At last year's CPAC, at a time when conservatives and the Republican Party hadn't enjoyed a good news cycle in what seemed like forever, Rush Limbaugh was the big story. He gave the closing address, and ran well over his allotted time to rally conservatives at a time when they needed a major boost.
Fast forward to CPAC 2010, following a year during which we witnessed everything from angry town halls to the Tea Party rallies to Scott Brown's Massachusetts victory, and now Glenn Beck is the keynoter. That fact alone says a lot about what has happened to the conservative movement in a mere 12 months. (CPAC and conservatives should be careful: On their present trajectory, Orly Taitz is the logical choice to give the 2011 keynoter.)
But the most revealing result from CPAC 2010, one that didn't surprise me but ought to wake up national political reporters, is this one: Ron Paul won this year's CPAC straw poll with 31 percent. Next best was Mitt Romney with 22 percent. Amazingly, Paul's support was more than that for Sarah Palin (7 percent), Tim Pawlenty (6), Mike Pence (5), Newt Gingrich (4), Mike Huckabee (4), Mitch Daniels (2), and Rick Santorum (2) combined. Yes, that's right--combined. By compare, just a year ago, Paul tied with Palin for third at 13 percent, with Romney winning and Bobby Jindal (who dat?) second at 14 percent.
Five months ago in this space, I speculated that this new conservative movement is fueled to a significant degree by a lot of ginned up former Ron Paul supporters. I mentioned and quoted at length from Dana Goldstein's fanstastic reporting that connected the Tea Party movement to residual Ron Paulites. When is the national media going to finally make these connections?
Instead, the kooky, historically revisionist, apocalyptic ideas of Glenn Beck and Ron Paul are treated with equivalency to those of the majority Democratic Party in Washington and--here's the key point--these movement activists and their ideas are often discussed without much mention of their connections to Beck or Paul. Beck earns his share of attention, granted. But there is almost no recognition whatsoever of the true origins of this conservative backlash. The movement is instead covered as if it is the somehow the byproduct and wind in the sails of national Republicans like Michael Steele, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, when in fact it is operating wholly independently of any or all of them. And remember that these are people who, as Nate pointed out earlier this month, believe that the president is a socialist Muslim interloper born in Africa; who, as I suspect, somehow think that earmark and tort reform will solve our deficit problems; and who, as we saw today, cheer without any sense of internal contradiction as Beck boasts about educating himself for "free" at a public library system paid for by the very taxes he complains about.
But go try to find much in the way of reporting on how closely connected these two movements are. Or how disconnected these people are from political reality. You won't find much. Because the media wants to provide competitive balance to its narrative, reporting to date has either willfully disconnected the Tea Party movement from the Ron Paul presidential campaign or it simply has not noticed.
It's going to be--or ought to be--hard now for the national political pundit class not to notice these connections anymore.
2.20.2010
Newtered
@ 5:30 PM
I make no secret of the fact that I believe Newt Gingrich (a) is the darkhorse 2012 candidate who could very well win the GOP nomination; and (b) could, if nominated, present a formidable challenge to Barack Obama's re-election. Gingrich is an ideas guy--a recent National Journal poll of Washington insiders ranked him the GOP's most "creative thinker"--and he is more credible on foreign policy and defense than Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee, combined.
Gingrich has his liabilities, of course. And aside from his marital history, Gingrich's biggest weakness is one with which I am occupationally familiar--he's too professorial. His erudition, policy command and historical references may be assets when he's on a panel at the Heritage Foundation or AEI, but it just doesn't work at events like his speech today to attendees at the Conservative Political Action Committee national meeting. In little more than a half hour, Gingrich managed to reference the Judiciary Act of 1802, Camus’ The Plague, Orwell’s 1984, Hayek’s notions of centralized planning, and John Paul II. I was waiting for him to announced that copies of the speech's footnotes would be available in the lobby.
The former Speaker did have a few good, raw-meat applause lines. He called for elimination of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and his prepared response to Evan Bayh's claim that if he creates even a single job he'll have created more than the Obama administration so far was pretty funny. "President Obama has created at least three jobs I know of: Bob McDonnell, Chris Christie, and Scott Brown," he said. "And I can guarantee you, as a historian, that Scott Brown could not have won without Barack Obama."
If he wants to the 2012 nominee, however, the fact is that Newt needs less histrionics and less history. Conservatives are looking for leadership, not lectures. They are looking for somebody to channel their energy into something constructive beyond complaints about Democratic rule.
The one theme Gingrich flirted with but never quite articulated, and that could help him if he tinkers with it some, is about the responsibility of conservatives and Republican to govern. His talking point about serious approaches to what he called "principled bi-partisanship" on health care and other matters--which didn't go over very well--came across more as a complaint about exclusion and lack of transparency by Democrats. It was a taunt, not a proposed solution. And he can't be serious in suggesting that both parties should govern as equals on health care or anything else when one party control the White House and both chambers of Congress. I seem to remember that the GOP mantra was "elections have consequences" back during the days of Bush/Republican congressional rule; now it's "both parties are equal"? It's also beneath him to toss out silly cracks about the "secular-socialist" machine in power in Washington: Leave that bunk to Glenn Beck in his closing address, which starts in a few minutes.
If he felt like being in lecture mode, what Gingrich should have done is warn the assembled CPAC audience that conservatives and Republicans have only demonstrated they can block and obstruct when out of power, but have yet to prove they can govern effectively while exercising power. With the 1995 government shutdown on his resume, Gingrich has to tread carefully on the subject of ability-to-govern. But, for all the conservative excitement of recent months, the party is still trusted less than Democrats to make the right decisions and to govern effectively.
The GOP presidential aspirant who can chart a course for doing something other than just complaining, stalling and stopping Democrats, and can instead make specific case for how and why Republicans can do better, has a chance to separate himself from the field. Palin and Huckabee can be expected to be heavy on platitudes, while Romney and Pawlenty may dull their messages with policy wonkery. So if Gingrich can find a theme--like "less is more"--around which to develop a true governing alternative for Republicans that goes beyond saying "no" and trying to shut-down or blow-up the government, he could easily distinguish himself as the candidate who offers more than carping about the nefarious "Obama-Pelosi-Reid" axis, as he lamely did today.
He can, in short, position himself as the candidate who has proactive ideas and can convince the country that Republicans can ably run the government rather than just obstruct it. That will be a lecture worth hearing.
Gingrich has his liabilities, of course. And aside from his marital history, Gingrich's biggest weakness is one with which I am occupationally familiar--he's too professorial. His erudition, policy command and historical references may be assets when he's on a panel at the Heritage Foundation or AEI, but it just doesn't work at events like his speech today to attendees at the Conservative Political Action Committee national meeting. In little more than a half hour, Gingrich managed to reference the Judiciary Act of 1802, Camus’ The Plague, Orwell’s 1984, Hayek’s notions of centralized planning, and John Paul II. I was waiting for him to announced that copies of the speech's footnotes would be available in the lobby.
The former Speaker did have a few good, raw-meat applause lines. He called for elimination of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and his prepared response to Evan Bayh's claim that if he creates even a single job he'll have created more than the Obama administration so far was pretty funny. "President Obama has created at least three jobs I know of: Bob McDonnell, Chris Christie, and Scott Brown," he said. "And I can guarantee you, as a historian, that Scott Brown could not have won without Barack Obama."
If he wants to the 2012 nominee, however, the fact is that Newt needs less histrionics and less history. Conservatives are looking for leadership, not lectures. They are looking for somebody to channel their energy into something constructive beyond complaints about Democratic rule.
The one theme Gingrich flirted with but never quite articulated, and that could help him if he tinkers with it some, is about the responsibility of conservatives and Republican to govern. His talking point about serious approaches to what he called "principled bi-partisanship" on health care and other matters--which didn't go over very well--came across more as a complaint about exclusion and lack of transparency by Democrats. It was a taunt, not a proposed solution. And he can't be serious in suggesting that both parties should govern as equals on health care or anything else when one party control the White House and both chambers of Congress. I seem to remember that the GOP mantra was "elections have consequences" back during the days of Bush/Republican congressional rule; now it's "both parties are equal"? It's also beneath him to toss out silly cracks about the "secular-socialist" machine in power in Washington: Leave that bunk to Glenn Beck in his closing address, which starts in a few minutes.
If he felt like being in lecture mode, what Gingrich should have done is warn the assembled CPAC audience that conservatives and Republicans have only demonstrated they can block and obstruct when out of power, but have yet to prove they can govern effectively while exercising power. With the 1995 government shutdown on his resume, Gingrich has to tread carefully on the subject of ability-to-govern. But, for all the conservative excitement of recent months, the party is still trusted less than Democrats to make the right decisions and to govern effectively.
The GOP presidential aspirant who can chart a course for doing something other than just complaining, stalling and stopping Democrats, and can instead make specific case for how and why Republicans can do better, has a chance to separate himself from the field. Palin and Huckabee can be expected to be heavy on platitudes, while Romney and Pawlenty may dull their messages with policy wonkery. So if Gingrich can find a theme--like "less is more"--around which to develop a true governing alternative for Republicans that goes beyond saying "no" and trying to shut-down or blow-up the government, he could easily distinguish himself as the candidate who offers more than carping about the nefarious "Obama-Pelosi-Reid" axis, as he lamely did today.
He can, in short, position himself as the candidate who has proactive ideas and can convince the country that Republicans can ably run the government rather than just obstruct it. That will be a lecture worth hearing.
Vancouver Medal Count Projections: Day 8
@ 10:57 AM
The United States is now starting to develop a pretty solid lead in the overall medals projection, now forecast to win 34.7 medals to Canada's 29.7 and Germany's 27.3. Picking up not one but two medals in the men's Super-G was a pretty big coup, as only two of nine forecasters had the U.S. winning any medals in that discipline at all. Meanwhile, Canada was hurt by failing to medal in women's skeleton, when many forecasters had expected a gold, while Germany seems stuck in place.
