally none -- for Representatives like Bright, Griffith or Minnick. Health care, the climate bill and the stimulus package are at the very core of the mainstream Democratic agenda. I don't care how conservative their districts are -- the only time Democrats like these are voting with the majority is on slam-dunk bills when Democrats already have more than enough votes in hand; they could be exchanged for Republicans with no tangible consequence. Likewise, the Democrats who voted against two of the three bills have some 'splaning to do, and should probably not receive the benefit of the doubt.
But these Democrats do not, by a long shot, represent the majority of those under threat. Nor, for that matter, are most of the Democrats who did vote this way as vulnerable as you might think; just 14 of the 53 Blue Dogs, for example, appear on the list above.
Unless there's some 11-dimensional chess angle that I'm not seeing, it seems to me that randomly wiping out, I don't know, two-thirds of the members listed above and replacing them with Republicans would be extremely injurious to the progressive agenda. The fact is that Nancy Pelosi has managed to cobble together a majority on these core priorities -- but by about the slimmest possible margins on health care and cap-and-trade (and if the stimulus bill were being voted on today, it would probably be equally close). She's been able to do so precisely because the Blue Dogs do not in fact vote as ablock bloc; most are pliable to one degree or another on at least some progressive priorities, if unreliable on others. Are the bills that emerged from the House as strong as progressives were hoping for? Certainly not. But I fail to see how Peolsi compromised any more than she basically needed to, or how the bills would have become stronger if you'd replaced these Democrats with Republicans.
Sure, the ConservaDems are annoying. But they represent only a minority of those under electoral pressure. And this approach to getting rid of them is a bit like solving your termite problem by burning your house down.
The current National House Ballot shows Democrats ahead by 2.80%. However, most of those polls focus on registered voters or even "all adults," not on likely voters. Current polling among likely voters by Rasmussen shows Republicans with a comfortable advantage. Lest you think that Rasmussen is to be dismissed, Daily Kos recently published information showing that 81% of Republicans will either definitely or probably vote in 2010, compared to only 56% of Democrats. Even Democracy Corps shows Democrats only ahead by 2% among likely voters. This means Rasmussen is not really much of an outlier, and Republicans are well positioned to make major gains. Retaking the House is even a possibility for the GOP.Chris is one of my favorite bloggers and one of my first reads every morning. In those instances where I disagree with him, I almost always find his points to be well-taken. But I just do not understand his argument here, and I think it's rather misguided.
My current feeling on this is a strong: "meh." Why should I care about Democrats facing such electoral difficulties? It is hard to figure out how this is much of a negative for progressives.
I've compiled a list of the 39 Democratic-held House seats that are rated as "lean Democratic" or more vulnerable by the Cook Political Report; these include 35 seats held by incumbents and 4 where the Democratic incumbent is expected to retire. This echoes an analysis that Chris himself conducted -- it's just that I read the data very differently. Rather than worry about whether or not these Democrats label themselves as capital-P Progressive, I've instead compiled their votes on three key issues: the stimulus package, which passed the House 244-188 (with 11 Democrats in opposition); the health care bill, which passed 220-215 (39 Democratic nays), and the climate bill, which passed 219-212 (with 44 Democrats against).
On all three issues, the vulnerable Democrats were more likely than average ones to have voted against their party. Nevertheless, solid majorities were in support of each of these agenda items. The Most Vulnerable Democrats (MVDs) voted for the health care bill 22-17, the climate bill 24-14, and the stimulus package 34-4. Only 12 of the 39 voted against at least two out of the three initiatives, and only three of the 39 (Bobby Bright and Parker Griffith of Alabama, and Walt Minnick of Idaho) completely struck out.
Now, I would agree that Democrats have no use -- I mean, almost literally none -- for Representatives like Bright, Griffith or Minnick. Health care, the climate bill and the stimulus package are at the very core of the mainstream Democratic agenda. I don't care how conservative their districts are -- the only time Democrats like these are voting with the majority is on slam-dunk bills when Democrats already have more than enough votes in hand; they could be exchanged for Republicans with no tangible consequence. Likewise, the Democrats who voted against two of the three bills have some 'splaning to do, and should probably not receive the benefit of the doubt.
But these Democrats do not, by a long shot, represent the majority of those under threat. Nor, for that matter, are most of the Democrats who did vote this way as vulnerable as you might think; just 14 of the 53 Blue Dogs, for example, appear on the list above.
Unless there's some 11-dimensional chess angle that I'm not seeing, it seems to me that randomly wiping out, I don't know, two-thirds of the members listed above and replacing them with Republicans would be extremely injurious to the progressive agenda. The fact is that Nancy Pelosi has managed to cobble together a majority on these core priorities -- but by about the slimmest possible margins on health care and cap-and-trade (and if the stimulus bill were being voted on today, it would probably be equally close). She's been able to do so precisely because the Blue Dogs do not in fact vote as a
Sure, the ConservaDems are annoying. But they represent only a minority of those under electoral pressure. And this approach to getting rid of them is a bit like solving your termite problem by burning your house down.
Foreigners in Switzerland
@ 10:30 AM
As a resident of the Geneva, the volatile weekend in Switzerland hit quite close to home. In fact, the burning cars and smashed shop windows that marked Saturday's major protests against the WTO were just around the corner from my apartment, though I headed out of town to spend the day in France.
Sunday's vote, which Nate examined earlier this morning, addressed several hot button issues in Switzerland, a country known for it dueling identities as international broker of money and diplomacy and isolated & conservative rural alpine enclave. In addition to the ballot initiative to ban the further construction of minarets, a measure to ban the export of "materiel de guerre" (weapons, ammo etc.) from Switzerland was roundly defeated with 68 percent against, even in the peace-loving canton of Geneva.
