I'm not going to comment too much on the topline findings of the Daily Kos / Research 2000 poll, of Republican identifiers, which many others have written about extensively. What I found more striking, actually, were the cross-tabs. On just about every question, the results showed essentially no difference based on age, gender, race, or geography -- once we've established that you're a Republican, these differences seem to be rendered moot.
Take, for instance, the statement that "Barack Obama is a socialist", which 63 percent of Republicans agreed with in the poll. How do the responses to this question break down by demographics? Well, they don't -- the percentage is just about the same for all groups.
How about the idea that Obama should be impeached? The same pattern holds:
About 36 percent of Republicans in the poll said they didn't think Obama was born in the United States (another 22 percent weren't sure.) We see a few regional differences on this item -- higher in the South and lower in other regions -- but otherwise the percentages are fairly constant.
Is Obama a racist? The roughly 11 percent of Republicans who are nonwhite were much less inclined to think so, but otherwise there are no real differences.
Moving on from Obama to some policy questions -- should openly gay people be allowed to serve in the military? Only some very slight age and regional differences on this one:
Sex-ed in public schools? Flat across the board.
Amnesty for illegal immigrants? Nonwhite Republicans are about twice as likely to think so, but otherwise there are no real differences.
Let's try an electoral question -- who has Sarah Palin as their first choice in 2012? Although once again nonwhites are out of step, none of the other differences are statistically significant.
This doesn't, by the way, mean that all Republicans are the same -- clearly there is some diversity of opinion within the party (although they're relatively small). What it does mean is that these ideological differences are just about all there are. If you take two Republican Congressional candidates and put them in the same primary, the outcome is liable to be the same whether that primary takes place in Alabama, Michigan, Idaho or Rhode Island, and whether the electorate is older or younger, more male or more female.
This accounts for what might be the Republicans' greatest strength as we head into the November midterms as well as their greatest liability. The strength is that they can somewhat comfortably adopt a nationalized, one-size-fits-all message. They don't have to worry about the constellation of constituencies that Democrats have: labor voters, Baby-boomer liberals, blacks, Hispanics, college-educated technocrats, libertarianish younger voters, etc. Their base is the same pretty much everywhere, and actuating a strategy that appeals to that base is not challenging.
The liability, meanwhile, is that while the Republican base might be the same pretty much everywhere, the rest of the electorate isn't. Some states and districts have different ratios of Republicans to Democratic and independent voters. Moreover, they have different types of Democratic and independent voters, some of whom may be amenable to the Republican message and others of whom won't be.
Thus, the Republicans are more likely to make suboptimal electoral decisions in individual districts -- we have a fresh example from last night, in fact, in IL-10, a D+6 district where the Republicans nominated the conservative Bob Dold rather than the moderate Beth Coulson. But the Democrats are likely to have a difficult time articulating an optimal national message -- and perhaps as a result a more difficult time governing.
2.03.2010
McGOP: The Virtues and Vices of Sameness
@ 9:30 AM
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If you take two Republican Congressional candidates and put them in the same primary, the outcome is liable to be the same whether that primary takes place in Alabama, Michigan, Idaho or Rhode Island, and whether the electorate is older or younger, more male or more female.
And yet, when it came to the Presidential primaries in 2000 and 2008 (2004 exlcuded for obvious reasons), there was a lot of disagreement between the states on who to select. Why would this be so different than a Congressional primary?
Second, you havent provided any basis for comparison on the other party, just an assertion that, say, labor voters and libertarianish younger votes have radically different opinions.
Are the Republicans more homogenous than the Democrats in 2010? Probably. Was that the case in 2005? I'm not so sure.
Remarkable unity of opinion within the Party.
The Democrats are much more divided and thus more easily peeled off by opposition GOP candidates that attract the more moderate and conservative elements of their constituency.
As Barack Obama himself is fond of proclaiming these days he is easily labeled as a "socialist" or a "Bolshevik". He is from the "progressive" wing of his party and as such has been found out to be way out of step with a large swath of Democratic Party adherents.
The pickings will be quite easy this year. Obama is not "course correcting". The "Rock Star" brings his bubble with him wherever he goes -- he thrives on the adulation of auditorium crowds but has no clue what the people are feeling or thinking.
Obama has not yet learned to read the "tea leaves".
It will be a bloodbath in November -- 100 seats may change hands, esp if he can't GOTV.
petekent01 (on twitter)
Nice post and nice discussion.
Is this a Fox/Rush/Hannity effect? All repubs are equally brainwashed as they have the same biased inputs, while dems have a variety of sources and thinking?
If you take two Republican Congressional candidates and put them in the same primary, the outcome is liable to be the same whether that primary takes place in Alabama, Michigan, Idaho or Rhode Island, and whether the electorate is older or younger, more male or more female.
Depends whether the primary is restricted to registered party members or if anyone can vote.
In caucus states like my CO, the type of party member depends on who shows up and then is elected as a voting delegate. Our local Tea Party group was running a mock caucus last night so we can dominate the local caucuses and nominate our candidates. FWIW, we filled an entire restaurant to standing room. The crowds keep getting bigger since Brown won. Meanwhile, we also have a GOTV effort to get like minded Inids to register GOP so we can swell our ranks further.
Do you really think if you asked Dems whether Bush hates black people, the response wouldn't also be high?
About the only answer I found distrubing was the terrorism one.
Perhaps the homogeneity of GOP opinion reflects the consistent messaging of conservative media like Fox News and talk radio shows. It would be interesting to track conservative opinion with Fox programming and viewership.
These cross-tabs findings are intriguing, and I wonder what the explanation could be. Possibly the information sources that influence Republican thought are more concentrated and unipolar? Or is there a concentration of certain personality types within Republican responders? Recent writings by John Dean seem to suggest that authoritarian-follower types would be more than normally herdlike in their behavior. And it might be that Republican responders are more likely than other responders to treat the a poll as a contest and to give answers that they think would be most hurtful to the other side, regardless of their actual opinions.
The real point is that there are no liberals in the GOP, and lots of conservatives in the Democratic party. It has been ever thus. Ergo, conservative country. Obama has ignored this to his peril.
By that way, what sort of uniformity do we see on the question: "Will trillion dollar yearly deficits for the next ten years bankrupt the country?" I suppose the Dems are split on the subject. Which means 60-70 percent of the country is in full blown panic at these budgets.
Its true that Repubs are more an ideology, the Dems are more an interest group. Thats why you see more conformity in belief from Repubs.
Liberals are a smaller base than conservatives so many Dems are Dems just for their own self interest....not a inner belief system.
Remarkable unity of opinion within the Party.
There's not much here that demonstates 'unity of the party'. Rather, it shows that percentages of opinion don't vary too much across regions or age.
On any of these issues, for the most part, ~50% of the total said yes to something, and ~50% said no.
The strength is that they can somewhat comfortably adopt a nationalized, one-size-fits-all message.
They already have one; it's called Fox News.
What this tells me is rural is rural is rural, no matter where you live.
different Jeff here....just wondering how much we can really trust DailyKos polls. A few months back they had a poll showing Obama had something like 5% disapproval in the Northeast. And now 30% of them believe Obama wasn't even born in the US?
I just don't trust them.
"You can't fix stupid." -- Larry the Cable Guy
"Beauty is only skin-deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone." -- expression I picked up in Mississippi
I agree with Ghost of Henry, Past and subsequent posters who suggest it has to do with the uniformity of information sources amongst non-thinking people.
A political operative (liberal for Mississippi) once asked me at a dinner party, "I've met stupid conservatives and smart conservatives, but I've never met a stupid liberal."
What scares and mystifies me is that some 10 years later, the smart conservatives have been run out of the Republican base (George Will, PeteKent, Bart DePalma) or died (William F. Buckley) and have left us with a core of Bitter, Angry and Stupid.
I don't know which polls to trust. I sent Nate a note asking for an article on the differences between the May Gallup poll on DADT, showing 58 percent Republican support for open service, and only 26 percent in this Daily Kos poll. Why why the difference in response? Population sample? Just thought it was interesting, and confusing for me (the uninitiated, independent voter).
The problem is, I think, is the lack of a comparison group. As above if you flipped the question around and asked of reigstered Democrats, don't you think you would get similarly uniform opinion?
The other is selection bias. I am fisclaly conservative and socially liberal (as are most of my friends), and out of necessity, I usually vote Republican, and I can't think of one single, solitry person that I know personally, who is of the "birther" persuasion. I would imagine that these people are about as common as those who truly believe that Bush/Cheney actively conspired to bring about 9/11.
I think the analysis that all Republicans are largely conservative, while many Independents and some Democrats are largely conservative is the reason why the Democrat base is smaller and less cohesive.
I think the wingnuts on both sides actively hurt their own party. Nomination processes often rest on who adheres the most to their Party's hardest line, and then they spend the rest of the campaign trying to convince the public that they are centrists. Only rarely will registered Dems and Repubs bow to reality, hold their nose and vote for someone who deviates significantly from the party line. Scott Brown is a perfect example: a moderate pro-choice, pro-gay marriage Republican became the toast of the GOP.
Perhaps the GOP's unity of thought has more to do with having a polarizing figure to rally against (PBO), just as ocurred with GWB?
And, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, the persistent line of thinking that drives you all to see the GOP and it's supporters as sheep who only respond to jingoistic lies and distortions, since they couldn't possibly have any real thougthful opposition to the many initiatives of this President and Congress will be your downfall.
Denying the reality that people were scared and the President's and COngress' actions since last yera have them crapping in their pants for rock solid and verifiable reasons will simply causes an even greater swing back to the right, which is just as bad as the burrent swing to the left.
I'm not sure the data supports this "national unity" idea. Looking through the data we see variations of maybe 10% across the groups when the mean is at maybe 25%. For example, look at the amnesty for illegals, it sits at maybe 22.5% in the South put 32.5% in the North. That's a 50% increase in likely hood to support something based on a geographic difference. A similar, but smaller trend is between Men and Women and 18-29 vs. 60+.
You've done a fairly common trick, intentionally or not, used to obscure differences. You're showing the bar charts all the way down to zero. If for example you set the bar chart range from 30% to 55% in the sex education graph, the differences are going to stand out much more than they currently do. Looking at that one, we see maybe a 38% support for sex education in 60+, but 46% in 18-29. We again see about a 10% difference between North and South.
In fact, this 10% difference between 19-29 vs. 60+ and North vs. South seems to hold pretty much everywhere, and the men vs. women difference is also in there. The RELATIVE differences can be as large as about 50%. Plus, we have no concept of the confidence intervals around these percentages. If the intervals are +/- 10% that basically washes out all these difference, and suggests the poll is crap, but if the CI is +/- 2%?
Then, your final point is to the marketablity of Rebs vs. Dems nationally to diverse or homogenous groups, but alas, where is your data on Dems? What if Dem differences are actually smaller?
Very shotty work here Nate. I know you like Democrats and all, and that's fine, but I expect you to analyze data better than this.
From the first 3 crosstabs, here's what we learned:
60% of the Republicans are idiots. 40% are party hacks. 35% are completely insane.
This is the group we're dealing with. They are simply not worthy of being treated seriously. Not to say they can't do a lot of damage, but you can't negotiate with them; it's physically impossible. All we can do is try to clean up their messes as best we can, but to give them any sort of input is just not worthwhile.
Great point, but you fail to ask the major question: why?
The liberal / democrat propaganda machine is broken. Maybe Plouffe can bring it back to full roar. But the GOP propaganda machine is working perfectly. Through whatever system, Karl Rove, Roger Ailes, Newt Gingrich, Bill OReilly all spit the same message, unquesioned on their networks.
The lack of diversity of opinion mirrors the lack of diversity of opinion in the media they consume. Talking points, without CBO estimates, are just unicorns, but somehow the GOP has got a working unicorn factory. Everyone gets the Ikea talking point, and we don't have to worry about Gibbs or Sebelius or Obama making any mistakes due to actual thought! Better message control and a better message make a better party.
Dems post-Plouffe have been adrift.
The differences may be small, but the pattern is very consistent. On every single question:
Men show somewhat more support for the regressive position than women;
Whites more than nonwhites;
The South more than the Northeast, with the West and Midwest somewhere in between.
This is, incidentally, the same pattern that holds among the general populace. Only within the microcosm of Republicans, the differences are far, far less pronounced. But they're there.
Lehman is on the mark here. The reality is one that is quite simple: Nearly all Republicans consider themselves conservative or center-right.
This has always been the case. Even in landslide GOP elections you've had Democrats leading or at least tied in self-identification by voters. Because they have a broader coalition, Democrats are always a threat to make huge gains when they are the out party and the party in power is slipping in popularity. But also because they have a broader coalition, Democrats must run more moderate or even center-right candidates than Republicans must run moderates or center-left candidates to win seats. This invariably leads to a more fractious governing majority for Democrats when they are in power. When the GOP is in power, they are in just as much absolute lockstep as they are when they are in the minority.
This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. This has always been the political reality since the realignment during the Nixon years.
Oh and despite that reality, I don't trust the Kos poll for one second. The poll was conducted for the expressed reason to get data that backs up his quite literally insane arguments in "American Taliban." Research 2000 has proved to have a far stronger Dem house effect than Rasmussen has a GOP house effect in the last several years. Given those two factors, I can't take a poll like this seriously.
