Returns from today's primaries in Wyoming and Washington have been rolling in for a while, with some interesting results but no big upsets.
In Wyoming, as expected, Leslie Peterson won the Democratic gubernatorial primary over Pete Gosar, by a 48-38 margin. But it doesn't appear there will be an all-female general election: in the GOP primary, with just nine precincts still out, Matt Mead seems to have edged out Rita Meyer by just over 1300 votes; hard-core conservative Ron Micheli finished a strong third, just 840 votes behind Meyer at present. (Colin Simpson finished well back in fourth). Those who consider Mead a RINO will undoubtedly lament the split in the "true conservative" vote.
In Washington, as expected, Patty Murray and Dino Rossi finished first and second in the U.S. Senate primary and will advance to a clawhammer duel in November. With about 55% of precincts reporting (and nearly half of King County--Seattle--still out), Murray leads Rossi 46-34; Tea Party favorite Clint Didier's way back at 12%. Sarah Palin had another bad night with Didier's and Meyer's losses.
In the most competitive House race in WA, in the 3d district, the conventional wisdom won out again, with Democrat Denny Heck and Republican Jaime Herrera moving on to the general election. Would-be conservative spoiler David Castillo is currently running fourth.
Finally, out in California, the special election runoff to fill Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado's state senate seat looks like a probable win for Republican Sam Blakeslee over Democrat John Laird. I mention this not only because I happen to live in Senate District 15, but because more votes were cast in this special state legislative election than in today's entire Wyoming primary. This central coast district, which runs from Santa Clara all the way to Santa Barbara, is represented by one state senator. Wyoming, as you may know, is represented by two United States Senators. Such is our system.
8.18.2010
8.17.2010
Mild West Preview
@ 10:31 AM
With most of the chattering classes focused on next week's wild primaries in Florida, this Tuesday's entries, Washington and Wyoming, are not receiving a great deal of attention. That's partly because Washington's "top two primary" system has made many contests essentially a positioning exercise for November, and partly because Wyoming politics just get missed nationally on occasion.
But there is some intrigue surrounding the performance of Republican Dino Rossi in Washington's Senate primary, and there's a close race among Republicans for a spot in the general election in the open 3d congressional seat. In the Cowboy State, there are competitive gubernatorial primaries for both parties, with the Republican race being a close three- or four-way battle in which out-of-state endorsements have been significant.
All year long, Republican long-shot prospects of winning control of the Senate have depended heavily on recruiting a strong candidate against Democrat Patti Murray. DC GOPers got the candidate they wanted in Dino Rossi, who lost two very close gubernatorial races to Christine Gregoire. And while Murray has usually led in general election polls (49-46 in an August 1 PPP poll; 49-47 in a July 28 Rasmussen survey), Rossi has kept it very close.
But two other Republicans with some significant backing have also jumped into the Senate race. Almost no one thinks Rossi will fail to finish second and advance to the general election, although his margin could be lower than originally expected. Rossi has studiously avoided Tea Party events, which have been dominated by former NFL player (for the team in that other Washington, the Redskins) Clint Didier, who has secured endorsements from Sarah Palin and Ron Paul while calling for the phasing out of Social Security and elimination of several federal Cabinet agencies. Conservative businessman Paul Akers, who has also been on the Tea Party circuit, has spent enough of his own money to make a mark, too. The most recent PPP poll showed Rossi at 33%, Didier at 10%, and Akers at 4%, while Murray leads the field at 47%.
The other big primary contest in WA is in the very competitive 3d congressional district, where Democrat Brian Baird is retiring. Former state legislator Denny Heck, a Democrat, is very likely to finish first, but the intra-Republican battle for the second spot has become close and unpredictable. The consensus Republican front-runner is state representative Jaime Herrera, a 31-year-old Latina who is a prize national GOP recruit. But former state legislative staffer and Bush administration bureaucrat David Castillo (not, despite his surname, a Latino) has worked the Tea Party circuit and sports a FreedomsWork endorsement, while a third Republican, disabled veteran David Hedrick, is running to the right of the rest of the field. Interestingly, Herrera has explicitly opposed partial privatization of Social Security, an unusual position for Republicans this year.
