The National Review's Daniel Foster has an ordered list of what he considers to be the four most likely Supreme Court nominees, sorted "from left to lefter". In that order, he lists Merrick Garland, Elena Kagan, Diane Wood, and Pamela Karlan.
Most other people that I've read today seem to agree with that ordering -- although many of them seem to consider Karlan less likely and not a part of the short-short list. I don't know whether their characterizations of each candidate's judicial philosophy is accurate or inaccurate -- but it does seem to be the conventional wisdom.
Certainly, there are a few legal scholars and Supreme Court correspondents out there who are qualified to know in something approaching an absolute sense each of these people might preside. For the rest of us, however -- and by "us", I mean other people who cover politics for a living -- we're really just kind of winging it and our impressions of each candidate's ideology will be formulated only in a relative sense.
Say that Obama wants to nominate Kagan, for instance. It would seem to do him a lot of good if the Beltway's impression of the short list were...
Garland (moderate)
Kagan
Wood
Karlan
Sullivan
Koh (liberal)
...as opposed to:
Olsen (moderate)
Posner
Dorgan
Garland
Kagan
Wood (liberal)
In other words, I think we can expect to see some trial balloons for relatively liberal candidates like Karlan and Harold Koh -- unless perhaps Obama is planning to nominate someone relatively conservative and might be more concerned about framing the choice to his base, in which case he might dangle some more conservative names instead. Just think of the fun that would ensue on liberal blogs if a "White House official" tells the Washington Post that Obama is considering Ted Olsen! The Overton window is a somewhat overused concept, but it would seem to apply almost perfectly here.
4.09.2010
Supremes Get Ready for Encore
@ 3:21 PM
In general, I'd tend to tamp down expectations surrounding the potential political fallout from Barack Obama's nomination of another Supreme Court justice later this year, which he'll have to do in the wake of Justice Stevens' retirement. As important as the Supreme Court is, Congressional hearings are still Congressional hearings, and are for the most part inside-the-beltway affairs that won't penetrate into the zeitgeist in a year where most voters have things like the economy on their minds.
With that said, there are two fairly obvious risks here. One is if Obama nominates someone who has a vetting problem, has made an uncouth public statement that makes for a good soundbyte, or has some other skeleton in her (and it most likely will be her) closet. Of course, you'd think the White House would be doing everything in its power to avoid that, but history suggests that no amount of due diligence can completely eliminate these sorts of contingencies (and certainly not contingencies that occur during the hearings themselves).
The risk to Republicans is that they overplay their hand, either by filibustering someone whom the public deems to be reasonable and qualified (which I think they will not do: they can read the polls as well as everyone else) or by basically looking like a bunch of jerks (more risk there: the Senate Republicans are not the most charismatic bunch, although those on the Judiciary Committee are savvier than most). Whatever doubts the public might have had about Clarence Thomas, for instance, the Democrats didn't do themselves any favors during his hearings, which may be one reason that they gained nothing in the Senate (and actually lost seats in the House) even while Bill Clinton was romping to a near-landslide in the electoral vote.
One other dynamic to watch out for: whether the partisan split on Obama has become so entrenched that whomever he nominates will start out with 35 percent disapproval.
With that said, there are two fairly obvious risks here. One is if Obama nominates someone who has a vetting problem, has made an uncouth public statement that makes for a good soundbyte, or has some other skeleton in her (and it most likely will be her) closet. Of course, you'd think the White House would be doing everything in its power to avoid that, but history suggests that no amount of due diligence can completely eliminate these sorts of contingencies (and certainly not contingencies that occur during the hearings themselves).
The risk to Republicans is that they overplay their hand, either by filibustering someone whom the public deems to be reasonable and qualified (which I think they will not do: they can read the polls as well as everyone else) or by basically looking like a bunch of jerks (more risk there: the Senate Republicans are not the most charismatic bunch, although those on the Judiciary Committee are savvier than most). Whatever doubts the public might have had about Clarence Thomas, for instance, the Democrats didn't do themselves any favors during his hearings, which may be one reason that they gained nothing in the Senate (and actually lost seats in the House) even while Bill Clinton was romping to a near-landslide in the electoral vote.
One other dynamic to watch out for: whether the partisan split on Obama has become so entrenched that whomever he nominates will start out with 35 percent disapproval.
Has Augusta Gone Soft?
@ 12:04 PM
Well, Tiger's back at Augusta. Crowds yesterday seemed to be generally pleasant and welcoming toward him, if perhaps a bit reserved. Other than an overhead plane with a sarcastic, sexual-themed message banner, there was no heckling. And Woods did pretty well: His 4-under yesterday was his best ever opening round at the Masters.
Also doing well after 18 holes are a bunch of old timers, including former Masters winners Bernard Langer, Sandy Lyle, Tom Watson and Fred Couples, who finished yesterday at -1, -3, -5 and -6, respectively. That 66 for "Boom Boom" Couples--one of my favorite golfers and the '92 champ--puts him alone atop the leaderboard going into the second round; it was also the lowest round of his entire Masters' career. Couples, by the way, is 50.
And that made me wonder: Is the Masters getting easier? Despite the lengthening and toughening of the course over the years, the scores do seem, at first glance, to be trending lower.
Above I've plotted the scores and the winning margins every year since the first tourney in 1934. (There were three wartime years when play was suspended.) The winning scores have steadily gone down. In the first 36 years of competition, through 1972, the average winning score against par was -6.4; in the 37 years from 1973 until last year the average winning score against par was -9.6. The slope for the winning margin during the entire period is -1.8.
This difference could, of course, could be attributable to aberrant yet outstanding performances by just the winners over the past few decades, despite overall scoring for the entire field remaining constant or perhaps even falling. Without collecting every score for every player over 73 tourneys, which I don't have time to do--and absent any resource that I can find which provides field-wide average scores against par--I can't say for sure. And, on a related note, I also want to vent about this horribly small-fonted "Records and Statistics" page at the Masters official site, which is annoying and of little help. (Hullo, somebody needs to fix their website!)
What we do have, conveniently assembled thanks to Wikipedia, are the winner's score and the winner's margin over the next closest finisher(s). And while winner's scores against par have improved, the average margin of victory (2.1 strokes over 73 tourneys so far) has not changed at all during this period: Notice that there is no slope to top trend line, which tracks the margin by which the winner won through four rounds. (N.B.: For tourneys that went to a playoff--which means two or more players were tied after four rounds--I coded the margin 0; of course, the eventual winner in the playoff had to win by at least a stroke, but what matters is the 72-hole margin, if any.)
So, both the winning scores are going down and the margins between the winner and the first runner(s)-up hasn't budged, which means the scores of runner(s)-ups are going down in order to keep pace. Of course, these two data points can only account for the performances at the very top of the leaderboard. But there is another statistic to consider--this one courtesy of that almost-impossible-to-read Records & Stats page at the Masters official site--which is the percentage of players who make the cut each year.
For the non-golf fan, players are allowed to play the final two days only if they are within 10 strokes of the leader. That said, if leaders (at least after two days' play) in recent decades are simply unusually above-the-rest-of-the-field scorers despite an otherwise consistent or worse-scoring field of remaining entrants, then a smaller and smaller share of players should be making the cut over time because of the distance leaders are putting between themselves and the remainder of the field.
But that's not the case, either, as the bar chart above shows. There is no trend line for percentage of players making the cut. The data the Masters site provides unfortunately start only in 1957, so the time periods are not identical. But at least since '57, there is no trend in share of players making the cut.
In sum, the winner's score against par is going down, yet the scores of the runners-up are keeping pace since there's no rise in the four-round margin of victory, and the rest of the field is also keeping up because the share of all players making the cut has held steady. This, by the way, is despite the fact that over time there ought to be more really low scores thanks to the lifetime exemption rule which allows any Masters winner to play--which is why Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus can tee off every year, no matter whether they were otherwise qualified or competitive enough to make the field based on their skill level today. (I actually love this rule, as I suspect many fans do--and hey, you can bet Watson and Couples do, too.)
So, what explains the fact that Augusta seems more beatable today than in the past? Two answers come immediately to mind. One, of course, is that equipment advances in clubs and balls allow players to drive farther and more accurately today. But the second may simply be the quality of the available pool, driven as that is by the globalization of golf. My evidence on the latter count is pretty straightforward and, I think, compelling: Of the 37 winners from 1973 until last year, 17 were non-Americans, but in the first 36 years of competition, only ONE was not an American (South African Gary Player, 1961).
As the global appeal and thus quality of the global pool of players has expanded, Augusta, like other courses, has had to bend a bit from an assault of greater quality.
Also doing well after 18 holes are a bunch of old timers, including former Masters winners Bernard Langer, Sandy Lyle, Tom Watson and Fred Couples, who finished yesterday at -1, -3, -5 and -6, respectively. That 66 for "Boom Boom" Couples--one of my favorite golfers and the '92 champ--puts him alone atop the leaderboard going into the second round; it was also the lowest round of his entire Masters' career. Couples, by the way, is 50.
And that made me wonder: Is the Masters getting easier? Despite the lengthening and toughening of the course over the years, the scores do seem, at first glance, to be trending lower.
Above I've plotted the scores and the winning margins every year since the first tourney in 1934. (There were three wartime years when play was suspended.) The winning scores have steadily gone down. In the first 36 years of competition, through 1972, the average winning score against par was -6.4; in the 37 years from 1973 until last year the average winning score against par was -9.6. The slope for the winning margin during the entire period is -1.8.