Meanwhile, in the gold medals projection, we have the emergence of a bit of a darkhorse in Norway, which was struggling in Vancouver early on but won 2 of the 4 golds yesterday to move ahead of Germany in the projections. Canada's however, which did win gold in the men's skeleton, still projects to finish in the top spot.
Meanwhile, in the gold medals projection, we have the emergence of a bit of a darkhorse in Norway, which was struggling in Vancouver early on but won 2 of the 4 golds yesterday to move ahead of Germany in the projections. Canada's however, which did win gold in the men's skeleton, still projects to finish in the top spot.
Livestock Microfinance an Option for the Future?
@ 8:30 AM
In devastated Haiti, like any other crisis zone affected by disaster or conflict, food security is foremost on the minds of the population. With large displaced populations, devastated markets and logistical struggles that make food-aid distribution a nightmare, food prices -- which were already very high before the January earthquake -- have already risen 10 percent. In addition, with the planting season just a couple weeks away, the country stands at risk for a food crisis that could become deeper, longer and have impacts on the economic viability of agriculture in Haiti for the long term.
The availability of cheap and subsidized American staple crops, population growth and a highly degraded environment have left Haitian agriculture on the brink for decades now, so the post-earthquake food and agriculture concerns are not something new. For example, just 20 percent of rice, the calorie backbone for many Haitians, is produced in the country with 80 percent imported. However, the earthquake has added a level of chaos and gripping need that threatens to force Haiti into begging for food for a generation.
A key element here is the role of livestock, which have a particularly important place in agricultural societies. Relatively costly, large livestock are the main form of investment and savings for many rural people in Haiti, as it is across the developing world. Goats, pigs, cows and sheep can be bred for sale at market to earn income for a community or family; they are often used for dowries, and can be sold in times of emergency.
Here are some basic problems in the sector:
1. Local chickens are more and more being displaced by imports, which are often cheaper and easier to get a hold of in cities.
2. Pigs are susceptible to disease, particularly those spread through international trade. Haitian pigs had to be culled in the mid 1980s, and many were worried during the swine flu period that this could be repeated.
3. Cows are particularly expensive and relatively difficult to keep up. In times of high disease risk, like after a disaster, the cost of losing a cow is major.
4. Haiti's more than 1,237,000 displaced people are separated from their livestock, which is a big barrier to economic restart.
5. Large livestock is just infeasible in situations of crisis. Particularly among large displace populations, there is simply not enough space to graze, nor sufficient available capital to purchase goats, sheep or cows for most people. In addition, many young people who have left urban areas are unfamiliar with livestock keeping.
Research in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where solving conditions of persistent hunger in the conflict-ravaged eastern Kivu provinces has been a longtime goal of international aid actors, may have part of a medium-term answer. The International Center for Tropical Agriculture, partnered with several donor governments, has begun to invest in guinea pig production as a "micro-livestock" option that can fight food insecurity in the region.
With millions if not billions of donor dollars coming into Haiti, among other crisis areas, perhaps this type of livestock micro-finance is a good place to start. Capable of being raised by children, the disabled and other vulnerable populations, small, resilient guinea pigs could be cultivated in displacement camps -- particularly where there is not space to bring traditional large livestock.
As we have seen over the last decade, small loans to poor families and individuals is a quite successful strategy for long term development and sustainability, particularly when concrete outcomes are self-perpetuating.
From a practical perspective, guinea pigs and other livestock micro-finance could be piloted in a few communities in the Carrefour district just west of Port-au-Prince, where the largest camp settlements have sprung up since the earthquake. More than 300,000 people there are living in so-called "spontaneous settlements," and are the most vulnerable populations for food insecurity.
Moving beyond Haiti, perhaps there is a space in other disaster or conflict zones for this type of small-scale investment in micro-livestock, whether guinea pigs or some other species. Of course, while in South America and DRC guinea pigs are fine cuisine; in some place (perhaps Haiti) the people may not find them an appetizing alternative. In those cases some other small, quickly reproducing species can be tried instead, with the key concept being local level ownership and sustainability of the effort.
---
Renard Sexton is FiveThirtyEight's international affairs columnist and is based in Geneva, Switzerland. He can be contacted at sexton538@gmail.com
The availability of cheap and subsidized American staple crops, population growth and a highly degraded environment have left Haitian agriculture on the brink for decades now, so the post-earthquake food and agriculture concerns are not something new. For example, just 20 percent of rice, the calorie backbone for many Haitians, is produced in the country with 80 percent imported. However, the earthquake has added a level of chaos and gripping need that threatens to force Haiti into begging for food for a generation.A key element here is the role of livestock, which have a particularly important place in agricultural societies. Relatively costly, large livestock are the main form of investment and savings for many rural people in Haiti, as it is across the developing world. Goats, pigs, cows and sheep can be bred for sale at market to earn income for a community or family; they are often used for dowries, and can be sold in times of emergency.
Here are some basic problems in the sector:
1. Local chickens are more and more being displaced by imports, which are often cheaper and easier to get a hold of in cities.
2. Pigs are susceptible to disease, particularly those spread through international trade. Haitian pigs had to be culled in the mid 1980s, and many were worried during the swine flu period that this could be repeated.
3. Cows are particularly expensive and relatively difficult to keep up. In times of high disease risk, like after a disaster, the cost of losing a cow is major.
4. Haiti's more than 1,237,000 displaced people are separated from their livestock, which is a big barrier to economic restart.
5. Large livestock is just infeasible in situations of crisis. Particularly among large displace populations, there is simply not enough space to graze, nor sufficient available capital to purchase goats, sheep or cows for most people. In addition, many young people who have left urban areas are unfamiliar with livestock keeping.
Research in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where solving conditions of persistent hunger in the conflict-ravaged eastern Kivu provinces has been a longtime goal of international aid actors, may have part of a medium-term answer. The International Center for Tropical Agriculture, partnered with several donor governments, has begun to invest in guinea pig production as a "micro-livestock" option that can fight food insecurity in the region.
"The animals are also a relatively low-cost investment and reproduce quickly, with females capable of producing up to five litters per year, a total of 10-15 offspring. They also suffer from fewer diseases than pigs, chickens and rabbits, and in the event of disease outbreaks, their high reproduction rate means populations have a much shorter recovery time."
With millions if not billions of donor dollars coming into Haiti, among other crisis areas, perhaps this type of livestock micro-finance is a good place to start. Capable of being raised by children, the disabled and other vulnerable populations, small, resilient guinea pigs could be cultivated in displacement camps -- particularly where there is not space to bring traditional large livestock.
As we have seen over the last decade, small loans to poor families and individuals is a quite successful strategy for long term development and sustainability, particularly when concrete outcomes are self-perpetuating.
“'We’re not sure exactly how guinea pigs got to DRC,' said CIAT forage scientist Brigitte Maass, 'but they have enormous potential to improve rural livelihoods there.'"
From a practical perspective, guinea pigs and other livestock micro-finance could be piloted in a few communities in the Carrefour district just west of Port-au-Prince, where the largest camp settlements have sprung up since the earthquake. More than 300,000 people there are living in so-called "spontaneous settlements," and are the most vulnerable populations for food insecurity.
Moving beyond Haiti, perhaps there is a space in other disaster or conflict zones for this type of small-scale investment in micro-livestock, whether guinea pigs or some other species. Of course, while in South America and DRC guinea pigs are fine cuisine; in some place (perhaps Haiti) the people may not find them an appetizing alternative. In those cases some other small, quickly reproducing species can be tried instead, with the key concept being local level ownership and sustainability of the effort.
---
Renard Sexton is FiveThirtyEight's international affairs columnist and is based in Geneva, Switzerland. He can be contacted at sexton538@gmail.com
2.19.2010
Parallels to 1994 Are Superficial, but Results May be the Same
@ 5:41 PM
It's not as though one should expect honesty and integrity from Karl Rove, but it's disappointing when his duplicity involves you personally. In a memo at his website, Rove.com, he carelessly misrepresents my arguments about the Democrats' 2010 electoral picture, while going on to demonstrate a superficial understanding about the underlying dynamics of the race.
Here's what Rove said that I said:
What I do think, however, is that while the results might wind up being pretty similar to 1994, the parameters driving those results are rather different, in much the same way that losing a football game by two touchdowns can be very different between a 14-0 shutout and a 45-31 shootout.
Rove cites a series of polling data to make the case that the electoral cycles are similar. Obama's approval ratings are similar to where Bill Clinton's were in February of 1994, Rove points out, as is the "right track/wrong track" number and Congressional job approval.
As John Sides demonstrates, however, all of these numbers -- Presidential approval, Congressional approval, right track/wrong track -- tend to be highly correlated with one another. So while it looks like Rove has a whole bounty of statistical evidence to make his case, the measures he's citing are largely redundant with one another. And as I pointed out in the original piece, there's one number which is quite different from 1994. That is the popularity of the opposition party. According to Rove's memo, the Republicans polled at a +30 net favorability in 1994. Today, they're at a zero in the poll that Rove cites, and underwater in many other surveys. The actions that George W. Bush undertook under Rove's guidance did a lot of long-term damage to the Republican brand, and that hasn't really been repaired yet. It's been mostly a matter of the Democrats falling back down to earth.
Moreover, Rove is addressing the symptom rather than the cause. As Sides also points out, these various measures of approval are strongly correlated not just with one another, but also with perceptions about the economy, which drives them all in tandem. The economy -- or at least the jobs picture -- is really, really terrible right now, much worse than it was at a comparable point in 1994 by which time Bill Clinton had already started to generate hundreds of thousands of new jobs each month.
If you had the 2010 economy but the 1994 Republican Party, we wouldn't be talking about a 40 seat loss but -- lord knows, a 70 or 80 seat loss. (A 40-seat loss seems enormous, but by historical standards it's fairly commonplace; the Republicans lost 101 seats in 1932 after the Great Depression kicked in.) On the other hand, if the Republican Party were as unpopular as it actually today is but we had 1994's economy rather than 2010's, the Democrats would probably only lose a minimal number of seats if they lost any at all.