It makes sense for non-white Republicans to be less ideological about issues of race. In any event, race is a more salient marker of difference than party affiliation. Race (or, more accurately, what it means to belong to a particular race -- fashion, manners of speech, etc.) is much more likely to be determined by outside forces, as people are assumed to be a stereotypical member of their race.
My question (and perhaps it's just a reflection of my ignorance of the polling world in general) is: What's the universe being examined here? More precisely, what does "self-identified Republican" mean? Were they selected from voter registration lists across the country, from people who said "Republican" when asked their party affiliation at the start of a phone call? What group is this a sample of?
Sorry if this is some standard industry-wide procedure that everyone else already knows.
Lehman-
There is a MASSIVE difference between thinking Obama was born in Kenya, and thinking Bush committed the greatest act of treason in world history for which he should be executed.
Montreme (nice moniker by the way):
Liberals always consider themselves smarter. That comment means a hell of a lot less comming from a self identified liberal. It is the same when you view things from your own end of any spectrum. People on the left view Obama as centrist because his policies haven't been liberal enough from their point of view. People on the right consider him to be slightly less Lefty than your average communist. And, since the majority of American reside in the center (or center right), Obama, lately, has been too liberal for them.
The Thing that cracks me up about liberals or progressives is that they always view themselves as the only intelligent ones. Any one who disagrees MUST not be thinking about the issues, MUST be being lied to, or MUST be some mixture of racist/homophobe/sexist/troglodyte/corporate shill. When one STARTS with that perspective, there is no chance of objective thought.
The idea that runs rampant through this blog and comments is that the Democrats have all these great ideas and a mandates for progressive change, and are really looking for bipartisanship, but those wily evil Republicans (left for dead 14 months ago) are so greedy and powerful (or stupid and brainwashed)that they block any good-hearted plan, without having any of their own.
The reality is that they are mostly out for their own self interest, and if Obama was interested in being a really good one-term president rather than a mediocre 2 term president, there would already be a health care reform bill passed and signed into law because he would have taken the lead and not allowed those selfish, self-interested me-monkey in COngress to dither and argue for so long, and he would have insisted on including some GOP ideas such as tort reform to forge a truly bipartisan bill. But he didn't. He hung back while Pelosi and Reid flipped the GOP the bird and kept saying "They don't agree with us, THEY"RE not being bipartisan."
They are all out for #1. They all bow to the constituents that give them the most money. They are all interested in their next election. The simple fact is that people don't mind it when these jackasses are on their side, being bought by lobbyists who represent their interests, and are supported by news networks with whom they agree.
Anyone disagree?
Brian,
Your comment, in it's silly, nonsensical inanity, proved my point quite nicely.
I thank you.
(you obviously don't understand the concept of irony, or you would have reconsidered your comment).
Nate says that the primary voters in IL made a "suboptimal" decision for the Republican candidate by choosing the conservative rather than the moderate. That again shows profound misunderstanding of what's going on with the electorate, and renders any other analysis from the left moot. Such denial is flabbergasting in the context of what's been going on for the last six months. And I hope it continues.
The conservative candidates are the ones that win, not moderates. They are the ones that draw the independent vote. They are the ones that generate infectous enthusiasm among the electorate, not Dem-lite candidates. The entire battle within the Republican party is to wrest control back to the principles that this country was founded upon and made it great, not the ones that have led it down the path to socialism. That primary is further validation of that battle being won by conservatives.
Lehman, it's very easy to consider yourself "smarter" than the other side when the other side believes blatant falsehoods. That's the thing. We can have arguments about whether certain things are moral or right, and our opinions are both valid. But if you believe absolute, blatant falsehoods like "Obama is not American" or "Obama is a socialist," you've foregone your right to be treated seriously.
I would also extend that to such discredited Republican themes as "Tax cuts for the wealthy help the country" or "Abstinence-only education is good for children." The data are in: these statements are false. That's not a moral or ideological statement.
And that's why you see liberals acting as if they're more intelligent than the right. Whether that's good politically is another issue.
Tree, if Obama isn't a socialist, what would he be doing differently if he were?
"But if you believe absolute, blatant falsehoods like "Obama is not American" or "Obama is a socialist," you've foregone your right to be treated seriously."
So when Obama says something like, "we want to spread the wealth around" or is vavoring further taxation on the rich to provide more services to the public, that means Obama isn't a socialist? There may be things about Obama that make him not a Socialist, but over the whole spectrum he's closer to a socialist than anything else.
>I would also extend that to such discredited Republican themes as "Tax cuts for the wealthy help the country"<
What republicans actually support tax cuts for the rich only? How about we ask dems who got more benefit from the Bush tax cuts, wealthy or poor? Or if they believe the Bush tax cuts decreased tax revenue? Obviously people that believe such falsehoods should be completely ignored.
Well, first of all, there are objective markers of ideology that do not depend on where you are situated in the political spectrum. By those objective markers, it is obvious that Obama is certainly in the middle of American Presidents of the last 100 or so years. Presidents to the left include Wilson, FDR, Johnson, Nixon (I know, but its true), Truman, and maybe Carter. To the right include Coolidge, Hoover, W, and Reagan. About the same would be JFK, HW, Ford, and Clinton.
I think that liberals and progressives think of themselves as the only intelligent ones because conservative ideology is so dependent on nonrational thought processes. That's not entirely fair, but when you look at polls like this one, you can see why. 31% of Republicans think contraceptives should be banned? That is not the result of a rational thought process, a weighing of options. 77% think that the book of Genesis should be taught literally, in PUBLIC SCHOOLS? That is the ultimate abdication of rational thinking and well as exhibition of contempt for our Constitution (especially because most mainline Christians accept evolution, including the Roman Catholic Church).
So, although liberals and progressives are hardly immune from such things, it is far more prevalent in the Republican party. I'm not saying all conservatives are like this, but as you can see (assuming that this poll is anything close to accurate), plenty of them are. How do you engage in a rational discourse about public school curricula when your opponent insists on teaching something with no basis in science? There's no marketplace of ideas when you take so many things on faith and abdicate your reason.
WOW!
Tree,
You obviously haven't seen CNN or read CNN.com (I have heard about this story 3 times since waking up today).
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/02/abstinence.study/index.html?iref=allsearch
Care to retract your bullshit statement? When objective research shows that a conservative idea works, do you reject it? Or do you read it, reassess and maybe learn?
As the father of three, I am stunned that abstinence only education works. It sure as heck didn't with me when i was a kid. I was planning on the hybrid "Don't do it, but if you do, use a condom" approach.
When someone discusses "redistributive change", hires a self described radical communist, and has said on many occassions that he favors a single payer (i.e. socialized) medical system, calling him a socialist isn't that big of a leap. I wouldn't call him that, as he has made alot of money himself and kept it. A real socialist would have redistributed it.
And the whole birther argument is crap, noone with a brain cell believes that. Like I said, it is on par with the 9/11 truthers (of which, obviously, Brian {above) is one).
as you read above, did you notice that the poll came from a biased polling agency and was sponsored by a known biased extreme left wing website? Did that cause any skepticism in the results, or did you read them and simple like them because they agreed with your already formed personal biases?
Your article is shocking: you make no mention, that you "base" is often a small minority of GOP supporters.
Some of you need to check your assumptions about conservatives and their news sources. Several university studies (Ohio State and Bringham Young. for examples) have shown that conservatives get their news from a much wider gamut of sources than do liberals. See http://www.livescience.com/culture/090608-media-message.html
Personally, I visit dailykos,Huffpost, moveon.org, 538, and NYTimes for a liberal perspective almost every day. I also go to FoxNews, Drudge, and American Thinker, and American Spectator for a conservative perspective. How many of you who claim that Republicans are non-thinking robots challenge yourself to similarly diverse viewpoints?
Wally: I don't think you understand the term socialism, which is fair enough because the conservative media (by which I mean most of it, of course) has not helped. Socialism means that one advocates that capital, labor, production, land, etc. are all owned by the community as a whole. This means that private property is severely curtailed or eliminated altogether. Private companies do not exist. Everyone works for the community/government.
Obviously, everyone knows that Obama has suggested no such thing. As a typical US Democrat, he is a centrist.
As for that abstinence-only study, it is 1)the only one to suggest that abstinence-only actually works, 2) limited to African American students in the Northeast between grades 6-9, 3) refuses to moralize about sex, 4) suggests waiting until you are ready, not until marriage, 5) promotes condom use, and 6) does not purport to speak to pregnancy or STD levels at all, which are the main issues raised in relation to abstinence-only education.
This article is meaningless. There aren't very many people left who are willing to identify themselves as Republicans. There are, however, lots of people (looks like a majority) who are willing to vote GOP when presented with the Democrat alternative.
The lesson here is that straight (absolute) up and down positions on issues isn't telling us anything.
What is needed is a RELATIVE question. "How important is agreement on position x if it means disagreement on position y?"
I'm sure all the NE social conservatives who voted for Scott Brown had no issue with his fairly liberal views on abortion and gay marriage because of how compelling the "41st vote" thing was (both for HCR and "balanced government" overall).
Let's go step by step Richard. First I love how you say "conservative ideology is so dependent on nonrational thought processes" and then immediately follow up with "that's not entirely fair." You qualify the belief that you truly hold in order to make it sound more even-handed and thus, more accurate. But leaving aside your less than opaque attacks on conservativsm, let's look at what you've said about this poll. And again, I don't really take this poll seriously since it was conducted not to simply collect data but to prove a point.
31% of Republicans allegedly think contraceptives should be banned. That's just absurd on its face since a slew of other studies have shown that around 90% of the populace uses or has used some form of artificial birth control. But let's say then that there is a statistically relevant group that believes such birth control should be banned. Maybe it's because they don't like the abortificent properties of some forms of the pill. Maybe it's because they don't like condoms in high school. It could be any umber of reasons that don't show up in this poll because it's too broad. That sounds to me like a rational thougt process. Personally, as a devout Catholic, I don't care for artificial birth control. I'd want those forms that have abortificient properties banned because I believe they kill living human beings but as far as other methods, well, like pornography or even prostitution, I think that's up to an individual's morality and not for the state.
As for arguing that Genesis should be taught literally, I can't say I agree with such sentiment. However, I can tell you that it's not an "abdication of rational thinking" but more an abdication of parenting which people of all political views are guilty. Individuals want schools and society to reflect their values. This is true for liberals too; just look at how civil marriage has been redefined on the left as a "right" as opposed to a privilege of the state just like driver's licenses. So it appears that many conservatives are making the RATIONAL DECISION that they want their schools to teach their kids the same things they believe. I'm not saying it's scientifically accurate, but I'm saying it does come from the same place as liberals come from when they advocate for gay marriage; they want society to reflect what they believe. And that's a perfectly rational decision.
Lehman:
Thanks for engaging, and thanks for the compliment on my screen name.
I didn't mean to say (or imply) that there were no intelligent conservatives. On the contrary, I find reading George Will, Rod Dreher, and Kathleen Parker interesting, stimulating, and fun.
What I meant to say, and I must not have said it well, is that those smart-as-a-whip conservative writers have been marginalized by the Know-Nothing Wing of the Republican Party.
If you asked Will, Dreher and Parker (or Lehman, PeteKent and Bart DePalma) the same set of questions, I think you'd get a diversity of answers.
I believe that was Nate's original point.
Roffle,
Well put.
Wally -- of course the Bush tax cuts reduced tax revenue. And, across the board tax cuts actually INCREASE the tax burden on the middle class. The percentage of the tax burden that needs to be covered by the middle class actually goes UP when there's an across the board tax cut. In the short term, people in the middle class get pennies while the rich get dollars. In the long term, the percentage of the debt that has to be covered from middle class tax revenue actually goes up. So, if you want to worry about the redistribution of wealth -- that's the one to worry about.
Nate says that the primary voters in IL made a "suboptimal" decision for the Republican candidate by choosing the conservative rather than the moderate. That again shows profound misunderstanding of what's going on with the electorate, and renders any other analysis from the left moot. Such denial is flabbergasting in the context of what's been going on for the last six months. And I hope it continues.
Voters tend to care more about personality than about specific policy.
The evidence is in the White House.
Oh and Richard, you know as well as I do when those on the right cry "socialism," they don't mean it in the sense of its true definition.
Just like the Soviet Union wasn't really communist, neither are parts of Europe truly socialist. But they have many pieces of socialism ingrained in their welfare societies that we as conservatives do not want to emulate in this country.
As an unrelated aside, I'd like to thank Nate for signing the Demand Question Time petition right off the bat. The fact that the DQT site is down to expand bandwidth says something about the popularity of this idea across the political spectrum.
Well, Richard, Obama's policies all follow your metric in the direction of socialism. Government takeover of GM. Trying to exert more influence over the business policies of the financial industry. Stimulus money targeted primarily at government entities. Tax policies that punish productivity. And, of course, his stated support for single-payor health care.
Just because he's advocating creeping socialism instead of transformative socialism doesn't mean he's not a socialist.
By those objective markers, it is obvious that Obama is certainly in the middle of American Presidents of the last 100 or so years.
Given how (I hope) he's only 25% through his term, this is not obvious at all.
