A First Look at Palin's Primary Math

If Sarah Palin runs for the Republican nomination in 2012 -- and I've been on record for some time as predicting that she will -- what are likely to be her best and worst states? And how do these strengths and weaknesses square with the Republican primary calendar? And what about the other likely candidates?

The first, very, very important thing to notice is that the Republican primary calendar will be different in 2012 than it was two years ago. Although this could change as states jockey for position and rules are amended, for the time being the Republicans have divided the states into five groupings as seen below:



The first states to vote are the traditional early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. These states are shown in light blue. Note that this list does not include Florida and Michigan, which jumped in the queue to try to vote early in 2008 -- although who knows whether they'll be in a more cooperative mood this time around when push comes to shove.

Next to vote are the orange states, which are grouped together by virtue of their small populations. This includes 14 states and several territories, the largest grouping of which is on the prairies and the Western frontier, although there are also several New England states. Notably, no Southern states vote in this group -- the Republican calender definitely de-emphasizes the South.

Finally, there are gold, purple and green groupings of some of the larger states. These groups have some geographical integrity -- for instance, most of the traditional Midwestern Rust Belt states are in the gold group, whereas the purple states tend to be more coastal and the green more in flyover country -- although there are some exceptions. The order in which the gold, purple and green states vote will rotate every cycle and, to my knowledge, has not yet been determined for 2012.

So where is Palin likely to run strongest? Obviously, it would depend on the candidates she's up against and the type of campaign she might want to run, but I think we can make some basic inferences. What I've done is to create an index of how favorable each state is to Palin based on six variables: fundraising totals to date for SarahPAC, and five demographic and attitudinal variables taken from 2008 exit polls.

Fundraising: What I looked at is the ratio of contributions that Palin has received in each state so far through SarahPAC to the amount of contributions received by all Republican candidates in the 2008 cycle. The idea is to see how Palin compares vis-a-vis a typical Republican candidate -- indeed, I've found fundraising data to have quite a bit of predictive power in the past, even if the data is a little rough at this stage. Relative to other Republicans, Palin's best fundraising state is, of course, Alaska. Her fundraising has also been quite strong in the Pacific Northwest, and many of the prairie/frontier states. It has been weakest on the East Coast, as well as several other urban and industrial states located throughout the country. The fundraising data receives double weight in our index.

Variables from 2008 Exit Polls: What I looked at is not what a state's electorate looked like overall, but rather, the characteristics of the McCain (i.e. Republican) voters in each state. This is an important distinction -- for instance, although Oregon is a fairly progressive state overall, the conservatives there are quite conservative and rural, and this is what matters in the context of a Republican primary. Note that, although it would probably have been better to look at exit polling data from the 2008 Republican primaries, a lot of states either didn't have a competitive primary in 2008 or didn't have exit polling data available; thus, we look at McCain general election voters as our best proxy.

Specifically, the exit polling variables that I evaluated were as follows:

Rural and small town voters. That is, the percentage of McCain voters in each state that come from communities of less than 50,000 people. Palin spent a great deal of time campaigning in exurban and fairly rural areas in 2008, and I suspect that it's here -- not necessarily among soccer moms in the collar suburbs -- where her most enthusiastic voters lie. And Palin herself, of course, comes from a very rural area and is appealingly outdoorsy and self-reliant. This variable receives a double weight.

No college voters. Early polls of the 2012 Republican field, such as from Marist and Rasmussen, show Palin overperforming among this group (or, if you prefer, underperforming among college graduates), which certainly squares with my intuition about where her appeal lies. This variable also receives a double weight.

Conservatives. We also look at the number of McCain general election voters who described themselves as conservative in each state, although it receives only a single weight. Although clearly Palin wears the conservative label very comfortably and is liable to be harmed in states where there are a relatively large number of moderates and independents in the primary electorate, there are likely to be at least a couple other capital-C conservatives in the Republican primary field, which means we need to temper this somewhat.

White Evangelicals. Although Palin also polls well among this group, a lot of this may be because a lot of white evangelicals are also rural and lack a college degree. That is, although Palin runs well among the sorts of voters who happen to be evangelicals, it may not be because they're evangelicals. Nor, although Palin has increasingly invoked religious rhetoric in her speeches, does she have the scholarly religious credibility of someone like a Mike Huckabee or a Pat Robertson. It's conceivable that Palin could get outflanked by a Huckabee or lose votes to a Santorum among voters who are evangelicals first and working-class whites second. Thus, although we include this variable, we only give it a single weight.

Energy and Terrorism voters. Lastly, although this is a bit speculative, we look at the percentage of McCain voters in each state who said their votes were determined because of energy or terrorism policy, which appear as though they'll be Palin's core issues. These issues -- particularly terrorism -- lend themselves relatively well to the meta-narratives that Palin prefers and require less policy nuance than something like the economy or health care. This variable receives a single weight.

These six variables are then standardized and the z-scores are added up to produce an overall total, with the first three variables (fundraising, rural, no college) counted twice. Ranked from most favorable to Palin to least favorable, the 50 states rate as follows (red indicates a 'hot' state that is favorable to Palin, while blue indicates the opposite):



We can also plot these on a map:



Palin's strengths, roughly speaking, lie in a diagonal belt that stretches from the northwest corner of the country through the Deep South; she may not do particularly well in the Northeast and the Southwest. Looking at the interplay between these states and the calendar:

First Wave States. Among the first four states to vote, both Iowa and South Carolina should be winnable for Palin. Although Iowa is not a perfect match for her -- not quite as many no-college voters as she'd like -- it holds a caucus rather than a primary, which tends to bring out a more conservative electorate. The most obvious concern for Palin in Iowa, if he runs, is Mike Huckabee, who won there in 2008. She could also conceivably lose a war of attrition if a candidate like Santorum eats away some of her evangelical vote, or if her organization and infrastructure is not up to par. The inclusion of a regional candidate like John Thune or Mike Pence could cut either way for Palin; they are not yet terribly well defined and it's unclear whether they'll run to the right-center (in which case they could cause more problems for someone like Romney) or further to the right (trouble for Palin).

If Palin loses in Iowa, she would almost certainly need a victory in South Carolina, which is a decent enough state for her demographically but which has a quirky political culture and tends to prefer candidates from the South. Huckabee could be tough to knock off in South Carolina, especially if he's won Iowa, and a candidate like Haley Barbour or Rick Perry could be challenging to her (probably less so someone like Newt Gingirch, who is nominally a Southerner but has more appeal to coastal voters). Although the South will be somewhat de-emphasized by the structure of the Republican primary calendar, Palin would clearly benefit from the inability of any bona fide Southerner to gain traction in the polls, in which case she might become the de facto Southern candidate.

Palin is unlikely to perform well in New Hampshire, which apart from being fairly rural does not play to any of her strengths and where she might have to face Mitt Romney or Scott Brown. Nevada, meanwhile, is another caucus state in which Romney dominated in 2008.

Palin is probably fortunate that neither Florida or Michigan will hold an early primary, as we have both rated as below-average states for her. Michigan has a fairly robust track record of preferring moderate Republicans, both in elections to the Congress and in Republican primaries, where the electorate is pushed to the left by the presence of a very engaged set of independent voters in the open primary. Plus, there may once again be the Romney factor to contend with. Florida's Republican voters, meanwhile, are relatively urban and reasonably well-educated, and my hunch is that Palin will not play well with groups like Cuban and non-Cuban Hispanics and Jewish voters who collectively make up about 15 percent of the state's Republican primary electorate.