Now, I certainly don't think that 100 percent of the Democrats' problems can be pinned on th economy -- we'll explore some of the other causes in a separate piece that will go up over the weekend or on Monday. But what that piece will show is that there are as many dissimilarities to 1994 as there are parallels, at least if one has the presence of mind to step back from the numbers and explore the root causes.
As for Rove, I don't know why he's decided to pick at strawmen rather than engaging my actual arguments. But if he wants to debate an actual person, I'd be game for a throwdown any time -- perhaps we can arrange for something on Sheppard Smith's show, or a two-part series between O'Reilly and Maddow.
Here's what Rove said that I said:
On the blog fivethirtyeight.com, Democratic booster Nate Silver recently suggested the 2010 midterms won’t produce an anti-Democratic swing of the same magnitude of 1994 because “unlike in 1994, the GOP remains quite unpopular.”And here's what I actually said:
It's not that I'm at all optimistic about the Democrats' electoral fortunes in 2010. The general consensus that they'll lose between 25 and 35 House seats strikes me as generous, for instance. I'd put the modal number at somewhere in the low 40s instead, although with a very wide range from as few as 20 Republican pickups to as many as 60. [...]It's pretty rich to be characterized as a "Democratic booster" for having written an article in which I argued that (i) the general consensus on the number of seats that the Democrats will lose in the House is too optimistic (ii) my best guess would be for a loss in the low 40s instead, and possibly as high as 60, which would eclipse the Democrats' 54-seat loss in 1994.
Clearly, 2010 will be to some greater or lesser extent an anti-Democratic year. The question is to what extent it might also be an anti-incumbent year [...] Unlike in 1994, the GOP remains quite strongly unpopular. Also as compared with 1994, the Republicans are less cohesive, and that could result in their nominating a sub-optimal candidate in Kentucky, New Hampshire, Florida or Arizona.
What I do think, however, is that while the results might wind up being pretty similar to 1994, the parameters driving those results are rather different, in much the same way that losing a football game by two touchdowns can be very different between a 14-0 shutout and a 45-31 shootout.
Rove cites a series of polling data to make the case that the electoral cycles are similar. Obama's approval ratings are similar to where Bill Clinton's were in February of 1994, Rove points out, as is the "right track/wrong track" number and Congressional job approval.
As John Sides demonstrates, however, all of these numbers -- Presidential approval, Congressional approval, right track/wrong track -- tend to be highly correlated with one another. So while it looks like Rove has a whole bounty of statistical evidence to make his case, the measures he's citing are largely redundant with one another. And as I pointed out in the original piece, there's one number which is quite different from 1994. That is the popularity of the opposition party. According to Rove's memo, the Republicans polled at a +30 net favorability in 1994. Today, they're at a zero in the poll that Rove cites, and underwater in many other surveys. The actions that George W. Bush undertook under Rove's guidance did a lot of long-term damage to the Republican brand, and that hasn't really been repaired yet. It's been mostly a matter of the Democrats falling back down to earth.
Moreover, Rove is addressing the symptom rather than the cause. As Sides also points out, these various measures of approval are strongly correlated not just with one another, but also with perceptions about the economy, which drives them all in tandem. The economy -- or at least the jobs picture -- is really, really terrible right now, much worse than it was at a comparable point in 1994 by which time Bill Clinton had already started to generate hundreds of thousands of new jobs each month.
If you had the 2010 economy but the 1994 Republican Party, we wouldn't be talking about a 40 seat loss but -- lord knows, a 70 or 80 seat loss. (A 40-seat loss seems enormous, but by historical standards it's fairly commonplace; the Republicans lost 101 seats in 1932 after the Great Depression kicked in.) On the other hand, if the Republican Party were as unpopular as it actually today is but we had 1994's economy rather than 2010's, the Democrats would probably only lose a minimal number of seats if they lost any at all.
Now, I certainly don't think that 100 percent of the Democrats' problems can be pinned on th economy -- we'll explore some of the other causes in a separate piece that will go up over the weekend or on Monday. But what that piece will show is that there are as many dissimilarities to 1994 as there are parallels, at least if one has the presence of mind to step back from the numbers and explore the root causes.
As for Rove, I don't know why he's decided to pick at strawmen rather than engaging my actual arguments. But if he wants to debate an actual person, I'd be game for a throwdown any time -- perhaps we can arrange for something on Sheppard Smith's show, or a two-part series between O'Reilly and Maddow.
Vancouver Medal Count Projections: Day 7
@ 12:58 AM
Well, another good day for the United States, capped off by Evan Lysacek's razor-thin win in men's figure skating, which none of the nine forecasters that we tracked had predicted (although most had him taking the silver). The only downer was the U.S.'s failure to win gold in women's halfpipe, although we still took both the silver and the bronze.
Still, while the U.S. currently has an impressive 11-medal lead against host Canada, that's going to get much narrower, as most of the canucks' best sports are still ahead. We have Canada winning 5-6 more medals in speed skating, 4 medals or so in short track, 3-4 in freestyle skiing, and 4 between hockey and curling.
Germany, on the other hand, is in a little bit of trouble. As compared with the United States and Canada, they rely on completely dominating just a couple of sports -- particularly, the sliding sports (luge, bobsled, skeleton) and biathlon/cross-country -- and they've failed to pick up quite as many medals there as expected. I just don't know that they have enough spots where they can pick up medals to make up for the places where they've underperformed -- and so it looks quite likely that the medals title will go to a North American country for the first time since 1932.
Canada still leads the United States in the gold medals projection, with Norway slipping past Germany into third place. There's a good chance that the gold medals title will come down to women's hockey and ice dancing, where the U.S. and the Canadians are projected to finish 1-2.
p.s. Speaking of women's hockey, these highlights of Slovakia's 82-0 win over Bulgaria in the qualifying tournament are entertaining on a number of levels.
Still, while the U.S. currently has an impressive 11-medal lead against host Canada, that's going to get much narrower, as most of the canucks' best sports are still ahead. We have Canada winning 5-6 more medals in speed skating, 4 medals or so in short track, 3-4 in freestyle skiing, and 4 between hockey and curling.
Germany, on the other hand, is in a little bit of trouble. As compared with the United States and Canada, they rely on completely dominating just a couple of sports -- particularly, the sliding sports (luge, bobsled, skeleton) and biathlon/cross-country -- and they've failed to pick up quite as many medals there as expected. I just don't know that they have enough spots where they can pick up medals to make up for the places where they've underperformed -- and so it looks quite likely that the medals title will go to a North American country for the first time since 1932.
Canada still leads the United States in the gold medals projection, with Norway slipping past Germany into third place. There's a good chance that the gold medals title will come down to women's hockey and ice dancing, where the U.S. and the Canadians are projected to finish 1-2.
p.s. Speaking of women's hockey, these highlights of Slovakia's 82-0 win over Bulgaria in the qualifying tournament are entertaining on a number of levels.
2.18.2010
Black-Robed Legislators on the Bench
@ 6:08 PM
Well, Sam Alito and Barack Obama may have to agree-to-disagree on whether the Supreme Court has ignored a century of judicial precedents in its Citizens United ruling, but there is an unusually high level of agreement among the public about the ruling: They hate it.
A two-question ABC News/Washington Post poll on the issue revealed that 80 percent of Americans (65 percent strongly) oppose the Court's recent ruling, and 72 percent (52 percent strongly) want Congress to do something to reverse the Court. This is stunning. There are very, very few issues in American politics for which there is such lopsided and intense agreement.
ABC/WaPo polling director Gary Langer's analysis is best left unaltered:
Now, the Supreme Court is not supposed to be a majoritarian institution. Its greatness, in fact, is in defending constitutional protections even in the face of public majorities or pluralities opposed to such protections. The Civil Rights Movement was catalyzed by important Court rulings issues in the face of significant public opposition.
But this is a pretty dramatic poll finding. It may lend further momentum and credence to those who foresee a coming, left-right populist revolt--and may temporarily take some of the heat off Obama as a target of such sentiments coming from both of his flanks.
A two-question ABC News/Washington Post poll on the issue revealed that 80 percent of Americans (65 percent strongly) oppose the Court's recent ruling, and 72 percent (52 percent strongly) want Congress to do something to reverse the Court. This is stunning. There are very, very few issues in American politics for which there is such lopsided and intense agreement.
ABC/WaPo polling director Gary Langer's analysis is best left unaltered:
"The bipartisan nature of these views is striking in these largely partisan times. The court’s ruling is opposed, respectively, by 76, 81 and 85 percent of Republicans, independents and Democrats; and by 73, 85 and 86 percent of conservatives, moderates and liberals. Majorities in all these groups, ranging from 58 to 73 percent, not only oppose the ruling but feel strongly about it.Take that, George Will!
Even among people who agree at least somewhat with the Tea Party movement, which advocates less government regulation, 73 percent oppose the high court’s rejection of this particular law. Among the subset who agree strongly with the Tea Party’s positions on the issues – 14 percent of all adults – fewer but still most, 56 percent, oppose the high court in this case."
Now, the Supreme Court is not supposed to be a majoritarian institution. Its greatness, in fact, is in defending constitutional protections even in the face of public majorities or pluralities opposed to such protections. The Civil Rights Movement was catalyzed by important Court rulings issues in the face of significant public opposition.
But this is a pretty dramatic poll finding. It may lend further momentum and credence to those who foresee a coming, left-right populist revolt--and may temporarily take some of the heat off Obama as a target of such sentiments coming from both of his flanks.
Can You Trust Those FireDogLake Polls?
@ 3:50 AM
Since November the blog FireDogLake, which can most comfortably be described as belonging to the anti-establishment left, has surveyed four House districts in which there's a Democratic incumbent via the generally strong pollster SurveyUSA. The Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling, meanwhile, has surveyed five such districts over the same period. The two sets of surveys paint very different pictures of the ways that incumbent Democrats are performing in their respective House races.