He has governed, in his first year, as a 'centrist'. So did George W.
First of all, what I meant was that I don't think its fair to think you're smarter than someone else just because they use so many nonrational thought processes.
You've redefined rational decisionmaking. How is teaching nonscience in science class rational? What is the BASIS for this belief? It is a nonrational, "appeal to authority" argument. Same thing with your ridiculous arguments on contraceptives. Nice try, though, but wanting condoms out of high schools does not rationally result in a BAN on contraceptives. That is, again, the result of a nonrational thought process.
Your attempt to explain gay marriage as a right has also failed. The argument is not that there is some God-given right to haev the state recognize marriages, but that should the state engage in such recognition, they must recognize gay marriage as well. Argue with that if you want, but don't attempt to oversimplify or create a straw man. And the comparison with teaching gay marriage, if such things actually existed, is ridiculous as well. They are making the irrational decision to include nonscientific religion in science class because of their faith. That is not a rational decision. Teaching that there are homosexual couples in the world, in social studies class, is merely a reflection of reality.
Really the most shocking item in this poll is that only 89% of Republicans are white.
Lehman, I won't speak for brian but isn't it possible that the crime to which he referred was Bush starting a war with a non-threatening sovereign nation based on pretenses known to be false?
If he is indeed talking trutherism, then that is almost as inaccurate as birtherism, but it's important to note that this isn't the only way to read his statement. Could be just hyperbole (or sarcasm for that matter).
That said, I would imagine very very few liberals believe that Boy George should be executed--we tend to think that the powerful arm of the state should not have the power to kill people.
Monotreme,
You may have a point there. My personal favorite is Krauthammer.
Ruth,
Wait a minute, getting a tax cut, even a small one places more of a tax burden on the middle class? On what planet does giving the government less of your money in taxes cost you more money in taxes? You may mean that the percentage that they pay relative to the whole goes up, but that's just because those on the lower end of the income spectrum pay sucha small percentage of the taxes collected by the government.
Any way you slice it, a tax cut means you pay less in taxes.
And if I were interested in calling those currently in power names that reflect ideological bent, it truly isn't socialism, but more like "Animal Farm" in which the very powerful make the decisions regarding who sacrifices, what is allowed and who gets certain services, all the while not being subject to those same decrees.
The best example of this was the amendment that proposed making members of Congress subject to whatever health care system they proposed in their bill. It never had a chance... because "Four legs good, two legs BETTER!"
@ Lehman
If you are truly a "fiscal conservative", then why do you "out of necessity usually vote Republican?
You do know and understand that, of the $12 trillion in current US national debt, since 1981 $10 TRILLION was added UNDER REPUBLICAN Presidents, don't you? And that only under a democratic President did the country actually produce budget surpluses?
Do you see the contradiction?
As your post are quite good with excellent points, I'm curious as to why someone with your smarts seems to buy the lie of the party that plays three card monty with our taxes.
But the middle class tends to need and utilize more public services than do the super-rich--college grants and loans, medicare funding, public schools, the transportation infrastructure, guaranteed loans, etc.
When you throw them pennies in tax cuts and slash programs that force them to spend dollars, they are not better off.
"...more like "Animal Farm" in which the very powerful make the decisions regarding who sacrifices, what is allowed and who gets certain services..."
When you say things like that, why does it surprise you that so few of us believe there are many rational conservatives left?
Wally said:
"You've done a fairly common trick, intentionally or not, used to obscure differences. You're showing the bar charts all the way down to zero."
No, the trick is to not show a chart all the way to zero, thereby magnifying differences. You can show truncated bars when base is, say, in the millions, and the differences are in thousands; but for these numbers this is the way to do it- especially if you want to comment (honestly) on the homogeneity (or lack of).
Ever read Tufte?
All Republicans are equally ignorant no matter what their background.
I would add that some are more ignorant than others, but it will show up in ideology the Teabaggers vs the Corporate clones.
That's more than enough division to destroy your premise that they will have some sort of uniting message.
Yo Jacob-
You basically accuse Bush of treason. Starting wars for his own profit/fame. I consider treason an executable offense.
I wouldn't claim any president we ever had was treasonous. Accusing someone of lying about banging an intern or faking a birth certificate is nowhere near as serious.
Richard,
"Socialism means that one advocates that capital, labor, production, land, etc. are all owned by the community as a whole. This means that private property is severely curtailed or eliminated altogether. Private companies do not exist. Everyone works for the community/government."
While Obama hasn't advocated (at least publically) for our entire nation to go socialized, he's so far favored socialized medicine. Effectively bought GM/chrystler and AIG. Favors increased government involvement in banking, including socializing college loans. He's definately pushing a government run state here. While he hasn't included everything, he's chipping away at some very large sectors of our economy (banking, autos and health care). This is not a centralist. A centralist doesn't favor a single payer system. That's a socialist policy, like it or not, and a socialist policy in a huge sector of our economy. Which again leads me toward believing Obama is more socialist than any other single term we could use to describe his political ideology. So if I was given a choice between say, socialist, communist, liberal, centrists, conservative or libertarian, I'd be fairly split between liberal and socialist. Further, in no way shape or form is this question pinned down to fact. Pretty much no one besided BO himself is going to know his exact political beliefs on everything. Like many things there is a range of reasonable answers. Suggesting he's Hitler or Stalin is not in that range and would be a much better indicator of someone's rationality than answering socialist.
Good lord. "American Taliban"? And this person is complaining about the *GOP* seeing too much in the opposition?
Anyone who uses the term "American Taliban" has as much credit to me as someone calling liberals "libtards", or "Dimocraps".
Wally,
Yes yes I know the conservative tag line now is that we should have let the banks and auto industry collapse, but not doing so isn't socialism. And c'mon if he had let those sectors collapse, you guys would be going after him for doing nothing about the economy (err even more so).
Nor has Obama ever proposed socialized medicine, nor even government-sponsored insurance (not the same thing BTW). He has even stated explicitly many times that he does not favor single payer health care for the US, but noted (accurately) that it's a very effective system.
In fact in most of the world, centrists and even conservatives often favor government-run HC systems.
So as to a defining term, how about institutionalist incrementalist progressive, or center-left practicalist?
BSM,
"No, the trick is to not show a chart all the way to zero, thereby magnifying differences. You can show truncated bars when base is, say, in the millions, and the differences are in thousands; but for these numbers this is the way to do it- especially if you want to comment (honestly) on the homogeneity (or lack of)."
No, back at you. What you need to do is orginize your chart to acruately illustrate the differences. If the differences are in 1-10% range the appears of those difference is going to magnified if the absolute range is between say 10-20% vs. 80-90%. Thus, you want to stay consistant. Notice on those graphs the differences in the socialists question look much more homogenious than the birth place question. Yet each graph has a similar range in differences between percentages.
What would be most ideal is the inclusion of error bars to scale the responses for us. Thus this whole issue would be mostly moot. Looking at these graphs I have no concept of what is a significant difference. While the average might be 26% (which I of course have to estimate because the gridding is too large, and the error in my estimate is probably another 1-2% beyond the error in measurement itself) I don't know if 18% (again an estimate) is really different from the average or not, much less between a bar on the other side of the chart in a similar possition. Thus, we'd further need some sort of markings between groups to signify significant difference. This can get ugly in large graphs such as these. Which is basically why you don't make graphs this large. Stick to comparing Men/Women in one, then ages in another, locations in the next, etc. It might get tire some, but its far more effective.
If this article where presented in a mid-level statistics class, it would be used as an example of what NOT to do and what will get you an F.
Nate,
The numbers are very interesting. A friend of mine and I are both a little shocked at the incredibly low support among this sample for gay marriage, federal benefits, and especially allowing gays to teach in public schools.
We've seen a lot of polls with decently high - 20s and 30s - support for civil unions among Republicans. I find it hard to believe that less than 10% of self-identified Republicans support allowing openly gay teachers to teach in public schools. Almost to the point of implausibility.
The methodology seems solid - random digit dialing nation-wide, 2000 respondents, and straight-forward questions. Maybe the "self-identified Republican" screen moved the results?
Rudy said...
"Tree, if Obama isn't a socialist, what would he be doing differently if he were?"
Let's see, maybe pushing for a British-style government health care system, nationalizing the banks, seizing private investment, pushing to put schools under uniform federal control, advocating publicly-financed elections, implementing a carbon tax or seizing companies that don't meet that standard, advocating the creation of a universal welfare system for those not making a living wage, hiring by the government to the point of full employment, and that's just off the top of my head.
A fair question. I cheered on Bill Clinton when he balanced the budget, at a time when others were killing him for the Lewinsky thing. I also turned on Bush when he announced his first tax cuts, not because I think tax cuts are bad, but because they weren't balanced by spending cuts.
A quick check of wikipedia shows that over the past 48 congresses, the Democrats were in power in both houses 30 times. Before you go praising Clinton on balancing the budget, remember that those budgets were the result of compromise and negotiaions with, and passed by a GOP controlled Congress. Before you go blaming aevery dime in the red on GOP presidents remember that while it is the president hat sets the agenda, he doesn't write laws or pass them. So those deficits really were a group effort, no?
And, as bad as GWB was (and before last year I would have said he was the worst ever, fiscally) President Obama is worse. Granted, he was handed a big pile of shit while standing in a deep hole, but he managed to make the pile of shit bigger and the hole became deeper.
It is more of a compromise than anything else. In the realm of one party that spends alot while saying they will spend alot, and another party that spends alot and pays at least lip service to spending less, I have to go with the one that represents some other values I have.
Ruth,
"of course the Bush tax cuts reduced tax revenue."
They actually increased tax revenue, look it up. And your use of "of course" makes me wonder if you think any tax cut is always going to reduce tax revenue. That certainly isn't true. And by the logic of some on this board, we should just ignore you.
"The percentage of the tax burden that needs to be covered by the middle class actually goes UP when there's an across the board tax cut."
Well, you better define "middle class," but yes it did go up relative to the total income tax burden, but only because the group not paying any taxes at all got bigger, not because the burden on the rich got small. The burden on the rich actually got a lot bigger.
"So, if you want to worry about the redistribution of wealth -- that's the one to worry about."
Yes, any system of marginal tax rates is wealth redistribution.
"The real point is that there are no liberals in the GOP, and lots of conservatives in the Democratic party. It has been ever thus. Ergo, conservative country."
This is simply not true. The Republican party was once home to many social liberals who were more conservative economically. Elected officials included senators Edward Brooke, Clifford Case, Mark Hatfield, Jacob Javits, and Charles Percy. The civil rights legislation of the 60s would not have passed without the support of men like these and their colleagues. Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy initiated a shift toward social conservatism and Ronald Reagan and the Moral Majority accelerated it. But it hasn't always been this way.
"He's definately pushing a government run state here."
Wally, first of all, every country is government run except those few like Somalia. I can't imagine you advocate that.
Government is very necessary and valuable. If you go back to the beginning of civilization, societies flourished because of a central government which supported agriculture and technology advancements. We've come a long way since then, but we'd be nothing without our government running things.
The problem is that things are run so inefficiently. I worked in government for years, and after moving to private industry, it's so obvious to me what a joke it is how our tax dollars are wasted, and many gov't employees even laugh about how they're able to waste money for producing nothing.
I think the key is outsourcing most gov't positions but there are certain things like national and local security, education, and health care that no sane person can argue any American has more of a right to than another. Those may be socialist policies, but they're good policies. Almost every other industrialized country in the world has healthier and better educated citizens and through their taxes, they pay less money for it than we do through our premiums. What is wrong with adopting a policy that will save money AND make people healthier? This isn't even open to debate. The numbers are there.
On one end of the spectrum is the US with our mostly private insurance, we pay a staggering amount for our health care with MUCH worse results. On the other end are the "socialist" countries with healthier citizens at less of a cost and much less of a hassle. Sometimes they have to wait, but sometimes I've had to wait here too. On health care, republicans are wrong. Democrats just aren't quite as wrong.
Excellent point K.
It used to be that progressives were an outside force battling the institutions of both parties, and while they eventually gained more of a foothold in the Democratic Party, progressives were a force in Republican circles from the days of Fightin' Bob La Follette up until 1980 or so.
The defeats of people like Case and Javits was ultimately the death-knell of that ideology, but there have been progressive Republicans in high office as recently as Chaffee in 2006.
"As the father of three, I am stunned that abstinence only education works. It sure as heck didn't with me when i was a kid. I was planning on the hybrid "Don't do it, but if you do, use a condom" approach."
I would stick to that approach. Outside of Focus on the Family, no one claims that abstinence-only works. Even the authors of the study in question warn that it is one study and that no conclusions should be drawn in the absence if further research.
On the charts:
It's called "groupthink". Considered everywhere else as a negative thing. Just like any process without a feedback system. An engine with no governor.
On the three card monty, run up terrible debt party:
Fool me once (Reagan), shame on you.
Fool me twice (BushII), shame on me.
Fool me three times (current GOP pols), those people in those charts!
Jacob,
"Yes yes I know the conservative tag line now is that we should have let the banks and auto industry collapse, but not doing so isn't socialism. And c'mon if he had let those sectors collapse, you guys would be going after him for doing nothing about the economy (err even more so)."