Second Wave States. If Palin survives the four early voting states, the next wave of states -- the small states indicated in orange on the map -- are potentially very good for her. Five of Palin's six best states, indeed -- Alaska, Wyoming, North Dakota, Montana and West Virginia -- fall into the orange group; she could even do relatively well in a state like Maine, which is quite rural. The one caveat is that smaller states tend to place more emphasis on infrastructure and organization, which may not be Palin's strength (that's why Mitt Romney, who excels in that department, tended to do well in these states in 2008). But demographically speaking, they should be very fruitful territory for her.

Later Wave States. The remaining states are divided into green, purple, and gold groups, and it may be tremendously important to Palin in exactly which order they wind up voting in. Whereas the green states are quite good for her, both the purple states and the gold states are rather poor.

The green group contains plenty of good states for Palin, although there would probably be a lot of emphasis placed on delegate-rich Texas, where Palin will need to do well since she's unlikely to pick up many delegates from coastal states like California and New York. Indeed, Texas may be the most important state on the map for Palin after Iowa and perhaps South Carolina, which may be why she's spending so much time there.

If the gold group comes up instead, Palin's best chance for a big win looks to be Ohio, although Georgia, Florida and Pennsylvania are probably also within reach.

The purple group would be very bad for Palin; she'd likely need to win both Indiana and North Carolina to stay alive, and Tennessee is OK for her, but even so she'd probably lose ground in the delegate count because of states like California, Virginia and New Jersey.

Palin's path to victory, then, would seem to consist of one of the following scenarios:

Palin Plan A. Win Iowa. Win South Carolina. Clean up in orange states. You probably have enough momentum to survive the consolidation of the GOP field which is liable to occur at this point.

Palin Plan B. Lose Iowa narrowly, especially to a Midwestern candidate. Hope that a Southerner isn't running strongly and win South Carolina. Clean up in orange states. Then you anchor in the South, winning Texas (green group), Florida/Georgia (gold group) or Indiana/North Carolina (purple group). At some point, you need to break through and win a big Midwestern battleground like Ohio or Wisconsin.

Palin Plan C. Win Iowa. Lose South Carolina narrowly to a Southern candidate. Regain momentum in orange states. Hope that green states vote next and aim in particular for a big win in Texas. If it's the gold states instead, go all-in in Ohio and Pennsylvania. If it's the purple states, you'll need some help.

Conversely, Mitt Romney's paths might look something like this, and are probably somewhat more straightforward than Palin's.

Romney Plan A. Win Iowa. Win New Hampshire. Game over.

Romney Plan B-1. (If Palin is knocked out) Lose Iowa. Win New Hampshire. Win Nevada. Sweep orange states on the basis of organizational strength. Veer slightly to the left, emphasizing electability and cleaning up in delegate-rich states like California and New York. You probably outlast a Southern opponent like Huckabee, perhaps even fairly easily. A Midwesterner that could win states like Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania might be more challenging.

Romney Plan B-2. (If Palin survives) Lose Iowa. Win New Hampshire. Win Nevada. Split orange states with Palin on the basis of organizational strength. Hope that gold or purple states came up next, in which case you should build up a substantial delegate lead. If so, the party infrastructure may start to close ranks around you. If green states come up instead, Palin is tougher and you're in for a war of attrition with flagging momentum.

Mike Huckabee, if he runs, really only has one path to victory and it isn't a very good one since the calendar makes it tough for a Southern candidate to gain momentum:

Huckabee Plan A. Win Iowa. Win South Carolina. Knock out Palin and perhaps angle for her endorsement. Lower expectations for orange states and hope to at least win a couple contests like West Virginia and Nebraska. Hope that there are at least two centrist candidates remaining in the race while you consolidate the conservative vote. If it's just you and Romney (etc.) one-on-one, you probably need to consistently win border states like Ohio/Florida (gold group), North Carolina/Indiana (purple group) or Missouri/Texas (green group).

Most of the other Southern candidates would have the same problem. Conversely, someone like a John Thune probably has a more versatile set of strategies. If Romney is knocked out (Thune is more likely to pull an upset in New Hampshire than someone like Palin or Huckabee), he can run on electability and is probably conservative enough so as not to feel like a compromise to the base. If Palin and/or Huckabee are knocked out instead, Thune should have some regional strength in the orange states and then would be headed to a key showdown or two with Romney in Midwestern states like Ohio.

It's also conceivable that a strong Northeastern candidate, like Scott Brown, could run. His path would obviously need to involve winning New Hampshire and sweeping Maine/Delaware/Vermont/Rhode Island when the orange states vote. Then the contest probably becomes about the brute force of the delegate math, with big states like California, New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois being key.

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Republicans -- Not Obama -- More Often on Wrong Side of Public Opinion

One of the more commonplace assertions among pundits on the center-right -- made rather carelessly by Victor Davis Hanson and more thoughtfully by Jay Cost, is that agenda put forward by Obama and the Democrats is overwhelmingly unpopular and that Democrats are simply getting their comeuppance for having pushed such a liberal set of reforms forward. These claims, however, rely on selective evidence, invariably citing policies like health care and the GM bailouts which are indeed unpopular (strongly so, in some cases), while ignoring many other issues on which Obama has been on the right side of public opinion.

In fact, a more objective and equivocal evaluation of public opinion on more than two dozen specific issues finds that the Republican Congress has far more often been on the wrong side of it. Attempting to be as comprehensive as possible, I've identified 25 issues that Obama and the Democrats have made an affirmative effort to push forward since taking office a year ago, and summarized public opinion on each of them. Most of the numbers that I've cited come from PollingReport.com.

Afghanistan Troop Escalation. An average of seven polls taken since President Obama's speech on Afghanistan in December show a 54-41 majority of the public in favor of escalating troop commitments. However, Obama appeared to get a bump from his speech, as an average of four polls conducted in November, prior to the speech, had shown a 49-46 plurality opposed to greater troop commitments.

Bank Tax. An NPR poll found a 57-39 majority in favor of the bank tax proposal, which the Congress has yet to consider, after being read arguments both for and against the program. (An ABC/Post poll found a 73-26 majority in favor of taxing financial sector bonuses over $1 million dollars, although the White House has not advocated for that measure.)

Ben Bernanke. The only poll on Ben Bernanke, from NBC/WSJ, found a 37-34 plurality opposed to his reappointment; Bernanke was approved by 22 of 40 Senate Republicans and 48 of 60 Senate Democrats.

Bush Tax Cuts. Although this polling is somewhat out of date, a CBS/NYT poll in April found 74 percent in favor, and 23 percent opposed, to raising taxes on those making more than $250,000 per year, as Obama's budget would do. A Newsweek poll in March, with somewhat different phrasing, found 49 percent in favor of letting the tax cuts on the wealthy expire and 42 percent opposed.

Campaign Finance. The only poll to have asked directly about the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision is from FOX News, which found voters disapproving of the decision 53-27. A Gallup poll conducted last month found that, while most Americans consider campaign finance to be a form of free speech, they nevertheless by a 52-41 margin felt that the ability to place limits on political contributions was the higher priority.