Below, I have summarized the surveys along with PVIs and the Cook Political and CQ Politics race ratings for each district as of 11/1/2009. (The reason I use these somewhat outdated race ratings is because their subsequent ratings may have been affected by these surveys, the reliability of which we are attempting to establish.) In all cases, PPP polled the incumbent Democrat against multiple Republican opponents whereas SurveyUSA tested him against just one. Therefore, I only list the PPP result against the Republican opponent who had the highest name recognition.
These districts, at least superficially, would appear to be pretty similar. The races FDL/SUSA tested had a PVI of R+3 on average, whereas PPP's districts average to an R+6. Nor is there an obvious difference in the ratings assigned by Cook or CQ. Nevertheless, PPP shows the Democratic candidate leading by 6 points, on average, whereas FDL shows him trailing by 10. That's a pretty big difference, obviously.
PPP and FDL also tested one district in common, the Arkansas 2nd, where the Democratic incumbent Vic Snyder has since retired. They showed a similarly large difference there, with PPP having Snyder ahead by 1 point and FDL having him down by 17. The FDL survey of AR-2 is about two months more recent; however, both postdate the House's passage of the health care bill on November 7th (which Snyder voted for). The Democrats' decline in the generic ballot since November has been about 4 points and would not be enough to explain an 18-point net difference on its own.
So, uh, what gives?
In the past, I have raised questions about the (mis)leading nature of some of the health care questions that FDL asked on its surveys. However, FDL properly asked the horse race question before asking any of the policy questions, and therefore it should not be substantially affected by them. The one potential exception is if (i) there were a lot of drop-offs in the survey because people got fed up with answering the policy questions and (ii) those drop-offs introduced selection bias. Although this is not completely out of the question -- the FDL/SurveyUSA polls asked a lot of very wordy questions for an automated poll -- I doubt that it would have made a difference of more than a point or two.
Another set of questions about the FDL polls concern their age demographics: they contain an extremely small number of age 18-34 voters, just 1 percent to 5 percent depending on the district. There is a good discussion of this here, here, here and here. To do something halfway between summarize and referee that discussion, what I think we can say is that:
1) The number of young voters included in the SurveyUSA/FDL polls is not realistic, even given absolute-worst-case, zero-degrees Kelvin assumptions about Democratic turnout.
2) This partially results from a set of screening questions employed by SUSA which make it literally impossible for anyone under age 22 to be included in the survey.
3) The more prominent cause, however, is simply that it's hard to get young voters on the phone these days, especially if your sample does not include cellphones.
4) The polls were not weighted by age, even though SurveyUSA often does weight by age.
5) The decision not to weight by age was made by SurveyUSA and not FDL (I have independently confirmed this via an e-mail discussion with SurveyUSA President Jay Leve).
6) Going back and re-weighting by age, as SurveyUSA has done, does not really work, since the sample sizes are so small that there is not a reliable basis to establish the weightings.
7) With all of the above said, the differences probably shouldn't amount to more than a net of about 2-5 points, which is nontrivial but would not explain the entirety of the house effect that we observe.
Another difference between the FDL polls and the PPP polls is that the PPP polls are of registered voters whereas FDL tests likely voters; likely voter polls have generally shown much better results for Republicans this cycle. However, the likely voter screen that FDL/SurveyUSA applied is fairly "soft" and asked about past voting behavior (the voter had to have voted in 2008 and either 2006 or 2002) but not the likelihood of voting in the upcoming elections. So it may have made some difference, but not likely as much as a Rasmussen-type likely voter screen might have.
In summary, we have about a 15-point net difference to explain between the two sets of surveys. Of that, probably 2-5 percent probably has to do with SurveyUSA's sampling issues with young voters. Another 1-4 percent (this is obviously a rough guess) might have to do with the application of a loose likely voter screen in the FDL survey. It's possible that some additional differences resulted from the battery of questions that FDL/SurveyUSA asked after the horse race question -- the long series of questions they asked about health care -- if this triggered a substantial a number of drop-offs, although if so the effects are likely fairly small. Finally, some portion of the difference may not result from methodology, and instead may reflect sampling error (i.e. random noise) or differences in the nature of the districts which were surveyed.
To be honest, both sets of polls feel a little off to me -- PPP's on the high side (for Democrats) and FDL's on the low side. In the PPP universe, it feels like Democrats would be bound to lose only about 20 seats; in the FDL universe, they might lose 60. My feeling is that a loss of about 40 seats is probably the most neutral expectation, so you might sort of split the difference between them, which would imply taking 5-8 points away from the Democrat in the PPP surveys and adding the same margin to their numbers in the FDL surveys.
But who knows. PPP hasn't really polled a lot of House districts before and the one time they tried, in NY-23, it went badly. SurveyUSA has polled house districts with some regularity and usually done fine. On the other hand, the fact that their age-based demographics were so far off in these polls is a bit concerning and raises questions about their sample selection. Suffice it to say that I think you should treat all polls with skepticism and these are no exception.
The last thing that needs to be said is that whatever numerical differences there are, they're on the shoulders of SurveyUSA and not FDL. In an e-mail exchange with me, SurveyUSA's Jay Leve made it quite clear that his firm was responsible for all methodological decisions about its polls.
As regular readers of this website will know, I have very little respect for FDL's 11-dimensional chess strategies. That includes the decision to poll in districts like these, something which they have every right to do, but the motivation for which pretty clearly seemed to be scaring the Hell out of Democrats in order to implode the health care bill, which FDL opposes. In addition, I spoke with one source who told me that Vic Snyder had not conducted any polling of his own and that his decision to retire may in fact have been motivated in part by the FDL poll. Snyder is the 13th most valuable House Democrat according to our ratings and his decision to retire was a blow for Democrats, although it's reasonable to surmise that his decision to retire might have come later had it not come sooner.
But ... none of that necessarily impacts the accuracy or integrity of the horse race question, which SurveyUSA has signed off upon. And as little respect as I have for FDL is as much respect as I have for SurveyUSA, which is a strong and transparent polling firm.
Going forward, when FiveThityEight evaluates pollsters, it will include all polls included under that pollster's banner, regardless of the client that the poll is conducted on behalf of. That is, we expect a pollster to do its very best work whenever its brand name is associated with a poll; there are no mulligans. That is Jay Leve's philosophy at SurveyUSA too, which is very comforting. So I don't think there's anything untoward that's gone on here -- although there do appear to be some house effects in these congressional district polls resulting from methodological decisions that SurveyUSA has made.
Below, I have summarized the surveys along with PVIs and the Cook Political and CQ Politics race ratings for each district as of 11/1/2009. (The reason I use these somewhat outdated race ratings is because their subsequent ratings may have been affected by these surveys, the reliability of which we are attempting to establish.) In all cases, PPP polled the incumbent Democrat against multiple Republican opponents whereas SurveyUSA tested him against just one. Therefore, I only list the PPP result against the Republican opponent who had the highest name recognition.
These districts, at least superficially, would appear to be pretty similar. The races FDL/SUSA tested had a PVI of R+3 on average, whereas PPP's districts average to an R+6. Nor is there an obvious difference in the ratings assigned by Cook or CQ. Nevertheless, PPP shows the Democratic candidate leading by 6 points, on average, whereas FDL shows him trailing by 10. That's a pretty big difference, obviously.
PPP and FDL also tested one district in common, the Arkansas 2nd, where the Democratic incumbent Vic Snyder has since retired. They showed a similarly large difference there, with PPP having Snyder ahead by 1 point and FDL having him down by 17. The FDL survey of AR-2 is about two months more recent; however, both postdate the House's passage of the health care bill on November 7th (which Snyder voted for). The Democrats' decline in the generic ballot since November has been about 4 points and would not be enough to explain an 18-point net difference on its own.
So, uh, what gives?
In the past, I have raised questions about the (mis)leading nature of some of the health care questions that FDL asked on its surveys. However, FDL properly asked the horse race question before asking any of the policy questions, and therefore it should not be substantially affected by them. The one potential exception is if (i) there were a lot of drop-offs in the survey because people got fed up with answering the policy questions and (ii) those drop-offs introduced selection bias. Although this is not completely out of the question -- the FDL/SurveyUSA polls asked a lot of very wordy questions for an automated poll -- I doubt that it would have made a difference of more than a point or two.
Another set of questions about the FDL polls concern their age demographics: they contain an extremely small number of age 18-34 voters, just 1 percent to 5 percent depending on the district. There is a good discussion of this here, here, here and here. To do something halfway between summarize and referee that discussion, what I think we can say is that:
1) The number of young voters included in the SurveyUSA/FDL polls is not realistic, even given absolute-worst-case, zero-degrees Kelvin assumptions about Democratic turnout.
2) This partially results from a set of screening questions employed by SUSA which make it literally impossible for anyone under age 22 to be included in the survey.
3) The more prominent cause, however, is simply that it's hard to get young voters on the phone these days, especially if your sample does not include cellphones.
4) The polls were not weighted by age, even though SurveyUSA often does weight by age.
5) The decision not to weight by age was made by SurveyUSA and not FDL (I have independently confirmed this via an e-mail discussion with SurveyUSA President Jay Leve).
6) Going back and re-weighting by age, as SurveyUSA has done, does not really work, since the sample sizes are so small that there is not a reliable basis to establish the weightings.
7) With all of the above said, the differences probably shouldn't amount to more than a net of about 2-5 points, which is nontrivial but would not explain the entirety of the house effect that we observe.
Another difference between the FDL polls and the PPP polls is that the PPP polls are of registered voters whereas FDL tests likely voters; likely voter polls have generally shown much better results for Republicans this cycle. However, the likely voter screen that FDL/SurveyUSA applied is fairly "soft" and asked about past voting behavior (the voter had to have voted in 2008 and either 2006 or 2002) but not the likelihood of voting in the upcoming elections. So it may have made some difference, but not likely as much as a Rasmussen-type likely voter screen might have.