The autos can fail and I wouldn't give two shits. The banking system is not as simple as far as justifying TARP, but Obama keeps attempting to gain more control even though disaster has been avoided.
"Nor has Obama ever proposed socialized medicine"
Sure he has. A one payer system is socialized medice.
"nor even government-sponsored insurance"
Jesus, what do you think co-ops would be?
"He has even stated explicitly many times that he does not favor single payer health care for the US, but noted (accurately) that it's a very effective system."
“If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system,” said then-Senator Obama.
So he obviously favors, at least ideologically, a single payer system. Any moves away from a strict single payer system, to me, are just done in effort to get some single payer-like passed.
"So as to a defining term, how about institutionalist incrementalist progressive, or center-left practicalist?"
I'm sure we could come up with a handful of more approate ideological discriptions of his beliefs, but I "socailist" is well diserved simple term for him.
You know while I would like to think myself an independent I do lean left. My three best friends are seriously conservative. We can coexist because we all see what is happening to our system to its detriment. Far from seeing this poll as an outlier I'm afraid it reflects the erosive effects of Karl Rove type divide and conquer politics. I fear that right now there are too many people in this country that think because I am a left leaning Indy that I am some how less of an American (I have been told as much) but I have a DD-214 showing 30+ years of service and they don't know what a DD-214 is.
While I do not buy into the conservatives are dumb idea (my dad was right conservative and he was one smart man) my friends are any thing but dumb as their careers would attest but even they have not taken the time to unwind some of the disinformation we are inundated with. I'm not sure the Democrats can ever counter the targeted program to misinform the American public because it is so endemic. One can call a liar a liar but if they see no remorse for the act and continue to spread the same lie or lies and the media never calls them on it then this is and will only get worse to the detriment of all of us. I don't expect even an acknolegement of this post but we in this country have a serious issue with our air waves and media being used for purposes never intended. When does free speech give one the right to lie with impunity? I do not know the answer but it worries me.
Jeff,
"Wally, first of all, every country is government run except those few like Somalia. I can't imagine you advocate that."
Does changing it to "an increasingly government run state" work for you? But no, I would say the government runs the country, they simply regulate certain actions with in it. Now, lets see if you have a larger argument to make, or if you just want to pick one line and attach it out of context and ignoring the actual points being made...
"The problem is that things are run so inefficiently. I worked in government for years, and after moving to private industry, it's so obvious to me what a joke it is how our tax dollars are wasted, and many gov't employees even laugh about how they're able to waste money for producing nothing."
Agree, so why do we want to give them more control?
"I think the key is outsourcing most gov't positions but there are certain things like national and local security, education, and health care that no sane person can argue any American has more of a right to than another."
Health care is not a right. If you're going to try and argue that, you might as well save your breath, or key strokes.
"Almost every other industrialized country in the world has healthier and better educated citizens and through their taxes, they pay less money for it than we do through our premiums."
This is lie (the health care part). We have the best medical system in the world and we pay for it.
"What is wrong with adopting a policy that will save money AND make people healthier?"
Uh, because what you advocate adopting won't actually do either?
"On one end of the spectrum is the US with our mostly private insurance, we pay a staggering amount for our health care with MUCH worse results."
You've been brain washed her Jeff. We have the best medical procedure out comes in the world. Many of the stistics you're likely going on speak more to our wreckless driving, consumption of unhealthy foods (largely from eating high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar thanks to government taxes/handouts), and our recording of what is a live birth compared to how other countries report it than to our actual health care system.
" On health care, republicans are wrong. Democrats just aren't quite as wrong."
Your argument is supported by lies, so I don't think I need to point out that your conclusion is wrong. Also, we were talking about ideology of Obama, you've diverted us on a red herring here. Like I could predict from your first two sentences, you actually didn't have anything to say about my argument. You just used it to get yourself up on your soapbox blither on about health care.
Wally, here's the rest of that quote:
"But we’ve got all these legacy systems in place, and managing the transition, as well as adjusting the culture to a different system, would be difficult to pull off. So we may need a system that’s not so disruptive that people feel like suddenly what they’ve known for most of their lives is thrown by the wayside."
That's an institutionalist sentiment, and about as far away from advocating "socialism" as one could get. So yeah, Obama noted that single-payer (not socialized) health care systems work very well. Well no shit, everyone has noticed that. But he hasn't advocated implementing one, nor is he trying to do so.
And maybe you wouldn't care if the auto industry collapsed, but most conservatives screeching and whining about socialism would blame him for it, just as they blame him for every other real and imagined problem that he inherited.
But ultimately "socialist" would only be deserved if Obama were implementing or advocating for socialist policies. As he is not doing so, socialism is not at all a good fit for his ideology.
I would like to see this poll broken down by rural/urban/suburban. The rural vote in the U.S. is around 21%, and I bet it would closely align with a lot of the responses that were in the 30 percentile.
How messed up is our country, and the public perception and the "debate" in our country, that 63% of Republicans think Obama is a "socialist." He has taken maybe some bad traits of staunch socialism (which is of course what far more accurately defines the far right in this country) -- namely an increase in executive power over individuals and liberties when it comes to dealing with terrrsm and by definition perceived terrsm, but that again is associated in this country with the same far right that is always accusing him, angrily, of being a socialist!
How did our country get so messed up? Instead of just blaming it all on Republicans, what else might have contributed to this state of ignorance and misinformation -- see for example the "debate" on something as basic as climate science.
Could it have something to do with the way Democrats frame and approach issues?
Could it have something to do with the (very correctable) Donkeyness of the Democratic Party?
Could it be the almost politico tragi-comedy applications of the very same presumptions that lead to the above described tendencies, when it comes to assessing the very same question that I posited at the outset -- namely, why the country and the debate are what they are today?
Wally -- as to whether the Bush tax cuts increased tax revenue, factcheck.org disagrees with you. Here's what they say in a post called Supply-side Spin: "Sen. John McCain has said President Bush's tax cuts have increased federal revenues. But revenues would have been even higher without them." The URL is http://www.factcheck.org/taxes/supply-side_spin.html
Jacob, almost all of the socialist measures you list off the top of your head are, in fact, on the Obama agenda, but not to the extremes you cite. It's incrementalism, not transformational socialism.
DailyKos/R2000 - giggle/snort. This data is worthless without similar polling data for Democrats with equally provocative and leading questions.
Nate - You do yourself a real disservice to linking to a blog post which leads with "As I've mentioned before, I'm putting the finishing touches on my new book, American Taliban, which catalogues the ways in which modern-day conservatives share the same agenda as radical Jihadists in the Islamic world."
The rest of this thread should provide some zesty afternoon reading however.
"Those may be socialist policies, but they're good policies."
To me, this is the key point. If it's a good policy, what difference does it make whether it's socialist or not? Socialism is not a moral evil like Naziism or Stalinism. Actually, any functioning state has socialist elements. The most purely socialist institution in the United States is the military, and I don't hear conservatives calling for that to be dismantled. (Although Cheney/Bush came frighteningly close to setting up a private army with Blackwater.)
Ruth,
Simply put, tax cuts are supposed to stimulate the economy, causing wealth genration and income growth. So, by lowering tax rates, economy stimulated, people made more money so, that while the tax RATES were lower, the tax REVENUES were higher. While it is logical to assume that if you left the tax rates the same, tax revenues would have been even higher, to do so ignores the cause-effect relationship between the tax cuts and increased revenues.
Ruth,
That's assuming that the productivity increase from the economy would have stayed the same. Factcheck.org is not an authority here. Those articles are writen by political science majors and the like. They offer some perspective on relatively simple issues, but on something like this they are guessing. And they even admit as much, "It’s unclear how much of the growth can be attributed to the tax cuts."
They also make this relatively idiotic claim: "In fact, the last half-dozen years have shown us that we can't have both lower taxes and fatter government coffers."
So in order to increase these government coffers we can just always increase taxes? That's BS. If we had 100% tax rate, no one would work, so the government would make zero money (side note: ultimately this is why socialism and communism fail). While its trendy amoung the liberals to ridicule the Laffer curve, it should be pretty obvious some curve exists, and if we actually do the research the evidence suggests we are still on the high side of tax rates to optimize tax revenue.
The leason here is use factcheck.org for checking the truthfulness of simple statements in a speach, but they are not capable of addressing the truthfulness of large complicated questions on the economy or any of the sciences as they sometimes attempt to do.
Nor has Obama ever proposed socialized medicine, nor even government-sponsored insurance (not the same thing BTW). He has even stated explicitly many times that he does not favor single payer health care for the US, but noted (accurately) that it's a very effective system.
http://www.breitbart.tv/obama-in-03-id-like-to-see-a-single-payer-health-care-plan/
A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.”
They took back the White House, the Senate, and the House.
Sorry, he cannot hide from his own words.
That's just it Rudy. On health care, energy reform, financial reform, jobs, economic recovery, etc, Obama is trying to address the problems.
Socialism is different; it involves the government taking over the private sector, or communities doing so. Obama has not done that. Utilizing the state's regulatory powers has always been the approach of non-socialists to addressing serious issues.
So what you're saying essentially is that trying to address problems is socialism, while to avoid socialism, we must destroy the government and hope it all works out.
That's a redefinition of socialism by the way, not an accurate definition, but if that's what socialism meant, then I would be proud to be a socialist.
Yes, and if you're a fat ass--don't feel pressured by all those nutrionists pushing their "abstinence only" food dogma. We know you can't help yourself, so just accept you're fat, take lots of Lipitor for the heart, and get a gastric bypss (which hopefully Obamacare will cover)
"They took back the White House, the Senate, and the House."
Ooh, and yet he's STILL not pushing for anything close to single-payer?
Well don't worry--I'm sure it's just a secret socialist plan that he's working on.
(from a different Jeff than the one listed above)
Nate, this is an interesting poll, but I was wondering if you don't smell something fishy here. A Gallup poll in June here listed support for gays and lesbians serving openly in the military at 58%, much higher than R2K's number even if you push "not sures" into the "yes" category. I don't believe that support for gays in the military has tanked since June after increasing steadily over the past 20 years - why would these polls be so different? And what does that say about R2K's poll?
And don't get me wrong--I wish Obama had pushed for single-payer. But if we're going to get tarred and feathered with the "socialist Marxist hard left" BS for pushing a moderate incrementalist agenda anyway, I would rather we had a real progressive agenda.
Ooh, and yet he's STILL not pushing for anything close to single-payer?
Well don't worry--I'm sure it's just a secret socialist plan that he's working on.
His words aren't that secret.
I have no idea what he pushes for in those internal meetings he has. I have no idea what goes on inside his head. I have no idea what his actual goal for the 'public option' was, but I can easily see how the public 'option' could snowball into something more than an option.
I take him at his word.
Jacob,
"That's an institutionalist sentiment, and about as far away from advocating "socialism" as one could get."
But I'm not concerned with what he is going to try and attempt to pass, I'm concered with his ideology. He may be a socialist, but he knows he can't turn the US socialists over night, so he need to "spoon feed" it to us. To borrow from Khrushchev.
"And maybe you wouldn't care if the auto industry collapsed, but most conservatives screeching and whining about socialism would blame him for it"
Well, again, assigning blame or not is a red herring. Effectively owning GM/chrystler is socialist.
"just as they blame him for every other real and imagined problem that he inherited."
Oh, you mean how Obama blames Bush for things Obama even voted for while in the senate?
"As he is not doing so, socialism is not at all a good fit for his ideology."
I disagree and I have yet to see you produce anything that compels me to rethink my position.
You're right K-
There isn't anything evil about socialism, so why are libs so defensive? Its a legitimite form of policy to be debated.
Its not like ranomly slandering Tea Partiers as rascists....which Jimmy Carter did.
Lehman -- I appreciate your comments and I do understand the concept of dynamics. Can you also appreciate that your conclusion is hypothetical and unproven? For example, factcheck.org considers it to be "Supply-side Spin".
@Jeff - the poll is worthless, except to stimulate conversation between the nutcases on both sides of the political divide. It was commissioned specifically for a tinfoil hat wearing Commie writing a book entitled "American Taliban", purported to "catalog the ways in which modern-day conservatives share the same agenda as radical Jihadists in the Islamic world." Dailykos/R2000 - 'nuff said.
"...Liberals always consider themselves smarter...."
They aren't the only ones...
"As people do better, they start voting like Republicans... unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing." Karl Rove, The New Yorker, February 19 and 26, 2001
Ruth,
Part of an abstract writen by a couple of economists instead of by someone with a B.A. in advertising(?):
We find that statutory corporate tax rates are significantly negatively correlated with cross-sectional differences in average economic growth rates, controlling for various other determinants of economic growth, and other standard tax variables. In fixed-effect regressions, we again find that increases in corporate tax rates lead to lower future growth rates within countries. The coefficient estimates suggest that a cut in the corporate tax rate by ten percentage points will raise the annual growth rate by one to two percentage points.
That's just one of the first things you can find by googling something like "correlation between tax rates and tax revenue."
Ruth,
"of course the Bush tax cuts reduced tax revenue."
They actually increased tax revenue, look it up. And your use of "of course" makes me wonder if you think any tax cut is always going to reduce tax revenue. That certainly isn't true. And by the logic of some on this board, we should just ignore you.
