Polls, Reporting on "Ground Zero Mosque" May Mislead

A group of Muslim businessmen and religious leaders have proposed building a 12-story facility called Cordoba House (or sometimes alternatively Park 51) in Lower Manhattan. The project would include a number of resources -- "a 500-seat auditorium, swimming pool, art exhibition spaces, bookstores, restaurants," its developers say -- in addition to places of worship, probably including a mosque. The goal of the project is ostensibly to improve Muslim-West relations and show New York a more modern face of Islam; on the group's website, for instance, most women involved with the project are pictured in contemproary Western business dress.

But the location of the proposed facility, in Lower Manhattan two blocks from Ground Zero, has drawn both local and national opposition, with the Republican candidate for governor in New York, Carl Paladino, going to far as to say he'd use eminent domain laws to block its construction. The opposition gained momentum today when the Anti-Defamation League, an influential Jewish-American group, came out against the facility, albeit in a somewhat nuanced way. "Proponents of the Islamic Center may have every right to build at this site, and may even have chosen the site to send a positive message about Islam," a statement by the group read in part. "But ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right. In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain – unnecessarily – and that is not right."

Local, statewide, and national polling, furthermore, has shown majorities of New York City residents, New York state residents and Americans opposed to construction of the facility.

There are several things to unpack here. First, a bit of a geography lesson is in order.

To be clear, Cordoba House is "in the neighborhood" of Ground Zero, and this seems to have been a deliberate choice made by its developers. But to suggest that Cordoba House is "at" Ground Zero, as some reporting and opposition groups have, is either negligent or willfully misleading.

The World Trade Center campus, shown in purple in the map below, is quite large, roughly two-tenths of a mile by two-tenths of a mile across. Eleven different streets abut or intersect it, and there are numerous points of access by foot, in cars or taxis, or on public transportation networks.



(For an interactive version of the map, see here.)

Cordoba House, shown in a red outline on the map, would be on Park Place between West Broadway and Church Street. Park Place does not intersect Ground Zero; instead, it runs parallel to it, two blocks to its north.

It is unlikely that very many people commuting to the World Trade Center site would pass by Cordoba House -- walking on that particular stretch of Park Place would not be a natural route except in unusual circumstances. Nor, does it appear to me, would Cordoba House be visible from ground level anywhere at the World Trade Center complex. The Federal Office Building across from Vesey Street on Ground Zero's northern perimeter is sixteen stories high, as is the office building between Barclay Street and Park Place; they would presumably block the view of the more diminutive Cordoba House, while although somewhat architecturally daring does not contain minarets or other spire-like features that would give it greater prominence than an ordinary, 12-story building. Like dozens and dozens of other buildings, and several other places of worship near to Ground Zero, it would be quite well concealed among Lower Manhattan's dense street grid.

Interestingly, although the Quinnipiac poll showed a majority of New York City residents opposed to the project, a 46-36 plurality of Manhattanites were in favor of it. There could be a variety of reasons for this, but one might be that they have a superior understanding of the borough's geography. It is not as though there's just one road to Ground Zero and some huge mosque would be built right next door to it.

Although the Quinnipiac Poll described Cordoba House fairly completely -- as "a Muslim mosque and cultural center" -- the Rasmussen poll describes it merely as "a mosque near the 9/11 Ground Zero site", omitting any description of its multipurpose nature. It is hard to say how much difference this makes, but Rasmussen, which often has problems with question wording, would probably do more to inform its respondents by referring to it as Quinnipiac did.

Another problem with both the Quinnipiac and Ramsussen polls is that it's a bit ambiguous what it means to "support" or "oppose" the project in this context. I imagine there is a spectrum of about five different positions that one might take on Cordoba House:

1) I support the project: its goals seem laudable, and it would be a welcome addition to the neighborhood.

2) I am indifferent about the project itself -- I can see the arguments both for it and against it. But this is a free country, and the developers certainly have a right to express themselves.

3) I'd rather that the project weren't built, especially so near to Ground Zero. But it's certainly not the government's business to stop its construction.

4) I'm opposed to the project and hope that it isn't built. But I'm indifferent about whether or not the City should act to stop it.

5) I'm definitely opposed to the project, and the City should exercise its authority to prevent it from being built.

Arguably, responses 3 through 5 all qualify as "opposition" to the project, whereas only the first one indicates clear support. But one's personal position on the mosque is not necessarily the same as thinking that the City should take affirmative steps to prohibit its construction by eminent domain laws by or other means, a position held by only those in Group 5. This is somewhat analogous to asking: "do you support or oppose flag-burning?". Without additional context, it would be quite natural for someone to say they opposed it, but they might nevertheless consider it to be Constitutionally protected activity. Likewise, while Cordoba House is clearly not popular, none of the polling speaks to whether a proposal like Paladino's would find much support.

A final ambiguity -- and not one the pollsters can do anything about -- is the question of just who "owns" Ground Zero. Is it the whole country? The residents of New York State? Of New York City? Just the people of Manhattan? Just the people who live or work in the neighborhood or who were personally impacted by 9/11? I'm a New Yorker now, but I wasn't at the time of the September 11th attacks; should my opinion count less than someone who was?

But instead of a considered discussion over these issues, we have a battle of 140-character soundbytes, and polling and reporting that often does not do justice to the nuances of the issue.