Nate's analysis on the minaret vote regarding religious affiliation and language is an important starting point, but certainly not the full story. I will briefly augment his analysis with a couple other variables that fill out the explanatory base and also have a few implications for the larger questions that were asked and answered by the "minaret controversy."
When looking at the religious figures that Nate points to, there is one important point that it omitted -- about 22 percent of Switzerland's population are foreigners, including nearly 90 percent of Muslims residing in Switzerland. In fact, the official statistics likely underestimate the proportion, with many illegal laborers and short/medium term (6 months to 2 years) workers in international organizations and multi-national companies (many have European HQs in Switzerland for tax reasons) not fully counted. Still, as compared to other European countries (even those with high recent immigration), such as France (7 percent) or Italy (about 7.5 percent), Switzerland's rate is quite high -- though less than some other countries, such as the United Arab Emirates (68 percent of the country's 4.2 million people are foreign laborers).
There are two major implications of this. First, the cultural clash in many Swiss cantons between traditional agriculturally-driven, conservative lifestyle and the "international" culture of more urban areas, who are dominated by the UN, banks and globalized companies, has become very pronounced.
And second, and perhaps more importantly, foreigners can't vote.
As it turns out, the percentage of foreigners in a given Swiss canton explains about a third of the variation you see in the percentage of the vote in favor of the minaret ban. Those cantons who have more foreigners were less likely to back the ban, which tends to support the suggestion that the more foreigners you are around, the less xenophobic you are in your voting. Not surprisingly, the UN and international organization centers of Geneva and bordering Vaud, as well as the city of Basel (which borders both France and Germany and has the highest Muslim concentration in the country) are in the bottom right.
The two "outliers" in the sample are the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino (25 percent foreigners, nearly 70 percent in favor of the ban), who represent the highly religious population that Nate mentioned in his analysis. Almost all the foreigners there are Italians aiming to escape for tax and business reasons, and are overwhelmingly religious Catholics (about 77 percent). The second outlier is the small canton of Jura, which though having a small foreign population, only barely supported the ban. This is likely due to the history of the canton, which had fought for its own independence of identity. Until the 1978, the Catholic and French-speaking Jura people were forced to be part of the Protestant, German-speaking canton of Berne. It could be this struggle for cultural indepence, along with their border with France, that drives a more tolerant attitude than would otherwise be expected.*
The trend is supported by the second internationally-charged vote of the referendum, regarding the export of weapons.
Just about the same cast of characters is deployed in this vote, with a high R-sq of 0.56 representing a good fit. Though no canton (even canton of Geneva, home of many UN humanitarian and human rights conventions, where just 48 percent voted in favor of the ban) supported the weapons export ban, there is clearly a strong relationship between international/foreign presence and a sense of conscience regarding the impact of weapons exports to about 70 countries.
Regarding the language factor, there is a complex and covariate relationship that cuts across identity issues. A 2000 study looked at the use of the five major languages in Switzerland in work settings -- in other words, the percentage of Swiss residents (not voters) who used a given language in their working setting, collected by canton.
While the first language of each canton is well documented and commented, it is the second languages that are perhaps more interesting. Though not an official language, English leads the list in terms of second languages of work, with a strong role even in cantons with native-tongue speakers split between German and French (e.g. Berne, Valais, Fribourg). In most cases, Swiss workers are more comfortable in English than the other official languages of the country. English has also taken on a role as a de-politicized language of advertising, which means that more and more people are exposed to it in home settings as well.
This is all to say that the politics of culture in a country that is multi-cultural/lingual, yet insular (that is, not prone to being pushed by international or regional friends or foes) and isolated are very complicated politics indeed. The vote against minarets was perhaps a symbol of a wider vote against the growing international engagement that has ocurred in the last 20 years (a period during which, remember, Swiss voters twice rejected EU overtures).
If this is the case, it tends to give support to the idea that a similar action would not be well-supported in the United States. Though the U.S. is in many ways similar -- isolated, insular regarding foreign intervention and multi-lingual -- the ideas of national identity do not flow through as steeply through religion as they do on other social issues. Freedom of expression and religion are widely supported, while the freedom to have an abortion or freedom to marry a person of your choice (if he or she is of the same sex) are considered to fall into separate issue areas for many U.S. voters -- particularly those who would be targeted to enact this type of ban. Unless it could be tied to some pressing national security issue, it seems easy for this initiative to be discarded as fundamentally un-American.
If the Swiss identity is split between the international world of banking and the UN and rural lifestyles agriculture and local trading, this vote shows that the most recent rhetorical backlash against financial and cultural globalization has had at least one collateral casualty.
---
Renard Sexton is FiveThirtyEight's international columnist and is based in Geneva, Switzerland. He can be contacted at sexton538@gmail.com
* Removing these two cantons from the chart results in an R-sq of 0.51
Sunday's vote, which Nate examined earlier this morning, addressed several hot button issues in Switzerland, a country known for it dueling identities as international broker of money and diplomacy and isolated & conservative rural alpine enclave. In addition to the ballot initiative to ban the further construction of minarets, a measure to ban the export of "materiel de guerre" (weapons, ammo etc.) from Switzerland was roundly defeated with 68 percent against, even in the peace-loving canton of Geneva.
Nate's analysis on the minaret vote regarding religious affiliation and language is an important starting point, but certainly not the full story. I will briefly augment his analysis with a couple other variables that fill out the explanatory base and also have a few implications for the larger questions that were asked and answered by the "minaret controversy."
When looking at the religious figures that Nate points to, there is one important point that it omitted -- about 22 percent of Switzerland's population are foreigners, including nearly 90 percent of Muslims residing in Switzerland. In fact, the official statistics likely underestimate the proportion, with many illegal laborers and short/medium term (6 months to 2 years) workers in international organizations and multi-national companies (many have European HQs in Switzerland for tax reasons) not fully counted. Still, as compared to other European countries (even those with high recent immigration), such as France (7 percent) or Italy (about 7.5 percent), Switzerland's rate is quite high -- though less than some other countries, such as the United Arab Emirates (68 percent of the country's 4.2 million people are foreign laborers).