This is the kind of argument that marks someone as not really worth debating. If the economy is growing in nominal dollars (which it almost always is), a tax cut will frequently be followed by an increase in government tax revenue. This hardly means that the tax cut 'raised' revenue. The question is what would tax revenues have done in the absence of a tax cut. It would have gone up, too. And probably by more. The people who believe otherwise are arguing we are on the right hand side of the laffer curve. Which is a position substantiated by nothing more than uninformed faith. All of the evidence suggests that we are not there and, in fact, specific studies suggested that the increased economic activity due to the Bush tax cuts paid for no more than 10% of the cuts, as I recall. Some will challenge this result, calling for the specific study. Well I spend the time to inform myself on these issues, but I don't hold on to old references to refute idiots on the internet five years after the fact. It's not really worth the time. For other interested parties, let me just ask, who do you think should carry the burden of proof on whether tax cuts increase revenue or not in a state with the average tax burden around 20% and the top marginal rate under 40%? It's not a trick question. But really my point is that if you want to have an interesting discussion, you should probably choose participants that aren't trying to argue this point with you. Those that do are pretty much beyond hope and have premises underlying their positions that make engagement futile.
I would further point out that an increase in government revenue and spending can also be an investment in the economy. Conservatives love to ignore these types of things but a program like food assistance to young school kids in poverty directly translates into a more productive workforce in the future. This is the kind of investment the private sector would never engage in both because of the time horizon and the inability for a single private company to capture any of the benefit. It's exactly the sort of domestic discretionary spending that yields substantial long term benefits but conservatives will consistently insist doesn't 'produce' anything. So that's the flip side of the dead weight loss due to taxation argument.
Ruth,
Yes, but can you appreciate that simply repeating what you find on a website does not constitute actual research, and blindly accepting others opinions of what is "truth" and what is "spin" is not objective thought?
Can you also appreciate the people who are taxed at a higher rate have less money to spend? And that having less money to spend (and not being a politician) actually spend less? Which means that goods and services aren't purchased? Which means that companies have less money with which to pay their workers, resulting in either layoffs or pay reductions? And that people making less money, but being taxed at the same rate as was previous results in less tax revenue? ANd how the converse is logical and may be true?
I only took a couple of econ classes in college, but my major, engineering, and my chosen field, medicine, relies quite heavily on logic and cause and effect.
Independent thought... it's faaaaaantastic!
Matt,
"Some will challenge this result, calling for the specific study. Well I spend the time to inform myself on these issues, but I don't hold on to old references to refute idiots on the internet five years after the fact. It's not really worth the time."
That also makes you someone not worth debating. Anyone can make claims of fact, the trick is proving them, or at least giving some good evidence in favor of them.
"For other interested parties, let me just ask, who do you think should carry the burden of proof on whether tax cuts increase revenue or not in a state with the average tax burden around 20% and the top marginal rate under 40%? It's not a trick question. But really my point is that if you want to have an interesting discussion, you should probably choose participants that aren't trying to argue this point with you."
In this situation both parties should be able to bring evidence to the table. I posted one source, I could find others if we actually wish to have a discussion. But if you're just going to sit back and proclaim that you're not going to provide evidence for your case, then you're not really interested in an honest discussion anyway.
"I would further point out that an increase in government revenue and spending can also be an investment in the economy. "
Sure this is true in some cases like educations as you mention, or roads, or a military. But we aren't really discussing that are we?
The groupthink and acceptance of lies that these charts demonstrate the current situation after almost 30 years of GOP strategy.
Back in 88, Lee Atwater, campaign manager for BushI, and Roger Ailes (recognize HIM?)media advisor on the campaign, oversaw one of the nastiest strategies for a presidential campaign since Blaine/Cleveland. I was asked to join the Bush campaign during the primaries in March that year, but since I knew of Atwood, a fellow South Carolinian, from the Tom Turnipseed nastiness, my personal principles would not let me do so.
Rove joined the BushI effort for the 1992 run. Lee had died the year before from a brain tumor. On his deathbed, Lee started issuing apologies for all the nasty stuff he'd ever done. Turnipseed got one. Dukakis got one. Willie Horton got one. Even an old girlfriend got one. America, though, still has to live with what he started. Funny the ironies in life. Lee, Rove and I were born within 5 months of each other. And Lee and Kennedy both laid low by brain tumors (RIP, both men).
Rove was actually fired from the '92 campaign for disseminating lies. But continued his relationship with the Bush family through Bush II.
So for almost 30 years the troika of Ailes, Atwood and Rove have been the heart of the GOP message. Known tricksters and political liars who believed the end justified the means at all costs.
To truth.
To democracy.
To America.
And the gullible STILL believe those misrepresentations.
In spite of the $10 TRILLION in debt the GOP Presidents oversaw.
Wally -- if you don't like factcheck.org for an evaluation of the impact of Bush's tax cuts, then how about groups such as Citizens for Tax Justice, The Center for American Progress, The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, The Economic Policy Institute, and the Tax Policy Center (Urban Institute and Brookings Institution)? They all believe that the Bush tax cuts generated reduced tax revenues. There are more groups that believe this. And, I'm sure you can list groups that believe the opposite.
Political "Wiz":
They are not "misrepresentations". No one can KNOW, for sure, that Obama was born in Hawaii.
Wally:
Keep up the good fight!
Ah and Charles comes in with the reductio ad absurdum. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the other 36% of the Republican Party.
Wally said:
"Notice on those graphs the differences in the socialists question look much more homogenious than the birth place question"
That's because they are more homogeneous on the socialist question, approx. 13% vs 15.5%. However you're comparing the charts to each other, thereby addressing how different/similar Republicans are on different issues. Nate isn't talking about that, he showing that they're quite homogeneous on all the Fox talking-point issues, and terribly so if non-whites are removed.
Re-graphing wouldn't make anything clearer than it is (OTOH a chart for Democrats might, but as has been pointed out, Dems range from Kucinich to B. Lincoln).
Well, Jacob, if Obama allowed the release of his LONG FORM birth certificate, I would be satisfied at least.
Charles-
Noone who was not present can to a 100% certainty that he was born in Hawaii, but thinking people look at evidence-
Like the Health Dept is Hawaii whop says he was born there
Like the two newspaper announcements made the week he was born
Like the documents he released.
For people who think, there is no doubt.
The person who might not be a "natural born" citizen is Jhn McCain, who was born in Panama and not on American soil, as Obama was.
No, Chucky, you wouldn't. That Obama's birth certificate, news announcements, long form review by Republicans, the complete implausibility of the birther scenario, etc have not convinced you guys--if Obama released private information to you personally, you would find a way to not believe it.
BSM:
If "you're comparing the charts to each other" then the percentages on the left side would be the SAME, rather than marking 2% vs. 10% differences.
Jacob:
I just said that I would.
Part I of II:
A thoughtful commenter just above, Mainer, nevertheless on a critical topic takes the conventional path and writes:
" One can call a liar a liar but if they see no remorse for the act and continue to spread the same lie or lies and the media never calls them on it then this is and will only get worse to the detriment of all of us."
See my above comment on presumptions. This ongoing idea that those who "lie" are always actively lying is part of why Democrats always lose the debate control, and the framing battle.
Communication, not disdain or presumption, moves the debate
First, calling it a lie often does nothing, particularly if not first, concomitantly, and repeatedly and convincingly shown. America needs to be communicated with, not simply the base of the Democratic Party as if all of America saw everything the same way. It needs to be shown, voters needs to be lead, suggested, shown, making their own decisions; not told.
Democrats repeatedly think that Republicans are telling people, but they are not listening closely, or, even more importantly, to how those not knee jerk against may be hearing it. Republicans show. If they show with "lies" use those to show the American people and define Republicans to the American people.
When Democrats start to understand that Republicans are not always purposefully lying when they say things that seem misleading or blatantly wrong or illogical, they will begin to be able to see how and why it is that their misleading message resonates with so many and leads to so much misinformation, and thus, how to effectively show this to the same large portion of the electorate that has been mislead.
Democrats have got to stop thinking that everybody knows what they knows, or that they perceive things in the same way.
Democrats presume all of this, that everyone already knows or must be "stupid" or "lying" so are not worth reaching but all of politics is ultimately reaching those who do not yet see it the same way (Republicans get this immensely, Democrats the opposite), but yet when it comes to how voters will act, Democrats tend to do the opposite, because once again they just accede to Republican framing of both parties and all the issues, rather than using it to define their opponents, define themselves, and define and sell the issues.
A classic illustration is health care. One doesn't need to be liberal, or even a democrat, to realize this country needs some sort of sensible health care reform. Yet what do Democrats do? Fear of not being reelected causes them to water down a bill which in many ways not only makes it far worse, but more liberal in the classically stereotypical way that is BAD -- namely, more government mandates, telling people what to do, and government mandates of precisely that which is a big part of the problem in the first place -- namely, for profit, routine coverage health insurance, which has come between doctors and patients, and adds exorbitant costs to the system at every level and to every party.
So what happens. Instead of just communicating and selling their ideas, they get "mad" at Republicans but don't use the reasons why -- presuming it is obvious to everybody when if it was Republicans would lose all support and be looking at more losses in November, not gains -- to then effectively control the debate and define the head in the sand obstructionist misleading Americans time and time again party to the American people. They presume "knowledge" of it irrationally, and yet let their opponents control the debate on it, seemingly "accommodate" to it without really listening to what the (few) real concerns are, actually make the bill far worse and lose themselves votes at the same time.
"Your argument is supported by lies"
Wally, don't call me a liar. I used to live in Germany, and never once did I hear anyone complain about access to any kind of health care. In America, I hear it or deal with it personally on an almost weekly basis.
The difference is, there, insurance executives don't take a huge cut off the top. Patients don't pay extra for that like we do here.
Other countries laugh at our incompetence. Meanwhile they enjoy the same personal luxuries we do AND have better government services. It obviously can be done, but our government needs major reforming. Nepotism is rampant and the unions are too powerful. But that doesn't mean all Americans don't deserve equal access to health care.
Ghost of Henry, Past:
No one who was even present can either, to a 100% certainty, as there have been documented cases of babies switched at birth, assumed identities, etc. For instance, YOU were present at your own birth, but you are not legally competent to testify as to such. Given the questions still pending about Obama's birth, I'm shocked the percentages on that question was not higher.
This is the first of Nate's articles I've read where I've he's flat out wrong. These numbers don't show that there isn't a diversity of opinions within the GOP, they show that the diversity that does exist is unaffected by demographics.
PS I'm beyond progressive.
Lehman -- sorry, but your conclusions are still hypothetical and unproven. Claiming that you have superior logic is not a convincing argument.
@wally
So when Obama says something like, "we want to spread the wealth around" or is vavoring further taxation on the rich to provide more services to the public, that means Obama isn't a socialist?
It's called progressive taxation, Einstein, a concept endorsed by every president, GOP or Dem since 1913, and every civilized country in the world today. Go take a look at the progressive tax rates under Eisenhower Nixon or even Reagan, genius, and then educate yourself on what a socialist is. Just call yourself a dumbass moron spewing slogans about concepts he has no knowledge of and let's move onto some sentient thought here.
Charles said:
"If you're comparing the charts to each other" then the percentages on the left side would be the SAME, rather than marking 2% vs. 10% differences."
Read my post again... I said Nate was not comparing the charts to each other.
Charles
Right. Furthermore, we cannot be 100% certain that any President ever was born in the United States.
Given the questions surrounding Ronald Reagan's birth in Mexico, we certainly don't know for sure that he was born in Illinois.
Politcal Wiz:
Did you just run across that stat? You seem to be using it alot.
No comment about how running up deficits seem to be a group effort by self-interested politicians appeasing consitutents who don't care as long as they get a taste?
I would suggest, if you truly want to make your point (instead of simply repeating the same piece of data and spouting conspiracy theories) is break down the amount of debt by which party voted for it, who was in charge of the Congress when it came into being and who was president. I am sure that the actual info would suprise you and show that it is the result of a remarkable fusion of a deluded electorate, selfish politicans, and a weak press.
Case in point: much has been made about what teh President inherited in terms of record deficits. What is usually ignored are the votes he cast that passed the bills that spent the lions share of the money that he now decries. Also, what is finally getting traction is the complete lack of restraint he is showing in the face of the record deficits. Just pointing out that hypocrisy exists on both sides, and the only side that loses is us (the electorate). Pretending that your side is any better is a goddamn joke.
Blaming it on one party is the same kind of black and white, us-vs-them mentality that allowed the mess in the first place.
BSM:
They are presented in such a fashion so as to "misrepresent" (using your side's 2nd favorite word) the results, regardless of whether Nate is comparing the charts or not. Note that I said "IF . . .".
todji:
Thank you!
Jacob:
Don't call me a liar (there's NEVER been even a single question about Reagan being born in Mexico).
Jeff:
I've never lived in Germany, so I've never once heard any German complain about access to any kind of health care. Therefore, there must be nothing wrong with German health care.
ANd Ruth,
Sorry, but simply saying "Your wrong" doesn't mean anything, either.
I am happy to debate with you, but your parroting points from a website, then giving up and saying "Nyahh." just isn't that fun.
@ Charles
I've never seen YOUR birth certificate. How am I to know you were born in the US?