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Move Left and Win...A Republican Primary?

In the many Republican primaries we've had so far this year, it's reasonably safe to say that the word "conservative"--often modified by "true" or "most"--has been used by candidates almost universally as a personal and policy identifier. That's not surprising, given the relatively high level of ideological conformity among self-identified Republican voters, and the impetus to self-conscious conservatism provided by the Tea Party movement and an energized Republican base.

So it's interesting to take a look at next Tuesday's Michigan gubernatorial primary, and find a very competitive Republican candidate, Rick Snyder, who doesn't much use the C-word, and in fact, is appealing for Democratic and independent votes on the apparent ground that like Mike Dukakis in 1988, he's about competence, not ideology.


According to a new poll from the Michigan-based firm EPIC-MRA, Snyder is in the lead in a very close three-way race for the gubernatorial nomination against two candidates, Attorney General Mike Cox and congressman Peter Hoekstra, who are competing heatedly with each other for the Tea Party/True Conservative mantle. Yet in the Year of the Conservative, you search high and low on Snyder's web page to find the word "conservative." There are plenty of things Snyder talks about--notably his business experience as an executive with Gateway, and his determination to make Michigan government operate efficiently--that appeal to conservatives. But he mainly identifies himself as "one tough nerd"--the sort of thing you'd normally associate with elitist liberals--and in the stretch run of the primary, seems to be branding himself as a moderate with special crossover appeal to Democrats and independents.

To be sure, Snyder calls himself pro-life (though he has broken with anti-abortion groups by strongly supporting embryonic stem cell research) and pro-gun, but has avoided discussion of social issues in his campaign. More importantly, he's associated himself with former Gov. William Millikan, whose moderate (and pro-choice) policies as Michigan's chief executive and GOP party boss were nearly as annoying to conservatives as his endorsements of the last two Democratic presidential nominees. And he's also linked even more closely to moderate (and pro-choice) former congressman Joe Schwarz, who flirted with an independent candicacy for governor before being tapped by Snyder's campaign to reach out to Democratic and independent crossover voters.

The "reachout" idea is interesting but problematic. Michigan is an open primary state, and moreover, one that lets voters decide within the privacy of the voting booth which primary they will participate in (leading to high levels of confusion and spoiled ballots). But it's not clear how willing Michigan voters are to cross over. The EPIC-MRA poll cited earlier shows that only 2% of likely GOP primary voters are Democrats, and only 15% are true independents. The same poll shows self-identified conservatives outgunning moderates 72-24.

It's certainly plausible that the Cox-Hoekstra battle will let Snyder, with or without a significant crossover vote, sneak through to victory. There's some precedent in Indiana, where Marlin Stutzman and John Hostettler split the Tea Party/True Conservative vote and let Dan Coats win. But Coats is a much more orthodox conservative figure than Snyder, and didn't openly appeal to non-Republican voters. So if Snyder wins on Tuesday, it will provide an exception to the general rule that being a loud-and-proud conservative is a condition precedent for representing the Republican Party in major elections this year. And who knows, a Snyder win could even supply some encouragement down the road to conservative efforts nationally to close primaries or require runoffs.

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Introducing Partisan Propensity Index (PPI)

I've been working for some time on developing an alternative to Cook's Partisan Voting Index (PVI). Not that there's anything wrong with PVI; it's a pretty robust little metric. But, PVI is derived from voting in Presidential elections, whereas normally it's used to help forecast, or contextualize, Congressional elections. Are there any systematic differences in the ways that votes tend to fall for the Congress, as opposed to the Presidency? Are certain districts better or worse for Democrats, or Republicans, than PVI alone would suggest?

It turns out that there's one other factor which is fairly useful to look at, which is socioeconomic status. Relative to how they do for the Presidency, Democrats are somewhat more likely to win races for Congress in poorer districts, and somewhat more likely to lose them in wealthier ones. Another way to put this is that a split ticket of Republican for President, Democrat for Congress is more likely to occur in a poor district, whereas a split ticket of Democrat for President, Republican for Congress is more likely to occur in a wealthy one.

The way in which I uncovered this was to look at 142 races for the U.S. House since 2002 in which there was no incumbent running. I excluded cases in Georgia and Texas before mid-decade redistricting had occurred in those states, since my demographic database only pertains to current Congressional boundaries, but otherwise every open-seat race in the last four cycles was included. Which variables were useful in predicting the winner of these races?

Well, PVI -- the way the district voted in the previous Presidential election, relative to other districts -- was indeed very useful. I actually prefer to look only at the most immediate prior Presidential election, rather the previous two as Cook does, but it really doesn't matter either way.

After running a copious number of logistic regression models on a copious number of variables, the only other thing that seems unambiguously to matter is socioeconomic status, which I measure by the percentage of households with incomes below $25,000. This is pretty unambiguous, in fact, as the variable has predictive power at the 99.9%+ plus certainty level.



You could certainly look at a different specification of income, like the poverty rate or median household income, and do just about as well. And you wouldn't give up much if used a highly correlated variable like education instead. The point is simply that taking socioeconomic status into account in addition to PVI is helpful. Most of the places where Democrats hold seats in the House in spite of a disadvantageous PVI -- think TX-17 or MS-4 or TN-4 or OK-2 or the couple of Democrats in West Virginia -- are poor, and most of the places where the reverse is true -- think Mark Kirk in upscale IL-10 or Mike Castle in Delaware -- are fairly well-off.