Cap-and-Trade. The last five organizations to release polls on cap-and-trade (AP/Stanford, ABC/Post, CNN, Pew, Rasmussen) actually show it favored by the public by a 51-40 margin, on average. It is likely that a significant fraction of the public does not understand what cap-and-trade is; nevertheless most of these polls provided descriptions of the bill's contents. Eight House Republicans voted for the climate bill in June; the Senate has yet to consider the measure.

Cash-for-Clunkers. The only organization to poll on this was Rasmussen, which found voters opposed to the program 35-54 in June, but a 44-38 plurality favoring the program in retrospect after it had been implemented.

Credit Card Protections. 77 percent of respondents favored the Credit Card Protection Act, according to a poll by Open Congress. The bill was approved 90-5 by the Senate in May, as well as by a 105-69 majority of House Republicans.

D.C. Voting Rights. 58 percent of the public favored, and 35 percent opposed, giving an a House seat to D.C. in a nationwide Washington Post poll conducted last February. The Senate approved D.C. voting rights by a 61-37 margin last February, with 6 Republicans voting in favor and 2 Democrats voting against, although the measure subsequently died in the House.

Fair Pay. Congress approved the Liddy Ledbetter Fair Pay Act last January; it received the support of 3 Republicans in the House and 5 in the Senate. A Rasmussen poll conducted shortly after the legislation passed found that Americans by a 66-24 majority do not believe that women earn equal pay for equal work, although it did not ask about the legislation specifically.

Financial Regulation. A Time/SRBI poll in October found that 59 percent of the public favors more regulation of Wall Street versus 13 percent favoring less and 22 percent the same amount. A CNN poll two weeks ago found 62 percent in favor of greater regulations and 35 percent opposed. House Republicans opposed the financial regulation bill unanimously.

Gays in the Military. Four organizations -- FOX, Gallup, Quinnipiac, and CNN -- have released polls on Don't Ask Don't Tell since Obama's inauguration. They show an average of 58 percent saying that Don't Ask Don't Tell should be repealed and that gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the military, and 35 percent opposed. No votes have yet occurred on DADT in either the House or the Senate, although the House's repeal legislation has just one Republican co-sponsor.

GM/Chrysler Bailout. Quite unpopular: an NBC/WSJ poll in early June showed 39 percent of the public in favor and 52 percent opposed to the bailout, and a CNN poll in April found that 22 percent of the public favored additional assistance to GM and Chrysler while 76 percent would have preferred to let them go bankrupt. (There was no specific vote on GM in this Congress; instead, its funds came by way of the TARP program.)

Guantanamo Bay. Four organizations to release polls on Gutantanamo Bay between last February and last June found an average 55 percent of Americans opposed to closing the detention facility and 39 percent in favor, with the number of those opposed tending to increase over time.

Hate Crimes. Although there have been no recent polls on the subject, a Gallup survey in May 2007 found a 68-27 majority in favor of expanding hate crimes statues to include sexual and gender identity. The Matthew Shepard act, a hate crimes measure, passed the Congress last year, receiving the support of 18 House Republicans and 5 Senate Republicans.

Health Care. It has clearly become unpopular; the latest Pollster.com trendlines show 38 percent in favor of the bill and 55 percent opposed. One Republican voted for the health care bill in the House and none did in the Senate.

Jobs Bill. A CNN poll in December found 74 percent thought Obama should concentrate on creating more jobs "even if it means less deficit reduction." A Bloomberg/Selzer poll, also in December, asked about specific measures that might be undertaken as part of a jobs bill and found 68 percent in favor (and 28 percent opposed) to tax credits, and 66 percent in favor (versus 32 percent opposed) of spending on public works projects, although just 48 percent were in favor of additional assistance to state and local governments. House Republicans unanimously opposed a $100 billion jobs bill in December.

Mortgage Relief. Senate Republican unanimously voted against the Durbin Amendment to provide mortgage relief in April, as did 12 Senate Democrats. However, four organizations which polled on mortgage relief in February through April found an average of 60 percent of Americans in support of additional assistance versus 34 percent opposed.

PAYGO. There is no specific polling on Congressional pay-go rules, which Senate Republicans recently voted against 40-0., but in the abstract moves toward balancing the budget are almost always popular, such as a CNN poll in November which found 67 percent preferring balanced budgets to deficits "even when the country is in a recession and is at war."

SCHIP. Although there have been no recent polls on SCHIP (children's health care), an ABC/Post poll in September, 2007 found it supported 72-25 by the public, and a CNN poll in October, 2007 found that the public wanted by a 61-35 margin for the Congress to override President Bush's veto of the program. Nine Republican Senators voted to extend SCHIP in February as did 40 House Republicans.

Sonia Sotomayor. The last five polls to be released on Sonia Sotmayor in advance of her confirmation showed 52 percent in favor of her confirmation and 30 percent opposed, on average. Senate Republicans opposed her confirmation 31-9.

Stimulus. The stimulus has become somewhat unpopular now -- although most individual elements of the program remain popular. However, the stimulus was somewhat popular at the time of its passage. An average of the last five organizations to release polls in advance of the Senate's vote on the stimulus on 2/9/09 showed 50 percent in favor of the bill and 38 percent opposed. House Republicans opposed the stimulus unanimously; Senate Republicans gave it 3 votes.

TARP. The TARP program began under Bush and was extended before Obama took office, but Obama nevertheless actively lobbied Democrats for its extension. TARP was unpopular from the get-go, and Americans opposed its extension 56-32 last January, according to a poll then from Diageo/Hotline. All but 6 Senate Republicans voted not to extend TARP.

Terrorist Trials. An average of two recent polls from Rasmussen and CBS had 38 percent of the public in favor of terror trials in civilian courts, but 55 percent opposed.

Torture Memos and Investigations. Four polls conducted in April showed an average of 43 percent of Americans in favor and 51 percent opposed into an investigation of Bush-era torture policies. The only poll to ask about the release of the Bush torture memos, from ABC/Post, found 53 percent in favor and 44 percent opposed.

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Of these 25 issues, Obama's position appears to be on the right side of public opinion on 14: the bank tax, repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, campaign finance, the credit card bill, D.C. voting rights, fair pay, financial regulation, gays in the military, hate crimes, the jobs bill, mortgage relief, PAYGO, SCHIP, and Sotomayor. It would appear to be on the wrong side of public opinion on five issues: the GM/Chrysler bailout, Guantanamo Bay, health care, the extension of the TARP program, and terrorist trials. On the other six issues, the polling is probably too ambiguous to render a clear verdict.

Republicans, on the other hand, have been overwhelmingly opposed to almost all of these measures with the exception of Ben Bernanke and Afghanistan troops, both of which poll ambiguously, and the credit card bill, which polled well.

Obviously, this analysis is superficial in certain ways. All issues are by no means created equal, and health care in particular, which is unpopular, has weighed heavily upon the public's perception of the Democrats. In addition, there is probably another layer of 'meta-argument' that goes beyond specific issues, and at which the GOP has tended to excel.

Nevertheless, it runs in contrast to the objective evidence when one asserts, as Hanson does, that "On every issue ... the Obama position polls 5-15 points below 50 percent." Rather, the votes taken by the Republican Congress have far more often been out of step with those of the median voter.