Since you've never been to the moon, do you still believe it to be green cheese?
I doubt you've ever been to Timbuktu, I suppose you don't believe it exist, either?
On that subject, the state of Hawai'i has had it's representative go on the record stating that the Obama birth certificate is the real deal. The copy has been released for public view.
Which is exactly ONE more than ALL THE OTHER PRESIDENTS' BIRTH CERTIFICATES MADE PUBLIC, COMBINED.
Your and others continued denial of that fact only demonstrate all y'alls ideology and willingness to believe ANYTHING as long as it comports with your prior beliefs.
Jeff,
"Wally, don't call me a liar. I used to live in Germany, and never once did I hear anyone complain about access to any kind of health care. In America, I hear it or deal with it personally on an almost weekly basis."
That's a meaningless anecdote, and of course you failed to adress any of the flaws (lies) I pointed out.
"The difference is, there, insurance executives don't take a huge cut off the top. Patients don't pay extra for that like we do here."
You'd rather pay for governmental inefficiencies?
"Meanwhile they enjoy the same personal luxuries we do AND have better government services."
Maybe, sorta, but to me this just proves our government sucks, it doesn't mean we should give them more power.
"But that doesn't mean all Americans don't deserve equal access to health care."
Again, health care is not a right. You have the right to be able to pay for it just like any other service/product. That's all.
Maybe you were thinking of Mitt ROMNEY's father? Thing is BOTH of his parents were U.S. citizens (unlike Obama's, allegedly).
Oh for fuck's sake, give the whole birther thing (both pro and con) a REST!
Political "Wiz":
You DON'T know that I was born in the U.S. (but I'm not running for President, am I?). And, I don't have to personally go to the moon or Timbuktu to believe they exist / not made of green cheese. What Hawaii released was a (short form) Certification of Live Birth that any foreign-born child of Hawaii residents could have obtained around the same time.
Part II of II (part I is here):
Instead of simply not taking things or knowledge for granted; believing what they believe in; defining their opponents; defining the issue; using their opponents mistakes (repeatedly, at that) to show that they either mislead Americans or don't themselves understand the issue, thereby showing Americans that their opponents right now are the American people's opponents despite their flowery misleading rhetoric because they can't be trusted and don't understand the issues; showing what they believe in; what the real problems are with health care and how to fix them; putting a bill together that does this and most importantly showing this and selling their ideas as to why, what do Democrats do?
None of the above. Instead, run from their beliefs, trying, once again, not to look weak or to fit into some mis-characterized framing of themselves by their opponents (and in the process doing precisely that), and put together a poorly cobbled, industry sell out, doesn't address the root of the problem bill that many to the moderate right even who would have been open to decent reform, can't stand – and for good reason. And making themselves, once again, look weak in the process, and allowing their opponents to define what is going on.
It gets so bad, that once again, we see things like this, and now even this talk of ending the "sadomasochistic" filibuster - even Markos Moulitsas advocated this on TV somewhere, when a filibuster will only work when there is a reason for it or no one similarly stands up to it; the latter can be controlled here. And for the former, if it is a good bill (or any of these things that the "big bad mean" Republicans "threaten" to filibuster) then the former won't apply either.
Threats of filibusters mean little, and filibuster themselves work if the principle is more important to those doing the filibuster. Is that the case? It's largely a moot point, yet Democrats have practically let it control their lives, once again ceding to Republican framing and control, and have gone through all sorts of self defeating machinations.
Yet when it was really time to correctly filibuster earlier in the decade - particularly with respect to hard core ideologue judicial appointments --what happened? Democrats complain that Republicans threatened the "Nuclear option," once again allowing Republicans to bully them, control the Senate and the debate, and as we see here, as a result of precisely this, now begin through Citizens to further control the country.
Democrats have got to stop presuming that everyone is lying or evil or stupid if they don't agree with them, and start looking at why these things may be being said, what it is appealing to, what misinformation or misperception it is touching, and address that, use that, and use these constant mistakes and misrepresentations to define the issues and their opponents.
Similarly, they need to stop allowing their opponents to define them, and they need to show, to illustrate the issues, to stand behind and sell their ideas, and they need to stop presuming that "everyone knows" what they know, stop confusing the Democratic base with America in that regard, and most importantly of all, stop taking so many things for granted.
Nate, you should repost this comment (parts I and II) as a stand alone post.
-Ivan Carter
Lehman:
You KNOW for sure he was born in Hawaii, with 100% certainty? No, then how about you lay off telling us what to debate?
@charles: don't thank me- I think you're crazy. The truth about the birther movement is that the GOP players don't actually believe that Obama's not a citizen or that there is any legal merit to the case- the short form that Hawaii released is all the proof that he legally needs to prove his citizenship. They are just hoping that they long form contains some embarassing piece of information that they can use to embarass Obama. The rest of you who actually believe there are merits to the case are just a bunch of useful idiots.
I mean, please Charles, you are making the sane few conservatives on here look really bad.
Michael,
"It's called progressive taxation, Einstein, a concept endorsed by every president, GOP or Dem since 1913, and every civilized country in the world today."
Progressive taxation is wealth redistribution, wealth redistribution is a socialist policy, then increasing our pregressive taxation system is incremental socialism. Obama favors increasing our progressive taxation so he supports an incremental socialist policy.
There, does that lay it all out there for your simple brain to understand?
@ Lehman
I notice, sir, you do NOT question the validity of the stat.
In case you were asleep in civics class, the President has the power to veto any bill. As such, must take ULTIMATE responsibility.
I agree that Democrat controlled Congress contributed and I challenge you to note how many of those years one or both houses were controlled by GOP.
Neither do I deny that the thing that got BushI voted out was the right that stayed home or went to Perot over his breaking of the "no new taxes" pledge.
BUT AT THE SAME TIME, I give him some of the credit for the surpluses of the Clinton years because he manned up and did the right thing for the budget and America by breaking that pledge.
Charles said:
"Lehman:
You KNOW for sure he was born in Hawaii, with 100% certainty? No, then how about you lay off telling us what to debate?"
Yes, it is quite presumptuous of Lehman to ask you to stop debating irrelevancies, when trafficking in irrelevancies is your raison d'être.
BSM,
"Read my post again... I said Nate was not comparing the charts to each other."
He was claiming there is an homogenious set of beliefs across Republicans, that includes the questions asked. That means all graphs need to show some sort of constant percentage. They don't (or at least he doesn't provide us with enough information to determine if they do), which is why Nate is off base here.
"Relatively" consitantly 52-68% of Repubs believe Obama is a socialists, but only some 16% believe in Palin for president, or 25% in amnesty for illegals.... How does this show Rebups have a uniform belief structure, particularly when differences in polling percentages between groups is often around 50% relative to eachother?
Because, Charles, it is beside the point. If you are pinning your hopes (of what exactly?) on Obama being "unmade" POTUS based on something, fat chance (or rather NO chance). It is a distraction from actual issues, and if you and your tinfoil hat buddies want to shout from the rooftops about it, then you simply become a stereotype upon whom derision is cast and and unfortunate example of just how petty and stupid some people are.
Ordinarily, I am all for laughing at monkeys flinging poo, but in this case, the only ones getting smear with feces are those of us trying to make serious points about things that matter.
All your irrationality does is engender irrational support for the President and his policies, because people say "Well if that wacko is against him, he can't be all bad."
Ivan Carter:
I think that I've been reasonable (above) in saying that I would be personally satisfied if Obama allowed the release of his LONG FORM birth certificate.
Wally, I don't want to put pressure on your "simple brain," but all government economic policies have the effect of redistributing wealth. Reagan's tax policies redistributed wealth from the poor and middle class to the wealthy, Obama's do the opposite. Neither is or was a socialist.
Socialism uses a "command" economy, where the government or communities largely control all enterprise and wealth is allocated to a great degree by the state, rather than just taxed at various levels.
Now you can redefine socialism for yourself to say that everyone in the world to the left of the John Birch society has been a socialist for the last hundred years, but using the commonly understood definitions of socialism, that is simply not the case.
Hope that wasn't too hard for your "simple brain to understand."
Yep, birther discussion hurt the conservative cause. Even Ann Coulter calls birthers crazy
Personally, I don't care if Obama was born on Mars, he got elected fair and square. That doesn't mean he's not a Socialist.
Lehman -- I didn't give up. You made an assertion; I said it was hypothetical, not validated and listed references that disagreed with you; you then claimed to have superior logic which I said was not a winning argument. Bottom line, your assertion is still hypothetical and unproven. If you want to hold onto an idea that's unproven, that's your problem. Not mine.
todji:
I don't necessarily disagree that the short form proves he is an American citizen (perhaps that highlights the need to toughen such requirements).
BSM and Lehman:
It is hardly "irrelevant" if Obama was born in a foreign country, as that would mean he is not legally President of the United States.
brian:
I understand that you (and many here, obviously) "don't care" whether Obama is a natural-born citzen. I guess I do care.
PoliticalWaiz:
Not arguing it. I don't know for sure either way, but it sounds about right. I also notice that you are being entirely reasonable, which is a rarity.
I agree that there are the people who blindly chant GOP mantras, "death panel" talking points, and wouldn't vote for a black man or a democrats if said man had a water hose and they were on fire. I also know (personally) wear t-shirts with Bush emblazoned on it with the words "International terrorist" and there are plenty for fools out there who believe that the freeze in discretionary spending is proof that Obama "got the message" instead of an infinitesimal step in the right direction.
That's why (IMHO) that the war of words between the two parties isat best an accidental distraction or at worst a purposeful one. Repubs throw up the straw man of death panels, Dems throw up the derisive "teabagger". They then stand back and spend our tax money to make their bases like them and vote for them next time.
While teh cries that Obama is spending too much may sound hypocritical coming from the GOP (and they most certainly do) that doesn't make them wrong! Because they are right. Frighteningly so.
Ruth,
SOrry, the adults were talking, what was it you wanted?
Charles said...
"I understand that you (and many here, obviously) "don't care" whether Obama is a natural-born citzen. I guess I do care."
Damn brian, did you just get pwned by a flat-earther?
Chucky, no one cares about your claims because no one believes them. If they had any merit, people would care.
And kudos to the few Republicans who have tried to keep the discussion rational, but with people like Charles representing over a third of your party, you have some serious intra-party issues to work out before November. You don't want all the rational Republicans to get teabagged like in NY-23.
Whether Congress would impeach Obama, should it be proven that he was born abroad, probably depends on the 2010 midterm election results. There would probably be race riots too. Plenty more lawsuits would be filed, as well, challenging every purported "law" or Executive Order he signed. The government would effectively come to a halt, with the greatest Constitutional Crisis since the Civil War.
Ruth,
Sorry, that was assholish.
Where exactly does the logic of my argument fall apart?
Seriously. I would like to know.
Jacob:
". . . no one cares about your claims because no one believes them."
About 36% of Republicans in the poll said they didn't think Obama was born in the U.S., with more saying they weren't sure. That's significantly more than "no one."
Jacob:
That's troll feeding if I have ever seen it.
Like I said Jacob-I'm guess over 33% of Dems would like Bush tried for war crimes and that he invaded Iraq for oil for Haliburton.
So, In the realm of batshit conspiracies, you guys win by far.
Conservatives love to ignore these types of things but a program like food assistance to young school kids in poverty directly translates into a more productive workforce in the future. This is the kind of investment the private sector would never engage in both because of the time horizon and the inability for a single private company to capture any of the benefit. It's exactly the sort of domestic discretionary spending that yields substantial long term benefits but conservatives will consistently insist doesn't 'produce' anything. So that's the flip side of the dead weight loss due to taxation argument
What basis is there to prove that these 'substantial long term investments' are, exactly?
I'm not specifically talking about this particular idea (food assistance). In general, though, at least where I live in NJ, any potential cuts to the holy grail of education seems to be 'attacking the investment of future of our kids'. I've never seen any evidence that a $16,000 education is twice as good as an $8,000 education.
Theres the idea of health care being an 'investment', when, in certain situations, we spend more on that health care on that individual than that individual will ever produce in his/her lifetime. It's similarly not backed up.
Lehman
Maybe a bit, sorry for that, but there is a serious risk of GOP splitoffs this year, or of ultraconservative candidates winning primaries by endorsing these conspiracy theories.
Brian,
No, we want to try Bush for war crimes because he unilaterally invaded a sovereign nation that posed no threat to us based on information that he likely knew was false. He did not do it solely to benefit oil companies (though obviously an unstable market controlled too much by Hussein and the threat of dealing in petroeuros had an impact), but rather a war in Iraq had long been the goal of the PNAC higher-ups who were running his defense department.
Sorry, but nowhere in there is a conspiracy, batshit or not.
Now if you want to tackle crazy conspiracies, try to separate your own party from the birther movement.
Lehman said:
"I am fisclaly conservative and socially liberal (as are most of my friends), and out of necessity, I usually vote Republican, and I can't think of one single, solitry person that I know personally, who is of the "birther" persuasion."