I happen to think this makes a certain amount of sense. As we've seen in the past few years, Congress has a tremendous amount of control over economic policy. On the other hand, it has relatively little control over foreign policy, and "values" debates are mostly fought at the state level, or in the courts. Nor will Congressional campaigns usually invoke the sort of big, sweeping cinematic narratives that Presidential campaigns often try to. People are basically just voting their pocketbooks most of the time.

What about other variables beyond income? There are hints that certain things might matter. There's some very limited evidence, for instance, that once you control for income, Democrats do slightly worse for the Congress in districts where there are a lot of black and Hispanic voters, because they may be less likely to turn out in midterm elections. There's also some evidence that how a district aligns relative to its state is important, i.e., bluish districts in red states tend to be quite blue in how they vote for Congress, and reddish districts in blue states tend to be quite red. But none of it is particularly robust, and this is a case where there are a lot of dangers to overfitting one's model, particularly given that what applied in the past may not necessarily apply in the future. So, we're keeping it simple.

You'll also notice that I only looked at open-seat races, and not races involving incumbents. This is because, once you get elected to Congress, all bets are off -- a likable incumbent with good constituent services can defy gravity for a very long time, and what you're essentially seeing in a lot of the data for incumbent races are echoes of demographic trends that might have been pertinent years or even decades ago. Restricting the analysis to open-seat races is a lot cleaner.

Thus, Partisan Propensity Index, or PPI, is defined as the percentage chance that the Democrat would have won and open-seat race for Congress in a particular district given the conditions present, on average, between 2002 and 2008 (a period which conveniently featured two good cycles for Republicans and two good ones for Democrats). It contains only two variables: the Presidential vote share in the district and the percentage of households there with incomes below $25,000.

PPI ratings for all 435 Congressional districts are provided below.

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It's Like Mathematically Unpossible for Republicans to Win the House, or Something

We're introducing a new scale tonight to "reward" polling and strategy memos which are vapid, disingenuous, jargony, or just plain fucking wrong. The scale is dubbed the Pennometer after former Clinton strategist Mark Penn, who was a master of the genre; it runs from 0 Penns for memos that are honest and persuasive to 5 Penns for those which might as well have been penned by Penn himself.

Our contestant in this pilot episode is this memo, which was circulated to the Washington Post's Greg Sargent by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). It argues that it's like totally impossible for the Republicans to win the House, okay dudes?

Republicans will need to win 39 seats to take back the House. Democrats will win at least four Republican seats (the best opportunities include: LA-02, HI-01, IL-10, DE-AL, FL-25). As a result, the real number of seats Republicans will have to pick up to win a majority is at least 43. To win 43 seats, the NRCC would need to put 70 to 80 seats in play. The NRCC have simply not put that many Republicans seats in play and do not have the resources or caliber of candidates to do so.

There's not really any there there. What does it mean for a seat to be "in play", for instance? Suppose it means a seat which the Republican has some tangible chance of winning. If that's the case, there are more than 70 or 80 seats "in play". In fact, there are 101 Democrat-held seats that are rated as something other than safe by at least one of the "Big 4" forecasters (Cook, CQ, Rothenberg, Sabato). And if you include Real Clear Politics' forecasts in the mix, the total rises to 108.

That's a fairly liberal definition of "in play", but at least it's one with some concrete standard attached. By a slightly more conservative definition -- a seat is "in play" if at least three of the five forcasters noted above think it is -- the figure is 89 seats, still higher than the range that the DCCC memo suggests.

But I don't know that we should be erring on the side of conservativism in defining the number of seats that are "in play". Occasionally, in a wave election, a few seats that nobody was polling and nobody was paying attention to might wind up switching sides: one instance I recall is the IA-2 district in 2006, which was won by then-obscure political science professor Dave Loebsack, who edged out 15-term (!) Republican incumbent Jim Leach. (I was following the race intently because Leach, although a moderate Republican overall, was a leading proponent of the legislation to prohibit online poker, from which I was making a portion of my living at the time.)

The DCCC memo also argues that there's like no freaking way that the Republicans can win more than about 60 percent of the seats that happen to be "in play", however that's defined:

To win 43 seats, the NRCC would need to put 70 to 80 seats in play.

I don't really know what the basis for this claim is. Would it be impossible for the Republicans to win 43 seats, for instance, if there were 69 of them "in play" rather than 70? If you tossed a fair coin 69 times, there is only about a 3 percent chance that it would come up tails on at least 43 of those occasions. But elections to Congress aren't like that; the outcomes aren't independent of one another. If the pollsters aren't quite capturing the full magnitude of anti-Democratic sentiment, for instance, that's going to affect a lot of races, and a large fraction of the "toss-ups" could go to the Republicans.

Of course, we should be careful not to conflate the terms "in play" and "toss-up", which are not at all synonymous. Of the 108 "in play" seats that we described above, there are only 8 that the consensus of five forecasters thinks are more likely than not to go to the Republicans, and 27 which the consensus deems to be a toss-up. Conversely, 73 of the 108 "in play" seats are still thought to be more likely than not to hold for the Democrats.