This difference could, of course, could be attributable to aberrant yet outstanding performances by just the winners over the past few decades, despite overall scoring for the entire field remaining constant or perhaps even falling. Without collecting every score for every player over 73 tourneys, which I don't have time to do--and absent any resource that I can find which provides field-wide average scores against par--I can't say for sure. And, on a related note, I also want to vent about this horribly small-fonted "Records and Statistics" page at the Masters official site, which is annoying and of little help. (Hullo, somebody needs to fix their website!)
What we do have, conveniently assembled thanks to Wikipedia, are the winner's score and the winner's margin over the next closest finisher(s). And while winner's scores against par have improved, the average margin of victory (2.1 strokes over 73 tourneys so far) has not changed at all during this period: Notice that there is no slope to top trend line, which tracks the margin by which the winner won through four rounds. (N.B.: For tourneys that went to a playoff--which means two or more players were tied after four rounds--I coded the margin 0; of course, the eventual winner in the playoff had to win by at least a stroke, but what matters is the 72-hole margin, if any.)
So, both the winning scores are going down and the margins between the winner and the first runner(s)-up hasn't budged, which means the scores of runner(s)-ups are going down in order to keep pace. Of course, these two data points can only account for the performances at the very top of the leaderboard. But there is another statistic to consider--this one courtesy of that almost-impossible-to-read Records & Stats page at the Masters official site--which is the percentage of players who make the cut each year.
For the non-golf fan, players are allowed to play the final two days only if they are within 10 strokes of the leader. That said, if leaders (at least after two days' play) in recent decades are simply unusually above-the-rest-of-the-field scorers despite an otherwise consistent or worse-scoring field of remaining entrants, then a smaller and smaller share of players should be making the cut over time because of the distance leaders are putting between themselves and the remainder of the field.
But that's not the case, either, as the bar chart above shows. There is no trend line for percentage of players making the cut. The data the Masters site provides unfortunately start only in 1957, so the time periods are not identical. But at least since '57, there is no trend in share of players making the cut.
In sum, the winner's score against par is going down, yet the scores of the runners-up are keeping pace since there's no rise in the four-round margin of victory, and the rest of the field is also keeping up because the share of all players making the cut has held steady. This, by the way, is despite the fact that over time there ought to be more really low scores thanks to the lifetime exemption rule which allows any Masters winner to play--which is why Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus can tee off every year, no matter whether they were otherwise qualified or competitive enough to make the field based on their skill level today. (I actually love this rule, as I suspect many fans do--and hey, you can bet Watson and Couples do, too.)
So, what explains the fact that Augusta seems more beatable today than in the past? Two answers come immediately to mind. One, of course, is that equipment advances in clubs and balls allow players to drive farther and more accurately today. But the second may simply be the quality of the available pool, driven as that is by the globalization of golf. My evidence on the latter count is pretty straightforward and, I think, compelling: Of the 37 winners from 1973 until last year, 17 were non-Americans, but in the first 36 years of competition, only ONE was not an American (South African Gary Player, 1961).
As the global appeal and thus quality of the global pool of players has expanded, Augusta, like other courses, has had to bend a bit from an assault of greater quality.
Generic Ballot Points Toward Possible 50+ Seat Loss for Democrats
@ 8:11 AM
A couple of weeks ago, we examined the potential upside case for Democrats in November's midterms. If the party were able to limit their losses to about 20 House seats and 3-4 Senate seats, it might not have as deleterious an effect on their policy agenda as you might think.
But that is the upside case for Democrats. It is not the base case, and it is certainly not the worst case -- both of which look as grim as ever. Although I think people may somewhat underestimate the probability of a shift in momentum back toward the Democrats, they may simultaneously be underestimating the magnitude of losses that might occur if momentum fails to change, or moves in the other direction.
For starters, let's look at the state of the generic congressional ballot. The Real Clear Politics average now shows Republicans with a 2.3 point lead. How does that translate in terms of a potential loss of seats for the Democrats?
Let's suppose for a moment that, in November, the Democrats lose the national house popular vote by a margin of 2.3 points. It is actually not safe to assume that a 2.3-point deficit in generic ballot polls translates to a 2.3-point loss in the House popular vote -- but we'll get to that ambiguity in a moment.
You might assume that, if a party loses the popular vote in the House, they are unlikely to retain control of the chamber. But it is not quite that simple. For reasons that are somewhat debated, the number of seats that a party controls going into the Congressional election still has predictive power in forecasting the seat count that emerges, even if we take as a given the results of the national popular vote. In particular, the larger a party's majority going in, the more seats they tend to add or retain relative to their performance in the popular vote.
We can model this by means of a regression analysis on past Congressional elections, where the input variables are (i) the result of the popular vote; (ii) the number of seats that a party controlled at the end of the previous election, and (iii) an interaction term between the first two variables. My model looked at all years since Alaska and Hawaii became eligible to vote for the Congress in 1958 (although weighting recent elections more heavily), but excluding those cycles immediately following redistricting. The losses that this model would project for a given result in the popular vote this year are illustrated below:
So, for example, if the House popular vote were exactly tied, we'd expect the Democrats to lose "only" 30 seats on average, which would be enough for them to retain majority control. It would take about a 2.5 point loss in the popular vote for them to be as likely as not to lose control of the chamber. So Democrats probably do have a bit of a cushion: this is the good news for them.
Their bad news is that the House popular vote (a tabulation of the actual votes all around the country) and the generic ballot (an abstraction in the form of a poll) are not the same thing -- and the difference usually tends to work to Democrats' detriment. Although analysts debate the precise magnitude of the difference, on average the generic ballot has overestimated the Democrats' performance in the popular vote by 3.4 points since 1992. If the pattern holds, that means that a 2.3-point deficit in generic ballot polls would translate to a 5.7 point deficit in the popular vote -- which works out to a loss of 51 seats, according to our regression model.
These sorts of questions have been the subject of many, many academic studies, almost all of which involve far more rigor than what I've applied here. This is just meant to establish a benchmark. But that benchmark is a really bad one for Democrats. One reasonably well-informed translation of the generic ballot polls is that the Democrats would lose 51 House seats if the election were held today.
In my piece a couple of weeks ago, I wrote that there was only a 1 in 10 chance that Democrats would lose more than 55 seats in November. Having now looked at this issue in somewhat more detail, that clearly seems to be a lowball estimate. While there is other statistical and anecdotal evidence that one can point toward that is relatively more favorable to Democrats, and while there are other techniques, like a district-by-district analysis, that could be applied to this problem instead -- if you could get 9:1 odds (a 1-in-10 chance) on the Democrats losing more than 55 seats in the House, that would be a good bet.
And what if, for example, the Rasmussen case comes into being? Rasmussen has the Democrats losing the generic ballot by 9 points (and has had similar numbers for awhile). A 9-point loss in the House popular vote would translate into a projected 65-seat loss for Democrats. Or, if we adjust the Rasmussen poll to account for the fact that the Democrats' performance in the popular vote tends to lag the generic ballot, it works out to a 12.4-point loss in the popular vote, which implies a loss of 79 seats!
The point is not necessarily that these are the most likely scenarios -- we certainly ought not to formulate a judgment based on Rasmussen polls alone, as the jury is still out on whether the substantial house effect they've displayed this cycle is a feature or a bug. But these sorts of scenarios are frankly on the table. If Democrats were to lose 50, 60, 70 or even more House seats, it would not totally shock me. Nor would it shock me if they merely lost 15, or 20. But their downside case could be very far down.
But that is the upside case for Democrats. It is not the base case, and it is certainly not the worst case -- both of which look as grim as ever. Although I think people may somewhat underestimate the probability of a shift in momentum back toward the Democrats, they may simultaneously be underestimating the magnitude of losses that might occur if momentum fails to change, or moves in the other direction.
For starters, let's look at the state of the generic congressional ballot. The Real Clear Politics average now shows Republicans with a 2.3 point lead. How does that translate in terms of a potential loss of seats for the Democrats?
Let's suppose for a moment that, in November, the Democrats lose the national house popular vote by a margin of 2.3 points. It is actually not safe to assume that a 2.3-point deficit in generic ballot polls translates to a 2.3-point loss in the House popular vote -- but we'll get to that ambiguity in a moment.
You might assume that, if a party loses the popular vote in the House, they are unlikely to retain control of the chamber. But it is not quite that simple. For reasons that are somewhat debated, the number of seats that a party controls going into the Congressional election still has predictive power in forecasting the seat count that emerges, even if we take as a given the results of the national popular vote. In particular, the larger a party's majority going in, the more seats they tend to add or retain relative to their performance in the popular vote.
We can model this by means of a regression analysis on past Congressional elections, where the input variables are (i) the result of the popular vote; (ii) the number of seats that a party controlled at the end of the previous election, and (iii) an interaction term between the first two variables. My model looked at all years since Alaska and Hawaii became eligible to vote for the Congress in 1958 (although weighting recent elections more heavily), but excluding those cycles immediately following redistricting. The losses that this model would project for a given result in the popular vote this year are illustrated below:
So, for example, if the House popular vote were exactly tied, we'd expect the Democrats to lose "only" 30 seats on average, which would be enough for them to retain majority control. It would take about a 2.5 point loss in the popular vote for them to be as likely as not to lose control of the chamber. So Democrats probably do have a bit of a cushion: this is the good news for them.
Their bad news is that the House popular vote (a tabulation of the actual votes all around the country) and the generic ballot (an abstraction in the form of a poll) are not the same thing -- and the difference usually tends to work to Democrats' detriment. Although analysts debate the precise magnitude of the difference, on average the generic ballot has overestimated the Democrats' performance in the popular vote by 3.4 points since 1992. If the pattern holds, that means that a 2.3-point deficit in generic ballot polls would translate to a 5.7 point deficit in the popular vote -- which works out to a loss of 51 seats, according to our regression model.