This is not to give a mulligan to the White House or to the Democrats -- as I've written before, their meta-strategy has necessarily had to be somewhat terrible so as to take what has been a fairly popular and centrist agenda and have it regarded as overwhelmingly contentious and partisan by so much of the public.

EDIT: What about EFCA/card check? I didn't forget about it; rather, I excluded it because it's something which the Democrats abandoned early on and which the White House never lifted a finger for. Obviously, there are a lot of policies that the Democrats theoretically have in their arsenal -- card check, legalizing pot, gay marriage, nationalizing the banks, a radically more progressive tax code, etc. -- which are both quite liberal and (with one or two possible exceptions) quite unpopular. But the Congressional Democrats didn't spend much of any effort on those issues, and the White House spent essentially none. The agenda they've spent their political capital on, rather, has been quite centrist -- which is sort of the whole point of this article.

If you did include card check, by the way, the verdict would be rather ambiguous. Ignoring some amazingly crappy (and contradictory) partisan polling on both sides of the topic, the closest we have to a neutral poll is this one from Gallup, which shows 53 percent in favor of a "new law that would make it easier for labor unions to organize workers" but which is probably too vague to be useful. To be clear, my hunch is that card check would indeed prove to become unpopular if it were debated more vigorously -- but that's just a hunch, and we're trying to rely on the objective evidence for this exercise.

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Is It The Process, Stupid?

Because it was Super Bowl week--and I happened to be watching a rebroadcast of the New York Giants' amazing Super Bowl victory over the New England Patriots, in which his son Zack made the tackle on the final kickoff of the game--I checked in with Steve DeOssie, an acquaintance of mine who also won a Super Bowl ring for the New York Giants, back in 1991. Steve is very politically active and astute, and although we don’t see eye-to-eye on many issues, I respect him a lot and his opinions.

DeOssie and his former Patriots teammate Fred Smerlas co-own a steakhouse in Providence, Rhode Island. They are sports media celebrities in New England akin to Curt Schilling. They also happen to be friends and political supporters of none other than new Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, and were on hand at Brown’s election night victory party. (For non-football fans, in the picture that's Fred on the left and Steve on the right.)

When I asked Steve what he thought about the Brown victory, he told me that most of the national media misinterpreted what happened in Massachusetts. So I asked Steve what the real message of Brown’s victory is. Here is what he emailed me, verbatim and unedited:

Much of the media seems to be missing the point or the cause of the election. On the right they want to believe it was anti-Obama or anti-healthcare. On the left they try to spin the idea that it was just about the poor performance of Coakley. Having been to at least 20 of Scott's campaign events I can tell you it was none of those reasons. The most consistent attitude was that people wanted to slow down the process. There was a natural reaction even in the most liberal of states to not want anything forced on them the way the healthcare seemed to be. People up here were not anti anything except the healthcare process. They saw it as sneaky and underhanded. Even in Massachusetts, people did not want something that unknown forced on the country. Either way I am glad the process will slow down some but I will not put even a good friend like Scott on that political pedestal like some people are trying to do.

Note Steve's use of the word process three separate times. Now, the most consistent complaints one heard from conservative politicians, pundits and activists about the process of healthcare reform were that Obama held some closed-door meetings; that the backroom deals with senators like Ben Nelson and especially Mary Landrieu looked shady; and, in general, that reform was being sped through Congress without sufficient time for citizens to figure out what the policy reforms would mean for them individually or for the nation in terms of entitlement obligations or overall spending.

Let me take each of these three complaints in order.

1. Closed meetings. From energy to wiretapping to Iraq, the Bush Administration was one of the least transparent presidencies in history, and Obama has surely been more transparent than his predecessor. But conservatives correctly respond to that by saying, “Hey, Obama ran as a guy who said he would change the way politics was conducted in Washington, and if he’s behaving not much differently from Dick Cheney, well, what was the point of electing him?” Though there is a double standard here, they’re right: Obama promised to be different. I think that this complaint is the strongest of the three. If you seem like you are hiding something, whether you are or not, voters become immediately suspicious--and with cause.

2. Congressional deal-making. The deals brokered with members of Congress seem less objectionable. Obama’s election did not obviate the U.S Congress, nor did it somehow eliminate self-interested behavior by pivotal members of Congress willing to prevent otherwise solid majorities--the Democrats, after all, had 60 seats and the states they represented accounted for even more than 60 percent of the country--from passing legislation by logrolling or stonewalling in order to gain their support. Moreover, neither Landrieu nor Nelson were holdouts resisting from the left side of the Democratic spectrum by publicly opposing the president and then negotiating concessions for more liberal versions of healthcare. Landrieu and Nelson are conservative Democrats, and Nelson’s resistance was predicated on his anti-abortion stance. Is it not a little hypocritical for conservatives and Republicans to complain about the Administration’s capitulation to people like Nelson? Had Obama publicly maligned Nelson for being a small-state senator who was manipulating the anti-majoritarian and often very secretive process of Senate holds so he could hold health care hostage in defense of the unborn, would the same conservatives who complained about shady practices have applauded the president for his forthright and transparent dressing down of a pro-life Democrats? I seriously doubt it.

And while we’re on the subject of congressional protocol and shady procedural practices, may I ask: Where were all these "procedural conservatives" back in 2004 complaining about the largest entitlement expansion of the past 40 years being "rammed" down America’s throat, no less their knowing manipulation of costs estimates for a bill that conservative economic Bruce Bartlett reminds us is costing the country MORE annually than the health care reform bill Democrats and Obama are proposing? I recognize that many budget-minded conservatives criticized George W. Bush for the cost of his anti-competitive, Big Pharma-giveaway, cater-to-the-senior-vote-and-the-budget-be-damned Medicare Plan D prescription drug legislation. But it was the House vote on that bill that was held open more than three hours (15 minutes is the standard time) and included what may well have been an illegal arm-twisting of Republican Congressman Nick Smith. Again, I’m not saying that just because the Bush Administration slipped an $800 billion prescription drug package through Congress literally in the middle of the night that the Obama Administration should do the same. But where was the outrage then?

3. Speed kills. Finally, there is the matter of the ramming down America’s throats of healthcare reform. I suppose in terms of the specific legislation in various forms that was working through Congress in 2009, one might say a year is too speedy a process. And there were so many bills it was hard to keep track of them, which was the downside of the Administration’s decision to let Congress take the lead rather than trying a Clinton-style approach by advancing an administration bill. Still, there was ample and many forums for debate. And, to be fair, the broader healthcare reform conservation in America hardly began on January 20, 2009: Both parties, and especially the Democrats, spent the better part of two years during the 2008 presidential cycle arguing about reform proposals. And if you want to take the longer view, the country has been arguing about how to reform our employer-based healthcare system since at least 1993, and really since the Truman Administration. Did we debate Medicare Part D as long? Not even close. But that's a benefit for seniors, who are older and whiter and vote more regularly than the poorer, darker and less insured people Obama is trying to cover. Haste is of the essence when legislating for the former, but patience is demanded when legislating for the latter. Are we to believe that is a coincidence?