Obviously, this is a question that begs for more systematic analysis, and we'll be rolling out our House forecasting model at some point next month. If our Senate model is any guide -- it tends to imply a more pessimistic forecast for Democrats than the qualitative forecasters like Cook do -- it might not contain good news for Team Blue. But the logic of the House forecasting model will be quite different than the Senate one, so there's really no telling.

The memo also asserts, quite confidently, that Democrats will win at least 4 seats currently held by Republicans.

Democrats will win at least four Republican seats (the best opportunities include: LA-02, HI-01, IL-10, DE-AL, FL-25).

Again, this claim is dubious. There are only two Republican-held seats -- DE-AL and LA-2 -- that the consensus of forecasters think are more likely than not to go to the Democrats, but both are still highly uncertain. There are also two seats, HI-1 and IL-10, that the forecasters regard as toss-ups. Democrats certainly could win all four of the seats -- and they could win 5 GOP-held seats, or 6, or 8, if the sentiment turns out to be more anti-incumbent than anti-Democrat. But none of these seats are in the bag, and being completely shut out -- as happened to the Republicans in 2006 and the Democrats in 1994 -- is unlikely but not completely out of the question.

The second paragraph of the memo contains further arbitrary math of the sort you see above, which I will not address out of concern for flogging a dead horse. The third paragraph talks about the Tea Party potentially costing the Republicans a few opportunities where inexperienced and/or wacky candidates are nominated: I happen to agree with this point based on what we're seeing in some Senate races like Nevada and Kentucky, although bear in mind that in the macro view, the Tea Party has been a huge asset to the Republicans in the way that it facilitated a "rebranding" of conservative ideas.

***

It is, of course, an impossible task to argue that the Republicans have no chance of winning the House, something which betting markets -- and yours truly -- in fact consider to be somewhat more likely than not. Unavoidably, therefore, the memo was indeed vapid, jargony, and just plain fucking wrong in many places. However, because it largely avoided being disingenuous, we'll give it only 3.5 Penns rather than a full allotment of 5.

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Blue Dogs Lessons From GOP Moderates

In a new paper published* in The Forum, political scientists DeWayne Lucas and Iva Deutchman examine the electoral fate of members of the moderate Republican Main Street Partnership during the GOP’s era of House control in order to assess what the fate of current Blue Dog Coalition members might be. Cutting to the chase, what Lucas and Deutchman find is that moderates are much more embattled within their party’s majority caucus than when their party is in the House majority, and thus their ability to raise money and survive electorally declines.

But the experiences of RMSP members during the GOP House majority days are not necessarily perfectly generalizable to the situation facing Blue Dogs right now. When it comes to money, they write:

The financial story for the Blue Dog Democrats has some similarities but also some clear differences from the story of the Main Street Partnership. The comparison, however, is complicated by the fact that the two factions are at different points in their historical evolution. The partisan environment turned against the Main Street Partnership after Republicans had maintained their congressional majority for a number of terms. Because the Democrats are only one further term beyond their resumption of a congressional majority, it is hard to make an exact comparison. Nevertheless, the first congressional election after formation of the Blue Dogs, in 1996, can again be used as a baseline for exposition.

In 1996, members of the Blue Dog Coalition who were running as incumbents for re-election were able to outraise their Republican opponents solidly, at $6.68 to $1. This was nowhere near the financial advantage held by other Democratic incumbents, at $16.34 to $1, and in that sense it was a very different situation to that of the early Main Streeters, but it was substantial nevertheless. Moreover, in open-seat races, the balance inside the Democratic Party was reversed: Blue Dog challengers could outraise their Republican opponents by a margin of $2.69 to $1, while other Democrats could outraise their Republican opponents by a lesser margin of $1.72 to $1. This was actually quite similar to the early situation of the Main Street Republicans. Lastly, in races against incumbent Republicans in 1996, Blue Dog challengers could actually outraise their Republican opponents, $1.25 to $1, while other Democratic challengers were solidly outraised $0.33 to $1.

Rather than compare the Main Street Partnership (MSP) with the Blue Dog Coalition (BDC) in the same year of 1996, it occurs to me that it might be more analogous to look at the MSP in 1996 v. the BDC in 2008--respectively, the first cycles after the GOP gained the House majority and the Democrats captured it back. And more specifically, it seems we ought to be most interested in how MSP incumbents fared relative to non-MSPers, compared to how well BDC v. non-BDCers incumbents fared in fundraising, along with how both of these two subsets fared in open seat races. In Table 2 of their paper, Lucas & Deutchman provide the fundraising ratios for every cycle from 1994 through 2008; the table below pares their data down to just the aforementioned years and cases. (And yes, I used light blue and light red on purpose.) The cell entries represent the fundraising advantage relative to the challenger in that race, expressed as a ratio. To wit:

What we see here in the first row of data is that, of course, on average incumbents in both parties and no matter their ideological association with either the MSP or BDC had far more money than their respective challengers. But the centrist, MSP incumbents running in the first cycle after the Republican Revolution actually enjoyed a fundraising advantage twice that of their fellow Republicans who were not members of the MSP members did, whereas the reverse was true for Democrats--for in 2008 the non-Blue Dogs enjoyed an average fundraising ratio advantage twice that of their the fellow Democrats who were centrist Blue Dogs. Some of this difference is probably a result of the fact that more Democrats--particularly those in majority-minority districts--run unopposed, and so the ratios can be absurdly high in many cases. (N.B: I use the term "centrist" here as a descriptive shortcut even though some Blue Dogs may be less centrist than some non-Blue Dogs, and similar for MSPers and non-MSPers.)