These sorts of questions have been the subject of many, many academic studies, almost all of which involve far more rigor than what I've applied here. This is just meant to establish a benchmark. But that benchmark is a really bad one for Democrats. One reasonably well-informed translation of the generic ballot polls is that the Democrats would lose 51 House seats if the election were held today.
In my piece a couple of weeks ago, I wrote that there was only a 1 in 10 chance that Democrats would lose more than 55 seats in November. Having now looked at this issue in somewhat more detail, that clearly seems to be a lowball estimate. While there is other statistical and anecdotal evidence that one can point toward that is relatively more favorable to Democrats, and while there are other techniques, like a district-by-district analysis, that could be applied to this problem instead -- if you could get 9:1 odds (a 1-in-10 chance) on the Democrats losing more than 55 seats in the House, that would be a good bet.
And what if, for example, the Rasmussen case comes into being? Rasmussen has the Democrats losing the generic ballot by 9 points (and has had similar numbers for awhile). A 9-point loss in the House popular vote would translate into a projected 65-seat loss for Democrats. Or, if we adjust the Rasmussen poll to account for the fact that the Democrats' performance in the popular vote tends to lag the generic ballot, it works out to a 12.4-point loss in the popular vote, which implies a loss of 79 seats!
The point is not necessarily that these are the most likely scenarios -- we certainly ought not to formulate a judgment based on Rasmussen polls alone, as the jury is still out on whether the substantial house effect they've displayed this cycle is a feature or a bug. But these sorts of scenarios are frankly on the table. If Democrats were to lose 50, 60, 70 or even more House seats, it would not totally shock me. Nor would it shock me if they merely lost 15, or 20. But their downside case could be very far down.
Is an Anti-Islam Wave Hitting Europe?
@ 7:00 AM
After the Dutch coalition government of Jan Peter Balkenende collapsed abruptly last February, a new election has been scheduled for June 9th. While it is unclear which party will take the most seats, all eyes are on far-right, anti-Islamic Party for Freedom (PVV, in Dutch) and its flamboyant, bombastic leader Geert Wilders. Wilders produced the inflammatory film Fitna, which denounces Islam as a terrorist religion. Some polls show the PVV in the lead--taking a plurality of 18% -- though Wilders would probably rather remain in the opposition in parliament than attempt to form a governing coalition. (The Netherlands uses a system of proportional representation under which it is very rare for any one party to gain an absolute majority.)
The rise of Wilders has alarmed many political observers, and has been cited as yet another point of evidence of a new tide of European anti-Islamism. (Though Wilders specifically rejects comparisons to far-right politicians Jean-Marie Le Pen and Jörg Haider.) Bolstering this “trend” are Switzerland’s referendum against minarets, the French ban on headscarves in public buildings, and anti-immigration parties making headway in other countries. But is pure Islamophobia (e.g., the number of people who fear or dislike Islam) the driving factor in the PVV’s rise in support? And why are anti-Islam/anti-immigration parties such a force in the Netherlands, but not in countries like Spain? Is it simply a matter of integration of a new immigrant group, rather than cultural or political characteristics specific to Muslims?
To begin with, it seems -- understandably -- that the countries with the highest percentage of Muslims are where tensions have come to a head first.
The three countries where anti-Muslim sentiment has reached a peak in recent years, France, Netherlands and Switzerland, have the highest percentage of Muslims in western Europe. Germany and the UK also have high Muslim populations, though more centralized in a few urban locations.
Possible factors at play:
• Anti-globalization and Euroskepticism in general.
• Nativism stemming from poor economic conditions.
• Fractures within internal welfare state coalition.
• Anxiety over/of aging population.
• Increased concern about crime.
• Increased concern about terrorism.
• Rapidly growing muslim populations in particular European countries and cities
The Netherlands
There are nearly one million Muslims living in the Netherlands, making up 5.8% of the country’s population. According to a 2005 Pew Global Attitudes Survey, non-Muslim Dutch people have decidedly mixed opinions of their Muslim neighbors: 45% view Muslims favorably while 51% view them unfavorably. 65% say they wish to remain distinct from Dutch society, and 76% are “very” or “somewhat” concerned about Islamic extremism in the Netherlands.
The past decade saw the high profile murders of filmmaker Theo van Gogh and anti-Islam politician Pim Fortuyn (though Fortuyn was not murdered by a Muslim). Fortuyn was hard to peg on the traditional left-right spectrum. Openly gay, he believed that immigration from conservative, Muslim countries was threatening other aspects of liberal, open society: gender equality, sexual freedom and free expression. Wilders has attempted to appeal to the same coalition of voters as Fortuyn, and his support makes sense given the context of high-profile assassinations.
Considering other factors, the Netherlands has done relatively well economically. Its unemployment rate was 4% in February 2010, and the anti-Islam trend predates the 2008-09 global economic crisis. Its fertility rate is 1.66, and its median age is 40.4. The Netherlands has troops in Afghanistan—a controversial policy that led to the Balkenende government’s collapse in February.
France
France has between 3.5 and 5 million Muslims, which would constitute 6.5-8% of the overall population. According to the Pew survey, 64% of French people see Muslims favorably, and only 34% see them unfavorably. 59% say Muslims wish to remain distinct, while 74% are “very” or “somewhat” concerned about Islamic extremism in France. 50% associate Muslims with being fanatical.
France has long had a troubled relationship with its own multicultural and multiethnic population. It was a colonial empire, and maintained the philosophy that everyone from Algiers to Cayenne was a Frenchman. At the same time, immigrants to France were expected take on a certain Gallic identity—far different from the “melting pot” or “salad bowl” metaphors. A 1905 law instituted an official policy of laïcité, a concept of un-religiosity that goes beyond simple secularism. While intended to promote social harmony by completely divorcing religion from national identity, laïcité has led to the controversial headscarf ban. In recent regional elections, Jean Marie Le Pen’s far-right National Front party won 17.8% of the vote in the regions it contested. In 2002, Le Pen finished ahead of “mainstream” Socialist candidates to go on to a runoff against Jacques Chirac. In the end, Le Pen was resoundingly defeated in the runoff, and the fact that he made it there at all was largely due to a vote-split among several center-left candidates.
February unemployment in France was 10.1%, and its fertility rate is fairly high for Europe at 1.98. The median age is 39.4. France has experienced some high-profile crime and social unrest in the past decade. Widespread riots occurred in the banlieues surrounding Paris in 2005, with then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy advocating a tough response with a metaphorical Kärcher hose.
Switzerland
Switzerland has 400,000 Muslims, or 5% of the country’s population. Switzerland was historically quite isolationist and less welcoming of immigrants than other European countries, but since the 1970s has had a growing population of foreigners -- reaching 22% in 2009. It has a relatively low unemployment rate of 4.1%, and low fertility at 1.45.
Spain
Spain has the distinction of being the largest EU country to have once been under Muslim rule. Today, it has a Muslim population of about one million, or 1-2% of the country. 68% of Spaniards say Muslims want to remain distinct from mainstream society. 46% of Spaniards view Muslims favorably, while 37% view them unfavorably. (This means that 17% either had no opinion or were unsure—a much higher percent age than in France or the Netherlands.) A June 2004 poll, coming shortly after the March 11th terrorist attacks, showed that 80% of Spaniards believed Islam was “authoritarian,” and 57% believed it was violent.
Spain is suffering from a popped housing bubble, and has an unemployment rate of 19%. Its fertility rate of 1.31 is one of the lowest in Europe, and its median age is 41.1. It had troops in Iraq—despite widespread popular opposition—and withdrew them only after José Luis RodrÃguez Zapatero’s Socialists won the 2004 elections.
Despite having seemingly ripe conditions, Spain does not have a significant anti-Islam political movement. This is due in part to the unique nature of Spain’s political paradigm, which is still greatly shaped by the Franco era. The left is very socially progressive, pushing for greater women's, LGBT, and reproductive rights. The right, while not overtly Francoist, is still highly connected with old, Catholic military institutions. The center-right party is right enough to pick up conservative traditionalists, while its left is cutting-edge enough not to be outflanked.
At the same time, Spain's Muslim population remains relatively small -- around a million people. With other minority groups like the separatist Basques playing a higher profile culturally and politically insurgent role in society, Muslims immigrants are simply less of an issue than the previous three countries.
All told, the data are murky. The greater traction of anti-Islam parties in some countries appears to be more connected with country-specific factors— high-profile murders in the Netherlands, a situation of social unrest in France, high Muslim populations in all three—than with any Europe-wide causes.
On the other hand, countries that have moderate but quite centralized populations of Muslims, like the UK, Germany and Austria, may begin to see the issue become politicized further. Each of these three countries has had political strife over the issue, but without the most polarizing anti-Muslim polemics as in France, the Netherlands or Switzerland. This could be in part due to political systems, where Germany and Austria have strongly anti-extreme party controls, and the UK has first-past-the-post voting, which marginalizes fringe parties.
However, the growing strength of the British National Party in the UK (which is competing hard for two House of Commons constituencies) and the National Democratic Party in Germany (which survived a banning attempt in the early 2000s), and the success of the far right Freedom Party in Austria in the last decade must be accounted for. While they have so far not taken the overtly anti-Muslim route as firmly as Wilders, Le Pen or Switzerland's UDC, they are likely the next in line to do so.
