Obama won! A few observations on the election:
A lot of people are saying "Look, now this really shows that any child can grow up to be President!" Well, no. At the same time as the U.S. elected a black man as President, a bunch of states voted for anti-gay laws. And plenty of ignorant people were still under the impression that Obama is a Muslim and that that's a bad thing. And Senator (soon to be former Senator) Dole in North Carolina attacked her challenger Kay Fagan by calling her an atheist - Hagan responded by calling it "slander". There was no Colin Powell moment in that race where someone asked "why do you care if Fagan is an atheist?" So yes, a black man won the presidency, showing we've progressed, but you probably still can't win the Presidency if you are openly atheist, openly gay, Muslim or Arab (see a poll from 2007).
A lot of people like Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan are saying this was a transformational election, that the Democrats are building a new coalition just like Reagan in 1980 and FDR in 1932. Well, no. The data shows that, compared to 2004, the Democrats just got a a plus 3% handicap in pretty much every state other than states who had their own officials runing (Arizona, Alaska, Massachusetts, Hawaii), and Appalachia and Southern states (hmm).
Stratfor highlights that, even though Obama won in an electoral landslide, the popular vote was relatively close. One reason for that is going to be Obama losing a lot of areas in the South and Appalachia by much more than Kerry did 4 years ago as you can see on this map. The obvious explanation is racist voters voting against a black person in those areas. However you can see that almost no counties in North Carolina and Virginia swung in McCain's direction compared to 2004, however just across the state lines, counties right next to them voted much more heavily in favor of McCain than in 2004. And Obama targeted North Carolina and especially Virginia, and didn't really target West Virginia and Tennessee. So I think beyond racism, there is the lesson that if you target voters even in the sticks in Appalachia, they will vote for you in greater numbers than otherwise (vindicating Howard Dean's 50 state strategy).
Basically, I don't think too much has changed in terms of electoral politics. This election didn't show that we all united, it just showed that a mere 3% more of us reject Republican rule after one of the worst presidencies in history and instead will vote for a black guy if he promises to cut taxes and seems like a generally likeable fellow.
Showing posts with label McCain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label McCain. Show all posts
Don't hate on me (or ACORN)
In his paper The Political Economy of Hatred, Ed Glaeser looks at anti-Americanism in the Middle East, anti-Semitism in Europe, and anti-Black hatred in the American South and concludes that hatred is "particularly likely to spread against groups that are politicaly relevant and socially isolated." The social isolation of the object of hatred increases the costs for the in-group to debunk myths, and the political relevance of the group increases the incentives for politicians to target the out-group with hate-creating propaganda.
I think this is a useful model through which to look at McCain's propaganda regarding ACORN, the group he says is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." This propaganda has resulted in death threats against ACORN employees and vandalism of ACORN offices.
Glaeser's basic theory is that political entrepreneurs who are pro-wealth-redistribution will spread hate-creating stories about rich minorities, while anti-redistribution will spread hate-creaing stories about poor minorities. However it doesn't just have to apply to minorities classified by economics. ACORN and other community organizers are minorities, in that 99% of Americans are not ACORN volunteers or employees, and most don't know ACORN volunteers or employees either.
Glaeser's basic theory is that political entrepreneurs who are pro-wealth-redistribution will spread hate-creating stories about rich minorities, while anti-redistribution will spread hate-creaing stories about poor minorities. However it doesn't just have to apply to minorities classified by economics. ACORN and other community organizers are minorities, in that 99% of Americans are not ACORN volunteers or employees, and most don't know ACORN volunteers or employees either.
ACORN, the out-group, is politically relevant both because of their connections to Obama and the Obama campaign, but also because they registered 1.3 million new voters this year.
ACORN is also socially isolated from the target group of McCain's propaganda, not only because there are so few ACORN members in the country, but also because they tend to operate in larger cities, and the target of this propaganda is conservative/GOP voters in suburbs and rural communities (the in-group).
Glaeser's model has four steps:
1) Politicians decide whether or not to broadcast a hate-creating message. My guess is that this occured prior to the GOP national convention, when Giuliani and Palin both devoted chunks of their speeches to ridiculling community organizers. But it could also have happened whenever the campaign realized that they have no shot at winning based on issues, due to the financial/economic situation.
2) In-group members receive the message about the harmfulness of the out-group, and decide whether or not to investigate the truth of this message, and decide whether or not to take action against the out-group. False messages can succeed if in-group members have no incentive to figure out whether the messages are true or not, or if the barriers to finding out the truth are very high. Incentives would be personal, commercial, or other relationships with members of the out-group, which also lower the barriers to the truth. Since ACORN is both socially isolated and not well known by most voters outside of thecurrent voter registration story, incentives are low and barriers are high. While the truth is obviously perfectly available through online news sources, McCain's demographic probably distrusts "liberal media" like ABC (and it doesn't help that CNN bought McCain's propaganda hook, line and sinker).