The more interesting line of the chart involves open seats. Though there are fewer such contests each cycle, how well does money gravitate to centrists in each party compared to more ideologically purist candidates? As expected, the ratios are much smaller here because, in the absence of an incumbent, these tend to be much more more competitive seats into which both parties and their affiliated interest groups and supporters on both sides pour tons of money. Still, you don't see much difference in the fundraising ratios for centrist and non-centrist Republicans who ran in open seat races in 1996, whereas you see far more disparity for Democrats, with centrist Blue Dogs struggling in 2008 compared to non-centrist. In fact, because the ratio is less than 1, Blue Dogs didn't outraise their open seat opponents in 2008, whereas non-Blue Dog Democrats in open seats on average did very well, with a nearly 5:1 fundraising advantage on average.

Again, ceteris paribus, it's more likely that an open Democratic seat is a lopsidedly Democratic seat because of racial gerrymandering. Still, if the data here are any indication, at first blush it would seem that liberal groups and funders are less supportive of moderate Democrats than conservative groups are of moderate Republicans. This also seems puzzling because you would expect that the money from big business, when it tends to spread across both parties, would end up in the pockets of moderate Democrats--whereas you wouldn't expect the same from, say, unions going to moderate Republicans. Unfortunately, the paper does not detail the sources of the money--a subject that might make for a good follow-up paper.

*I should make one point of clarification/suggestion, and one disclosure. Suggestion: If not already familiar with The Forum, it is in my opinion one of the best online journals going, and one of several great ones published exclusively online by Berkeley Electronic Press. Disclosure: Although I was long since left Binghamton University, Dr. Lucas was a student of mine there during the single year I was a visiting professor there.)

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Oklahoma Primary Results

With virtually all the votes in, the Oklahoma primary produced one surprising result: Lt. Gov. Jari Askins narrowly upset Attorney General Drew Edmondson for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Though Askins' lead was a spare 1533 votes out of 260,000, Edmondson has conceded and pledged his support to Askins in the general election, reflecting the civil tone of the primary.

Meanwhile, less surprisingly, Rep. Mary Fallin won the Republican gubernatorial nomination with 55% of the vote to Randy Brodgon's 39%. And in congressional primaries, Democratic Dan Boren crushed progressive challenger Jim Wilson by better than a 3-1 margin, and will face the winner of a runoff between Daniel Edmonds and Charles Thompson. Another runoff will be held on August 24 for the Republican nomination for Fallin's old House seat, with "outsider" James Lankford edging out the early front-runner, former state legislator Kevin Calvey, for first place.

Askins won by holding Edmondson close to even in rural Eastern Oklahoma, and then overcoming his lead in the Tulsa area with a big performance in the southwest part of the state. It appears she won most of the late undecided vote.

Fallin did not at all exceed expectations, but did win a sizable majority of the state's counties, with her 14,000 vote margin in Oklahoma County (Oklahoma City) far more than offsetting Brogden's expected win in Tulsa.

Total turnout in the Democratic gubernatorial primary exceeded that of the Republican primary by roughly 19,000 votes (out of a total vote of 507,000, or about 25% of registered voters), with a handful of precincts still out. This reflected a 49/40 Democratic registration advantage, but is still good news for an embattled Democratic Party trying to avoid a wipeout this November. According to current polls, the Fallin-Askins general election should be quite competitive; according to a Sooner Poll last week, Fallin leads Askins 46-40.

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Cap-and-Trade is Dead; Long Live Cap-and-Trade

I'm fairly pessimistic about the world's ability to address the global warming issue in a serious way without having first risked catastrophe; the Copenhagen summit, for instance, was a disaster. But I'm less pessimistic about the United States' ability to pass cap-and-trade legislation at some point in the next 2-6 years -- even though Senate Democrats have given up on their legislation this year and even though Democrats will probably not again enjoy the majorities they had this session for the for the foreseeable future.

Part of this is for the reason that Jonathan Bernstein points out: cap-and-trade, although it has been discussed in policy circles for years, is a relatively new part of the Democratic agenda, and major programs don't usually pass on the first try. Part of it is because it is probably now the major unfinished piece of the Democratic/Obama agenda, with financial reform and health care reform having passed. Part of it is because the issue isn't actually all that partisan: 8 Republicans voted for cap-and-trade in the House, which is obviously not a lot, but is certainly better than the goose-egg the Democrats got on health care or the stimulus and suggests that there might be less friction in an environment when obstructionism is deemed to be less politically advantageous. (This works both ways, of course: a relatively high number of Democrats in carbon-intensive states are sure to oppose the program.)

But the main reason is simply this: at some point, the country is going to have to raise revenues to fix the deficit. And cap-and-trade, if done the right way -- if permits are sold, rather than given away to the industry -- can produce quite a lot of revenues: $145 billion per year initially, the CBO estimated in 2008, with the number rising much faster than inflation as emissions targets become continually more stringent.