Nor do I recall the procedural complaints about the speed with which we went to war in Iraq. Heck, people like Phil Donahue who so much as dared question the decision were mocked and shunted aside. (Mocking those who questioned the “process” back then made one a patriot; mocking and shunting aside Tea Partiers makes one an transparency-hating elitist, however.) Remember: The policy discussion prior to the Iraq decision—as Andrew Card conceded, the political rollout began on Labor Day weekend 2002—was at most six months; and if, in fact, President Bush actually decided privately—and yes, in a very non-transparent way—to invade Iraq in late December 2002 or early January 2003, that process was really only about four months. (Oh, and if Bush really decided well before Labor Day 2002, that means the decision was made *before* the process started.) And do we really need to revisit how much of the information during that national “debate” was manipulated, hidden and misrepresented? If public policy professors are looking for a model of governmental non-transparency, it’s hard to top the Iraq war “debate.”


Steve DeOssie makes some great points, and I wish conservatives in Washington like Charles Krauthammer—who all-too-conveniently would have us believe that Scott Brown’s victory more or less vindicates, well, every idea or belief Charles Krauthammer has ever espoused—would listen a bit more closely at the very moment they are telling the Administration it has a listening problem. And while I appreciate their newfound insistence on government transparency generally and ending political logrolling specifically—a practice, by the way, that hardly began with Mary Landrieu and essentially dates back to the negotiations 223 years ago over the language of Constitution itself—the recent good-government conversions by some conservatives are a bit suspicious and, in some cases, appallingly disingenuous.

Meanwhile, Obama is now participating in a bi-partisan commission and publicly debated House Republicans live on television in their backyard--and without any notes written on his palm. These actions are unlike anything that was done by the Bush Administration, which had to be shamed by 9/11 victims into agreeing to even have a commission to investigate the pre-attack intelligence failures of our government, nor did Bush visit a caucus of House Democrats to defend the claims of Al Qaeda-Iraq connections or how exactly that yellowcake or mobile weapons labs on the back of 18-wheelers managed to get into Saddam's hands. So we will have greater transparency, and that’s a good thing as an end in itself. But does anyone want to bet that a highly-transparent policy process, and certainly one that departs dramatically from the politics of the past decade, will be sufficient to end conservative complaints?

I hope the president and his advisers take careful note of what Steve said above. And I'm also hoping that Scott Brown—who really does seem like an eminently thoughtful and reasonable person—will call out his fellow Republican partisans if and when, by some crazy chance, they ever happen to engage in anything less than good faith bargaining and virtuously transparent politics in Washington. If he does, I'll advocate for his re-election in 2012 to a full term. Of course, if Brown fails to call out non-transparent behavior and other procedural shenanigans, he'll be guilty of becoming corrupted by the very same Washington forces he and Obama both criticized in order to get elected.

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Sarah Palin Needs Help

There's something which, if you've ever been in the business of trying to sell consulting services, you've probably grown accustomed to. It's what I call the "consulting paradox". Namely, it's the idea that the people who are most in need of help are often the least aware of it. Indeed, the range of potential clients who (i) aren't smart enough to solve all their own problems and (ii) are smart enough to know it ... is generally very narrow.

Sarah Palin needs help. So does almost every politician -- but Palin needs it more than most. She is young. She is inexperienced. She's not especially well connected. She's strong-willed and a little impulsive. And call me a hater, but the woman just ain't that bright.

Is it a big deal that Palin wrote some notes on her hand? No, not really. Lots of politicians carry notes with them (if not, as in Palin's case, literally on them). If this were Mitt Romney, it wouldn't have been a particularly big story. Nevertheless, politics is inherently contextual, and this was something that was bound to play into every negative caricature of Mrs. Palin. Somebody needed to take Palin aside and tell her: Honey, this is going to make you look ridiculous. Can't you write on a notecard instead?

Somebody needed to tell Palin that, you know what, it's OK to criticize Rush Limbaugh once in a while. Voters like moments that make candidates look big, mature, above the fray -- Palin took what could have been such a moment and instead backtracked and made herself look petty and hypocritical.

Somebody needed to tell Palin that, if she were hellbent on quitting as Alaska's governor, she at least needed to take the time to develop a competent exit strategy and a coherent farewell speech.

Somebody needed to tell Palin that it wasn't going to do any good to get into a he-said, she-said with an attention-starved 19-year-old who was getting ready to pose nude for Playgirl.

Somebody needed to sit down with Palin and consider whether, for a candidate who gets significant leverage out of the sense that she's been persecuted by the mainstream media, becoming a correspondent for one of the mainstream media networks was going to be helpful to her in the long run.

Somebody needed to make sure that Sarah Palin was ready for the Katie Couric interview, or needed to find some excuse to cancel it.

Somebody needed to tell Palin that using the term "death panels" was probably not going to help her personally at a time when she was trying to demonstrate to her critics that she could be credible about policy.

With the exception of the decision to quit as governor and perhaps the Couric interview, all of these were minor mistakes, at most. But they point toward a candidate who needs to surround herself with good people and has conspicuously refused to do so, instead relying on advice from her husband and her bush-league media spokeswoman, Meg Stapelton.

I've made the comparison before between Sarah Palin and George W. Bush. Neither of them are geniuses -- nor do they need to be. But Bush was at least smart enough to surround himself with a team of exceptionally competent strategists, advisers and consultants. He was smart enough to recognize that it takes a village to get oneself elected President, and ideally one a bit less isolated and insular than Wasilla. Palin hasn't figured that out yet; her ability to become the Republican nominee and have a fighting chance in the general election will depend on her ability to do so.

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Go For It! Saints Understand Value of Aggressive Play-Calling

UPDATE: Congratulations to the Saints and the city of New Orleans! Although it was mostly about the talent on the field, this game could do a lot of good for smarter NFL strategery. Expect a lot more onside kicks next season!

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Let's take a quick look at the Saints' decision to go for the touchdown on fourth down and about a yard-and-a-half with 1:55 to go in the first half. Although Pierre Thomas got stuffed, it was probably the best play by a wide margin.

How come? Because even if you miss, the Colts are pinned inside their own 2 yard line. This makes a lot of difference: having the ball on your own 1 or 2 is worth about -1.5 points, according to David Romer's seminal paper (that is to say, the value of possession is outweighed in this instance by your incredibly poor field position). Conversely, having the ball on the 20 or thereabouts after a made field goal and a kick-off is worth +0.5 points -- your opponent has a positive scoring expectation. (There's also the case of a missed field goal, in which the Colts would have the ball at about their own 9; that's worth -0.5 points.)

Overall, considering both the Saints would score on the play and what they'd do to the Colts' field position, their decision matrix looks something like this:



We say a touchdown is worth 6.5 points, for example, which is the value of the 7 points you score less the 0.5 points in expectation you lose by giving the ball back to your opponent on their 20. The other cells in the matrix are calculated in the same fashion.

Assume that you have a 98 percent chance to make the field goal from the 1-and-a-half. Using the matrix above, that means your expectation from kicking is a net of +2.46 points.

What if you go for it instead? How often would you have to score the touchdown in order to make going for it the right play? Only about 20 percent of the time -- the main reason being, again, that failing to score but sticking your opponent on their own 1 yard line is almost as good as converting the FG but giving the ball to the opponent on the 20.

Certainly, a consideration of the scoring margin (the Saints trailed by 4), the short clock, and the opponent (the Colts can move the ball in a hurry) also deserve consideration here. But those considerations cut both ways and would probably not outweigh the ample mathematical justification for going for the touchdown. Sean Payton made the right call.