There are two major implications of this. First, the cultural clash in many Swiss cantons between traditional agriculturally-driven, conservative lifestyle and the "international" culture of more urban areas, who are dominated by the UN, banks and globalized companies, has become very pronounced.
And second, and perhaps more importantly, foreigners can't vote.
As it turns out, the percentage of foreigners in a given Swiss canton explains about a third of the variation you see in the percentage of the vote in favor of the minaret ban. Those cantons who have more foreigners were less likely to back the ban, which tends to support the suggestion that the more foreigners you are around, the less xenophobic you are in your voting. Not surprisingly, the UN and international organization centers of Geneva and bordering Vaud, as well as the city of Basel (which borders both France and Germany and has the highest Muslim concentration in the country) are in the bottom right.
The two "outliers" in the sample are the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino (25 percent foreigners, nearly 70 percent in favor of the ban), who represent the highly religious population that Nate mentioned in his analysis. Almost all the foreigners there are Italians aiming to escape for tax and business reasons, and are overwhelmingly religious Catholics (about 77 percent). The second outlier is the small canton of Jura, which though having a small foreign population, only barely supported the ban. This is likely due to the history of the canton, which had fought for its own independence of identity. Until the 1978, the Catholic and French-speaking Jura people were forced to be part of the Protestant, German-speaking canton of Berne. It could be this struggle for cultural indepence, along with their border with France, that drives a more tolerant attitude than would otherwise be expected.*
The trend is supported by the second internationally-charged vote of the referendum, regarding the export of weapons.
Just about the same cast of characters is deployed in this vote, with a high R-sq of 0.56 representing a good fit. Though no canton (even canton of Geneva, home of many UN humanitarian and human rights conventions, where just 48 percent voted in favor of the ban) supported the weapons export ban, there is clearly a strong relationship between international/foreign presence and a sense of conscience regarding the impact of weapons exports to about 70 countries.Regarding the language factor, there is a complex and covariate relationship that cuts across identity issues. A 2000 study looked at the use of the five major languages in Switzerland in work settings -- in other words, the percentage of Swiss residents (not voters) who used a given language in their working setting, collected by canton.
While the first language of each canton is well documented and commented, it is the second languages that are perhaps more interesting. Though not an official language, English leads the list in terms of second languages of work, with a strong role even in cantons with native-tongue speakers split between German and French (e.g. Berne, Valais, Fribourg). In most cases, Swiss workers are more comfortable in English than the other official languages of the country. English has also taken on a role as a de-politicized language of advertising, which means that more and more people are exposed to it in home settings as well.This is all to say that the politics of culture in a country that is multi-cultural/lingual, yet insular (that is, not prone to being pushed by international or regional friends or foes) and isolated are very complicated politics indeed. The vote against minarets was perhaps a symbol of a wider vote against the growing international engagement that has ocurred in the last 20 years (a period during which, remember, Swiss voters twice rejected EU overtures).
If this is the case, it tends to give support to the idea that a similar action would not be well-supported in the United States. Though the U.S. is in many ways similar -- isolated, insular regarding foreign intervention and multi-lingual -- the ideas of national identity do not flow through as steeply through religion as they do on other social issues. Freedom of expression and religion are widely supported, while the freedom to have an abortion or freedom to marry a person of your choice (if he or she is of the same sex) are considered to fall into separate issue areas for many U.S. voters -- particularly those who would be targeted to enact this type of ban. Unless it could be tied to some pressing national security issue, it seems easy for this initiative to be discarded as fundamentally un-American.
If the Swiss identity is split between the international world of banking and the UN and rural lifestyles agriculture and local trading, this vote shows that the most recent rhetorical backlash against financial and cultural globalization has had at least one collateral casualty.
---
Renard Sexton is FiveThirtyEight's international columnist and is based in Geneva, Switzerland. He can be contacted at sexton538@gmail.com
* Removing these two cantons from the chart results in an R-sq of 0.51
Intolerance, European Style
@ 8:39 AM
Switzerland's decision, by ballot initiative, to place a constitutional ban on the construction of minarets -- an architectural symbol of the Islamic faith -- ought to be intriguing to Americans on a number of levels. It's a reminder that Europe is not necessarily more enlightened than the United States -- and indeed may often be less so on matters of race and religion. It's a warning sign about the limitations of democracy by referendum. And it's a possible example of some sort of Bradley-type effect, since the initiative was considered an underdog in public polling but wound up winning somewhat overwhelmingly (57.5-42.5) at the ballot booth.
But the Swiss decision is also worth considering on its own merits. Ipso facto, the ban can be classified as an example of religious intolerance. But just what breed of intolerance is it? Does it reflect a sort of post-modern disrespect for religious practice in general -- people who basically wonder what all the fuss is about, and treat the ban as nothing more than another sort of building code? Or is it more about distaste for the Islamic religion in particular?
Switzerland is a moderately religious country; it has fewer athiests/agnostics (as a percentage of the population) than most of the "major" European nations, including Germany, England, Russia, France, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, and the Czech Republic, although it's a bit less religious than a couple of other countries, like Italy. According to official statistics, about 42 percent of its population is Catholic, 35 percent is protestant, 4 percent is Muslim, and 11 percent is nonpracticing.
For a small country, however, Switzerland is also fairly diverse, and this is where things get interesting. If we break the results of the referendum down by canton (province) and compare them against the number of nonreligious people in that region, we find a fairly strong relationship. The more religious the region, the more likely it was to support the ban:
The R-squared, for those scoring at home, is .57 -- which is reasonably strong. If we include another good predictive variable, which is the percentage of French speakers in a canton (Francophone regions were less likely to support the ban), we can improve the explanatory power of the model further, up to .80.