Thing is that we as individuals tend to gravitate toward those who are relatively similar to us. You apparently find the whole "birther" thing to be ridiculous as do I. It's no big surprise that you don't personally know "birthers" - you probably don't hang out in the sort of circles that birthers are likely to be found. Nor do I for that matter. That, and those who might be "birthers" already know I am highly allergic conspiracy theories so they likely keep their nonsense to themselves if I happen to be in their presence. Another case in point - I got to be a fly on the wall at a LA County Dem central committee meeting (I was collecting some data for a political psychology project) right after the 1994 bloodbath. My favorite comment that I'd hear over and over again was "how could this have happened? Everyone I knew was voting Democrat." Thing was, these activists were not hanging around others with vastly different points of view - had they done so, they would have seen the 1994 wave a mile away. One of the perks of being an independent, I suppose.
The point is that a well-done survey can capture a phenomenon that we as individuals cannot even remotely be aware of. At the moment, the methodology seems reasonable for this particular poll, and the organization usually has a decent reputation for accuracy.
Lehman,
Did you mean me, personally, ot progressives generally?
LOL!!!
And thank you for your well placed and reasoned (well, for the most part ;) )posts.
You must have been around since the days of "intellectual" conservatives ala Buckley and Safire.
We spend more on HC than other countries.....so we need a governtment option
We spend more on education than other countries....so we need to support our public schools
Either way, the solution is always more governement!!
In both cases Brian, the issue is also universal availability, which the private sector will never guarantee.
But here is where reliance on studies and evidence based medicine breaks down. It has NEVER been shown that increased access to, and use of, preventative care reduces overall medical costs. But does that mean I am not going to take my kids to the dentist? hell no! Not take my wife for her mammogram when she is of age? Hell NO!
That's where the whole idea of increased coverage expanded access to preventative care reducing costs, even kicking out the insurance companies (and their whopping 2% profits) and eliminating"waste fraud and abuse" was a flat out lie.
Wally said:
"He was claiming there is an homogenious set of beliefs across Republicans, that includes the questions asked. That means all graphs need to show some sort of constant percentage."
No, he isn't claiming that. If he was claiming that, he would've based it on charts showing, say, 75%+ Republicans thinking Obama's a socialist, 75%+ having Palin first, 75%+ birthers, and so on. Note this is different from your requirement that "all graphs need to show some sort of constant percentage."
But what Nate's saying is that the fact that one is a Republican determines the likelihood that they believe Obama's a socialist, or that they are a birther, etc. Gender, geo. location, age, etc. don't matter. Only race (whatever that means) adds a bias on the topics where it would be expected to.
So, in US history, many presidential decisions have been good or bad decisions....but no one has suggested trying an American president for war crimes. But you suggest it for Bush.
Thanks for speaking for the batshit Dems. And its 10 times more batshit than birthers!
Can we all agree, at least, that a Republican who is not a natural-born citizen (i.e. Arnold Schwarzenegger), could not legally be elected President of the United States?
brian:
They wanted to put Kissinger on trial for war crimes too. Curiously, Obama could end up killing more Afghani civilians, and HE wins the Nobel PEACE Prize . . .
Don Durito:
Yeah I can see I am falling into a similar arrogance. Since I find those arguments to be fundamentally ridiculous, I guess I dismiss them as the fringe and feel that they are beneath my notice. I also don't know anyone who think Palin is a credible candidate for President.
However, I would stop short at considering the above survey "Well done" given it's provenance. I think it is an example of Having a conclusion then gathering the data to support it. Not exactly the scientific method.
ANd Jacob:
I see your point (don't agree, but I see it). But the chances of Bush EVER being seriously considered for war crimes prosecution is as unlikely as Charles' fever dream above. No matter how many bricks you put in that partcular house, it ain't gonna stand, and therefore is about as batshit as his assertions.
IMHO, no offense intended.
None taken.
Charles-
Lech Walesa was just in town for the IL primaries. Made me think about how Obama won the same Peace Prize that Walesa did. Made me want to puke.
Nate, you should repost this comment (along with part I , as a stand alone post. It is time for things like this to start to be seriously considered by the Democratic Party.
Recently, these things covered therein have been somewhat anathema to Democratic Party thinking, and this is a big part of the problem, why the Democratic Party is stuck, and why we keep seeing the same old patterns, without even realizing why, or coming up with new variations on the same old mistaken themes as to why -- media, voters, "we did this wrong or that wrong" our "opponents lie" -- when all of those "lies" or mistakes are ultimately inconsequential to what Democrats do, just powerful tools to use to help shape and focus their message. (Which should also include an intense focus on the media by the way, something Democrats also needs to do a better job illuminating, and in Congress right now should be addressing the oligopoly anti-trust aspect at a minimum.)
brian:
Just remember that feeling when you have to debate liberals here.
Attention Nate!
I would like to draw your attention to the "Other" category in responses to many of the questions in the poll. Non-white respondents were far more likely than other self-identified Republicans to do the following:
- Think that Obama was not a racist
- Think that Sarah Palin would not be a good candidate for President
- Be in favor of immigration reform.
There are splits within the surveyed Republican base that should be even more worrisome to them than the Tea Party (which accounts for most of the crazy responses anyway). Split that, and there's nothing left of the Republicans at all!
Nate,
You also noted:
“Thus, the Republicans are more likely to make suboptimal electoral decisions in individual districts -- we have a fresh example from last night, in fact, in IL-10, a D+6 district where the Republicans nominated the conservative Bob Dold rather than the moderate Beth Coulson. But the Democrats are likely to have a difficult time articulating an optimal national message -- and perhaps as a result a more difficult time governing.”
In theory I would agree to some extent. But in practice this is what has happened much of this decade, yet Republicans have managed to control the White House and the Congress for much of it, even as their party has been slowly overtaken by its own far right wing (they lost in 2008 because anti incumbent fervor was at its highest point in modern history, if not ever. But that temporary annoyance and anger at the Republican Party, while remaining for Congress in general, has ceded somewhat as the Republican Party has not shifted back at all, but has continued to somewhat control and define the debate.) These types of seemingly ‘sub optimal” decisions are only another reflection of that; and it seems to be clear from the record that it is not necessarily suboptimal, or has not been.
Again, the reason for this is the level of misinformation, and rhetoric. Which is leading to a wildy misinformed, and polarized, populace. (The somewhat self reaffirming, sel selecting, and also sometimes very polarizing nature of the Internet has in some ways only added to this.)
Regarding misinformation, I have been saying repeatedly for a few years that the gap between the rhetoric and reality in this country has become increasingly large, and it is a big problem, as information is in some ways the lifeblood of a democracy. I was glad to hear Obama make almost the exact same point the other day in his question and answer session with Republican members of Congress -- that is, he said the gap between the rhetoric and the reality has to close.
But if Republicans are saying what they believe, particularly if it is false, erroneous or illogical – it is up to Democrats to close this gap by making it work against their political opponents (and Obama started this process for the moment, by at least beginning the idea, which is necessary). If Republicans are not saying what they believe, same thing -- also up to Democrats to show, so that it harms Republicans politically, rather than helps. Thus less far right wing Republicans will have appeal, as well, which will make Congress work a LOT better.
As for how important this principle is: You know if/when a prominent Democrat says something that is not accurate (and even often when they say things that are somewhat accurate) it is turned into a story that harms the Democrat and the Democratic Party, more than the original statement helped.
That is the key. The gap will not become more closed – and this goes for media misinformation as well and informing the media – unless and until those promulgating things which are misrepresentations, falsities, gross distortions of logic, wildly misleading rhetoric and spin masquerading as fact, or their goals, are harmed more than they are furthered by such misrepresentations or mistakes. And that, frequently, is completely up to Democrats to frame and show, nobody else. But when applicable, and yet the media is also not even showing the relevant facts – once again who is it up to to show both about and to the media? Certainly not the party benefitting from the misrepresentation or its media parroting, right?
Regarding your last point, I don’t think the Democrats should (which is not to say they won’t)have a difficult time articulating an optimal national message, but that’s for another post.
Nate, I disagree with your basic assumption of what constitutes an optimal strategy. The optimum strategy is not a Median Voter Theorem strategy as you advocate, but a time consistent dynamic optimization strategy. Part of the reason why Republicans may be so much in lock step with each other is because Republicans choose a time consistent dynamic optimization strategy. Republican campaigning is simple. In this election they will parrot the phrases: War on Terror, Tax Relief, and Small Government. While it may seem simple minded to progressive people, it's actually a superior strategy than campaigning on a laundry list of popular issues, that can change depending on the ups and downs on what's popular.
Did you debate a conservative on the recent Supreme Court ruling on corporate political contributions? Did you notice that the conservative kept on saying "I'm for Freedom of Speech." You probably gave long explanations why money wasn't equal to speech or why it would increase corporate influence over politicans. But in the end you were most persuasive by simply saying that you were against political corruption. Politics is about values and credibility.
Lehman -- Since you asked where I believe your logic is wrong, here's what I think. Although a tax decrease does motivate spending, that does not necessarily generate increased tax revenue. Many economists believe that Bush's tax decrease also resulted in a tax revenue decrease. That was the gist of the references that I noted. It's also explained well by a post from Matt Powell above at 1:19 P.M. He said: "If the economy is growing in nominal dollars (which it almost always is), a tax cut will frequently be followed by an increase in government tax revenue. This hardly means that the tax cut 'raised' revenue. The question is what would tax revenues have done in the absence of a tax cut. It would have gone up, too. And probably by more. The people who believe otherwise are arguing we are on the right hand side of the laffer curve. Which is a position substantiated by nothing more than uninformed faith."
Ruth,
Now you are arguing a different point: Initially you said (and I quote
Ruth said...
Wally -- of course the Bush tax cuts reduced tax revenue....
February 3, 2010 11:28 AM
SO now you say, that tax cuts are followed by an increase in revenue.... and that the Bush tax cuts reduced tax revenues?
WTF? SO you rely on a hypothetical argument that tax revenues would have been higher without them. It is an argument that cannot be proven, as it relies on hypothetical elements. I tell you what, we'll see what the effect of increasing taxes across the board (which allowing the Bush tax cuts to lapse will do) will do to economic growth and tax revenues. Then you will have your real data, and not a hypothetical argument that goes against my logic.
ANd you still don't show where the logic falls apart. You simply say "Many economists believe that Bush's tax decrease also resulted in a tax revenue decrease." but don't say why.
I guess if you are interested in simply spouting others talking points, have at it.
BSM
"But what Nate's saying is that the fact that one is a Republican determines the likelihood that they believe Obama's a socialist, or that they are a birther, etc. Gender, geo. location, age, etc. don't matter. Only race (whatever that means) adds a bias on the topics where it would be expected to."
If that's what he's saying, and I believe he goes pretty far beyond that, the data doesn't support him. In several categories we have roughly a 50% increase (or decrease) in the likelihood of answering certain questions as yes or no, not including the race groupings.
What I'm talking about, when he claims the Repubs are homogeneous comes from this statement: "This doesn't, by the way, mean that all Republicans are the same -- clearly there is some diversity of opinion within the party (although they're relatively small)."
Its that "relatively small" part. Relative to what Nate? If there was relatively small diversity of opinion, I would at least expect similar percentages across all questions with the implication that they are coming from the same people. Otherwise we have 15% here, 60% there and nothing even suggesting any of these groups overlap or to what extent. In the end I think Nate is wrong on pretty much everything he said in this post, which is seemingly not as rare as I used to think it was.
#83: brian said...
Yes, and if you're a fat ass--don't feel pressured by all those nutrionists pushing their "abstinence only" food dogma. We know you can't help yourself, so just accept you're fat, take lots of Lipitor for the heart, and get a gastric bypss (which hopefully Obamacare will cover)
Funny you should use that as an analogy. Abstinence-only for sex makes about as much sense as abstinence-only for food. Both drives have been honed over millions of years of evolution (tranlsation for creationists: "blah blah blah blah blah"). Nutrition information that talks about choosing the right foods is a lot like sex ed that talks about using condoms and birth control if you are choosing to have sex.
wv: "larto" - No definition, I just think its funny given the above
There was a comment somewhere in the middle about how President Obama is a socialist because he believes in single-payer health care.
He may believe in it, but a) that doesn't make him a socialist and b) he has never fought for the public option, much less single-payer. He has only pursued policy that that is politically feasible, making him a centrist and pragmatist.
I'm not sure if I got jammed for an earlier comment or not but I guess my point was missed any way so what the hell. This whole diatribe on where the president was born is just indicative of all that is presently wrong with our nation. Am I the only one that stops reading the posts of those that have shown a prophensity of going down that road? We have some interesting conservative view points on here that do deserve to have honest consideration but then one of you whack jobs feels compelled to dive in with some inane comment that just undermines what had been up to your rant an interesting debate of fact and principles. Every one has the right to comment but if you are sincere in wanting to advance a conservative agenda you sure are going about it in a strange way. I also get tired of the rant at Nate for putting forth information and providing this format to debate what is presented. Nate has a particular stance. He presents a wide range of data to either support it or to raise questions. Again some of you rant about it. Will some of you for the love of Pete get over the perpetual "R A G E" against any thing and every thing.
I too would like to see a similar set of issues polled for Democrats. I think it would surprise but not as some of you would hope.
@Lehman -
So liberals always view themselves as more intelligent?, funny, I find Repubs do the same thing to me.
If you asked the people I work with and my neighborhood friends from way back if I was smart, they would say yes, they know me to be fairly smart, knowlegeable, current on facts, book smart but practical also etc...but from that base knowledge of me, they still act like I'm stupid to hold my beliefs.