In conclusion, there is sufficient evidence to say that as Muslim populations have grown in European countries, anti-Muslim sentiment and rhetoric have increased among the right and far-right. In addition, we are likely to see them increase, especially as more Muslims settle in Europe. The length and strength of this "wave" will be largely dependent on how the current conflicts are resolved -- perhaps by increased integration by Muslim immigrants and additional social rights for self-determination allowed by European countries -- and whether Muslim populations continue to grow.
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This article was authored by research assistant Thomas Dollar and international affairs columnist Renard Sexton. Please send comments or suggestions to sexton538@gmail.com
The rise of Wilders has alarmed many political observers, and has been cited as yet another point of evidence of a new tide of European anti-Islamism. (Though Wilders specifically rejects comparisons to far-right politicians Jean-Marie Le Pen and Jörg Haider.) Bolstering this “trend” are Switzerland’s referendum against minarets, the French ban on headscarves in public buildings, and anti-immigration parties making headway in other countries. But is pure Islamophobia (e.g., the number of people who fear or dislike Islam) the driving factor in the PVV’s rise in support? And why are anti-Islam/anti-immigration parties such a force in the Netherlands, but not in countries like Spain? Is it simply a matter of integration of a new immigrant group, rather than cultural or political characteristics specific to Muslims?
To begin with, it seems -- understandably -- that the countries with the highest percentage of Muslims are where tensions have come to a head first.
The three countries where anti-Muslim sentiment has reached a peak in recent years, France, Netherlands and Switzerland, have the highest percentage of Muslims in western Europe. Germany and the UK also have high Muslim populations, though more centralized in a few urban locations.
Possible factors at play:• Anti-globalization and Euroskepticism in general.
• Nativism stemming from poor economic conditions.
• Fractures within internal welfare state coalition.
• Anxiety over/of aging population.
• Increased concern about crime.
• Increased concern about terrorism.
• Rapidly growing muslim populations in particular European countries and cities
The Netherlands
There are nearly one million Muslims living in the Netherlands, making up 5.8% of the country’s population. According to a 2005 Pew Global Attitudes Survey, non-Muslim Dutch people have decidedly mixed opinions of their Muslim neighbors: 45% view Muslims favorably while 51% view them unfavorably. 65% say they wish to remain distinct from Dutch society, and 76% are “very” or “somewhat” concerned about Islamic extremism in the Netherlands.
The past decade saw the high profile murders of filmmaker Theo van Gogh and anti-Islam politician Pim Fortuyn (though Fortuyn was not murdered by a Muslim). Fortuyn was hard to peg on the traditional left-right spectrum. Openly gay, he believed that immigration from conservative, Muslim countries was threatening other aspects of liberal, open society: gender equality, sexual freedom and free expression. Wilders has attempted to appeal to the same coalition of voters as Fortuyn, and his support makes sense given the context of high-profile assassinations.
Considering other factors, the Netherlands has done relatively well economically. Its unemployment rate was 4% in February 2010, and the anti-Islam trend predates the 2008-09 global economic crisis. Its fertility rate is 1.66, and its median age is 40.4. The Netherlands has troops in Afghanistan—a controversial policy that led to the Balkenende government’s collapse in February.
France
France has between 3.5 and 5 million Muslims, which would constitute 6.5-8% of the overall population. According to the Pew survey, 64% of French people see Muslims favorably, and only 34% see them unfavorably. 59% say Muslims wish to remain distinct, while 74% are “very” or “somewhat” concerned about Islamic extremism in France. 50% associate Muslims with being fanatical.
France has long had a troubled relationship with its own multicultural and multiethnic population. It was a colonial empire, and maintained the philosophy that everyone from Algiers to Cayenne was a Frenchman. At the same time, immigrants to France were expected take on a certain Gallic identity—far different from the “melting pot” or “salad bowl” metaphors. A 1905 law instituted an official policy of laïcité, a concept of un-religiosity that goes beyond simple secularism. While intended to promote social harmony by completely divorcing religion from national identity, laïcité has led to the controversial headscarf ban. In recent regional elections, Jean Marie Le Pen’s far-right National Front party won 17.8% of the vote in the regions it contested. In 2002, Le Pen finished ahead of “mainstream” Socialist candidates to go on to a runoff against Jacques Chirac. In the end, Le Pen was resoundingly defeated in the runoff, and the fact that he made it there at all was largely due to a vote-split among several center-left candidates.
February unemployment in France was 10.1%, and its fertility rate is fairly high for Europe at 1.98. The median age is 39.4. France has experienced some high-profile crime and social unrest in the past decade. Widespread riots occurred in the banlieues surrounding Paris in 2005, with then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy advocating a tough response with a metaphorical Kärcher hose.
Switzerland
Switzerland has 400,000 Muslims, or 5% of the country’s population. Switzerland was historically quite isolationist and less welcoming of immigrants than other European countries, but since the 1970s has had a growing population of foreigners -- reaching 22% in 2009. It has a relatively low unemployment rate of 4.1%, and low fertility at 1.45.
Spain
Spain has the distinction of being the largest EU country to have once been under Muslim rule. Today, it has a Muslim population of about one million, or 1-2% of the country. 68% of Spaniards say Muslims want to remain distinct from mainstream society. 46% of Spaniards view Muslims favorably, while 37% view them unfavorably. (This means that 17% either had no opinion or were unsure—a much higher percent age than in France or the Netherlands.) A June 2004 poll, coming shortly after the March 11th terrorist attacks, showed that 80% of Spaniards believed Islam was “authoritarian,” and 57% believed it was violent.
Spain is suffering from a popped housing bubble, and has an unemployment rate of 19%. Its fertility rate of 1.31 is one of the lowest in Europe, and its median age is 41.1. It had troops in Iraq—despite widespread popular opposition—and withdrew them only after José Luis RodrÃguez Zapatero’s Socialists won the 2004 elections.
Despite having seemingly ripe conditions, Spain does not have a significant anti-Islam political movement. This is due in part to the unique nature of Spain’s political paradigm, which is still greatly shaped by the Franco era. The left is very socially progressive, pushing for greater women's, LGBT, and reproductive rights. The right, while not overtly Francoist, is still highly connected with old, Catholic military institutions. The center-right party is right enough to pick up conservative traditionalists, while its left is cutting-edge enough not to be outflanked.
At the same time, Spain's Muslim population remains relatively small -- around a million people. With other minority groups like the separatist Basques playing a higher profile culturally and politically insurgent role in society, Muslims immigrants are simply less of an issue than the previous three countries.
All told, the data are murky. The greater traction of anti-Islam parties in some countries appears to be more connected with country-specific factors— high-profile murders in the Netherlands, a situation of social unrest in France, high Muslim populations in all three—than with any Europe-wide causes.
On the other hand, countries that have moderate but quite centralized populations of Muslims, like the UK, Germany and Austria, may begin to see the issue become politicized further. Each of these three countries has had political strife over the issue, but without the most polarizing anti-Muslim polemics as in France, the Netherlands or Switzerland. This could be in part due to political systems, where Germany and Austria have strongly anti-extreme party controls, and the UK has first-past-the-post voting, which marginalizes fringe parties.
However, the growing strength of the British National Party in the UK (which is competing hard for two House of Commons constituencies) and the National Democratic Party in Germany (which survived a banning attempt in the early 2000s), and the success of the far right Freedom Party in Austria in the last decade must be accounted for. While they have so far not taken the overtly anti-Muslim route as firmly as Wilders, Le Pen or Switzerland's UDC, they are likely the next in line to do so.
In conclusion, there is sufficient evidence to say that as Muslim populations have grown in European countries, anti-Muslim sentiment and rhetoric have increased among the right and far-right. In addition, we are likely to see them increase, especially as more Muslims settle in Europe. The length and strength of this "wave" will be largely dependent on how the current conflicts are resolved -- perhaps by increased integration by Muslim immigrants and additional social rights for self-determination allowed by European countries -- and whether Muslim populations continue to grow.
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This article was authored by research assistant Thomas Dollar and international affairs columnist Renard Sexton. Please send comments or suggestions to sexton538@gmail.com
4.07.2010
Democrats are Enthusiastic; Republicans are More So
@ 11:13 PM
A series of recent polls have shown both Republicans and Democrats becoming more enthusiastic about the 2010 midterms as the result of the passage of health care legislation. According to USA Today, for instance, 69 percent of Republicans but 57 percent of Democrats are now more enthusiastic than usual about voting in the midterm. Both numbers are up significantly from February.
Set aside the Republicans' impressive figure for a moment. The Democrats' enthusiasm total is actually a record. On the 13 previous occasions that Gallup asked this question in advance of a midterm, neither party registered a score higher than 56 points. The Democrats just checked in at 57. Very probably, some of this is a temporary bounce and will fade as memories of the health care legislation become more distant. Nevertheless, at least for the time being, Democrats are as enthusiastic as they've ever been in advance of any recent midterm.
Their big problem, of course, is that Republicans are even more enthusiastic: 69 percent of them say they're more geeked than usual about the election. If the Democrats' total was record-breaking, Republicans just blew the competition away in Usain Bolt type fashion.
This is noteworthy for at least two reasons. One is in terms of the narrative: it is probably incorrect to imply -- at least post-health care passage -- that the Democrats are having issues with their base. They don't have a base problem: they have a Republican problem.
But also, there is a slight mathematical quirk in how these numbers should be interpreted. Say that there are 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats in the electorate. All voters cast their ballots strictly along party lines. If 40 percent of the Republicans and 30 percent of the Democrats turn out to vote -- a participation gap of 10 points -- the Republicans will get 20 votes and the Democrats 15. That translates into a 57.1 percent to 42.9 percent margin for the Republicans -- a 14-point rout.