Most of those costs will be passed onto consumers in the form of higher energy prices -- although interestingly, the CBO analysis suggests that the public will bear less of the cost if the permits are indeed sold to produce revenue rather than given away.

But my premise is that tax increases are inevitable: it's a question of who bears those taxes and how they bear them. And at some point Congress -- which is surely headed for some massive showdowns over the budget at some point in the next several years -- might conclude that cap-and-trade is a more acceptable way to raise revenues than an omnibus tax increase. In fact, cap-and-trade actually polls rather well. That might change as the public learns more about policy and comes to grips with the fact that they're going to have to bear some of the costs personally. But other than increased taxes on the very wealthy, and some gimmicky stuff like sin taxes and windfall profits taxes that don't have all that much revenue-generating potential, it polls a lot better than other types of tax increases, and may be a more politically palatable compromise.

In the meantime, it's time for the environmental community to heed Clive Crook's advice and think about its messaging and its science. Yes, most of the attacks on climate science are intellectually dishonest, and the Climategate scandal was much exaggerated. But I've come around to the position that it also exposed at least some real misconduct, and it certainly exposed some contempt for the public that is not as evident in most other scientific disciplines. There are real risks to the environmental community in engaging in a rhetorical arms race with the climate change denial crowd, which contains some individuals who are playing a healthy and even benevolent role in the long tradition of scientific skepticism, but is dominated by impetuous contrarians and, more dangerously, partisans who are seeking to exploit society's cognitive biases. It's time for them to reclaim the moral highground because the next crack and the cap-and-trade apple might come sooner than you would think.

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The Broadus Effect? Social Desirability Bias and California Proposition 19

This November, Californians will vote on Proposition 19, which would legalize, tax and regulate marijuana for recreational consumption. Six polls have been conducted since the measure made the ballot in March. Three -- one from Public Policy Polling and two from SurveyUSA -- used automated scripts ("robopolls") to conduct their interviews. The other three, from Field, PPIC, and Reuters/Ipsos -- used live human operators.

The methodologies split in the support they show for the initiative. The three automated surveys all have Prop 19 passing by a double-digit margin. The human-operator polls, meanwhile, each show it trailing narrowly.



Although some of these polls contain incomplete demographic information, the split appears to be driven more by minority voters than by whites. The three automated polls each show the initiative leading by between 28 and 38 among black voters, for instance. But the one traditional poll to break out numbers among African-Americans had it trailing by 12.

Likewise, the traditional polls show Proposition 19 trailing by about 25 points among Hispanics. But the robopolls show support among Hispanics being about even. Even though the margins of error associated with these subgroups are quite large -- especially for blacks, who constitute a relatively small portion of California's population -- the differences are highly statistically significant.

These effects are also evident in two recent national polls on marijuana legalization, from Rasmussen (automated) and Pew (human), respectively. Although Rasmussen's robots posit higher support for marijuana legalization among all racial groups, the differences are much larger for blacks and Hispanics (which Rasmussen lumps into "other" along with groups like Asians).



There are a couple of reasons why these discrepancies might have arisen. One might be that the automated surveys are having difficulty getting a representative sample of minorities. Automated surveys generally have lower response rates, and that impact may be most felt among minorities, who are usually harder to get on the phone.

Nevertheless, this is a relatively highly-rated group of automated surveys, particularly SurveyUSA and PPP, which don't take as many of the shortcuts that some of their competitors do. And so it raises another possibility:

What if voters are more likely to admit their tolerance for marijuana to an automated script, which may create the feeling of greater anonymity? Marijuana usage remains fairly stigmatized in polite society in America, enough so that even liberal politicians like Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Jerry Brown and Barack Obama have refused to state their support for legalizing the drug. But as most Americans between ages 20 and 55 have smoked marijuana, they may not consider it such a big deal in the privacy of their homes -- or the privacy of the ballot booth.

This might also explain why the split is larger among black and Hispanic voters. Marijuana usage is almost certainly more stigmatized when associated with minorities, and drug possession arrests occur much more frequently in minority communities. This is in spite of the fact that rates of marijuana consumption are only a smidgen higher among blacks than among whites, and are somewhat lower among Hispanics. (Although, note that the link I just pointed you to is also based on survey data, and so could be subject to some of the same biases.)

Perhaps this hypothesis is overstated, and drug use does not carry the same stigma in California that it does elsewhere in the country. When I visited San Francisco for four days last winter, I twice saw people quite nonchalantly smoking joints in bars, something you'll only see once in a blue moon in New York or Chicago (or maybe I've just been going out to the wrong places).

Nevertheless, it's possible that we're seeing some sort of Bradley effect in reverse, which I've reluctantly dubbed the "Broadus Effect" after the birth surname of the rapper Snoop Dogg, himself a frequent consumer of cannabinoid-rich products.

The original Bradley Effect, named for former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, occurs when respondents in surveys are asked about socially desirable behaviors, such as being free from racial prejudice. Although the racial version of Bradley effect itself is probably a thing of the past, social desirability bias may manifest itself in other ways. Automated polls have sometimes shown relatively lower levels support for gay marriage initiatives, for instance, in states like Maine and California. Homophobia is fairly common, but has become socially undesirable; the purveyors of the automated polls have sometimes claimed that their respondents are free to be more honest when there's not another human being on the line. If the theory holds, automated polls might also provide a setting for voters to be more honest about their feelings on marijuana use, another behavior that is probably more widespread (and privately tolerated) than it is socially acceptable. If so, that would be good news for Prop 19.