3) Each group votes for their preferred candidate, and the winner's policies are implemented.
4) The losing group may be harmed by the winning group (the whole point of the propaganda). Here, the ACORN propaganda fits into McCain's larger desperation strategy of associating with people that are "different" from McCain's voters. i.e., if Obama and ACORN steal the election, something bad and vaguely associated with terrorism, socialism, high taxes and black people will happen (all examples are from the central McCain campaign, not the even more explicitly racist state and local GOP figures).
A few ending notes. First, it's important to recognize the transparently cynical nature of McCain's propaganda campaign against ACORN. This link has a video of McCain congratulating ACORN as "what makes America special" due to their efforts to get immigrants registered to vote.
Second, while McCain rails about "voter fraud" and implies that ACORN is engaged in some conspiracy to steal the election, there is a significant difference between voter fraud and voter REGISTRATION fraud (it's one thing to register Mickey Mouse, it's another thing to try to vote as Mickey Mouse), and the real victim of this voter registration fraud is ACORN itself for being tricked into paying for bogus registrations, which is why they were the ones that reported it to the Feds in the first place. ACORN is legally required in several states to turn in all registration forms, whether they think they are fradulent or not, so as to get around the possibility of organizations throwing out registrations of one party or another. They also noted forms they thought might be fradulent.
Finally, it's important to note that the GOP has a history of crying wolf over voter fraud. The US Attorneys scandal of a couple years ago was partially about Rove firing US Attorneys who were unwilling to prosecute bogus voter fraud cases.
You couldn't write a better script
...for a political comedy:
McCain is the candidate of "experience" - picks VP candidate with zero national political experience
McCain is the candidate of "national security" - picks VP candidate with zero national security experience
McCain puts his "country first" - picks VP candidate who was a member of an Alaskan secessionist party
McCain is the "responsible" candidate - picks VP candidate without doing basic political background research
McCain is the "maverick" - picks VP candidate after being bullied out of his first two choices by the evangelical Right
McCain is the anti-corruption candidate - picks VP candidate who ran Ted Stevens' 527 group and who hired a member of Team Abramoff
McCain is the anti-pork candidate - picks VP candidate who won $27 million in pork for her town of 6000 and fought for the "bridge to nowhere"
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!
Unfortunately for comedy's sake, Palin is too young (and not Vietnamese), otherwise the perfect ending would be finding out she had been one of McCain's captors (had you heard he was a POW in Vietnam?) Feel free to add additional contradictions between McCain's rhetoric and his choice of Sarah Palin as VP in the comments.
When a candidate's relationship with the press moves beyond hostile questioning and into ridicule and satire, big chances are needed. Perhaps a third total restructuring of the McCain campaign is in the future!
McCain is the candidate of "experience" - picks VP candidate with zero national political experience
McCain is the candidate of "national security" - picks VP candidate with zero national security experience
McCain puts his "country first" - picks VP candidate who was a member of an Alaskan secessionist party
McCain is the "responsible" candidate - picks VP candidate without doing basic political background research
McCain is the "maverick" - picks VP candidate after being bullied out of his first two choices by the evangelical Right
McCain is the anti-corruption candidate - picks VP candidate who ran Ted Stevens' 527 group and who hired a member of Team Abramoff
McCain is the anti-pork candidate - picks VP candidate who won $27 million in pork for her town of 6000 and fought for the "bridge to nowhere"
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!
Unfortunately for comedy's sake, Palin is too young (and not Vietnamese), otherwise the perfect ending would be finding out she had been one of McCain's captors (had you heard he was a POW in Vietnam?) Feel free to add additional contradictions between McCain's rhetoric and his choice of Sarah Palin as VP in the comments.
When a candidate's relationship with the press moves beyond hostile questioning and into ridicule and satire, big chances are needed. Perhaps a third total restructuring of the McCain campaign is in the future!
Sarah Palin as VP
So McCain picked Sarah Palin as his VP nominee. See her bio here. Another relevant fact is she's in a mini-scandal now for apparently firing some guy because he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a state Trooper.