There may be variables other than religious and linguistic status at work here -- I can't exactly claim to be expert on the demographics of Switzerland. But it appears at first glance that this indeed reflects some degree of fear, dislike, or anxiety about Muslims -- and by Christians. In some ways, then, the analogy to American politics holds up, in which the religious right -- fairly or not -- is associated with intolerance, and sometimes xenophobia.
But it's also interesting to consider whether such a ban would pass in the United States. Suppose that the Muslim population were three to four times higher here, making it comparable to the levels in Northern Europe. Suppose that the Muslim minority had started to become a bit more assertive, generally deciding not to pursue a goal of integrating itself into society, and perhaps leading to some relatively minor, but much-ballyhooed, incidents of violence. Suppose that these adherents had started to build a fair number of minarets in smaller towns and suburbs. And suppose that some enterprising, right-of-center party had politicized the issue, and found some loophole by which such construction could be banned by ballot referendum without Constitutional challenge. Would such a ban win majority approval?
I don't know; respect for religious identity runs pretty deep here. Polling -- if it can be trusted on this issue -- suggests that Americans have more positive views of Muslims than do most Europeans. And Switzerland is a somewhat idiosyncratic country, with a historical tendency toward isolationism.
My guess is that the ban would probably fail -- although the hypothetical I've constructed contains some rather important differences from the status quo, placing Islam more literally on people's doorsteps.
Nevertheless, neither the Europeans nor the Americans would seem to have a monopoly on intolerance. And in contrast to something like homosexuality -- the body of evidence suggests that people become more tolerant of gays and lesbians when they have more exposure to them -- greater exposure of Islam into Western democracies (it has increased sevenfold in Switzerland over the past 30 years) may indeed breed contempt.
But the Swiss decision is also worth considering on its own merits. Ipso facto, the ban can be classified as an example of religious intolerance. But just what breed of intolerance is it? Does it reflect a sort of post-modern disrespect for religious practice in general -- people who basically wonder what all the fuss is about, and treat the ban as nothing more than another sort of building code? Or is it more about distaste for the Islamic religion in particular?
Switzerland is a moderately religious country; it has fewer athiests/agnostics (as a percentage of the population) than most of the "major" European nations, including Germany, England, Russia, France, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, and the Czech Republic, although it's a bit less religious than a couple of other countries, like Italy. According to official statistics, about 42 percent of its population is Catholic, 35 percent is protestant, 4 percent is Muslim, and 11 percent is nonpracticing.
For a small country, however, Switzerland is also fairly diverse, and this is where things get interesting. If we break the results of the referendum down by canton (province) and compare them against the number of nonreligious people in that region, we find a fairly strong relationship. The more religious the region, the more likely it was to support the ban:
The R-squared, for those scoring at home, is .57 -- which is reasonably strong. If we include another good predictive variable, which is the percentage of French speakers in a canton (Francophone regions were less likely to support the ban), we can improve the explanatory power of the model further, up to .80.
There may be variables other than religious and linguistic status at work here -- I can't exactly claim to be expert on the demographics of Switzerland. But it appears at first glance that this indeed reflects some degree of fear, dislike, or anxiety about Muslims -- and by Christians. In some ways, then, the analogy to American politics holds up, in which the religious right -- fairly or not -- is associated with intolerance, and sometimes xenophobia.
But it's also interesting to consider whether such a ban would pass in the United States. Suppose that the Muslim population were three to four times higher here, making it comparable to the levels in Northern Europe. Suppose that the Muslim minority had started to become a bit more assertive, generally deciding not to pursue a goal of integrating itself into society, and perhaps leading to some relatively minor, but much-ballyhooed, incidents of violence. Suppose that these adherents had started to build a fair number of minarets in smaller towns and suburbs. And suppose that some enterprising, right-of-center party had politicized the issue, and found some loophole by which such construction could be banned by ballot referendum without Constitutional challenge. Would such a ban win majority approval?
I don't know; respect for religious identity runs pretty deep here. Polling -- if it can be trusted on this issue -- suggests that Americans have more positive views of Muslims than do most Europeans. And Switzerland is a somewhat idiosyncratic country, with a historical tendency toward isolationism.
My guess is that the ban would probably fail -- although the hypothetical I've constructed contains some rather important differences from the status quo, placing Islam more literally on people's doorsteps.
Nevertheless, neither the Europeans nor the Americans would seem to have a monopoly on intolerance. And in contrast to something like homosexuality -- the body of evidence suggests that people become more tolerant of gays and lesbians when they have more exposure to them -- greater exposure of Islam into Western democracies (it has increased sevenfold in Switzerland over the past 30 years) may indeed breed contempt.
Food Stamp Stats and Confidence Building
@ 4:33 AM
Mark Rank and Thomas Hirschl recently published an estimate that 50% of American kids are on food stamps at some point during their first twenty years of life. Their estimate is based on an analysis of data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, from 1968 through 1997.
This news article by Lindsey Tanner provides a good overview.
The findings are important--for one thing, they give a sense of how people's economic status can fluctuate. But what I want to focus on here are some statistical issues, in particular the question of what makes a statistical estimate more or less trustworthy.
In the political media, but especially at 538, with the work of Nate and his colleagues, we see polls and economic analyses coming at us every week, and there's always the question of how to build confidence in our numbers. On one hand, raw data from polls or elsewhere can be too raw to be useful (just ask President Kerry), but as our data analysis steps become too complicated, a legitimate worry arises that we're extrapolating too far.
OK, back to the food stamp study.
followed up families annually, thus there are kids in the study who were included at age 1, 2, . . ., 20. From this you can easily just count the proportion who were never on food stamps, the proportion who were on food stamps for one year during the first 20 years of their lives, the proportion who were on food stamps for exactly two years, etc.