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Oklahoma Primary Preview

Oklahoma's primary is tomorrow, with somewhat competitive Democratic and Republican gubernatorial contests, and two competitive Republican congressional primaries. U.S. Rep. Mary Fallin is the odds-on favorite to win the GOP nomination for governor without a runoff, and Attorney General Drew Edmondson is generally expected to defeat Lt. Gov. Jari Askins on the Democratic side.

There's a very competitive Republican contest, which will almost definitely go to a runoff, to succeed Fallin in Congress, and a batch of poorly financed Republicans are vying to oppose theoretically vulnerable Democratic congressman Dan Boren.


As is suggested above, Oklahoma's a state requiring a majority of the vote for party nominations; a runoff will be held on August 24. Unlike most of the southern states with runoff laws, however, Oklahoma's primaries are closed. At present, 49% of voters are registered as Democrats, and 40% as Republicans, so if Republicans succeed in attracting a higher vote for their marquee match, it will be touted as a sign of superior enthusiasm. Republicans already control both chambers of the state legislature, along with 4 of 5 congressional seats (and both Senate seats), so winning the governorship (currently held by term-limited Democrat Brad Henry) would give the GOP a lock on redistricting. A less likely but not inconceivable win over Boren could produce a sweep of this quite conservative state.

Most of the fireworks in Oklahoma this year have involved the Republican gubernatorial contest. Mary Fallin, a former three-term Lt. Governor (the first Republican elected to that post) and long-time figure in Oklahoma Republican circles, has been the post-to-post front-runner. But state senator Randy Brogdon has played the Tea Party card against her, getting traction mainly from Fallon's vote for TARP. Fallin has had a large financial advantage (roughly 4-1) and her conservative bona fides has been reinforced by endorsements from such national figures as Sarah Palin, Jeb Bush, MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and AZ Gov. Jan Brewer. Brogdon has also been perceived as running an excessively negative campaign.

According to polls, Brogdon has not gained much ground down the stretch. A Sooner Poll released yesterday showed Fallin up 56-18 (there are also two minor candidates in the race). Similarly, a Cole Hargrave Snodgrass & Associates poll last week showed Fallin up over Brodgon 50-22, ahead even in Brodgon's Tulsa base. Very low turnout combined with an exceptional effort by Brodgon's grassroots network seems to be the only path to victory--(or theoretically, even a runoff)--for the Tea Party favorite.

The Democratic gubernatorial contest has been more civil, and more competitive, though Edmondson, a member of a famous Oklahoma political family, and Attorney General since 1995, has been the front-runner from the beginning. Edmondson and Askins are both moderate-to-conservative Democrats in the mold of Brad Henry; Edmondson was endorsed by the NRA, but also enraged Republicans by refusing to participate in the multi-state suit to challenge federal health reform legislation on constitutional grounds. Askins got a late endorsement from legendary former Oklahoma Sooner football coach Barry Switzer, whose 2002 endorsement of Brad Henry was thought to have helped win that contest. But this year's vote appears to be breaking primarily on geographical lines, with Edmondson doing especially well in the vote-rich Tulsa area while Askins is strong in southwest Oklahoma. Edmondson has led slightly in fundraising, but a large loan from Askins to her own campaign has brought her into a competitive financial position towards the end of the contest.

The final Sooner Poll had Edmondson up 49-33 over Askins, while Cole Hargrave Snodgrass & Associates showed him up 38-27 with a large undecided vote. The latter poll indicated that Edmondson was doing especially well among strong Obama supporters and union members (along with minority voters), who might be expected to turn out at relatively high rates in what might be a low turnout primary.

Askins has been doing a bit better than Edmondson in general election trial heats, though both trail Fallin by high-single-digit percentages.

The liveliest congressional primary has been among Republicans in Fallin's 5th district, where three candidates are jockeying for runoff spots. According to a recent Sooner poll, the early front-runner, former state rep. Kevin Calvey, remains in front with 28% of the vote, though self-styled "conservative outsider" James Lankford, an aggressive deployer of social media techniques, has moved up rapidily into second place with 20%, while state rep. Mike Thompson is third at 14%.

In the 2d district, Blue Dog Democratic incumbent Dan Boren, another scion of a well-known political family (his father is former U.S. Senator and current University of Oklahoma president David Boren), has been a strong vote-winner in this relatively conservative district, but attracted a significant primary challenge this year from state senator Jim Wilson, who is attacking the incumbent for voting too much like a Republican. Though Wilson has gotten a lot of national attention from the netroots, his challenge is much like Regina Thomas' fight against John Barrow in GA-12: badly outgunned financially, and likely to produce a sizable but not threatening protest vote.

Though Boren is on the national GOP's target list, the Republican challengers in the field are relatively unknown and as underfunded as Wilson, though business owner Howard Houchen has raised the most money. With six candidates running, a runoff is very likely. Most national handicappers give Boren a big edge in November, but anything's possible this year in a state like Oklahoma.