UPDATE: How about that onside kick to start the second half?

Once again using the estimates from Romer's paper, giving yourself possession on your own 45 (if you recover the kick) is worth +2.0 points; giving your opponent possession on your 45 is worth about -2.3 points. Compare this with giving the opponent their ball on their 20 after a regular kickoff, which is worth -0.5 points ... although often they'll return the kick and wind up with slightly better field position than that, so let's call it -0.7.

Given those estimates, the onside kick breaks even if you convert it about 37 percent of the time. And according to Football Outsiders, "surprise" onside kicks are in fact recovered in the neighborhood of 55 percent of the time or so. So this, too, looks like a good call -- and probably something that teams should be doing a little bit more often than they do.

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Super Bowl Thread: Take the Points

Depending on where you're betting, you can get the New Orleans Saints as anywhere from 4 to 6 points underdogs, although the average seems to have settled upon 4.5.

This makes for a fairly significant cushion. Between 1999 and 2008, 28 percent of NFL games were decided by 4 points or fewer, and 31 percent were decided by 5 or fewer (see below). So with the Saints side of this bet, you're basically getting them every time that they win as well as about 30 percent of the time that they lose:



Sure, caveats apply: 4.5 points isn't as many in a game between two high-scoring teams as it would be between defensively-oriented ones (and Super Bowls in particular tend to be high scoring.) Still, with anything greater than a 3 point spread, Vegas is rendering a pretty concrete judgement as to which it thinks is the better team: in this case, the Indianapolis Colts. But is this justified on the basis of the evidence?

From my point of view, I don't really see it. The Colts may be the better team and are probably the favorites today, but I don't see them as being definitively and demonstrably better. Throwing out the weeks when the teams weren't trying but counting the playoffs, the Saints have scored an average of 34 points per game and allowed 21; the Colts have scored an average of 28 and allowed 17 -- no clear edge there. The Colts played a somewhat better schedule, but systems which account for that -- see the 'PREDICTOR' version of the Sagarin ratings, for instance -- consider the teams to be about equal.

So do more sophisticated systems. Football Outsiders, who know their stuff as well as anyone, consider the game to be a toss-up. Accuscore thinks that the Colts will win about 55 percent of the time but that they should be just 2 or 3 point favorites, not 4.5 or 5. Meanwhile, computer models developed by the Wall Street Journal and Indiana University give the Saints a (very, very slight) edge.

A lot of the Vegas sentiment, undoubtedly, is because the Colts turned in a considerably more impressive performance against the New York Jets during Championship Week than the Saints did against the Vikings -- a game they were lucky to win. In general, however, it's a trusism that people overemphasize the most recent events when making predictions -- the Championship Game won't necessarily have a lot more predictive value than, say, Week 12. And the Colts' performance also came against the New York Jets, one of the weaker teams to have made the AFC Championship in some time. Had the Saints played the Jets, their performance might have been just as impressive. In fact, they beat the Jets 24-10 -- about the same margin as Indy's 30-17 win -- at home in Week 4.

The Saints and Colts actually have had five opponents in common this season, not counting the Colts' Week 16 and 17 games against the Jets and the Bills, respectively, when they weren't playing their regulars. The Saints won by the larger margin against 4 of the 5 teams -- and the tally would be 5 of 6 if we counted the Buffalo game -- although Indy makes up a lot of ground because they clobbered the lowly St. Louis Rams whereas the Saints had one of the worst games of their year against them:



And yes: I do watch a lot of football. At no point during the season did I think: Wow, Indy is clearly the best team in football (the closest I came to that feeling for any team this year was for the Saints, after they crushed the Patriots 38-17 in Week 12). I thought the Colts were a very, very good team, but were probably a bit fortunate to have gone 14-0.

Again, you can certainly argue that Indianapolis is the better team. Peyton Manning is an incredibly impressive football player, their defense is pretty clearly better, and they've been a bit more consistent from week to week. Were this a pick 'em, I'd probably go with the Colts. But if you're getting the Saints and 4.5 or even 5.5 points, you should take them.

My official prediction, just for fun: Colts 31, Saints 27.

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What if Senators Represented People By Income or Race, Not By State?

Annie Lowrey speculates:

Based on Census Bureau data, five senators would represent Americans earning between $100,000 and $1 million individually per year, with [2/10 of a senator] working on behalf of the millionaires. Eight senators would represent Americans with no income. Sixteen would represent Americans who make less than $10,000 a year, an amount well below the federal poverty line for families. The bulk of the senators would work on behalf of the middle class, with 34 representing Americans making $30,000 to $80,000 per year. . . . Or how about if senators represented particular demographic groups, based on gender and race? White women would elect the biggest group of senators -- 37 of them, though only 38 women have ever served in the Senate.

I don't know how well all of this would work in practice--for one thing, I wouldn't want the senator who represents two-year-olds to be anywhere near the nuclear button--but I agree that ideas of fairness and political representation are subtle.

Along similar lines, here is my response to economists who complained that there were not enough economists in elective office:

I was curious about this so I looked up some statistics--not on Congress but on the workforce. According to the 2001 Statistical Abstract of the United States, there were 139,000 economists employed in the United States, which represented 0.1% of the employed population. 1% of 535 is about 1/2, so with at least two economists in Congress, the profession is hardly unrepresented.

139,000 is a crude estimate because it presumably represents the people whose job title is "economist" (and thus wouldn't include, for example, Matt Kahn, who originally raised the "not enough economists in Congress" issue and whose job title is "professor"). But, even throwing in all these economics professors and various other practicing economists, I still don't think it would add up to the half-million that would be necessary to reach 2/535 of the employed population.

This is not to debate the merits of the argument--perhaps Congress would indeed be better if it included more economists--but rather to note that people with this sort of job are a small minority in the U.S. (In contrast, there were 720,000 physicians, 170,000 dentists, and 2.1 million nurses, and 1.7 million health technicians in the U.S.)

To put it another way, without reference to economists (or to the 2.1 million "mathematical and computer scientists" out there): the Statistical Abstract has 260,000 psychologists. Certainly Congress would be better off with a few psychologists, who might understand how citizens might be expected to react to various policies.

I'm willing to believe that the country's 890,000 lawyers are being overrepresented, but what about the 114,000 biologists? A few of these in Congress might advance the understanding of public health. And then there are the 290,000 civil engineers--I'd like to have a few of them around also. I'd also like some of the 280,000 child care workers and 620,000 pre-K and kindergarten teachers to give their insight on deliberations on family policy. And the 1.1 million police officers and 340,000 prison guards will have their own perspectives on justice issues.

So I think that representation is a tricky issue. Most of us would probably like more "people like us" in Congress, but that's tough with only 535 seats to go around, and given that there are a lot of politicians already out there (many of whom are lawyers) who you'd be competing with.

Does it make a difference? Maybe so. In his article, "Does the Numerical Over-Representation of the Upper Class in U.S. Legislatures Matter?", Nicholas Carnes finds:

Throughout America's history, most political decisionmakers have been highly-educated, wealthy individuals from prestigious, high-paying occupations. . . . On balance, this study's findings suggest that the numerical over-representation of affluent Americans in elected offices promotes more conservative economic policy outcomes, although not for the straightforward reasons that political observers have often suggested.