On the other hand, suppose that 80 percent of the Republicans and 70 percent of the Democrats turn out to vote. That's still a participation gap of 10 points. But if you do the math, you'll find that the Republicans now get 53.3 percent of the vote and the Democrats 46.7: a much milder victory margin of 6.6 points.
The key, in other words, is not to measure the enthusiasm gap but the enthusiasm ratio, since this is what ultimately determines the relative share of Democrats and Republican voters on election day. Democrats now suffer a 12-point enthusiasm gap in the Gallup poll. That compares inauspiciously with their 9-point enthusiasm gap on the eve of the 1994 elections. But the Republicans' enthusiasm ratio is actually a bit smaller than it was in 1994, and considerably lower than what their own advantage was in 2006.
Not that this should be much comfort to the Democrats. The data, for the time being, tells a pretty consistent story: the Democrats are in deep trouble. This stuff matters only at the margins. And "almost as bad as 1994, but not quite!" is not exactly a rosy scenario for them.
Nevertheless, it may also have some implications in terms of the likely voter models that the pollsters use. The higher the overall turnout, the less dramatic the gap should generally be between likely voter polls and registered voter polls. Democrats -- and this ought to be scary for them -- are already in a precarious position for the midterms and Republicans will probably improve their numbers further once pollsters testing the generic ballot switch over to likely voter models. At the same time, if the post-health care enthusiasm bounce holds, I'd be a little suspicious about anyone who is super aggressive about applying a likely voter screen or who models their turnout based on a broad sample of past midterms. The 2004, 2006 and 2008 elections were high-turnout affairs, and there is some evidence that this one is liable to be as well.
What I wish the pollsters would do, actually, is to publish the percentage of people in each party who are screened out by their likely voter model. You don't have to tell us how you're doing it -- but at least let us know in broad strokes how much impact it's having. How much of Rasmussen Reports' apparent house effect, for instance, is because they're applying a likely voter screen when most other pollsters aren't, and how much of it is because there are some differences -- or bugs -- in other parts of their data collection and massaging routine? We shouldn't have to guess; this should be an easy thing for the pollsters to disclose.
Set aside the Republicans' impressive figure for a moment. The Democrats' enthusiasm total is actually a record. On the 13 previous occasions that Gallup asked this question in advance of a midterm, neither party registered a score higher than 56 points. The Democrats just checked in at 57. Very probably, some of this is a temporary bounce and will fade as memories of the health care legislation become more distant. Nevertheless, at least for the time being, Democrats are as enthusiastic as they've ever been in advance of any recent midterm.
Their big problem, of course, is that Republicans are even more enthusiastic: 69 percent of them say they're more geeked than usual about the election. If the Democrats' total was record-breaking, Republicans just blew the competition away in Usain Bolt type fashion.
This is noteworthy for at least two reasons. One is in terms of the narrative: it is probably incorrect to imply -- at least post-health care passage -- that the Democrats are having issues with their base. They don't have a base problem: they have a Republican problem.
But also, there is a slight mathematical quirk in how these numbers should be interpreted. Say that there are 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats in the electorate. All voters cast their ballots strictly along party lines. If 40 percent of the Republicans and 30 percent of the Democrats turn out to vote -- a participation gap of 10 points -- the Republicans will get 20 votes and the Democrats 15. That translates into a 57.1 percent to 42.9 percent margin for the Republicans -- a 14-point rout.
On the other hand, suppose that 80 percent of the Republicans and 70 percent of the Democrats turn out to vote. That's still a participation gap of 10 points. But if you do the math, you'll find that the Republicans now get 53.3 percent of the vote and the Democrats 46.7: a much milder victory margin of 6.6 points.
The key, in other words, is not to measure the enthusiasm gap but the enthusiasm ratio, since this is what ultimately determines the relative share of Democrats and Republican voters on election day. Democrats now suffer a 12-point enthusiasm gap in the Gallup poll. That compares inauspiciously with their 9-point enthusiasm gap on the eve of the 1994 elections. But the Republicans' enthusiasm ratio is actually a bit smaller than it was in 1994, and considerably lower than what their own advantage was in 2006.
Not that this should be much comfort to the Democrats. The data, for the time being, tells a pretty consistent story: the Democrats are in deep trouble. This stuff matters only at the margins. And "almost as bad as 1994, but not quite!" is not exactly a rosy scenario for them.
Nevertheless, it may also have some implications in terms of the likely voter models that the pollsters use. The higher the overall turnout, the less dramatic the gap should generally be between likely voter polls and registered voter polls. Democrats -- and this ought to be scary for them -- are already in a precarious position for the midterms and Republicans will probably improve their numbers further once pollsters testing the generic ballot switch over to likely voter models. At the same time, if the post-health care enthusiasm bounce holds, I'd be a little suspicious about anyone who is super aggressive about applying a likely voter screen or who models their turnout based on a broad sample of past midterms. The 2004, 2006 and 2008 elections were high-turnout affairs, and there is some evidence that this one is liable to be as well.
What I wish the pollsters would do, actually, is to publish the percentage of people in each party who are screened out by their likely voter model. You don't have to tell us how you're doing it -- but at least let us know in broad strokes how much impact it's having. How much of Rasmussen Reports' apparent house effect, for instance, is because they're applying a likely voter screen when most other pollsters aren't, and how much of it is because there are some differences -- or bugs -- in other parts of their data collection and massaging routine? We shouldn't have to guess; this should be an easy thing for the pollsters to disclose.
Jonah Goldberg, Anti-Maldistributionist
@ 10:55 AM
Oh, what the heck: Let's piggyback on my post yesterday with a post addressing another canard from Jonah Goldberg's platitude-filled column Tuesday in USA Today. After hailing the tea partiers' understanding of how taxes are inimical to liberty, he writes:
Back we go to the OECD data. The above figure reports, for all OECD nations during the mid-2000s*, the Gini Coefficient before taxes and transfers. For those unfamiliar with the Gini Coefficient, it is a measure of the distribution of income (or wealth), bounded between 0 and 1, with zero meaning equal distribution across all citizens and 1 meaning that all the income/wealth belongs to the one, richest person. That is, the lower the number the more evenly--though not necessarily fairly, which is a normative judgment for each person to make for herself--income is distributed prior to (or after) government activity in the form of taxes and/or transfers.
As you can see, the before-taxes-and-transfers Gini Coefficient for the United States (.46) is very close to the average for all nations of the OECD (.45). Put another way, the ex ante maldistribution of income here is about the same as for comparable nations. To see what the net effect of those government policies are, we need to look next at the after-tax-and-transfer Gini Coefficients.
And what do you know? As shown in the second figure, which reports after-tax-and-transfer income distribution, of the 26 OECD countries the United States has the most maldistributed income of all 26. This doesn't mean that tax and transfer policies don't redistribute; they do, which is why the after-t+t coefficient of .38 is lower than the pre-t+t coefficient of .46.
But that's not particularly redistributive. In effect, Jonah Goldberg is complaining about the dangers of redistribution in the least redistributive first world nation. Tax-wise, he would be doing much worse as a columnist/author/speaker in almost any other country. But why let that stop him from complaining?
Allow me let me summarize my frustrations with how conservatives like Goldberg (not all of conservatives, of course) talk about taxes, redistribution, the size of government, it's effectiveness and efficiency:
1. Dollar for dollar, America offers the most effective and efficient government on the planet, doing so for about 20 cents on the dollar nationally, 28 cents if you include state and local taxes. If you ask a conservative to name a country that provides as many quality services for less, or more and better services for the same price, they can't name one. If they do, encourage them to start packing their bags. Sure, they could save a lot of money living in Mexico--if they don't count all the bribes they'll have to pay to educate their kids and protect themselves from possible violence. Bottom line is we're simply not as big as conservatives would have us believe. This doesn't mean we shouldn't seek efficiencies, govern more effectively within budget constraints, or try to eliminate fraud and abuse. But American government is pretty clean and fairly lean.
2. American government is redistributive, but not to the degree to which boogeyman conservatives would have us believe. Again, look at the two charts above. We're clean and lean, but if you believe in sharing the wealth, comparatively we're also pretty mean.
3. When it comes to deficits and fiscal responsibility, conservatives tend to focus on the spending and not the taxation side. If you're raising less than you're spending, you can either raise more, spend less, or some combination of both. But conservatives invariably turn the conversation to how big government is as a spender, rather than how small it is as a taxer. And frankly, too many Americans of all ideological stripes simply want a free lunch. We know this because when you give them access to policies at the ballot, they vote for guaranteed spending and restrictions on taxes. (See California, the state with the single WORST debt burden in the country.)
4. It's just a myth that all this American "socialism" will only constrain our growth, turning us into one of those laggard western European nanny states. There is way too much to cover here, so I'll just point to Jon Chait's recent takedown in the New Republic of conservative Jim Manzi's supposed case-closed case for why America's smaller government produces higher growth rates.
In sum, Jonah Goldberg's boogeyman piece implies that America is too big of a government (wrong), that we redistribute significant income and wealth (wrong again), and that this redistributive pattern only fosters economic stagnation, as demonstrated by the performance of economies in "socialist" Europe (wrong yet again).
Boo! Happy Tax Freedom Day, gang.