In summary, we have about a 15-point net difference to explain between the two sets of surveys. Of that, probably 2-5 percent probably has to do with SurveyUSA's sampling issues with young voters. Another 1-4 percent (this is obviously a rough guess) might have to do with the application of a loose likely voter screen in the FDL survey. It's possible that some additional differences resulted from the battery of questions that FDL/SurveyUSA asked after the horse race question -- the long series of questions they asked about health care -- if this triggered a substantial a number of drop-offs, although if so the effects are likely fairly small. Finally, some portion of the difference may not result from methodology, and instead may reflect sampling error (i.e. random noise) or differences in the nature of the districts which were surveyed.
To be honest, both sets of polls feel a little off to me -- PPP's on the high side (for Democrats) and FDL's on the low side. In the PPP universe, it feels like Democrats would be bound to lose only about 20 seats; in the FDL universe, they might lose 60. My feeling is that a loss of about 40 seats is probably the most neutral expectation, so you might sort of split the difference between them, which would imply taking 5-8 points away from the Democrat in the PPP surveys and adding the same margin to their numbers in the FDL surveys.
But who knows. PPP hasn't really polled a lot of House districts before and the one time they tried, in NY-23, it went badly. SurveyUSA has polled house districts with some regularity and usually done fine. On the other hand, the fact that their age-based demographics were so far off in these polls is a bit concerning and raises questions about their sample selection. Suffice it to say that I think you should treat all polls with skepticism and these are no exception.
The last thing that needs to be said is that whatever numerical differences there are, they're on the shoulders of SurveyUSA and not FDL. In an e-mail exchange with me, SurveyUSA's Jay Leve made it quite clear that his firm was responsible for all methodological decisions about its polls.
As regular readers of this website will know, I have very little respect for FDL's 11-dimensional chess strategies. That includes the decision to poll in districts like these, something which they have every right to do, but the motivation for which pretty clearly seemed to be scaring the Hell out of Democrats in order to implode the health care bill, which FDL opposes. In addition, I spoke with one source who told me that Vic Snyder had not conducted any polling of his own and that his decision to retire may in fact have been motivated in part by the FDL poll. Snyder is the 13th most valuable House Democrat according to our ratings and his decision to retire was a blow for Democrats, although it's reasonable to surmise that his decision to retire might have come later had it not come sooner.
But ... none of that necessarily impacts the accuracy or integrity of the horse race question, which SurveyUSA has signed off upon. And as little respect as I have for FDL is as much respect as I have for SurveyUSA, which is a strong and transparent polling firm.
Going forward, when FiveThityEight evaluates pollsters, it will include all polls included under that pollster's banner, regardless of the client that the poll is conducted on behalf of. That is, we expect a pollster to do its very best work whenever its brand name is associated with a poll; there are no mulligans. That is Jay Leve's philosophy at SurveyUSA too, which is very comforting. So I don't think there's anything untoward that's gone on here -- although there do appear to be some house effects in these congressional district polls resulting from methodological decisions that SurveyUSA has made.
2.17.2010
Vancouver Medal Count Projections: Day 6
@ 11:23 PM
I know, I know: no politics today. But more importantly: USA! USA! USA! The Americans won 6 medals tonight, as many as during the entire 1988 games in Calgary and a single-day Winter Olympics record. Although the golds from Shaun White, Shani Davis and Linsdey Vonn were pretty widely expected, picking up a second medal in each sport was a nice surprise.
The U.S. vaults ahead of both Canada and Germany in the medal projections, the latter of which had a somewhat bad day as the Germans managed just a bronze medal in luge when most were expecting a gold and perhaps even a podium sweep. Canada, which has most of its strongest events still to come, continues to project to win the most golds.
The U.S. vaults ahead of both Canada and Germany in the medal projections, the latter of which had a somewhat bad day as the Germans managed just a bronze medal in luge when most were expecting a gold and perhaps even a podium sweep. Canada, which has most of its strongest events still to come, continues to project to win the most golds.
Vancouver Medal Count Projections: Day 5
@ 7:53 AM
A bit of a tough day for the United States and the first full day of competition in which they did not medal. Lindsay Jacobellis, widely expected to take home at least a bronze, wiped out in women's snowcross instead. The hopes of a medal in women's luge did not materialize. Figure skater Jeremy Abbott bungled his short-program routine, although Evan Lysacek and Johnny Weir did fine. Even the teams in my favorite winter Olympic sport -- curling -- did poorly, with the American men and women combining to go 0-3 in their respective round robins.
The USA has now fallen slightly behind both Canada and Germany in the medal projections, which you can find below the jump, although it remains exceptionally competitive with each nation projected to take home around 30 pieces of hardware. The country having the best Olympics so far? France, whose 7 medals to date are twice as many as expected.
The USA has now fallen slightly behind both Canada and Germany in the medal projections, which you can find below the jump, although it remains exceptionally competitive with each nation projected to take home around 30 pieces of hardware. The country having the best Olympics so far? France, whose 7 medals to date are twice as many as expected.
2.16.2010
Buh-Bayh
@ 11:17 PM
I never much cared for Sen. Evan Bayh, and care even less for his lame explanation of why he is retiring. It’s not that he’s one of an increasingly extinct number of centrist legislators who presume to be better than partisans from either side of the aisle, or that he expects to exercise power beyond his lone vote. And, to be fair, the laments Bayh expressed upon departure are hardly comparable to the steady diet of hang-wringing sanctimony we get from self-styled saviors, like Bayh’s colleagues Joe Lieberman and John McCain.
It’s just that complaints about America’s polarized politics are especially hypocritical coming from Bayh’s mouth. Why?
For starters, there is far more moderation, not to mention comity, on display in the U.S. Senate than almost anywhere else in American legislative politics. James Madison’s epic Federalist #10 is always remembered for the first half of his two-part argument for the republican form, but most forget the second, corollary half: That as one increases the population size of a representative district there is a greater tendency to elect persons of greater moderation, in both disposition and ideology. Yes, as I pointed out recently the number of states with same-party senators is very high. But there are still some split-party Senate delegations, including Bayh’s Indiana (at least for the moment). If there’s a legislative institution in the country where moderation has it best chance, it’s the one with six-year terms and non-gerrymandered “districts” that include millions and in some cases tens of millions of constituents.
…to which Bayh might complain: Well, if partisan polarization has even poisoned the Senate then no safe haven exists anywhere in American politics for people like him. OK, fair enough. But the notion of a government run based on bi-partisan cooperation among moderates from each party is a fictional fairyland that never existed in the first place, and split-party governance is hardly better. Listening to Bayh wax poetically about the past is like hearing a lecture from your dad (or Bayh's, since his father was senator, too) about how morally superior America was 50 years ago, and then flipping on an episode of Mad Men to see dad's generation drunk by lunch and patting their secretaries' bottoms.
And what is the alternative? Divided government where moderates in each party reign? Let's not forget that in the 41 years since the 1968 elections, we’ve had four years of unified government under Jimmy Carter, two under Bill Clinton, six (if you ignore the Jim Jeffords switch) under George W. Bush, and one so far under Obama—so basically two-thirds of the time we’ve had divided government, which seems to be what moderates crave. This is also the very same period that high-minded pundits lament has been characterized by non-solutions to intractable problems, budgetary stalemate, rising government deficits, and disastrous policy choices, a state of affairs for which each party, with some cause, points the finger of blame at the other. (Clinton’s Fannie Mae caused the financial crisis! No, Bush’s de-regulation of markets is at fault!)
Which brings me to my point: From a representation and government accountability standpoint, party government—and yes, even very ideological party government—has its value. Whether you think rule under George W. Bush and the Republican Congress last decade was the best or worst thing to happen to America, at least you know who was responsible for it. And whether you like the direction Barack Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress are taking the country now, again, you know who is in charge. Elections, as the sagacious Dick Cheney reminded us, have consequences.
Or they should have. But Bayh and people like him think elections don’t have consequences because, well, he’s in Washington. And Sen. Bayh's sensibilities trump policy progress. Not to dismiss entirely the Scott Brown victory, but the Democrats in the 2006 and 2008 cycles combined flipped the White House by about 10 popular-vote percentage points, picked up 16 net Senate seats (16 percent of that chamber), and 61 House seats (14 percent). Yet policy is not supposed to respond at all to these shifts, but instead hew closely to whatever happens to catch the fancy of senators like Bayh, Lieberman, McCain or Specter as they ride in the town car to the Meet The Press studios any given Sunday morning? This makes no sense.
Here’s the role that moderates should play in American politics:
But no. Instead, he’s had enough. Well, Buh-Bayh, Senator.
It’s just that complaints about America’s polarized politics are especially hypocritical coming from Bayh’s mouth. Why?
For starters, there is far more moderation, not to mention comity, on display in the U.S. Senate than almost anywhere else in American legislative politics. James Madison’s epic Federalist #10 is always remembered for the first half of his two-part argument for the republican form, but most forget the second, corollary half: That as one increases the population size of a representative district there is a greater tendency to elect persons of greater moderation, in both disposition and ideology. Yes, as I pointed out recently the number of states with same-party senators is very high. But there are still some split-party Senate delegations, including Bayh’s Indiana (at least for the moment). If there’s a legislative institution in the country where moderation has it best chance, it’s the one with six-year terms and non-gerrymandered “districts” that include millions and in some cases tens of millions of constituents.
…to which Bayh might complain: Well, if partisan polarization has even poisoned the Senate then no safe haven exists anywhere in American politics for people like him. OK, fair enough. But the notion of a government run based on bi-partisan cooperation among moderates from each party is a fictional fairyland that never existed in the first place, and split-party governance is hardly better. Listening to Bayh wax poetically about the past is like hearing a lecture from your dad (or Bayh's, since his father was senator, too) about how morally superior America was 50 years ago, and then flipping on an episode of Mad Men to see dad's generation drunk by lunch and patting their secretaries' bottoms.
And what is the alternative? Divided government where moderates in each party reign? Let's not forget that in the 41 years since the 1968 elections, we’ve had four years of unified government under Jimmy Carter, two under Bill Clinton, six (if you ignore the Jim Jeffords switch) under George W. Bush, and one so far under Obama—so basically two-thirds of the time we’ve had divided government, which seems to be what moderates crave. This is also the very same period that high-minded pundits lament has been characterized by non-solutions to intractable problems, budgetary stalemate, rising government deficits, and disastrous policy choices, a state of affairs for which each party, with some cause, points the finger of blame at the other. (Clinton’s Fannie Mae caused the financial crisis! No, Bush’s de-regulation of markets is at fault!)