The polls will close at 7:00 CDT.

UPDATE: A story in the Daily Oklahoman this morning (there hasn't been a later update) suggested that total turnout would wind up around 25%, about where it was in 2006 (when only one party held a serious gubernatorial primary). The general lack of interest in the election is best illustrated by the web page of the Tulsa World, which as we speak leads with a non-fatal car crash and a city council debate. Oklahomans are not marching to the polls to the blare of bands and the excitement of confetti.

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Labor Force Realignment and Jobless Recoveries

The US economy is currently experiencing its third "jobless recovery." However, this term is an incorrect description of the employment situation. Instead, the US labor force is going through a structural alignment where the amount of labor inputs necessary to produce durable goods is decreasing, despite an increase in overall output. This has important long-term ramifications for the labor market.

The Early 90s Recession

The NBER dates the early 90s recession as occurring between 7/90 and 3/91. Let's take a look at GDP growth before, during and after the recession:



Above is a chart of the percentage change in GDP from the previous quarter in real (inflation-adjusted) GDP. First, notice that in two of the four quarters preceding the recession the growth rate was below 2%. Also note that for the three quarters after the recession the growth rate was weak as well, with two of the three quarters printing growth rates below 3%. This graph illustrates that the quarters of the recession aren't the only quarters that experience slow growth. Instead, the official dates of the recession usually state when the growth was slowest with those dates surrounded by slow growth as well. Let's take a look at the post recession employment picture.


For nearly a year after the recession ended, initial unemployment claims remained between approximately 420,000 - 460,000, indicating that after the recession the employment market was still weak. In addition,


notice the unemployment rate rose after the recession ended.

Let's take a closer look at the establishment job data:

Above is a chart of the seasonally adjusted total establishment jobs in the economy. Notice that after the recession ended there was essentially no job growth; it wasn't until about a year after the recession ended that employers started to add jobs. Secondly, notice that it wasn't until about two years after the recession ended that the total number of establishment jobs reached their pre-recession peak. The total number of jobs lost from the peak to trough was approximately 1.6 million.


Above is a chart of total durable goods manufacturing jobs. Notice that like total establishment jobs, this chart dropped after the recession. However, while total establishment jobs started to increase in early/mid 2002, durable goods manufacturing jobs did not grow. From their peak in 1990 to their trough in 1993, this sector of the economy lost a little over 1 million jobs, meaning durable goods manufacturing jobs accounted for about 60% of jobs losses in the early 90s recession. Also note that while total establishment jobs began increasing in early/mid 1992, durable goods manufacturing employment stalled over the same time period.

The Early 2000s Recession

The NBER dates the early 2000s recession as 3/01-11/01.


Above is a graph of the percent change in real GDP from the previous quarter. This was a mild recession, as GDP during the recession turned positive for one quarter. However, like the early 1990s, this entire period -- roughly 3 years -- is characterized by weak growth before, during and after the recession.

Above is a chart of initial unemployment claims before and after the recession. Notice that initial claims remained elevated for over a year after the recession ended.


Above is a chart of the unemployment rate before and after the recession. While the unemployment rate was low -- peaking at just above 6% -- it remained elevated after the end of the recession.

Above is a chart of total establishment employment before and after the recession. Notice that total job losses were about 2.4 million (a drop from approximately 132.4 million to 130 million) from January 2000 to December 2003.


Above is a chart of total durable goods employment before and after the recession. Notice that total durable goods manufacturing employment dropped by about 2 million from January 2000 - December 2004. In other words -- like the early 1990s -- the "jobless" recovery was really caused by a structural realignment in the US economy as it slowly lowered the number of employees in the durable goods manufacturing section. Finally, consider these charts:

Above is a chart of total durable goods manufacturing employment in the US going back to 1939. I've circled the periods before the 1990s and placed rectangles around the 1990s and 2000s recessions. Notice that before the 1990s, durable goods manufacturing snapped back after a recession very quickly; the employment lines form a "v" shape. In contrast, durable goods manufacturing after the 1990s and 2000s recession comes back extremely late in the recovery (in the 1990s) or not at all (in the 2000s). The decrease in durable goods employment has led some commentators to argue the US manufacturing sector is deteriorating. This is not the case.


Above is a chart of industrial production for durable goods manufacturing. Notice that during the 1990s and 2000s expansion this number increased at strong rates, indicating US manufacturing was creating a large number of goods.



Above is a chart of output per hour of employee in the durable goods area. Notice that it has continually increased for nearly 30 years with a few dips. This chart indicates that US manufacturing employees have continually made more "stuff" per hour worked. This chart also partially explains the continued drop in US durable goods manufacturing employment: the US economy is making more with less.


Above is chart of manufacturing output, which confirms the output per hour of work chart above -- US manufacturing output is increasing. It is simply doing so with fewer labor inputs.

Conclusion:

The "jobless recovery" is in fact a realignment of the US labor force. Fewer and fewer employees are needed to produce durable goods. As this situation has progressed, the durable goods workforce has decreased as well. This does not mean the US manufacturing base is in decline. If this were the case, we would see a drop in both manufacturing output and productivity. Instead both of those metrics have increased smartly over the last two decades, indicating that instead of being in decline, US manufacturing is simply doing more with less.

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