Rank and Hirschl don't quite do this; instead they use all their data to estimate the probability of being on food stamps at age 1; then they use all the kids who were in the study for ages 1-2 to estimate the prob of being on food stamps at age 2, if they were not on food stamps at age 1; . . . and for their last step, they use the subset of kids who were in the study continuously for ages 1-20 to estimate the prob of being on food stamps at age 20, for kids who were not on food stamps for the first 19 years. Put these together and you can figure out the probability of ever having food stamps.
This is all fine--it's an efficient use of the data they have--but I'd feel a bit more confidence in Rank and Hirschl's estimates if they would cross-check by doing some raw-data calculations based on the subset of kids who were in the study continuously for ages 1-20. That's a crucial component in any applied statistical analysis--the continuous thread connecting the raw numbers to the final estimate--and I always like to see it, especially for a politically-charged subject such as this one. But really this isn't much different from my comment on the basketball halftime study: I'll believe the fancy analysis a lot more if I see the connection to the data.
Here are the key results from the study:
(from Table 1): 12% of newborns were on food stamps. 49% of kids were on food stamps for at least one year between ages 1-20. 23% of kids were on food stamps for at least 5 years.
(from Table 2); 8% of white newborns and 33% of black newborns were on food stamps. 37% of white kids and 90% of black kids were on food stamps for at least one year between ages 1-20.
(from Table 3): Among the black kids of unmarried parents where the head of household did not graduate from high school, 99.6% were on food stamps.
Again, I don't know how much to believe these numbers, but I assume that they're not too far from what was really happening in those years. I'm not at all trying to say that Rank and Hirschl's numbers are wrong, just that they'd be more believable if accompanied by a clear path connecting them to the raw data.
Also, whassup with those superfluous decimal places? "22.8%" and all the rest? Doesn't anybody teach these people about sampling variation and significant digits? (I guess I should let them off the hook, given that the entire economics profession seems to have this problem too.)
P.S. To clarify: I'm not saying that a raw-data calculation would be better than Rank and Hirschl's model-based analysis. What I'm saying is that I'd like to see the raw calculation, along with an explanation of any ways the estimate changed when the model was put in. The model may very well correct for biases and reduce variance; I'd just like to understand how that's happening, rather than just have to take the numbers on faith.
This news article by Lindsey Tanner provides a good overview.
The findings are important--for one thing, they give a sense of how people's economic status can fluctuate. But what I want to focus on here are some statistical issues, in particular the question of what makes a statistical estimate more or less trustworthy.
In the political media, but especially at 538, with the work of Nate and his colleagues, we see polls and economic analyses coming at us every week, and there's always the question of how to build confidence in our numbers. On one hand, raw data from polls or elsewhere can be too raw to be useful (just ask President Kerry), but as our data analysis steps become too complicated, a legitimate worry arises that we're extrapolating too far.
OK, back to the food stamp study.
followed up families annually, thus there are kids in the study who were included at age 1, 2, . . ., 20. From this you can easily just count the proportion who were never on food stamps, the proportion who were on food stamps for one year during the first 20 years of their lives, the proportion who were on food stamps for exactly two years, etc.
Rank and Hirschl don't quite do this; instead they use all their data to estimate the probability of being on food stamps at age 1; then they use all the kids who were in the study for ages 1-2 to estimate the prob of being on food stamps at age 2, if they were not on food stamps at age 1; . . . and for their last step, they use the subset of kids who were in the study continuously for ages 1-20 to estimate the prob of being on food stamps at age 20, for kids who were not on food stamps for the first 19 years. Put these together and you can figure out the probability of ever having food stamps.
This is all fine--it's an efficient use of the data they have--but I'd feel a bit more confidence in Rank and Hirschl's estimates if they would cross-check by doing some raw-data calculations based on the subset of kids who were in the study continuously for ages 1-20. That's a crucial component in any applied statistical analysis--the continuous thread connecting the raw numbers to the final estimate--and I always like to see it, especially for a politically-charged subject such as this one. But really this isn't much different from my comment on the basketball halftime study: I'll believe the fancy analysis a lot more if I see the connection to the data.
Here are the key results from the study:
(from Table 1): 12% of newborns were on food stamps. 49% of kids were on food stamps for at least one year between ages 1-20. 23% of kids were on food stamps for at least 5 years.
(from Table 2); 8% of white newborns and 33% of black newborns were on food stamps. 37% of white kids and 90% of black kids were on food stamps for at least one year between ages 1-20.
(from Table 3): Among the black kids of unmarried parents where the head of household did not graduate from high school, 99.6% were on food stamps.
Again, I don't know how much to believe these numbers, but I assume that they're not too far from what was really happening in those years. I'm not at all trying to say that Rank and Hirschl's numbers are wrong, just that they'd be more believable if accompanied by a clear path connecting them to the raw data.
Also, whassup with those superfluous decimal places? "22.8%" and all the rest? Doesn't anybody teach these people about sampling variation and significant digits? (I guess I should let them off the hook, given that the entire economics profession seems to have this problem too.)
P.S. To clarify: I'm not saying that a raw-data calculation would be better than Rank and Hirschl's model-based analysis. What I'm saying is that I'd like to see the raw calculation, along with an explanation of any ways the estimate changed when the model was put in. The model may very well correct for biases and reduce variance; I'd just like to understand how that's happening, rather than just have to take the numbers on faith.
11.29.2009
That Couple
@ 3:48 PM
I am sick to my stomach over That Couple. And now comes news they are peddling their exclusive story to the highest media bidder. Disgusting, but hardly surprising.
I’m not going to use their names because you can be sure that, between giddy calls to their agent and lawyer, they are rushing to their computer every half hour to Google themselves. Who’s talking about us now? What are people saying? Look, another picture of us on the web! We’re more famous than any of our friends—no, all of our friends, combined! Tehehehee—the joke’s on you, America!