Which brings me to my point: From a representation and government accountability standpoint, party government—and yes, even very ideological party government—has its value. Whether you think rule under George W. Bush and the Republican Congress last decade was the best or worst thing to happen to America, at least you know who was responsible for it. And whether you like the direction Barack Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress are taking the country now, again, you know who is in charge. Elections, as the sagacious Dick Cheney reminded us, have consequences.
Or they should have. But Bayh and people like him think elections don’t have consequences because, well, he’s in Washington. And Sen. Bayh's sensibilities trump policy progress. Not to dismiss entirely the Scott Brown victory, but the Democrats in the 2006 and 2008 cycles combined flipped the White House by about 10 popular-vote percentage points, picked up 16 net Senate seats (16 percent of that chamber), and 61 House seats (14 percent). Yet policy is not supposed to respond at all to these shifts, but instead hew closely to whatever happens to catch the fancy of senators like Bayh, Lieberman, McCain or Specter as they ride in the town car to the Meet The Press studios any given Sunday morning? This makes no sense.
Here’s the role that moderates should play in American politics:
1. They should lay down markers now and again, and occasionally be a holdout when the policy process is insufficiently transparent or the national deliberation insufficiently substantive. Majority-party moderates needn't rubberstamp every item of their majority’s agenda, nor should minority-party moderates be co-opted tools. However, they shouldn’t expect their ideal policy preference to be the outcome produced by the majority party caucus for which they serve as either an in-party outlier or an out-party critic. This is policy hostage-taking, and it is more dangerous and corrosive to democracy than the ideological, one-party rule moderates so often carp about.As for Bayh’s particular strain of moderation, his is even more distressing because the guy's hardly a legislative titan. On the workhorse-showhorse continuum, he’s far closer to the latter than the former end of the horse, so to speak. Say what you want about somebody like McCain, but at least his name is on some major pieces of legislation that took years and tons of political capital to force through Congress. What are Bayh’s legislative achievements after nearly two terms in the Senate? Please tell me. And if the holes in Bayh's legislative resume can be partially explained by the fact that he spent most of his Senate career in the minority, then heck: Now’s your chance, Senator. You finally became part of the majority without the White House in 2006, and then became part of an even larger chamber majority plus the Oval Office in 2008. Now’s the moment to make your mark, to leave an impression beyond that of a white flag-waving politician whining that the Senate has become a politically inhospitable environment for a senator’s son.
2. Then, after they have negotiated for some concessions or refinements, and precisely because those concessions and refinements were made to accommodate their rhetorical or literal opposition, their role at that point is to wholeheartedly back the compromise. They are fully entitled to clarify their vote for the constituents, saying something like, “Look, this is not the legislation that a chamber full of people like me would produce, but this is a good and good-faith effort by the majority party to solve this national problem.” But what they shouldn’t be allowed to do is hold the process hostage and extract certain policy concessions and still complain about both the process and the outcome. It would be more intellectually honest to just vote against the legislation and criticize it--or even vote for it and criticize it.
But no. Instead, he’s had enough. Well, Buh-Bayh, Senator.
Republicans Must Defend Senate Seats Too
@ 7:45 AM
It's not that I'm at all optimistic about the Democrats' electoral fortunes in 2010. The general consensus that they'll lose between 25 and 35 House seats strikes me as generous, for instance. I'd put the modal number at somewhere in the low 40s instead, although with a very wide range from as few as 20 Republican pickups to as many as 60.
But if Intrade is giving Republicans a 30 percent chance of an outright takeover of the Senate, I'd take the Democrats' side of the bet.
Certainly, it's no longer that hard to chart a path under which the Republicans would gain the 10 Senate seats they'd need for a takeover. They are overwhelming favorites in North Dakota, strong favorites in Delaware, Arkansas and Nevada, modest favorites in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Colorado, and perhaps at least even-money in Illinois. Those are the eight obvious opportunities. Number nine would be California, where I'm a little bit skeptical of Carly Fiorina or Chuck DeVore's ability to defeat Barbara Boxer, but where Tom Campbell might have the goods. The tenth seat is tougher: Republicans would need a recruiting coup in Wisconsin (unlikely; Tommy Thompson just went to consult for a hedge fund), New York (less unlikely, but George Pataki would need to raise a lot of money very fast), or Washington (less unlikely, but Dino Rossi has kept a very low profile) -- or some kind of wild card, like Robert Byrd falling ill in West Virginia.
However, even if Republicans can recruit a good candidate in Washington or New York, and make smart decisions in California, and win the toss-ups in places like Illinois, and not screw up any of the seven or so races in which they appear to be favored, they also have to make sure that Democrats don't take over any of their own seats. And this is the factor that the market may not be properly accounting for. The Democrats are competitive right now in Missouri, Ohio, New Hampshire, and Kentucky, could become that way in North Carolina and possibly Florida, and there's an outside chance they could get a wild card of their own like Arizona. In most of these races, you either have a Republican (in an anti-establishment year) who is more a part of the establishment than his opponent, primary dynamics that could lead to the selection of an inexperienced or too-conservative candidate, or both.
Certainly, it's not unprecedented for a party to completely shut out its opponent out when it has a sufficiently strong wind at its back. This happened, for instance (see chart below) in 1946, 1948, 1958, 1980, 1994, and both 2006 and 2008. On the other hand, you also have cycles like 1950, 1962, 1968, 1978 and 1986 in which one party clearly got the better of it, but the other party managed to pick up one or perhaps even several seats. And there are other cycles like 1952 and 1976 that were more anti-incumbent than anything else, and in which both major parties lost a substantial number of seats.
Clearly, 2010 will be to some greater or lesser extent an anti-Democratic year. The question is to what extent it might also be an anti-incumbent year, in which case Republicans could lose in Missouri or Ohio (where they'll nominate card-carrying members of the GOP establishment) or perhaps a state like North Carolina, where they have an incumbent proper. Unlike in 1994, the GOP remains quite strongly unpopular. Also as compared with 1994, the Republicans are less cohesive, and that could result in their nominating a sub-optimal candidate in Kentucky, New Hampshire, Florida or Arizona.
If the national environment moves, say, another 5 points toward the Republicans, the shutout becomes fairly likely, and even good campaigns might not be enough to save the Democrats. For the time being, however, they could still easily win any of four or five races on the basis of a superior campaign -- and while they might not be a favorite in any of those individual races, the collective odds of Democrats picking off at least one of them are pretty decent, and even one such pickup could end the Republicans' dreams of a Senate takeover.
A final note: although Evan Bayh's retirement in Indiana was clearly great news for Republicans, it didn't necessarily increase their odds for a Senate takeover all that materially. The reason is that the Republicans' path of least resistance toward a 10-seat pickup already involved their winning Indiana, which in spite of some erratic polling, certainly appeared to be a more promising pickup opportunity than blue states like California, Washington or Wisconsin where Republicans may not even have a credible candidate in place.
But if Intrade is giving Republicans a 30 percent chance of an outright takeover of the Senate, I'd take the Democrats' side of the bet.
Certainly, it's no longer that hard to chart a path under which the Republicans would gain the 10 Senate seats they'd need for a takeover. They are overwhelming favorites in North Dakota, strong favorites in Delaware, Arkansas and Nevada, modest favorites in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Colorado, and perhaps at least even-money in Illinois. Those are the eight obvious opportunities. Number nine would be California, where I'm a little bit skeptical of Carly Fiorina or Chuck DeVore's ability to defeat Barbara Boxer, but where Tom Campbell might have the goods. The tenth seat is tougher: Republicans would need a recruiting coup in Wisconsin (unlikely; Tommy Thompson just went to consult for a hedge fund), New York (less unlikely, but George Pataki would need to raise a lot of money very fast), or Washington (less unlikely, but Dino Rossi has kept a very low profile) -- or some kind of wild card, like Robert Byrd falling ill in West Virginia.
However, even if Republicans can recruit a good candidate in Washington or New York, and make smart decisions in California, and win the toss-ups in places like Illinois, and not screw up any of the seven or so races in which they appear to be favored, they also have to make sure that Democrats don't take over any of their own seats. And this is the factor that the market may not be properly accounting for. The Democrats are competitive right now in Missouri, Ohio, New Hampshire, and Kentucky, could become that way in North Carolina and possibly Florida, and there's an outside chance they could get a wild card of their own like Arizona. In most of these races, you either have a Republican (in an anti-establishment year) who is more a part of the establishment than his opponent, primary dynamics that could lead to the selection of an inexperienced or too-conservative candidate, or both.
Certainly, it's not unprecedented for a party to completely shut out its opponent out when it has a sufficiently strong wind at its back. This happened, for instance (see chart below) in 1946, 1948, 1958, 1980, 1994, and both 2006 and 2008. On the other hand, you also have cycles like 1950, 1962, 1968, 1978 and 1986 in which one party clearly got the better of it, but the other party managed to pick up one or perhaps even several seats. And there are other cycles like 1952 and 1976 that were more anti-incumbent than anything else, and in which both major parties lost a substantial number of seats.
Clearly, 2010 will be to some greater or lesser extent an anti-Democratic year. The question is to what extent it might also be an anti-incumbent year, in which case Republicans could lose in Missouri or Ohio (where they'll nominate card-carrying members of the GOP establishment) or perhaps a state like North Carolina, where they have an incumbent proper. Unlike in 1994, the GOP remains quite strongly unpopular. Also as compared with 1994, the Republicans are less cohesive, and that could result in their nominating a sub-optimal candidate in Kentucky, New Hampshire, Florida or Arizona.
If the national environment moves, say, another 5 points toward the Republicans, the shutout becomes fairly likely, and even good campaigns might not be enough to save the Democrats. For the time being, however, they could still easily win any of four or five races on the basis of a superior campaign -- and while they might not be a favorite in any of those individual races, the collective odds of Democrats picking off at least one of them are pretty decent, and even one such pickup could end the Republicans' dreams of a Senate takeover.