The big issue is that she has absolutely no experience in national politics and has only been governor of Alaska for a year and a half. Basically McCain used his VP pick as a political stunt designed to steal coverage of Obama's acceptance speech. This is possibly the most short-sighted VP pick in history and in my view a colossal blunder by McCain. And since Eddie liked my line about how one should view Palin's "experience" in the executive branch in Alaska, I'll repeat it here:
The big issue is that she has absolutely no experience in national politics and has only been governor of Alaska for a year and a half. Basically McCain used his VP pick as a political stunt designed to steal coverage of Obama's acceptance speech. This is possibly the most short-sighted VP pick in history and in my view a colossal blunder by McCain. And since Eddie liked my line about how one should view Palin's "experience" in the executive branch in Alaska, I'll repeat it here:
Governing Alaska is like governing Sim City with the free money cheat. It’s easy to repeal taxes and fund infrastructure at the same time when you have a money spigot.
Change? Experience? Character?
I started this post three weeks ago and then got lazy. I figured with the convention this week it'd be a good time to do a political post though.
This election it seems that the themes each campaign has chosen correspond to their own weaknesses. John McCain is running on "experience" despite the fact that he's never held any executive or managerial position in his life. McCain's also running on character and "putting America first," despite his temper tantrums and slime-slinging campaign ads, and the fact that his chief of staff was recently a paid agent of a foreign government.
Barack Obama is running on change, and in the primary most of the positions he laid out clearly were a break from the status quo. However since then he's bought in to three major establishment ideas: immunity for telecom companies that aided the government in illegal domestic intelligence collection; the prioritizing of Israel's short-term security over that of the Middle East as a whole; and the selection of Joe Biden as his VP pick (not a bad pick, but not exactly about "change"). His staff selection also is filled with experienced Washington people - and while you definitely need some experience so you can figure out how the place works, filling your Senate staff with Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle staffers doesn't exactly signal that you want to transform American politics.
John McCain's primary argument is that he's experienced and Obama's a novice who will mess everything up. A look at their campaigns suggests otherwise. Obama's been called "Machiavellian" due to his ruthlessly efficient campaign. Disputes within his office (and I'm assuming they exist) do not end up on the front page of the Washington Post or New York Times the way they do in McCain's campaign and the way they did in Hillary Clinton's. He has raised money hand over fist. His ground operations were by all accounts much better than those of his rivals. He's laying the groundwork for his reelection campaign in 2012 even before he's elected.
Contrast that to McCain's campaign, which is so disorganized he doesn't even know his own positions on key issues like birth control or climate change. He cycles through different cliques of advisers - does he want to be "the original maverick"? Or does he want Karl Rove's proteges to bring him evangelical votes? The answer changes every few months. After a series of attack ads against Obama, defenders of McCain were arguing that McCain was such an 'honorable' guy that his campaign would only put those ads out if McCain wasn't totally in control. It takes a special kind of campaign to reduce the candidate's five years in a torture cell to a farce.
McCain's character and integrity has been a sacred cow in the national press corps - despite reversing practically all of his political positions to win the Republican nomination, cheating on his first wife, his involvement in a corruption scandal, his repeated attempts to portray Obama as un-American, and various other failings of character.
Perhaps some campaigns decide to attack other candidates along certain lines in order to take the focus off their own failings. By attacking the other candidate's character or change credentials, maybe they hope they won't have to defend their own. I can't figure the exact reasoning but it definitely makes for a surreal campaign.
As an addendum, all this talking head crap on TV about a divided Democratic party is stupid. The Democratic party is divided over personalities, which can be much more easily mended than being divided over substance. The GOP on the other hand is divided over substance and the entire direction of party, which threatens to split the entire party in a national realignment.
This election it seems that the themes each campaign has chosen correspond to their own weaknesses. John McCain is running on "experience" despite the fact that he's never held any executive or managerial position in his life. McCain's also running on character and "putting America first," despite his temper tantrums and slime-slinging campaign ads, and the fact that his chief of staff was recently a paid agent of a foreign government.
Barack Obama is running on change, and in the primary most of the positions he laid out clearly were a break from the status quo. However since then he's bought in to three major establishment ideas: immunity for telecom companies that aided the government in illegal domestic intelligence collection; the prioritizing of Israel's short-term security over that of the Middle East as a whole; and the selection of Joe Biden as his VP pick (not a bad pick, but not exactly about "change"). His staff selection also is filled with experienced Washington people - and while you definitely need some experience so you can figure out how the place works, filling your Senate staff with Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle staffers doesn't exactly signal that you want to transform American politics.
John McCain's primary argument is that he's experienced and Obama's a novice who will mess everything up. A look at their campaigns suggests otherwise. Obama's been called "Machiavellian" due to his ruthlessly efficient campaign. Disputes within his office (and I'm assuming they exist) do not end up on the front page of the Washington Post or New York Times the way they do in McCain's campaign and the way they did in Hillary Clinton's. He has raised money hand over fist. His ground operations were by all accounts much better than those of his rivals. He's laying the groundwork for his reelection campaign in 2012 even before he's elected.