No, you’re not famous; you’re infamous. You’re situated squarely at the bottom of an already too-deep and increasingly murky barrel of celebrity culture, celebrity journalism, and (un)reality TV, the depths of which are probably making even Andy Warhol cringe in his grave. I want this to be your fifteenth minute. I want your egg timer to ding now, so you can exit our national discourse as swiftly, completely and permanently as possible.
And, you know what? We can do something about it. We can let the producers of whatever crap program agrees to pay these creepy, pathetic, attention-starved goons for the rights to interview That Couple that not only will we tune out that specific broadcast, but we will tune out that program in the future as well. We can compound the effect by identifying the companies that sponsor the airing of the interview, and boycotting their products or services.
Why? Because there are literally millions of Americans who bust their asses through school and job training, who serve our country in the military in harm’s way, or merely plumb our toilets at home or change our baskets at the office—who, in short, work hard, raise their families and pay their taxes--and do all of that with zero expectation that they should win some version of the public celebrity lottery that suddenly showers them with a degree of fame and fortune that That Couple not merely aspires to, but clearly believe they deserve. When somebody like Captain Sully catapults from nowhere to national stardom--or my fellow Bethlehem Central High School alum Rich Jadick becomes a national hero after re-joining the Marines in his late-30s (and despite having a wife and kids and the chance to make a lot of money safely back in the States) to help the medical Corps revolutionize front-line emergency medical care--at least they earned their fame. And I harbor no complaints about how showmen across the ages—from P.T. Barnum to Muhammad Ali, from Harry Houdini to Madonna—maximized their opportunities in order to achieve greater fame and fortune, because they could boast an underlying talent or social value, and often both.
That Couple offers nothing of the sort. In fact, they offer nothing beyond their naked greed and attention-starved egos. They are private and public leeches. They inherited a family business, ran it into the ground, and apparently owe money all over town. And yet That Couple self-style themselves a King and Queen of high society when, in truth, they are at best court jesters in clownish, borrowed clothes. High society? They would be a festering boil unworthy of status in low society, whatever that is. They are no more deserving of being on the invite list for the Saturday morning pancake fundraiser at the Elks Club in Elmira than they are a White House state dinner in Washington.
You know what else? The national media talking heads need to step up here. This is a moment of truth for them. They need to drive a stake into the heart of this story right now, and decisively so. They should announce on their shows that they are not going to cover That Couple beyond any news-worthy aspects, like the security breach angle and the White House and government’s response to it. Though Republican Rep. Peter King is probably grandstanding a bit, he and any other Republicans (Democrats, too!) who want to point out the embarrassment to the White House and the dangers of this sort of thing are within their rights. Fine: Cover that aspect of the story, which is very much the public's business. Hold the Secret Service and White House political and social operations to account. If heads must roll, Mr. Emanuel, roll them. But leave it at that for That Couple.
Meanwhile, I want to specifically hear from those morality mavens over at FOX News, who publicly wring their hands about the declining social values and family values of our country. I want to hear their voices leading a chorus of silence when it comes to That Couple. Roger Ailes: You want to prove you're more than Republican mouthpiece and bullhorn for vapid, calorie-free infotainment? Send the word down from on high that you are not going to turn your network over to these political poseurs. As for Shep Smith, who has lately proved to be a shining light in an otherwise dim constellation of hosts at FOX, I’m especially counting you to call this farce what it is, and give That Couple a much-deserved dressing down. This moment is tailor-made for you to prove your mettle; seize it.
OK, enough already. I can feel my blood pressure rising. I need input from something more placid and soothing than writing about That Couple…like, say, watching today’s NFL broadcasts.
I’m not going to use their names because you can be sure that, between giddy calls to their agent and lawyer, they are rushing to their computer every half hour to Google themselves. Who’s talking about us now? What are people saying? Look, another picture of us on the web! We’re more famous than any of our friends—no, all of our friends, combined! Tehehehee—the joke’s on you, America!
No, you’re not famous; you’re infamous. You’re situated squarely at the bottom of an already too-deep and increasingly murky barrel of celebrity culture, celebrity journalism, and (un)reality TV, the depths of which are probably making even Andy Warhol cringe in his grave. I want this to be your fifteenth minute. I want your egg timer to ding now, so you can exit our national discourse as swiftly, completely and permanently as possible.
And, you know what? We can do something about it. We can let the producers of whatever crap program agrees to pay these creepy, pathetic, attention-starved goons for the rights to interview That Couple that not only will we tune out that specific broadcast, but we will tune out that program in the future as well. We can compound the effect by identifying the companies that sponsor the airing of the interview, and boycotting their products or services.
Why? Because there are literally millions of Americans who bust their asses through school and job training, who serve our country in the military in harm’s way, or merely plumb our toilets at home or change our baskets at the office—who, in short, work hard, raise their families and pay their taxes--and do all of that with zero expectation that they should win some version of the public celebrity lottery that suddenly showers them with a degree of fame and fortune that That Couple not merely aspires to, but clearly believe they deserve. When somebody like Captain Sully catapults from nowhere to national stardom--or my fellow Bethlehem Central High School alum Rich Jadick becomes a national hero after re-joining the Marines in his late-30s (and despite having a wife and kids and the chance to make a lot of money safely back in the States) to help the medical Corps revolutionize front-line emergency medical care--at least they earned their fame. And I harbor no complaints about how showmen across the ages—from P.T. Barnum to Muhammad Ali, from Harry Houdini to Madonna—maximized their opportunities in order to achieve greater fame and fortune, because they could boast an underlying talent or social value, and often both.
That Couple offers nothing of the sort. In fact, they offer nothing beyond their naked greed and attention-starved egos. They are private and public leeches. They inherited a family business, ran it into the ground, and apparently owe money all over town. And yet That Couple self-style themselves a King and Queen of high society when, in truth, they are at best court jesters in clownish, borrowed clothes. High society? They would be a festering boil unworthy of status in low society, whatever that is. They are no more deserving of being on the invite list for the Saturday morning pancake fundraiser at the Elks Club in Elmira than they are a White House state dinner in Washington.