*N.B.: I should explain why there are only 26, not 31 countries, in the figures above. If you toggle the tag at the top of the OECD data link, you'll notice that the OECD provides after-taxes-and-transfers Gini coefficients for all 31 countries but before-taxes-and-transfers data for only 26, with missing data for Greece, Hungary, Mexico, Spain and Turkey. I'm not sure why this is, but wrote this note to clarify for those who may be wondering about the missing five.
Individual liberty is far from the only concern, either. The kind of country we want to be is deeply bound up in taxation. The Tax Foundation estimates that some 60% of American families already get more from the government than they pay in taxes (and the top 10% of earners pay more than 70% of the income taxes). If all of President Obama's plans are enacted, that percentage will increase. We are heading toward being a country where instead of the people deciding how much money the government should have, the government decides how much money the people should have.Ah, so the real problem with the American tax code is that it does such a great job (which is to say dastardly job, in Goldberg's view) of redistributing income and wealth--of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Again, this is an empirical issue, not merely a conveniently assertable talking point, which means we can examine just how redistributive America is relative to comparable nations.
Only after they passed "ObamaCare" did Democrats clarify that this was one of their motives. ObamaCare's appeal has less to do with saving money — which it won't do — and more to do with spreading the wealth around. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., recently admitted that alleviating the "maldistribution of income in America" from the haves to the have-nots is one of the legislation's real benefits.
Back we go to the OECD data. The above figure reports, for all OECD nations during the mid-2000s*, the Gini Coefficient before taxes and transfers. For those unfamiliar with the Gini Coefficient, it is a measure of the distribution of income (or wealth), bounded between 0 and 1, with zero meaning equal distribution across all citizens and 1 meaning that all the income/wealth belongs to the one, richest person. That is, the lower the number the more evenly--though not necessarily fairly, which is a normative judgment for each person to make for herself--income is distributed prior to (or after) government activity in the form of taxes and/or transfers.As you can see, the before-taxes-and-transfers Gini Coefficient for the United States (.46) is very close to the average for all nations of the OECD (.45). Put another way, the ex ante maldistribution of income here is about the same as for comparable nations. To see what the net effect of those government policies are, we need to look next at the after-tax-and-transfer Gini Coefficients.
And what do you know? As shown in the second figure, which reports after-tax-and-transfer income distribution, of the 26 OECD countries the United States has the most maldistributed income of all 26. This doesn't mean that tax and transfer policies don't redistribute; they do, which is why the after-t+t coefficient of .38 is lower than the pre-t+t coefficient of .46.
But that's not particularly redistributive. In effect, Jonah Goldberg is complaining about the dangers of redistribution in the least redistributive first world nation. Tax-wise, he would be doing much worse as a columnist/author/speaker in almost any other country. But why let that stop him from complaining?
Allow me let me summarize my frustrations with how conservatives like Goldberg (not all of conservatives, of course) talk about taxes, redistribution, the size of government, it's effectiveness and efficiency:
1. Dollar for dollar, America offers the most effective and efficient government on the planet, doing so for about 20 cents on the dollar nationally, 28 cents if you include state and local taxes. If you ask a conservative to name a country that provides as many quality services for less, or more and better services for the same price, they can't name one. If they do, encourage them to start packing their bags. Sure, they could save a lot of money living in Mexico--if they don't count all the bribes they'll have to pay to educate their kids and protect themselves from possible violence. Bottom line is we're simply not as big as conservatives would have us believe. This doesn't mean we shouldn't seek efficiencies, govern more effectively within budget constraints, or try to eliminate fraud and abuse. But American government is pretty clean and fairly lean.
2. American government is redistributive, but not to the degree to which boogeyman conservatives would have us believe. Again, look at the two charts above. We're clean and lean, but if you believe in sharing the wealth, comparatively we're also pretty mean.
3. When it comes to deficits and fiscal responsibility, conservatives tend to focus on the spending and not the taxation side. If you're raising less than you're spending, you can either raise more, spend less, or some combination of both. But conservatives invariably turn the conversation to how big government is as a spender, rather than how small it is as a taxer. And frankly, too many Americans of all ideological stripes simply want a free lunch. We know this because when you give them access to policies at the ballot, they vote for guaranteed spending and restrictions on taxes. (See California, the state with the single WORST debt burden in the country.)
4. It's just a myth that all this American "socialism" will only constrain our growth, turning us into one of those laggard western European nanny states. There is way too much to cover here, so I'll just point to Jon Chait's recent takedown in the New Republic of conservative Jim Manzi's supposed case-closed case for why America's smaller government produces higher growth rates.
In sum, Jonah Goldberg's boogeyman piece implies that America is too big of a government (wrong), that we redistribute significant income and wealth (wrong again), and that this redistributive pattern only fosters economic stagnation, as demonstrated by the performance of economies in "socialist" Europe (wrong yet again).
Boo! Happy Tax Freedom Day, gang.
*N.B.: I should explain why there are only 26, not 31 countries, in the figures above. If you toggle the tag at the top of the OECD data link, you'll notice that the OECD provides after-taxes-and-transfers Gini coefficients for all 31 countries but before-taxes-and-transfers data for only 26, with missing data for Greece, Hungary, Mexico, Spain and Turkey. I'm not sure why this is, but wrote this note to clarify for those who may be wondering about the missing five.
538's UK Coverage in the Guardian
@ 8:45 AM
In addition to our analysis and model building here on the FiveThirtyEight page, I was invited to contribute on the Guardian's 'Comment is Free' page on UK general election topics.
On this page, I'll be writing a series of short narrative posts that in some cases boil-down and other cases elaborate on many of the issues we cover on FiveThirtyEight.
The "Cif at the polls 2010" blog, as it is being called, was launched yesterday -- with my first post here and the second post on polling pitfalls here.
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Renard Sexton is FiveThirtyEight's international affairs columnist and is based in Geneva, Switzerland. He can be contacted at sexton538@gmail.com
On this page, I'll be writing a series of short narrative posts that in some cases boil-down and other cases elaborate on many of the issues we cover on FiveThirtyEight.
The "Cif at the polls 2010" blog, as it is being called, was launched yesterday -- with my first post here and the second post on polling pitfalls here.
---
Renard Sexton is FiveThirtyEight's international affairs columnist and is based in Geneva, Switzerland. He can be contacted at sexton538@gmail.com
4.06.2010
Jonah Goldberg, Quarter Slave (Conceptually)
@ 3:17 PM
Here we go again: So-called "Tax Freedom Day" is this week, occasion enough for Jonah Goldberg to fret publicly in the pages of USA Today about how tyrannical--not quite at the level of slavery, but pretty darn near or somehow approaching that--America's tax system is. Problem is, by his logic, much of the free world isn't very free because so many of those countries tax their citizenry at much higher rates than we do.
Goldberg opens his column with this:
First of all, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, depicted below are the tax revenues as a share of GDP (2006 data) for all member OECD countries:
Note that America isn't the lowest, but we are fifth lowest and our share (28 percent, which includes state/local taxes) is 20 percent lower than the OECD average of about 35 percent. Now I remember why I hate traveling through Europe: It's the widespread slavery that so offends.
Goldberg concedes that he knows that federal taxes as a share of GDP in America have held steady since 1950 at around 20 percent. OK, so what he must really be upset about is how that tax bill is distributed, right? Yes, he carps that those with the highest incomes pay a disproportionate share. But that doesn't mean income taxes account today for a higher share of GDP than they did in the past.
And in fact, as the data above from the Tax Policy Center show, income taxes as a share of GDP have held steady during the same time period. Corporate and excise taxes, paid mostly by businesses and which conservatives complain are inefficient and simply passed through to consumers anyway, have gone down as a share of that 20 percent. What's gone up are payroll taxes which fund programs like Medicare and Social Security that the same tea partiers were warning Obama and congressional Democrats not to touch in the same breath they were complaining about the socialist expansion of the healthcare system.
Goldberg says he "bring[s] this up because many in the Democratic Party and in the news media have a hard time understanding what the 'Tea Party' crowd is talking about when it complains of incipient tyranny and intrusive government." Yes, many of us do, including that uber-Democratic media maven and former Reaganite Bruce Bartlett, who surveyed tea partiers and discovered they have no idea what the true tax burden in the country is. Their average response for what share of GDP goes into the (federal) public sector was 42 percent--more than twice what it actually is.
So, conceptually, this would be like asking a pack of tea partiers who by chance met Kareem Abdul Jabbar during one of their Washington rallies to estimate his height, and their average answer came back "14 feet tall." Of course, that presumes they've gotten a look at Kareem. But, worse, let's assume tea partiers never bothered to educate themselves about human height or how to measure it (translation: tax policy and data) before they got on the bus for Washington. When asked to estimate Kareem's height, even though they've never seen him--or for that matter any human who is 14 feet tall--their uninformed average answer still would come back at "14 feet." I wonder, Jonah, how these folks ever got the idea in their head that government was twice as big as it is?
Tax Freedom Day is this Friday. But what we really need is Tax Education Day.
Goldberg opens his column with this:
Congratulations! This is your last week working for the man — at least for this year. The Tax Foundation calculates that Tax Freedom Day for 2010 is April 9, which means that by Friday, Americans will have spent nearly 100 days working just to pay their taxes. If Democrats have their way, Tax Freedom Day will keep getting later and later.Is it an important point conceptually, Jonah? Does paying a little over a fourth of the nation's GDP into federal and state treasuries make us all one-fourth slaves? This is about as logical as saying the girl who let her high-school boyfriend get to "first base" last night is now one-fourth pregnant--you know, conceptually.