P.S. One suggestion that's come up from time to time is to form the Senate from a national random sample of adults. This would give you all the representativeness you'd want.

P.P.S. Apparently the House has four (former) blue-collar workers: Phil Hare of Illinois, Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, Mike Michaud of Maine, and Bob Brady of Pennsylvania. I don't know how many former nurses, police officers, or child care workers they have.

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Instant Run-Off Proposed by Brown

In a move that is as blatantly political as it is overdue, Gordon Brown this week announced his support for a referendum on the so-called "Alternative Vote" proposal that has made its way around for the last few years.

Known to the rest of the world as the "Instant Run-Off," the proposed new system is far from the proportional representation system that dominates continental Europe. However, it is would have an important impact on the numbers game in UK politics, particularly in close elections like this one.

We will start with the figures about what would mean in an electoral context, understanding that, of course, it would not be in place for this election given the need for a referendum beforehand.

The main added-value of the AV (we'll use the British acronym for now) is that it allows voters to rank their choices, rather than just voting for one prospective MP. In effect, you can still cast that initial protest vote or two without losing the chance to cast your final lot with the lesser of the two remaining evils if your top choice candidate does not make it. In an American context, it would be like if in 2000 all the Ralph Nader voters in Florida could have had their votes switched to their second choice candidate in the case when no candidate reached a majority initially.

If enacted, this would likely have an important impact on quite a number of House of Commons constituencies.
In the last general election in the UK (2005), only 220 seats were won with a majority of the voter -- just barely above one-third of the House of Commons' 646 constituencies. Among the major parties, Labour fared the best, with almost 37 percent of their seats won by majority, while the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had far fewer, along with the regional parties.

In some cases, mainly in places with strong regional parties, small parties can capitalize on the split vote to prevail. For example, in the "Bethnal Green and Bow" constituency of east London, the left-wing Respect party was able to beat out a safe Labour MP with just 35.9 percent of the vote to Labour's 34.0 percent.

However, in most cases it is the large parties (Tories and Labour) who profit from the current system, where the first past the post system casts a bit of a chilling effect on voters who would otherwise vote for third parties. For example, in the Ynys Mon constituency of Wales, the Labour MP prevailed with just 34.6 percent of the vote, followed by the regional Plaid Cymru party candidates 31.1 percent, an independent right-wing candidate with 14.7 percent, the Conservative Party's 11 percent and the Liberal Democrats 7 percent.

So what is the political imperative for Brown to push this proposition forward at this time? Quite simply, it is to appeal to the Liberal Democrats, with whom lie Labour's likely remaining chance at staying in government. In the case of a hung parliament, as we discussed a couple weeks back, the Lib Dems will hold an important swing position.

According to pollster Angus Reid, about 40 percent of Britons would vote in favor of the AV scenario if given the chance, as compared to 31 percent for the present system. At the same time, 6 percent said they would not vote at all and 23 answered "Don't know." However, a majority (52 percent) said that they would welcome a referendum on this issue, while just 20 percent said they would not (28 percent not sure). There was a slight regional variation on the vote, with Scottish, Welsh and English Midlands voters more in favor of the AV than the rest of voters (London, England South and England North).

This indicates good politics for Brown, though the media and most political elites see apparent pandering at play. And for the Lib Dems, who are the clear targets of the policy, this could mean important gains if enacted.

In 2005, there were 32 seats where the Liberal Democrat candidate was within 20 percentage points of the winner, who was either a Tory or from Labour, where the winner got 40 percent or less of the vote.

In each of these cases, the Lib Dems could win by taking half the votes from the losing major party candidate and be victorious (as long as there was no other competitive third party, like a regional party). For example, in Hampstead and Highgate (in north London), the Lib Dem candidate has performed successively better over the last three elections. An AV swing from either or both of the big parties toward the Lib Dem could result in a pickup.

Is it enough to get Nick Clegg and his team on board with Labour in the case of a hung parliament? Certainly not. But the joint draws of a slightly improved electoral landscape and the trapping of governing office may be hard to pass up. Is not the purpose of politicking to finally get to the levers of power?

Next up in our UK general election coverage: We will tackle the troublesome problem of translating national horserace numbers into actual MP totals, something that every observer of the election is trying to negotiate.
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Renard Sexton is FiveThirtyEight's international affairs columnist and is based in Geneva, Switzerland. He can be contacted at sexton538@gmail.com

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President Rallies Fellow Democrats

How snowed in is Washington right now? So much that the Democratic National Committee had to ship in local College Democrats to fill the seats vacated by DNC members who could not make it to town for the party's winter meetings. Despite the quiet streets outside and a mostly empty hotel, those who trudged over to the Capital Hilton--I live six blocks away, so it was a short trek--got a glimpse of President Obama in fired-up mode.

Speaking for about 20 minutes, Obama received strong applause for victory-lapping several accomplishments of the previous year: fighting for "equal pay for equal work" (Lily Ledbetter Act), expanding healthcare insurance to cover "four million more children"; the appointment of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor; and pushing to allow gays to serve in the military. (Full remarks not yet posted to White House website, but I'll try to update later once they are; the president did hit similar themes earlier during the Winter meetings at this fundraising dinner and fundraising reception.)

His biggest applause line, however, was not for an accomplishment but the promise to to continue fighting for his endangered healthcare reform plan. "Just in case there's any confusion out there, let me be clear: I'm not going to walk away from healthcare reform."

Obama continued to hit themes he's been stressing since the Scott Brown victory in Massachusetts and during his recent State of the Union speech: his administration inherited a lot of pre-existing problems; change will be tough to come by, especially with special interests blocking reform; doing the right thing isn't always popular. "So if you look at a tally of the things we said we would do –- even in the midst of this extraordinarily challenging economy –- we’ve kept our promises," he said. "We’ve kept our commitments.".

He tried to calm the implicit worries many Democrats in the room no doubt harbor about the political situation facing the party:

I was talking to Michelle the other day–-Michelle is always a good barometer–-and, you know, the front page was, oh, what’s Obama going to do to get his poll numbers up, and, are the Democrats all in a tizzy and this and that. And she said, you know, listen, if you're the average family, if I'm a mom out there and I'm working and my husband is working but we’re worried about losing our jobs, our hours have been cut back, the cost of our health care premium just went up 30 percent, the credit card company just jacked up our interest rates 39 percent, and our home value has gone down by $100,000, our 401(k) is all banged up –- and suddenly somebody calls up and says, "So, how do you think President Obama is doing right now?" What are they going to say? What are they going to say?

He talked about how rough things are for many Americans and what needs to be done to reverse the political and economic situation, saying this:

"But here's what everybody here has to remember: That's why I ran for President. That's why you worked so hard to elect a Democratic Congress. We knew this stuff was tough. But we stepped up because we decided we were going to take the responsibility of changing it. And it may not be easy, but change is coming."

In explaining the slow pace of change and promising it's eventual arrival, Obama took some thinly-veiled shots across the partisan divide, too.

"Some of the steps we took were done without the help of the other party, which made a political decision all too often to jump in the backseat, let us do the driving and then critique whether we were taking the right turns," Obama said. "He also said people in Washington needed to worry "less about scoring political points and more about solving problems," and acknowledged that "sometimes we may be working against the prevailing winds--even a blizzard."