A final note: although Evan Bayh's retirement in Indiana was clearly great news for Republicans, it didn't necessarily increase their odds for a Senate takeover all that materially. The reason is that the Republicans' path of least resistance toward a 10-seat pickup already involved their winning Indiana, which in spite of some erratic polling, certainly appeared to be a more promising pickup opportunity than blue states like California, Washington or Wisconsin where Republicans may not even have a credible candidate in place.
Vancouver Medal Count Projections: Day 4
@ 12:25 AM
Spoiler alert!
Relatively little change today among the top three positions, with the United States, Canada and Germany all projecting to a virtual dead heat in terms of the overall medal count. Methodology and yesterday's results are here.
The United States got a somewhat unexpected medal in the men's downhill today, as Bode Miller took bronze -- something which only 2 of 8 forecasters expected. They also took a gold in men's snowboardcross, although some forecasters had expected them to win 2 medals in that event. Meanwhile, several forecasters had them taking a bronze in the men's 500m speed skating event, but they failed to do so; they may also take a hit tomorrow when the women's luge concludes as Erin Hamlin, widely expected to medal, finds herself in 15th place after the first two of four runs.
By popular demand, we can also predict the number of gold medals:
Seth Wescott's snowcross gold helps the USA more here, as most forecasters had the gold going to France, and it again finds itself in a close contest against Canada and Germany. Norway, which had an outside chance to win the most golds, injured those chances today by failing to take gold (and claiming just one medal) in the two cross-country events that ran today.
Relatively little change today among the top three positions, with the United States, Canada and Germany all projecting to a virtual dead heat in terms of the overall medal count. Methodology and yesterday's results are here.
The United States got a somewhat unexpected medal in the men's downhill today, as Bode Miller took bronze -- something which only 2 of 8 forecasters expected. They also took a gold in men's snowboardcross, although some forecasters had expected them to win 2 medals in that event. Meanwhile, several forecasters had them taking a bronze in the men's 500m speed skating event, but they failed to do so; they may also take a hit tomorrow when the women's luge concludes as Erin Hamlin, widely expected to medal, finds herself in 15th place after the first two of four runs.
By popular demand, we can also predict the number of gold medals:
Seth Wescott's snowcross gold helps the USA more here, as most forecasters had the gold going to France, and it again finds itself in a close contest against Canada and Germany. Norway, which had an outside chance to win the most golds, injured those chances today by failing to take gold (and claiming just one medal) in the two cross-country events that ran today.
2.15.2010
Non-Strategic Retirement
@ 3:02 PM
Senator Bayh's retirement announcement reminds me of a point I've made before (also here) but I think is worth making again: National swings between the two parties are amplified by politicians' natural tendency to stay put when things are going well and retire when the political climate looks stormy.
Here's the long version:
One thing I learned in econ class in 11th grade was that government policy should be counter-cyclical (spending more in recessions and cutting back in boom times), but that there’s a lot of pressure to be pro-cyclical, which will tend to exacerbate business cycles. (Except I suppose they didn’t say “exacerbate” in 11th grade.) At a personal level, too, it’s natural to spend more when we have more and cut back when we aren’t doing so well. Every now and then you hear about a “rainy day fund” but my general impression is that these are never big enough to counter the business cycle.
Political parties seem to apply a similar pro-cyclical behavior in their congressional election campaigns. Consider 2008, which was expected to be a good year for the Democrats, and so should've be the time for them to make some investments in new, young candidates. They should've encouraged lots of their incumbents to retire, because in 2008, they were set to win a lot of these districts without needing the incumbency advantage (estimated to be about 10% of the vote, i.e., enough to take you from 50% to 60%). Conversely, that was the time for the Republican Party to hold on to what it had, and to keep all their incumbents in, trying to hold out until 2010 when the pendulum might swing back in their favor. [Yes, I originally wrote this back in 2008. We could see the pendulum swing coming back then!]
But this sort of strategically-planned retirement doesn't actually occur. Actually, something like 30 Republican House members retired in 2008. Republicans retiring, Democrats sticking around—that was a recipe for big Democratic gains that year. But then in 2010, or 2014, or whatever year it is when the Democrats get wiped out—then a bunch of their incumbents will probably retire, and boy will the Democrats wished they had put in younger incumbents back in 2008 when they had a chance!
One of the difficulties here is that I’m talking about the long-term goals of the parties, but “the parties” are, to a large extent, simply their officeholders. And congressmembers’ incentives can be much different from those of the party as a whole. In particular, it makes sense that an incumbent congressmember will want to quit in a year when he or she would be facing a tough reelection battle, and when the prize for winning is to remain in the minority. Conversely, why step down when you’re facing an easy reelection and the prospect of some juicy committee assignments? So the individual officeholders have an incentive for pro-cyclical behavior, even if it harms their party’s long-term interest.
Beyond the benefits or lack thereof to the individual parties, pro-cyclical behavior would seem to increase the size of political changes, making the swings in congressional representation larger than would be expected simply based on swings in public opinion. Actually, many political scientists would consider this a good thing (an increased “swing ratio”); my point here is that some of this swing is “endogenous” in the sense of arising from pro-cyclical decisions of individual congressmembers deciding whether to run for reelection. It would be interesting to see if this happens with state legislatures as well.
We also see this in the Senate. For example, 84-year-old Frank Lautenberg ran for reelection in New Jersey in 2008. This in a Democratic year when the Democrats might have done well with just about anybody. (Or maybe not; I don’t really follow New Jersey politics and am just extrapolating from national polls.) In 2014, they’re going to need to find someone new, and at that point they might wish they had an incumbent already in the slot.
This year, Evan Bayh and other swing-state Democrats are retiring, and this sort of pro-cyclical behavior is set to amplify the national opinion swing and make the swing in congressional seats even larger than it otherwise would be.
Here's the long version:
One thing I learned in econ class in 11th grade was that government policy should be counter-cyclical (spending more in recessions and cutting back in boom times), but that there’s a lot of pressure to be pro-cyclical, which will tend to exacerbate business cycles. (Except I suppose they didn’t say “exacerbate” in 11th grade.) At a personal level, too, it’s natural to spend more when we have more and cut back when we aren’t doing so well. Every now and then you hear about a “rainy day fund” but my general impression is that these are never big enough to counter the business cycle.
Political parties seem to apply a similar pro-cyclical behavior in their congressional election campaigns. Consider 2008, which was expected to be a good year for the Democrats, and so should've be the time for them to make some investments in new, young candidates. They should've encouraged lots of their incumbents to retire, because in 2008, they were set to win a lot of these districts without needing the incumbency advantage (estimated to be about 10% of the vote, i.e., enough to take you from 50% to 60%). Conversely, that was the time for the Republican Party to hold on to what it had, and to keep all their incumbents in, trying to hold out until 2010 when the pendulum might swing back in their favor. [Yes, I originally wrote this back in 2008. We could see the pendulum swing coming back then!]
But this sort of strategically-planned retirement doesn't actually occur. Actually, something like 30 Republican House members retired in 2008. Republicans retiring, Democrats sticking around—that was a recipe for big Democratic gains that year. But then in 2010, or 2014, or whatever year it is when the Democrats get wiped out—then a bunch of their incumbents will probably retire, and boy will the Democrats wished they had put in younger incumbents back in 2008 when they had a chance!
One of the difficulties here is that I’m talking about the long-term goals of the parties, but “the parties” are, to a large extent, simply their officeholders. And congressmembers’ incentives can be much different from those of the party as a whole. In particular, it makes sense that an incumbent congressmember will want to quit in a year when he or she would be facing a tough reelection battle, and when the prize for winning is to remain in the minority. Conversely, why step down when you’re facing an easy reelection and the prospect of some juicy committee assignments? So the individual officeholders have an incentive for pro-cyclical behavior, even if it harms their party’s long-term interest.
Beyond the benefits or lack thereof to the individual parties, pro-cyclical behavior would seem to increase the size of political changes, making the swings in congressional representation larger than would be expected simply based on swings in public opinion. Actually, many political scientists would consider this a good thing (an increased “swing ratio”); my point here is that some of this swing is “endogenous” in the sense of arising from pro-cyclical decisions of individual congressmembers deciding whether to run for reelection. It would be interesting to see if this happens with state legislatures as well.
We also see this in the Senate. For example, 84-year-old Frank Lautenberg ran for reelection in New Jersey in 2008. This in a Democratic year when the Democrats might have done well with just about anybody. (Or maybe not; I don’t really follow New Jersey politics and am just extrapolating from national polls.) In 2014, they’re going to need to find someone new, and at that point they might wish they had an incumbent already in the slot.
This year, Evan Bayh and other swing-state Democrats are retiring, and this sort of pro-cyclical behavior is set to amplify the national opinion swing and make the swing in congressional seats even larger than it otherwise would be.
Bayh, Relative to His State, Was Valuable to Democrats
@ 1:24 PM
In December, I prepared a post entitled 2009's Most Valuable Democrats, which evaluated Democratic members of the House in terms of the number of progressive votes they cast on key issues relative to a typical Representative from their district. One of the key takeaways was moderate, Blue Dog Democrats, while sometimes being among the party's least valuable members when they hail from fairly blue districts, can also be exceptionally valuable to the party if they come from more conservative districts but vote with their party on key issues.
We did not apply the Most Valuable Democrat analysis to the Senate. But Evan Bayh, rest assured, would not have been a finalist for the award. Of the 59 Senate Democrats in the current Congress, he was the 2nd most conservative after Ben Nelson, according to the DW-NOMINATE database. Nevertheless, because he comes from a fairly red state, Bayh was reasonably valuable to his party, ranking about in the middle of the pack among all Democratic Senators based on his roll call votes.
The following chart details the DW-NOMINATE scores for each current Senator, which run from -1.0 for extremely liberal to +1.0 for extremely conservative. This is compared against the Partisan Voting Index in each district based on the results of the 2004 and 2008 Presidential elections. Bayh is indicated by the yellow diamond.