Hold that thought. Imagine for a moment that Tax Freedom Day was Dec. 31. In other words, picture working 365 days a year for the government. Now, the government would "give" you a place to sleep, food to eat and clothes to wear, but all your income would really be Washington's income to allocate as it saw fit. Some romantics might call this sort of arrangement "socialism" or "communism." But another perfectly good word for it is "slavery" or, if you prefer, involuntary servitude.
Now, no one is proposing any such arrangement. But it's an important point conceptually.
First of all, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, depicted below are the tax revenues as a share of GDP (2006 data) for all member OECD countries:
Note that America isn't the lowest, but we are fifth lowest and our share (28 percent, which includes state/local taxes) is 20 percent lower than the OECD average of about 35 percent. Now I remember why I hate traveling through Europe: It's the widespread slavery that so offends.
Goldberg concedes that he knows that federal taxes as a share of GDP in America have held steady since 1950 at around 20 percent. OK, so what he must really be upset about is how that tax bill is distributed, right? Yes, he carps that those with the highest incomes pay a disproportionate share. But that doesn't mean income taxes account today for a higher share of GDP than they did in the past.
And in fact, as the data above from the Tax Policy Center show, income taxes as a share of GDP have held steady during the same time period. Corporate and excise taxes, paid mostly by businesses and which conservatives complain are inefficient and simply passed through to consumers anyway, have gone down as a share of that 20 percent. What's gone up are payroll taxes which fund programs like Medicare and Social Security that the same tea partiers were warning Obama and congressional Democrats not to touch in the same breath they were complaining about the socialist expansion of the healthcare system.
Goldberg says he "bring[s] this up because many in the Democratic Party and in the news media have a hard time understanding what the 'Tea Party' crowd is talking about when it complains of incipient tyranny and intrusive government." Yes, many of us do, including that uber-Democratic media maven and former Reaganite Bruce Bartlett, who surveyed tea partiers and discovered they have no idea what the true tax burden in the country is. Their average response for what share of GDP goes into the (federal) public sector was 42 percent--more than twice what it actually is.
So, conceptually, this would be like asking a pack of tea partiers who by chance met Kareem Abdul Jabbar during one of their Washington rallies to estimate his height, and their average answer came back "14 feet tall." Of course, that presumes they've gotten a look at Kareem. But, worse, let's assume tea partiers never bothered to educate themselves about human height or how to measure it (translation: tax policy and data) before they got on the bus for Washington. When asked to estimate Kareem's height, even though they've never seen him--or for that matter any human who is 14 feet tall--their uninformed average answer still would come back at "14 feet." I wonder, Jonah, how these folks ever got the idea in their head that government was twice as big as it is?
Tax Freedom Day is this Friday. But what we really need is Tax Education Day.
4.05.2010
A Teacup Half-Full
@ 12:20 PM
There are two ways that one can read the Winston Group poll on the political orientation of those who consider themselves a part of the tea-party movement. One way -- the headline that The Hill very reasonably chose -- is that about 40 percent of tea-partiers are independents or Democrats. The other -- obviously every bit as mathematically valid -- is that 60 percent are Republicans. Either way, the results are more interesting than surprising, as they are broadly in line with previous polling on the subject -- as well as what I think we can reasonably infer about the movement.
First, the polling. Three relatively recent polls probed tea-partiers as to their political affiliation: the Winston poll that I mentioned (Winston is a Republican polling firm, but I don't see any obvious reason why its results cannot be trusted in this instance), a Gallup poll which is also out today, and a CBS poll from February. The CBS and Winston polls asked respondents whether they considered themselves to be a part of the tea-party movement; Gallup used a looser definition, asking people whether they supported the tea-party movement instead. Here are the percentage of people in each political camp who said yes:
About half of Republicans say that they support the tea-party movement, while 30 percent consider themselves an active part of it. Among independents, those numbers are 30 and 20, respectively. Only a few Democrats consider themselves to be a part of the tea-party: between 2 and 7 percent, depending on the poll, which is lesser than the fraction of self-identified Democrats who typically vote for a Republican candidate in Presidential elections.
Both the Winston and Gallup polls also asked people about their affinity for the tea-party by ideological group:
Although the Tea Party gets pretty decent numbers among independents, support is smaller among self-proclaimed moderates; only about 15 percent of moderates support the tea-party (Gallup) and about 10 percent consider themselves a part of it (Wilson). Liberals, who support the tea-party in the high single digits, are actually pretty close to the moderates.
OK, so what did we learn here? I think the tea-party basically has three broad defining characteristics -- to the extent we can define it at all:
1. It is conservative.
2. It is anti-establishment.
3. It has a somewhat amorphous and nonspecific goals.
The first factor explains why the tea-party potentially does well among both Republicans (almost all of whom are conservative these days) as well as conservative independents. But, the second factor introduces some tension. While, on the one hand, Republicans tend to be more conservative than independents, on the other hand they tend to support the two-party establishment while independents -- in broad strokes -- are fed up with it. I would guess that if you looked at voters who were both independent and conservative, their support for the tea-party would be at least as high as among Republican conservatives.
Although we can infer that support for the tea party is not very high among non-conservative independents or among Democrats and liberals, the movement does get some support (especially among liberal independents as opposed to liberal Democrats). Why? Because the tea-party has many different faces. It still shows its libertarian roots at times, but is also fairly populist in character. At other times still -- such as when Sarah Palin was speaking to the Tea Party Convention -- it can more resemble traditional post-Nixonian conservativism (including on social issues) while in yet other incarnations, it has some good-government goals that might be described as bipartisan or even sort of old-school (i.e. 1890s) progressive. Most of the liberals who say they support the tea-party movement probably aren't out there carrying signs and attending rallies on a regular basis (neither for that matter are most of the conservatives) -- but they may still feel some sympathy for it.
As with discussions on the racial demographics in polling, discussions of the tea-party movement tend to percolate on slow news days as the movement provides something of a Rorschach blot that anyone can use to advance their desired narrative. That does not mean that the tea-party is insignificant. Democrats underestimated it last year: it was one of the first tangible signs of trouble for Obama. Republicans may be underappreciating it now: its participants may not be loyal Republicans -- but they were instrumental in resetting the mood of the country into the skeptical and occasionally angry place in which Republicans helpfully find it today.
First, the polling. Three relatively recent polls probed tea-partiers as to their political affiliation: the Winston poll that I mentioned (Winston is a Republican polling firm, but I don't see any obvious reason why its results cannot be trusted in this instance), a Gallup poll which is also out today, and a CBS poll from February. The CBS and Winston polls asked respondents whether they considered themselves to be a part of the tea-party movement; Gallup used a looser definition, asking people whether they supported the tea-party movement instead. Here are the percentage of people in each political camp who said yes:
About half of Republicans say that they support the tea-party movement, while 30 percent consider themselves an active part of it. Among independents, those numbers are 30 and 20, respectively. Only a few Democrats consider themselves to be a part of the tea-party: between 2 and 7 percent, depending on the poll, which is lesser than the fraction of self-identified Democrats who typically vote for a Republican candidate in Presidential elections.
Both the Winston and Gallup polls also asked people about their affinity for the tea-party by ideological group:
Although the Tea Party gets pretty decent numbers among independents, support is smaller among self-proclaimed moderates; only about 15 percent of moderates support the tea-party (Gallup) and about 10 percent consider themselves a part of it (Wilson). Liberals, who support the tea-party in the high single digits, are actually pretty close to the moderates.
OK, so what did we learn here? I think the tea-party basically has three broad defining characteristics -- to the extent we can define it at all:
1. It is conservative.
2. It is anti-establishment.
3. It has a somewhat amorphous and nonspecific goals.
The first factor explains why the tea-party potentially does well among both Republicans (almost all of whom are conservative these days) as well as conservative independents. But, the second factor introduces some tension. While, on the one hand, Republicans tend to be more conservative than independents, on the other hand they tend to support the two-party establishment while independents -- in broad strokes -- are fed up with it. I would guess that if you looked at voters who were both independent and conservative, their support for the tea-party would be at least as high as among Republican conservatives.
Although we can infer that support for the tea party is not very high among non-conservative independents or among Democrats and liberals, the movement does get some support (especially among liberal independents as opposed to liberal Democrats). Why? Because the tea-party has many different faces. It still shows its libertarian roots at times, but is also fairly populist in character. At other times still -- such as when Sarah Palin was speaking to the Tea Party Convention -- it can more resemble traditional post-Nixonian conservativism (including on social issues) while in yet other incarnations, it has some good-government goals that might be described as bipartisan or even sort of old-school (i.e. 1890s) progressive. Most of the liberals who say they support the tea-party movement probably aren't out there carrying signs and attending rallies on a regular basis (neither for that matter are most of the conservatives) -- but they may still feel some sympathy for it.
As with discussions on the racial demographics in polling, discussions of the tea-party movement tend to percolate on slow news days as the movement provides something of a Rorschach blot that anyone can use to advance their desired narrative. That does not mean that the tea-party is insignificant. Democrats underestimated it last year: it was one of the first tangible signs of trouble for Obama. Republicans may be underappreciating it now: its participants may not be loyal Republicans -- but they were instrumental in resetting the mood of the country into the skeptical and occasionally angry place in which Republicans helpfully find it today.
4.04.2010
Obama Surge Vote, Part 3: House Races
@ 9:40 PM
This is the third and final post of three in which I consider the potential implications of the decline in 2010 of the so-called "Obama surge voters," more specifically the turnout jump in 2008 of non-white voters and to what degree the drop-off in turnout among these voters potentially exacerbates the Democrats' expected problems in this November's midterm.