Even tho I almost never bring up politics with them (been there done that) they often will and will say things I politically disagree with. I will not bring it up, but I will counter when they say something I do not agree with.
At which point they start to go off about a million things I must be informed of, because, surely if I had I knew these things that my conservative friend knows, I would never think the crazy things I think (and by crazy thoughts, I do not mean I say I'm a 911 truther or some such, but rather I say things like form my looking at wall all the different health care systems different countries have done, I think single-payer insurance with private providers like Canada might be best way to do health care etc..of course, this makes them look ate me like I have completely lost it).
These conservative friends also often mention some book I need to read, like say Atlas Shrugged, assuming 1) I have never read it and 2) if I had read it I would agree with the brilliance they ascribe to it. They often tell me I must listen to X, or must read Y without realizing I already do expose myself to those things. They are so influenced by such sources of info they cannot fathom I can form alternate analyses based on other facts once I have heard, seen or read something they have.
Anyway, their response is always that my opinions must be due to lack of information or some sort of ignorance on my part.
I feel that conservatives always seem surprised that some regular person working for a living that is not a free-loading welfare mom or illegal immigrant or trial lawyer (that is, not some parasite in their mind with a vested interest in feeding off the state)and that they know I'm not some type of enabling-spoiling bleeding heart...that such a rational person could not possibly feel different than them, based on some objective, non-selfish-interest unless they are completely uninformed.
When I demonstrate I know all their facts, (Its not that I'm unaware of their arguments and facts) and I also show I have some facts and analysis that counters there points, they slow down to more ideological things, like say okay, so you have your reasons to think a different health care system might be an overall better solution but I fear govt take-over. At that point, we can have a conversation, as that is where our differences lie, ideologically, not because I know less than them.
But then I ask them, you know me to be reasonably smart and well-informed, why did you treat me as if that was not true? They often come right out and say, they can't figure out how a rational,reasonable person can hold the completely crazy, totally outside MSM Fox news point of things (even though, of course, my politics match as big a chunk of the US population's view on issues as theirs do).
I always feel Repubs think I'm ignorant, even when their personal expereince of me tells them otherwise. I almost never find a single one that knows more about all sides of an issue that I do...not that I'm saying they are uninformed or stupid, but rather its strange they assume I am not. So they know me to be smart and well-informed, they prove to me that they do not know any more than me, and yet they always assume my perspective is based on lack of info. Even the conservative commenters here do this at times...
I resent that conservatives always act as if I'm stupid and assume I'm irrational to hold liberal views on many things.
Lets see...Fox News and Rasmussen are liars....and Daily Kos is now a legit news source.
And we have more medica oulets than ever, but Americans understood things much better years ago when Kronkite, Rather and the 3 major networks were feeding us the news and we had the Fairness Doctrine.
OK....
"I don't want to put pressure on your "simple brain," but all government economic policies have the effect of redistributing wealth."
First, in case you missed it, I used "simple brain" in a response to someone doing nothing more than insulting me. That remark was not directed at you. If you want to have that spill over into our discussion, fine. I'll respond in kind if you choose to continue this behavior. But if you do, understand it only makes you look insecure in your argument.
Anyway...To an extent yes, but not all wealth redistribution is for the purpose of wealth redistribution only. We have taxes in order for the government to be able protect it's citizens and to give them the ability to prosper and conduct business, from which all citizens benefit (meaning roads, military, police). Wealth redistribution as I use the term means taxes in order to attempt to ensure prosperity for the few that are either unfortunate enough to need the services or desire to take advantage of them, while others are forced to pay for them (health care reform proposals, food stamps, social security, unemployment benefits and the like). I'm sorry if you have difficulty understanding that difference. While this was not spelled out before, I believe common usage of the term understands this and you're just intentional attempting to manipulate my argument.
"Socialism uses a "command" economy, where the government or communities largely control all enterprise and wealth is allocated to a great degree by the state, rather than just taxed at various levels."
Which would apply to the health care proposals currently under consideration and the bank situation....
"Now you can redefine socialism for yourself to say that everyone in the world to the left of the John Birch society has been a socialist for the last hundred years, but using the commonly understood definitions of socialism, that is simply not the case."
I'm not changing the definition of anything. I'm calling certain policies what they are. Wealth redistribution to provide services and products out lined above is socialist. Shall I take a piece from wiki on socialism: "a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals." Public ownership of goods and means of production is just part of it (which would be the case with aspects of health care reform, the auto companies, and banking, which have been expanded under Obama or attempted to be expanded), the other is also using this power to creating a society where everyone has equal access to resources through the power of government. That is what we see in health care again and things like social security.
So who can tell you the right alcohol to drink, cuz I'm a raging alcoholic and "abstinence only" for booze is not for me!!
BTW, I also really like cheating on my wife, which I suspect is honed over millions of years. I'll just tell her that "abstinence" from cheating on her is not in my genes. She'll understand.
OK Shots (and brian)
What is it about the R2K survey that makes you think they might have made up the data out of thin air?
Anything?
Shots:
You do know that a major part of the reason Nate pounced on SV was their refusal to release any cross-tabs, right? While on the other hand this poll did and Nate is deep into analyzing them.
You do know this, right? Right?
What am I asking, of course you don't.
Kankan:
You are like a photo negative of me. It seems our experiences are similar, yet diametrically opposed. I suppose my comments on this board were more directed at those of this board who dismiss people who dislike Obama and his policies as "birthers", "teabaggers", "sheeple" or imply that anyone who has conservative beliefs are either easily deluded by their reliance on Fox/Rush/Hannity etc and/or evil and greedy and further that if we would simply open our minds and let their genius pour in we would certainly agree with them that their beliefs are the right ones.
You have (as I have) simply collected your information, sythesized it, run it through your moral code and emerged with different conclusions using the same set of facts. That doesn't make you wrong and me right. It doesn't make you a better person than me. It is all an opinion. It is the arrogance and elitism that makes one believe that there's is the ONE TRUE BELIEF, and all others are inferior that was what I was railing against.
Don't take it personally. From the tone of your message, I wasn't directing it at you.
I wonder why the poll didn't record how many Republicans actually understood what the term 'socialist' meant? And how many of them think that Europe and Canada are 'socialist'? There's a difference between being 'socialist' and being 'more socialist than the US'
Lehman said...
"But the chances of Bush EVER being seriously considered for war crimes prosecution is as unlikely as Charles' fever dream above. No matter how many bricks you put in that partcular house, it ain't gonna stand, and therefore is about as batshit as his assertions."
No it's not, though the first two sentences there are correct.
I believe in a completely normative sense that Bush deserves to be tried for criminal conduct, and evidence bearing out, probably for war crimes. I have no delusions that he will be so tried, and now that he is out of office, I completely agree that it's not worth anyone's time or political capital to pursue that goal.
You're right in that Boy George will never ever stand trial for his crimes, and we just have to live with that. That's fine.
But saying that Bush should be tried for actual offenses in an ideal world is in no way "batshit crazy." Saying that he WILL be tried would be pretty crazy, but no one is seriously making that claim.
Saying that Obama was born in Kenya when all evidence points to his birth in Hawaii and not a modicum of evidence suggests otherwise is certifiably crazy, akin to saying that Bush launched a missile at the Pentagon or that Neil Armstrong never set foot on the moon.
You are of course free to disagree about whether Bush's actions and lies in the buildup to and conduct of the War in Iraq constitute criminal activity, and that's perfectly reasonable. But with at least a fair amount of evidence to suggest criminal activity, the sentiment that he SHOULD (not will) stand trial is perfectly reasonable as well.
I hope that clears up any misunderstanding about my previous post.
'
Jacob-
I actually think the survey's accurate. But the terrorism question disturbs me. I'm also surprised "Socialist" isn't 90%
However, there should be a line for being a legit newsource.
I think the perfect example of why people believe this survey is Charles. He just can't seem to grasp that claiming that nobody can ever verify the place of Obama's birth would also call into question, to an equal extent, the citizenship of every other President we've had.
It's like what someone said to me earlier. In summary, if you believe it on any basis whatsoever, you can transform even the most ridiculous beliefs into rational political decisionmaking simply by seeking to institutionalize those values in our society. For instance, its rational to want the theory of the earth being hollow and filled with lizardmen who are loosely allied with the Freemasons to be taught in public schools because it is my belief system and values, and I want that taught. Perfectly, perfectly rational.
Shots said...
"I explained this above. It doesn't pass the "smell test."
No, smell test is a catchphrase, not an explanation.
SV released results that seemed almost mathematically impossible, with no crosstabs, that contradicted surveys that had released their information, and showed evidence of nonrandom distribution of numbers.
R2K released a poll whose results you don't like. Whether they slightly oversampled ultraconservatives with their self-identified Republican filter has an impact, but really says nothing regarding Nate's point that:
a) a large number of self-identified Republicans hold these positions and,
b) demographics have little impact on the likelihood of a Republican to hold particular beliefs (that point is debatable as others have noted, but that's Nate's analysis, not a survey methodology issue).
So if you believe this survey is faked SV style, offer evidence. If you believe that the numbers are real but that the sample is unrepresentative, present evidence.
Jacob:
Point taken.
Never, ever in a million years gonna happen (nor in my opinion should it) but not batshit crazy
Don't you think that there is a special sort of delusion in the Truthers and Birthers that is actually quite breathtaking.
Shots said...
"You can't tell me this is truly a reprentative sample. No way in hell."
You're starting from a gut feeling and working backwards to find evidence. What makes you sure it's not a representative sample outside of the pollster's normal Democratic-friendly house effects?
If it is just the house effects, you do realize that wouldn't substantially alter the significance of the numbers, right?
@brian
Right on. Thanks for the clarification; sorry to lump you in there.
"Don't you think that there is a special sort of delusion in the Truthers and Birthers that is actually quite breathtaking."
Breathtaking, yes. Special, no. Crazy conspiracy theories about politicians have existed in all societies and all political groups since the beginning of time. The trouble is when they get this large.
A "modicum of evidence" would include direct (paternal grandmother stated he was born in what is now Kenya) and circumstantial (refusal to simply release his LONG FORM birth certificate) evidence.
Chucky, how many times are you going to recycle those long-debunked claims? If you want to convince people of your conspiracy theories, go to freeperville.
Or here:
http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm
Richard:
That's not true as we can easily verify OTHER births.
Based upon what evidence? A birth certificate? Obama's got one of those. Why is his any less reliable than any other? Especially considering the state of record keeping in the 1720-1950 period.
You can not compare Birthers and Truthers!
Lying about a birth certificate get you fired.
A war crime and treason gets you executed! Just cuz you don't think it will happen doesn't hide that you think it should
Not all conspiracies are equal.
Jacob:
Whether you think it's "debunked" evidence or not, it's still a "modicum."
Richard:
For starters, both Barbara and George H.W. Bush are still alive and can so testify. I'd bet the state of record-keeping in CT is better than it was in HI.
200!
mo·di·cum
Pronunciation: \ˈmä-di-kəm also ˈmō-\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin, neuter of modicus moderate, from modus measure
Date: 15th century
: a small portion : a limited quantity
@Jacob - look at the context in which the poll was commissioned. It was not done for a candidate running for office who needs accurate information. It was done for a guy writing a book called "American Taliban", attempting to catalog "the ways in which modern-day conservatives share the same agenda as radical Jihadists in the Islamic world". Nice. The R2000 boys know what side their bread is buttered on - ya don't think they shaded the results just a teensy bit to satisfy the KosKids? If Jim Robinson commissioned Scott Rasmussen to perform a similar poll would you be a little bit skeptical? My guess would be yes.
Shots,
I have no f**king idea if 57% of Republicans believe something that crazy. Anecdotally, I have met several who do think along those lines, but nothing even close to a majority of all Republicans I have met.
But I don't have any hard evidence. If you're so sure that Moulitsas and his people cooked the numbers, then show some evidence.
I would also like to see more polling by a variety of outfits on these questions, but absent that, the burden of proof is indeed on the accuser to show evidence that the results might have been falsified.
Nate did that with SV. If you're so so sure that these results could not possibly have come from an honest survey, show evidence--not absolute proof mind you but evidence--that the results might be fake.
Yeah, but how do we know they're not lying? Or that they didn't forge documents?
The question is, why is any other president's US birth more credible than Obama's?
parksie555,
I'm not saying it's wrong to be skeptical of this poll. I'm not saying it's guaranteed accurate either. And I suspect the house effects and selection bias--intentional or not--had SOME impact on the numbers (how much is hard to say).
But to say that the results don't feel right so its gotta be fraud is a completely different argument. If the numbers were cooked, or if there was an intentional bias in choosing respondents (beyond self-identified Republicans), then it would be nice to see some evidence of that, not just assertions of what must be true.
"The question is, why is any other president's US birth more credible than Obama's?"
Actually back in the 1880s there was a movement that believed Chester A Arthur was born in Canada and thus unable to be President. Like the modern birther movement, it was mostly his opponents within the Republican Party grasping at straws to get rid of him.
Unlike the modern scenario, there was no actual evidence supporting Arthur's birth in the US (though still no real reason to believe that he wasn't born in Vermont).
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