But the main theme was, to borrow a phrase from his predecessor, "stay the course." "I know we went through a tough year," said Obama. "But we've gone through tougher years," and proceeded to invoke Jefferson, FDR, John and Teddy Kennedy in a finishing flourish that brought DNC members to their feet.

It's clear that the White House's has changed its tone and posture in the weeks since Brown's victory. The president is more aggressive about pointing to administration successes. There's a bit more finger-pointing and blaming of Republican obstructionism. There have been greater calls for bipartisanship and more promises to listen, but also a more aggressive interface with the minority opposition, such as Obama's visit to the House GOP last week. (With an whiff of triumph, the president also mentioned that visit during his DNC speech.) And, finally, there is a "fired up, ready to press forward" tenor to allay the fears of nervous fellow Democrats.

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A Look At Employment

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the current employment situation report on Friday. As such, it seems appropriate to take an in-depth look at the overall employment situation in the U.S. Most of the information contained herein on the methods of collecting employment statistics is found here.

First, there are two employment surveys -- the household and the establishment survey:

Data based on household interviews are obtained from the Current Population Survey (CPS), a sample survey of the population 16 years of age and over. The survey is conducted each month by the Bureau of the Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics and provides comprehensive data on the labor force, the employed, and the unemployed, classified by such characteristics as age, sex, race, family relationship, marital status, occupation, and industry attachment. The survey also provides data on the characteristics and past work experience of those not in the labor force. The information is collected by trained interviewers from a sample of about 50,000 households located in 792 sample areas. These areas are chosen to represent all counties and independent cities in the U.S., with coverage in 50 States and the District of Columbia. The data collected are based on the activity or status reported for the calendar week including the 12th of the month.

Data based on establishment records are complied each month from mail questionnaires and telephone interviews by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in cooperation with State agencies. The Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey is designed to provide industry information on nonfarm wage and salary employment, average weekly hours, average hourly earnings, and average weekly earnings for the Nation, States, and metropolitan areas. The employment, hours, and earnings data are based on payroll reports from a sample of over 390,000 establishments employing over 47 million nonfarm wage and salary workers, full or part time, who receive pay during the payroll period which includes the 12th of the month. The household and establishment data complement one another, each providing significant types of information that the other cannot suitably supply. Population characteristics, for example, are obtained only from the household survey, whereas detailed industrial classifications are much more reliably derived from establishment reports

The household survey provides information on the unemployment number, which decreased from 10% to 9.7%. This was a very good number because of the following computation issues. The civilian labor force increased from 153,059,000 to 153,170,000 (or an increase of 111,000). This number is the denominator of the unemployment percentage calculation. The number of unemployed decreased from 15,267,000 to 14,837,000 (a decrease of 430,000). This means the unemployment rate actually decreased because the number of people unemployed actually decreased; in other words, the drop in the unemployment rate was not caused by computational issues. This is obviously a very good development.

Additionally, consider this chart of the unemployment rate from the report:



Since mid-Spring the unemployment rate has fluctuated between ~9.5% and 10.1%. While the overall level is not good, it does indicate the overall unemployment rate may be topping out.

The household survey also provides information about the amount of time people have been unemployed. Consider the following charts as a time series. First, people are laid-off. Then they are unemployed for a certain amount of time.


Let's start with the 4-week moving average of initial unemployment claims (this number is not from the household survey). This number has been dropping for most of the year. However, it rose to a very high level and is currently above levels associated with an expanding economy. In other words, the number of people entering the ranks of the unemployed is decreasing, but it is still at high levels.


The number of people unemployed for 5 weeks or less is decreasing, and has been for about half the last year. Also note this number is starting to approach the levels associated with an expanding economy (the levels seen between 2002-2008).



Once someone is unemployed for 5 weeks or longer, the odds are they will remain unemployed for a longer period of time. While this chart of the number of people unemployed for 5-14 weeks appears to be topping out it is still at high levels. Also note this number is far above levels associated with an expanding economy (by about 1 million to 1.2 million), indicating it will take some time to bring it back to healthy/normal levels.



While the number of people unemployed between 15 - 26 weeks appears to be topping out, it is also at high levels that will take some time (as in years) to bring back to normal levels.


And regrettably, the number of people unemployed for over 27 weeks is still increasing.

There are a few other data points from the household survey to highlight. First, consider the following unemployment rates by educational level achieved. The first number is for January 2009 and the second is for January 2010:

Less than high school diploma: 12.4%/15.2%
High School Graduates, no college: 8.1%/10.1%
Some college or associate degree: 6.4%/8.5%
Bachelor's degree or higher: 3.9%/4.9%

These unemployment figures paint a very interesting picture that has profound policy implications. Either the economy needs to start creating jobs for those with less than a college education (a highly unlikely development as will be explained below) or the workforce needs to increase the number of people with higher education.

Here are the same percentages (the unemployment rate for January 2009 and January 2010) of various age groups.

16 to 19: 20.9%/36.4%
20 to 24: 12.4%/15.8%
25 to 34: 8.1%/9.9%
35 to 44: 6.6%/8.5%
45 to 54: 5.9%/7.6%
55+: 5.3%/6.8%

Should the increase in the the unemployment rate for teenagers be a concern? I would argue no, largely because the primary "job" of a teenager is to be a student. The same argument could be made of the 20-24 crowd as they should also be in some type of educational situation. The increase to 9.9% in the 25 to 34 age group is disturbing, as is the increase to 8.5% in the 35 to 44 age group.

Finally, the number of people who were employed "part time for economic reasons" decreased from 9,165,000 to 8,316,000. This is another healthy development.

Let's turn our attention to the establishment survey.


Let's start with the total number of establishment jobs in the US (seasonally adjusted). The above graph illustrates two important and disturbing points. First, the US now has fewer jobs than the lowest point of the previous expansion. All the jobs gained during the last expansion have been wiped out. Secondly, the current total number of seasonally adjusted establishment jobs in the US is lower than the beginning of the decade.

Simply "eyeballing" the chart, we can see the US has lost over 8.2 million jobs in this recession (roughly 138,000,o00 to a little below 130,000,000).



Eyeballing this chart we have see the number of construction employees has dropped by about 2 million (approximately 7.6 to 5.6 million).



The manufacturing picture is very interesting. Notice that a large number of manufacturing jobs lost in the first recession of the decade were never replaced. Next, note manufacturers started to shed jobs in early/mid 2006. From this level manufacturing has lost about 4 million jobs (approximately 22 to 18 million).

Totaling construction and manufacturing jobs we get ~6 million. In other words, about 73% of the jobs lost during this recession came from two economic sectors -- construction and manufacturing.

Let's focus on manufacturing for just a moment. Manufacturing job losses account for a little under 50% of the total job losses (approximately 4 million of the 8.2 million jobs lost). Also note that after the first recession of the decade manufacturing jobs did not meaningfully increase. This is largely because of automation and technology replacing people. The same is true today -- perhaps more so. Assuming increased automation continues, the possibility of a large percentage of manufacturing jobs lost during the recession coming back is slim at best.

Combine the construction and manufacturing jobs lost data with the unemployment rate by educational achievement data from the household survey and you get a very interesting picture.

The great recession wiped out lower education/manual labor jobs. And the experience of the manufacturing sector after the last expansion indicates those jobs aren't coming back.

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