There could be as many as 50 House races to analyze, so to simplify matters a bit I took the 23 Democratic-held or recently-held districts presently rated as "tossups" (as of Sunday night) by at least two of the four major electoral prognosticators: Cook, Rothenberg, Sabato and CQ. Among these 23, about a third will not have Democratic incumbents running: John Murtha's death and Eric Massa's resignation created two open seats, and there are six other Democrats who will not be seeking re-election. (N.B.: There is one Republican district--Illinois Mark Kirk's, which will also be open this November--that is rated "tossup" by at least two of these rating services.)
I then collected two pieces of data for each, both courtesy of this National Journal dataset: The minority share of the district, based on a three-year average between 2006 and 2008; and Barack Obama's district share. Of the 23 districts, 14 of the Democrats are so-called "McCain Democrats"--those who won in districts carried by the 2008 Republican nominee.
The presumption here is that a district with a large minority population share is potentially more perilous for the Democrats because a drop-off in minority turnout in 2010 will remove the electoral cushion necessary to survive a so-called "wave" cycle. Of course, as I said before, if one wants to presume that this midterm will be a precedent-breaking one because these newly-mobilized "Obama surge" voters are still engaged and will rally to the president's defense by showing up for downballot Democrats this autumn, that assumption can be turned inside out. But again, I think the more likely expectation is the former.
In any case, these 23 districts offer quite a bit of variance on both dimensions. Obama's performance ranges from around 35 percent to 55 percent, and there is even more variation in estimated minority population share: ranging from the late Murtha's low of 6.0 percent in PA-12 to Harry Teague's Hispanic-dominated, 59.1 percent minority NM-2 district.
I asked Isaac Wood, who covers House races for Larry Sabato's "Crystal Ball" at the University of Virginia which districts with high minority populations where the Democratic incumbents are in a lot of trouble stick out most in his mind. He named two, both of which turned out to be on the list of 23: Steve Dreihaus in OH-1 and Tom Perriello in VA-5. "OH-01 is the clearest example, perhaps in the entire country," Wood wrote me by email. "Steve Driehaus won a 5% victory in a battleground district with 28% African-American residents. In 2004, Bush won the district by 2% but with a surge in minority turnout Obama easily carried the district by 11%. That is a 13% swing in just four years, due mostly to the third of voters who are non-white in the district." As for Perriello, Wood noted that he "won a 727-vote victory in the closest House race in the country in this district where 23% of the residents are African-American. While McCain garnered 6,000 more votes in 2008 than Bush won in 2004, Obama outperformed Kerry by a whopping 36,000 votes. That is a lot of votes to pick up in just four years and the 28% of the district that is non-white likely played a big role."
I then thought it might be worthwhile to scatterplot these 23 to see if any clusters emerge, and there is one worth noting.
In that oval in the top-left corner are 10 districts with fairly solid Obama performance despite low minority population shares. That means Obama and the incumbent Democrat both fared sufficiently well enough among white voters in these swing districts to win. White voters may abandon the Democrats this fall, of course. But the Democratic candidates in these 10 districts are less likely to be victims of a possible midterm drop-off in 2008 Obama surge voters. Sorted in ascending share of minority population, they are: PA-12; NH-1; NH-2; IN-8; IN-9; NY-29; MI-7; WA-3; PA-7; OH-15.
What's interesting is that all but retiring Brian Baird's Washington district are located in a string of states ranging from Indiana to New Hampshire. There are a lot of southern and western districts that will be tough for Democrats to hold if African American and Hispanic voters disappear this November. That said, the fate of Nancy Pelosi's majority is therefore likely to be decided by key races in a band of Rust Belt states.
There could be as many as 50 House races to analyze, so to simplify matters a bit I took the 23 Democratic-held or recently-held districts presently rated as "tossups" (as of Sunday night) by at least two of the four major electoral prognosticators: Cook, Rothenberg, Sabato and CQ. Among these 23, about a third will not have Democratic incumbents running: John Murtha's death and Eric Massa's resignation created two open seats, and there are six other Democrats who will not be seeking re-election. (N.B.: There is one Republican district--Illinois Mark Kirk's, which will also be open this November--that is rated "tossup" by at least two of these rating services.)
I then collected two pieces of data for each, both courtesy of this National Journal dataset: The minority share of the district, based on a three-year average between 2006 and 2008; and Barack Obama's district share. Of the 23 districts, 14 of the Democrats are so-called "McCain Democrats"--those who won in districts carried by the 2008 Republican nominee.
The presumption here is that a district with a large minority population share is potentially more perilous for the Democrats because a drop-off in minority turnout in 2010 will remove the electoral cushion necessary to survive a so-called "wave" cycle. Of course, as I said before, if one wants to presume that this midterm will be a precedent-breaking one because these newly-mobilized "Obama surge" voters are still engaged and will rally to the president's defense by showing up for downballot Democrats this autumn, that assumption can be turned inside out. But again, I think the more likely expectation is the former.
In any case, these 23 districts offer quite a bit of variance on both dimensions. Obama's performance ranges from around 35 percent to 55 percent, and there is even more variation in estimated minority population share: ranging from the late Murtha's low of 6.0 percent in PA-12 to Harry Teague's Hispanic-dominated, 59.1 percent minority NM-2 district.
I asked Isaac Wood, who covers House races for Larry Sabato's "Crystal Ball" at the University of Virginia which districts with high minority populations where the Democratic incumbents are in a lot of trouble stick out most in his mind. He named two, both of which turned out to be on the list of 23: Steve Dreihaus in OH-1 and Tom Perriello in VA-5. "OH-01 is the clearest example, perhaps in the entire country," Wood wrote me by email. "Steve Driehaus won a 5% victory in a battleground district with 28% African-American residents. In 2004, Bush won the district by 2% but with a surge in minority turnout Obama easily carried the district by 11%. That is a 13% swing in just four years, due mostly to the third of voters who are non-white in the district." As for Perriello, Wood noted that he "won a 727-vote victory in the closest House race in the country in this district where 23% of the residents are African-American. While McCain garnered 6,000 more votes in 2008 than Bush won in 2004, Obama outperformed Kerry by a whopping 36,000 votes. That is a lot of votes to pick up in just four years and the 28% of the district that is non-white likely played a big role."
I then thought it might be worthwhile to scatterplot these 23 to see if any clusters emerge, and there is one worth noting.
In that oval in the top-left corner are 10 districts with fairly solid Obama performance despite low minority population shares. That means Obama and the incumbent Democrat both fared sufficiently well enough among white voters in these swing districts to win. White voters may abandon the Democrats this fall, of course. But the Democratic candidates in these 10 districts are less likely to be victims of a possible midterm drop-off in 2008 Obama surge voters. Sorted in ascending share of minority population, they are: PA-12; NH-1; NH-2; IN-8; IN-9; NY-29; MI-7; WA-3; PA-7; OH-15.
What's interesting is that all but retiring Brian Baird's Washington district are located in a string of states ranging from Indiana to New Hampshire. There are a lot of southern and western districts that will be tough for Democrats to hold if African American and Hispanic voters disappear this November. That said, the fate of Nancy Pelosi's majority is therefore likely to be decided by key races in a band of Rust Belt states.
Att'n: City-Dwellers
@ 7:54 PM
EDIT: The survey is now closed -- thank you to all who responded and Happy Easter, all.
I am currently working on a project with New York Magazine to rate New York City's best neighborhoods based on a wide array of objective indicators. Literally everything from the number of cockroaches to the number of Whole Foodses is considered, along with all of the more obvious things that can make an urban neighborhood a great or terrible place to live. Although this all sounds very whimsical it's actually a fairly rigorous project and from what I can tell is the first time that anybody has tried to evaluate New York's neighborhoods in exactly this fashion.
One thing that's difficult to know, however, is how to rate the different factors relative to one another. And because New York has a lot of great neighborhoods (the top two-dozen or so are all within a couple of points of one another), the weighting happens to make quite a bit of difference. Toward that end, I could use some help from those of you who currently live or have recently have lived in a major city by taking a brief survey. What is a "major city"? You tell me, but I'm generally thinking about cities that are both large enough and dense enough enough to support a number of distinct and "livable" neighborhoods within the city limits -- cities like New York, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Washington, London, Toronto, along with what I'm sure are many others.
The survey should take only about 5 minutes and can be completed by clicking here. And, no, I've by no means come around to the virtues of online surveys in general -- but this is one of those cases where a blunt instrument is better than nothing.
I am currently working on a project with New York Magazine to rate New York City's best neighborhoods based on a wide array of objective indicators. Literally everything from the number of cockroaches to the number of Whole Foodses is considered, along with all of the more obvious things that can make an urban neighborhood a great or terrible place to live. Although this all sounds very whimsical it's actually a fairly rigorous project and from what I can tell is the first time that anybody has tried to evaluate New York's neighborhoods in exactly this fashion.
One thing that's difficult to know, however, is how to rate the different factors relative to one another. And because New York has a lot of great neighborhoods (the top two-dozen or so are all within a couple of points of one another), the weighting happens to make quite a bit of difference. Toward that end, I could use some help from those of you who currently live or have recently have lived in a major city by taking a brief survey. What is a "major city"? You tell me, but I'm generally thinking about cities that are both large enough and dense enough enough to support a number of distinct and "livable" neighborhoods within the city limits -- cities like New York, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Washington, London, Toronto, along with what I'm sure are many others.
The survey should take only about 5 minutes and can be completed by clicking here. And, no, I've by no means come around to the virtues of online surveys in general -- but this is one of those cases where a blunt instrument is better than nothing.
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