You know what else? The national media talking heads need to step up here. This is a moment of truth for them. They need to drive a stake into the heart of this story right now, and decisively so. They should announce on their shows that they are not going to cover That Couple beyond any news-worthy aspects, like the security breach angle and the White House and government’s response to it. Though Republican Rep. Peter King is probably grandstanding a bit, he and any other Republicans (Democrats, too!) who want to point out the embarrassment to the White House and the dangers of this sort of thing are within their rights. Fine: Cover that aspect of the story, which is very much the public's business. Hold the Secret Service and White House political and social operations to account. If heads must roll, Mr. Emanuel, roll them. But leave it at that for That Couple.
Meanwhile, I want to specifically hear from those morality mavens over at FOX News, who publicly wring their hands about the declining social values and family values of our country. I want to hear their voices leading a chorus of silence when it comes to That Couple. Roger Ailes: You want to prove you're more than Republican mouthpiece and bullhorn for vapid, calorie-free infotainment? Send the word down from on high that you are not going to turn your network over to these political poseurs. As for Shep Smith, who has lately proved to be a shining light in an otherwise dim constellation of hosts at FOX, I’m especially counting you to call this farce what it is, and give That Couple a much-deserved dressing down. This moment is tailor-made for you to prove your mettle; seize it.
OK, enough already. I can feel my blood pressure rising. I need input from something more placid and soothing than writing about That Couple…like, say, watching today’s NFL broadcasts.
11.28.2009
State Losing Jobs That Obama Could Lose
@ 7:53 PM
Charles Franklin, political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, recently published a useful graphic depicting post-2001 trends and current unemployment rates in all 50 states, reproduced here:
Starting in the top-left corner, the states are sorted from lowest to highest unemployment rate. At first glance, what’s interesting is that most states are below the national mean of 10.2 percent, because several very big states are above it: California, Florida, Illinois, North Carolina and Ohio being among the top-11 states whose electoral vote totals alone are sufficient to reach the 270 plateau.
Yes, the electoral college...the subject I really wish to raise as it relates to unemployment levels, specifically to ask: How will unemployment levels affect President Obama's re-election chances? Yes, I know it's three years until election day and that the unemployment figures will move between now and then. And yes, they will not move identically in every state, so there will be some re-sorting. But Michigan and Nevada aren't going to suddenly vault from the nation's highest unemployment rates to ten lowest, and vice versa for North Dakota and Nebraska, the states with the two lowest rates.
That said, I decided to scatterplot just the 18 states where the margin last year between Obama and John McCain was 12 points or less, with that margin plotted against the current unemployment rates. (I put the national average of 7.3 percent margin and 10.2 unemployment in there as a baseline.) Here are those 18:
Let's assume the states Obama lost by double-digits, along the left side of the graph, are not going to flip his way in 2012. For the moment--but only for the moment--let's further assume Obama will again carry the states in the bottom-right corner that he won by comfortable margins and that happen to have lower-than-national-average unemployment rates. I realize that just because the average in a state is below the national median doesn't mean there isn't economic suffering in that state, or that that economic pain will not be expressed at the ballot box in 2012. But for a moment, let's set those states aside to focus on the small subset of states I've highlighted with the oval.
These six states--Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Missouri and Montana--four of which Obama won and two he lost narrowly, could again be key bellwethers. Economically speaking, they are a mixed bag of industrial, mining, tourist/citrus, and textile/hogfarming states. The good news for Obama is the general trend among these six--the worse the unemployment the better he did. That is, he's got more electoral room to spare the more he needs it, at least from a standpoint of unemployment rates.
But let's assume Obama loses all six--which means four states net, since he lost Missouri narrowly and Montana by a few points. The net electoral vote loss could be as many as the current, combined 73 electoral votes. (We have to wait for reapportionment to be sure, of course.) Subtracted from his 365 total last year, that would put Obama under 300 at around 292, presuming he holds all the solidly Democratic states that do not appear on the scatterplot because of their wide margins, as well as those in the bottom-right corner which provided him comfortable margins last year and have worrisome, yet below-national-mean unemployment rates.
...which returns us to that little cluster of states in the bottom-right. We just saw what happened in Virginia, the state closest to yet outside the oval. I know about the contrarian pattern of the VA/NJ off-year election results relative to presidential results, but for the sake of argument let's assume a rejuvenated GOP in Virginia pulls that state back in 2012. That would drag Obama's EV total down to 279, within range of an average-sized size tipping the result in the other direction.
Which means that, if unemployment woes continue, the election could come down to a block of states like Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Iowa. That's not an earth-shattering finding per se. But what it does mean is that Obama had better pay special attention to them now if he wants to insulate himself in a close election. He can afford to lose some, even all of those in the oval...but he can't afford to lose all of those and any near it.
Starting in the top-left corner, the states are sorted from lowest to highest unemployment rate. At first glance, what’s interesting is that most states are below the national mean of 10.2 percent, because several very big states are above it: California, Florida, Illinois, North Carolina and Ohio being among the top-11 states whose electoral vote totals alone are sufficient to reach the 270 plateau.Yes, the electoral college...the subject I really wish to raise as it relates to unemployment levels, specifically to ask: How will unemployment levels affect President Obama's re-election chances? Yes, I know it's three years until election day and that the unemployment figures will move between now and then. And yes, they will not move identically in every state, so there will be some re-sorting. But Michigan and Nevada aren't going to suddenly vault from the nation's highest unemployment rates to ten lowest, and vice versa for North Dakota and Nebraska, the states with the two lowest rates.