The further a Democrat is above the line that runs diagonally throughout the chart, the more valuable he is to his party relative to a typical Senator from his state. This line represents the expected DW-NOMINATE score for a Senator from a state with a given PVI. The way that the line is calculated is a tiny bit complicated: I first use logistic regression to estimate the chance of a Democrat having been elected from a state with the given PVI over the course of the last four Congresses (i.e. since 2000). I then calculate the Senator's expected DW-NOMINATE score conditionally upon his being a Democrat and a Republican, respectively, and these numbers are combined together.
In Bayh's state of Indiana, for example, which has a PVI of R+5, the chance of a Democrat being elected is about 40 percent. If the Senator is a Democrat, we would expect his DW-NOMINATE score to be -.322; if he is a Republican, we would expect it to be +.389. The expected DW-NOMINATE score of a Senator from Indiana, then, is:
The positive score indicates that we'd expect a Senator from Indiana to be slightly more conservative than average. Bayh's score is -.171 instead, meaning he is slightly more liberal than average. In total, he's .274 DW-NOMINATE "points" further to the left than we'd typically expect of a Senator from Indiana. This almost exactly matches the value-added for an average Democratic Senator, which is .278 points.
Note that, conditionally upon his being a Democrat, Bayh is conservative, even relative to his fairly conservative state. Other Democrats like Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln, for instance, are slightly more liberal than Bayh, even though they hail from more conservative states. And some other red-state Democrats like Mark Begich and Jon Tester are much more liberal than him. Nevertheless, a Republican from Indiana would probably also be at least reasonably conservative, and would rarely align with the Democrats on key votes. And, without Bayh holding the seat, we'd expect a Republican to get elected in Indiana the majority of the time. On balance, then, Bayh was a decent trade-off for the Democrats. Although he is not as liberal as he could be, he had a lot of value as a placeholder in preventing a conservative Republican from being elected in his place.
The rankings for all 59 Democratic Senators are listed below; Bayh ranks 25th.
While I am reasonably fond of this metric, there are obviously reasonable ways to define a particular Senator as being valuable or not valuable to his party, other than his voting record as narrowly construed. Perhaps Bayh unhelpfully shifts the Democrats' Overton Window to the right, for instance, or perhaps he forms alliances with other Senators in such a way as to make the overall caucus more conservative. And unlike, say, in North Dakota, there is some upside to the Democrats here. Whereas it's rather unlikely that a Democrat materially more liberal than Byron Dorgan could get elected in North Dakota, Indiana is probably capable of electing a more liberal, populist Democrat than Bayh.
Nevertheless, the fact is that over time, the median voter theorem tends to prevail, and that electing someone slightly to the left of center is usually a win for the liberal party in a slightly-to-the-right-of-center jurisdiction. (Democrats may have gotten somewhat spoiled by the elections of 2006 and 2008, during which they were winning virtually every competitive seat, but that environment no longer holds.) Although Democrats have every reason to continue to fight for Indiana, the odds in the current environment are that a Republican will prevail in the race to replace Bayh and Democrats will go from having an uncertain vote for their agenda to one who almost never aligns with them.
We did not apply the Most Valuable Democrat analysis to the Senate. But Evan Bayh, rest assured, would not have been a finalist for the award. Of the 59 Senate Democrats in the current Congress, he was the 2nd most conservative after Ben Nelson, according to the DW-NOMINATE database. Nevertheless, because he comes from a fairly red state, Bayh was reasonably valuable to his party, ranking about in the middle of the pack among all Democratic Senators based on his roll call votes.
The following chart details the DW-NOMINATE scores for each current Senator, which run from -1.0 for extremely liberal to +1.0 for extremely conservative. This is compared against the Partisan Voting Index in each district based on the results of the 2004 and 2008 Presidential elections. Bayh is indicated by the yellow diamond.
The further a Democrat is above the line that runs diagonally throughout the chart, the more valuable he is to his party relative to a typical Senator from his state. This line represents the expected DW-NOMINATE score for a Senator from a state with a given PVI. The way that the line is calculated is a tiny bit complicated: I first use logistic regression to estimate the chance of a Democrat having been elected from a state with the given PVI over the course of the last four Congresses (i.e. since 2000). I then calculate the Senator's expected DW-NOMINATE score conditionally upon his being a Democrat and a Republican, respectively, and these numbers are combined together.
In Bayh's state of Indiana, for example, which has a PVI of R+5, the chance of a Democrat being elected is about 40 percent. If the Senator is a Democrat, we would expect his DW-NOMINATE score to be -.322; if he is a Republican, we would expect it to be +.389. The expected DW-NOMINATE score of a Senator from Indiana, then, is:
(40% x -.332) + (60% x +.389) = +.103The positive score indicates that we'd expect a Senator from Indiana to be slightly more conservative than average. Bayh's score is -.171 instead, meaning he is slightly more liberal than average. In total, he's .274 DW-NOMINATE "points" further to the left than we'd typically expect of a Senator from Indiana. This almost exactly matches the value-added for an average Democratic Senator, which is .278 points.
Note that, conditionally upon his being a Democrat, Bayh is conservative, even relative to his fairly conservative state. Other Democrats like Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln, for instance, are slightly more liberal than Bayh, even though they hail from more conservative states. And some other red-state Democrats like Mark Begich and Jon Tester are much more liberal than him. Nevertheless, a Republican from Indiana would probably also be at least reasonably conservative, and would rarely align with the Democrats on key votes. And, without Bayh holding the seat, we'd expect a Republican to get elected in Indiana the majority of the time. On balance, then, Bayh was a decent trade-off for the Democrats. Although he is not as liberal as he could be, he had a lot of value as a placeholder in preventing a conservative Republican from being elected in his place.
The rankings for all 59 Democratic Senators are listed below; Bayh ranks 25th.
While I am reasonably fond of this metric, there are obviously reasonable ways to define a particular Senator as being valuable or not valuable to his party, other than his voting record as narrowly construed. Perhaps Bayh unhelpfully shifts the Democrats' Overton Window to the right, for instance, or perhaps he forms alliances with other Senators in such a way as to make the overall caucus more conservative. And unlike, say, in North Dakota, there is some upside to the Democrats here. Whereas it's rather unlikely that a Democrat materially more liberal than Byron Dorgan could get elected in North Dakota, Indiana is probably capable of electing a more liberal, populist Democrat than Bayh.
Nevertheless, the fact is that over time, the median voter theorem tends to prevail, and that electing someone slightly to the left of center is usually a win for the liberal party in a slightly-to-the-right-of-center jurisdiction. (Democrats may have gotten somewhat spoiled by the elections of 2006 and 2008, during which they were winning virtually every competitive seat, but that environment no longer holds.) Although Democrats have every reason to continue to fight for Indiana, the odds in the current environment are that a Republican will prevail in the race to replace Bayh and Democrats will go from having an uncertain vote for their agenda to one who almost never aligns with them.
2.14.2010
Consensus Olympic Medal Count Projections: Day 3
@ 11:11 PM
Meant to roll this out a bit earlier, but better late than never.
What I've done is to compile the projected medal winners in the 86 Winter Olympic disciplines fromfive six nine sources that forecasted individual winners; these are the Associated Press, USA Today, Sports Illustrated, McClatchy-Tribune, Examiner.com, Canwest, and (for some events only) ESPN.com and betting odds at Ladbrokes and bwin. Nothing terribly fancy here: I've taken a simple mean of the number of medals that each country was expected to win in each discipline, as averaged across the nine sources.
For the events in which medals have been awarded thus far, I've then compared the projected medal winners against the actual ones. You can see how each country is performing against its forecast in the 'variance' column down below. For example, the United States was originally projected to have won 2.7 medals in the events that have taken place to date, but we've actually won 6, meaning that we're 3-4 medals ahead of pace. I've then added back in the consensus projections for the remaining events to produce a revised forecast.
Thanks to the USA's strong performance thus far, we're now essentially in a three-way tie with Canada and Germany in the overall projections, with each country predicted to win between 31 and 33 medals. Norway and Austria, long-shots to begin with, are 2 medals off their pace thus far and would need a miracle to come back. Russia, once dominant in the Winter Olympics, has been harmed be the addition of events like short-track speed skating, freestyle skiing, and snowboarding in which they're not very strong.
Canada has never stood atop the Winter Olympic medals table and the United States has just once, in the 1932 games in Lake Placid.
The USA is projected to win 2.0 medals in the events that will award medals tomorrow, Canada 1.4 and Germany 1.0.
I'm not going to promise that we'll update this chart every single day, but we should do so periodically throughout the Games.
NOTE: Several additional forecasts have been added, resulting in the USA moving incrementally ahead of Canada in the projections.
What I've done is to compile the projected medal winners in the 86 Winter Olympic disciplines from
For the events in which medals have been awarded thus far, I've then compared the projected medal winners against the actual ones. You can see how each country is performing against its forecast in the 'variance' column down below. For example, the United States was originally projected to have won 2.7 medals in the events that have taken place to date, but we've actually won 6, meaning that we're 3-4 medals ahead of pace. I've then added back in the consensus projections for the remaining events to produce a revised forecast.
Thanks to the USA's strong performance thus far, we're now essentially in a three-way tie with Canada and Germany in the overall projections, with each country predicted to win between 31 and 33 medals. Norway and Austria, long-shots to begin with, are 2 medals off their pace thus far and would need a miracle to come back. Russia, once dominant in the Winter Olympics, has been harmed be the addition of events like short-track speed skating, freestyle skiing, and snowboarding in which they're not very strong.
Canada has never stood atop the Winter Olympic medals table and the United States has just once, in the 1932 games in Lake Placid.
The USA is projected to win 2.0 medals in the events that will award medals tomorrow, Canada 1.4 and Germany 1.0.
I'm not going to promise that we'll update this chart every single day, but we should do so periodically throughout the Games.
NOTE: Several additional forecasts have been added, resulting in the USA moving incrementally ahead of Canada in the projections.
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