Contrast that to McCain's campaign, which is so disorganized he doesn't even know his own positions on key issues like birth control or climate change. He cycles through different cliques of advisers - does he want to be "the original maverick"? Or does he want Karl Rove's proteges to bring him evangelical votes? The answer changes every few months. After a series of attack ads against Obama, defenders of McCain were arguing that McCain was such an 'honorable' guy that his campaign would only put those ads out if McCain wasn't totally in control. It takes a special kind of campaign to reduce the candidate's five years in a torture cell to a farce.
McCain's character and integrity has been a sacred cow in the national press corps - despite reversing practically all of his political positions to win the Republican nomination, cheating on his first wife, his involvement in a corruption scandal, his repeated attempts to portray Obama as un-American, and various other failings of character.
Perhaps some campaigns decide to attack other candidates along certain lines in order to take the focus off their own failings. By attacking the other candidate's character or change credentials, maybe they hope they won't have to defend their own. I can't figure the exact reasoning but it definitely makes for a surreal campaign.
As an addendum, all this talking head crap on TV about a divided Democratic party is stupid. The Democratic party is divided over personalities, which can be much more easily mended than being divided over substance. The GOP on the other hand is divided over substance and the entire direction of party, which threatens to split the entire party in a national realignment.
Iowa and New Hampshire
Lots of hot air has been expended on the Iowa and New Hampshire results. I don't really know much about American elections (who caucuses? just vote!), but at least I am cognizant of that fact. Our mainstream news outlets are apparently clueless about their own ignorance ("We were wrong? Must have been those New Hampshire racists!"). After Obama won Iowa, he was about to be crowned king and Hillary was finished - a few days later, and it's neck-and-neck. McCain was supposed to be finished this past summer, now he's the new front-runner.
Intrade.com has a fascinating graphic showing McCain's comeback. The graph shows how much Intrade.com traders valued contracts on McCain winning the GOP presidential nomination. The payoff of the contract, if McCain wins the nomination, is 100; otherwise it is zero. So in November and December of 2006, traders valued McCain's stock at 55ish. By July 2007 it fell to around 5, and after New Hampshire it has climbed back to around 35 - the highest of the Republican contenders.
National polls largely mirror this trend. I assume Intrade.com traders were trading on the information of national polls, Iowa, New Hampshire and other primary polls, the financial situation each candidate is in, etc. The problem is that people look at all this data and think it means more than it does, because it's all we have - and any pundit that says "I don't know" won't be invited back on TV.
Soft support for candidates means that poll numbers are flexible. High voter turnout also upsets polling data, which is based on sampling from different demographics based on who has historically turned out to vote in the past. I'm sure lots of other things confound poll numbers too. Thus the polling numbers that our chattering classes obsess over in truth don't mean very much. And so to take it one step further, the output of the chattering classes doesn't matter very much either (except to the degree that other people take it seriously).
My point is not that McCain was always going to make a comeback and that pundits should have known - there was nothing fated about his remarkable turnaround. My point is that the value-added of these pundits is minimal and that their assertions are almost always over-confident.
Intrade.com has a fascinating graphic showing McCain's comeback. The graph shows how much Intrade.com traders valued contracts on McCain winning the GOP presidential nomination. The payoff of the contract, if McCain wins the nomination, is 100; otherwise it is zero. So in November and December of 2006, traders valued McCain's stock at 55ish. By July 2007 it fell to around 5, and after New Hampshire it has climbed back to around 35 - the highest of the Republican contenders.
National polls largely mirror this trend. I assume Intrade.com traders were trading on the information of national polls, Iowa, New Hampshire and other primary polls, the financial situation each candidate is in, etc. The problem is that people look at all this data and think it means more than it does, because it's all we have - and any pundit that says "I don't know" won't be invited back on TV.
Soft support for candidates means that poll numbers are flexible. High voter turnout also upsets polling data, which is based on sampling from different demographics based on who has historically turned out to vote in the past. I'm sure lots of other things confound poll numbers too. Thus the polling numbers that our chattering classes obsess over in truth don't mean very much. And so to take it one step further, the output of the chattering classes doesn't matter very much either (except to the degree that other people take it seriously).
My point is not that McCain was always going to make a comeback and that pundits should have known - there was nothing fated about his remarkable turnaround. My point is that the value-added of these pundits is minimal and that their assertions are almost always over-confident.
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