That said, I decided to scatterplot just the 18 states where the margin last year between Obama and John McCain was 12 points or less, with that margin plotted against the current unemployment rates. (I put the national average of 7.3 percent margin and 10.2 unemployment in there as a baseline.) Here are those 18:
Let's assume the states Obama lost by double-digits, along the left side of the graph, are not going to flip his way in 2012. For the moment--but only for the moment--let's further assume Obama will again carry the states in the bottom-right corner that he won by comfortable margins and that happen to have lower-than-national-average unemployment rates. I realize that just because the average in a state is below the national median doesn't mean there isn't economic suffering in that state, or that that economic pain will not be expressed at the ballot box in 2012. But for a moment, let's set those states aside to focus on the small subset of states I've highlighted with the oval.
These six states--Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Missouri and Montana--four of which Obama won and two he lost narrowly, could again be key bellwethers. Economically speaking, they are a mixed bag of industrial, mining, tourist/citrus, and textile/hogfarming states. The good news for Obama is the general trend among these six--the worse the unemployment the better he did. That is, he's got more electoral room to spare the more he needs it, at least from a standpoint of unemployment rates.
But let's assume Obama loses all six--which means four states net, since he lost Missouri narrowly and Montana by a few points. The net electoral vote loss could be as many as the current, combined 73 electoral votes. (We have to wait for reapportionment to be sure, of course.) Subtracted from his 365 total last year, that would put Obama under 300 at around 292, presuming he holds all the solidly Democratic states that do not appear on the scatterplot because of their wide margins, as well as those in the bottom-right corner which provided him comfortable margins last year and have worrisome, yet below-national-mean unemployment rates.
...which returns us to that little cluster of states in the bottom-right. We just saw what happened in Virginia, the state closest to yet outside the oval. I know about the contrarian pattern of the VA/NJ off-year election results relative to presidential results, but for the sake of argument let's assume a rejuvenated GOP in Virginia pulls that state back in 2012. That would drag Obama's EV total down to 279, within range of an average-sized size tipping the result in the other direction.
Which means that, if unemployment woes continue, the election could come down to a block of states like Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Iowa. That's not an earth-shattering finding per se. But what it does mean is that Obama had better pay special attention to them now if he wants to insulate himself in a close election. He can afford to lose some, even all of those in the oval...but he can't afford to lose all of those and any near it.
Charlie Crist is Not a Good Sharer
@ 3:42 PM
Here are Charlie Crist's favorability ratings among registered voters in Florida, according to the Quinnipiac poll.
Crist's favorability ratings are higher among independents than among Democrats or Republicans (although not by a statistically significant margin in the former case). That's very unusual for a politician who does not actually call himself an independent.
Still, although Crist's favorability ratings with Republicans have declined some, they're still pretty decent. So why is he in so much trouble against Marco Rubio?
For one thing, Republican voters really like Rubio; his favorability rating among Republicans in the latest Quinnipiac poll was 44-3 (!). What's a little scary for Crist is that about half of all Republicans have yet to form an opinion about Rubio -- once they do, the race will presumably get even closer.
For another thing, Florida voters preferred by a 42-26 plurality -- including a 40-32 plurality of Republicans -- that Crist would have run for another term as governor rather than run for Senate. The message that Florida Republicans seem to be sending to Crist is this one: We like you well enough, Charlie. But we also like Marco. So why did you make this hard on us by running for Senate, when we'd have been perfectly happy to re-elect you to Tallahassee instead?
In certain ways, this reminds me of the mayor's race here in New York, where voters approved overwhelmingly of the job that Michael Bloomberg was doing, but nearly voted him out of office because he re-wrote the rules to run for a third term. Crist didn't re-write the rules, but his decision, in some ways, seems equally selfish. If he was doing such a good job as governor, why not stay there? Isn't being the governor of the fourth largest U.S. state a more powerful position than being one of 100 Senators? Crist is only 53 -- what's the rush? What's he hoping to accomplish in Washington? It's going to be a fairly difficult decision for Crist to rationalize to people.
That's not to say that some of this Republican Purity Test stuff isn't also a part of the story (grassroots conservatives only seem to have been encouraged by the results in NY-23, even though their candidate lost). But it's not the whole story: Crist is much more vulnerable than he otherwise would be because had the option of running for another term as governor and declined to do so.
Crist's favorability ratings are higher among independents than among Democrats or Republicans (although not by a statistically significant margin in the former case). That's very unusual for a politician who does not actually call himself an independent.
Still, although Crist's favorability ratings with Republicans have declined some, they're still pretty decent. So why is he in so much trouble against Marco Rubio?
For one thing, Republican voters really like Rubio; his favorability rating among Republicans in the latest Quinnipiac poll was 44-3 (!). What's a little scary for Crist is that about half of all Republicans have yet to form an opinion about Rubio -- once they do, the race will presumably get even closer.
For another thing, Florida voters preferred by a 42-26 plurality -- including a 40-32 plurality of Republicans -- that Crist would have run for another term as governor rather than run for Senate. The message that Florida Republicans seem to be sending to Crist is this one: We like you well enough, Charlie. But we also like Marco. So why did you make this hard on us by running for Senate, when we'd have been perfectly happy to re-elect you to Tallahassee instead?
In certain ways, this reminds me of the mayor's race here in New York, where voters approved overwhelmingly of the job that Michael Bloomberg was doing, but nearly voted him out of office because he re-wrote the rules to run for a third term. Crist didn't re-write the rules, but his decision, in some ways, seems equally selfish. If he was doing such a good job as governor, why not stay there? Isn't being the governor of the fourth largest U.S. state a more powerful position than being one of 100 Senators? Crist is only 53 -- what's the rush? What's he hoping to accomplish in Washington? It's going to be a fairly difficult decision for Crist to rationalize to people.
That's not to say that some of this Republican Purity Test stuff isn't also a part of the story (grassroots conservatives only seem to have been encouraged by the results in NY-23, even though their candidate lost). But it's not the whole story: Crist is much more vulnerable than he otherwise would be because had the option of running for another term as governor and declined to do so.
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