In all but one county in Washington, all voting is by mail, which means the primary has been underway for some time. The official estimate of expected primary turnout is 38%, a bit above average for midterm primaries.
In Wyoming, the very popular outgoing Democratic Gov. David Freudenthal decided against a third-term bid (which would have required a legal challege to the state's term limit laws) relatively late, leaving Democrats scrambling for candidates. Ultimately state party chair Leslie Peterson decided to run, with her major competition being former University of Wyoming football star Pete Gosar. A Mason-Dixon poll at the end of July showed Peterson up over Gosar 30-22. There's not a lot of difference between the two candidates on issues; both pledge to continue Freudenthal's legacy.
The Republican primary, however, has had a few ideological flashpoints. The two front-runners have been former U.S. Attorney Matt Mead and State Auditor Rita Meyer. Mead has drawn fire from other candidates for entertaining the possibility of a fuel tax increase, and in general, is suspected by some conservatives of being excessively moderate. Meyer, whose military service in both the Gulf War and in Afghanistan is a key credential, has won backing from Sarah Palin and also from the Susan B. Anthony List, the anti-abortion counterpart to Emily's List. A third candidate, former state legislator Ron Micheli, has been bashing Mead's position on fuel taxes and generally comporting himself as the "true conservative" candidate, obtaining endorsements from Wyoming-based anti-abortion groups. And finally, state House Speaker Colin Simpson, son of former Sen. Alan Simpson, has secured an endorsement from his father's old friend George H.W. Bush.
The late-July Mason-Dixon survey showed Meyer leading leading the field at 27%, with Mead at 24%; Simpson at 17%; and Micheli at 12%.
But there is some intrigue surrounding the performance of Republican Dino Rossi in Washington's Senate primary, and there's a close race among Republicans for a spot in the general election in the open 3d congressional seat. In the Cowboy State, there are competitive gubernatorial primaries for both parties, with the Republican race being a close three- or four-way battle in which out-of-state endorsements have been significant.
All year long, Republican long-shot prospects of winning control of the Senate have depended heavily on recruiting a strong candidate against Democrat Patti Murray. DC GOPers got the candidate they wanted in Dino Rossi, who lost two very close gubernatorial races to Christine Gregoire. And while Murray has usually led in general election polls (49-46 in an August 1 PPP poll; 49-47 in a July 28 Rasmussen survey), Rossi has kept it very close.
But two other Republicans with some significant backing have also jumped into the Senate race. Almost no one thinks Rossi will fail to finish second and advance to the general election, although his margin could be lower than originally expected. Rossi has studiously avoided Tea Party events, which have been dominated by former NFL player (for the team in that other Washington, the Redskins) Clint Didier, who has secured endorsements from Sarah Palin and Ron Paul while calling for the phasing out of Social Security and elimination of several federal Cabinet agencies. Conservative businessman Paul Akers, who has also been on the Tea Party circuit, has spent enough of his own money to make a mark, too. The most recent PPP poll showed Rossi at 33%, Didier at 10%, and Akers at 4%, while Murray leads the field at 47%.
The other big primary contest in WA is in the very competitive 3d congressional district, where Democrat Brian Baird is retiring. Former state legislator Denny Heck, a Democrat, is very likely to finish first, but the intra-Republican battle for the second spot has become close and unpredictable. The consensus Republican front-runner is state representative Jaime Herrera, a 31-year-old Latina who is a prize national GOP recruit. But former state legislative staffer and Bush administration bureaucrat David Castillo (not, despite his surname, a Latino) has worked the Tea Party circuit and sports a FreedomsWork endorsement, while a third Republican, disabled veteran David Hedrick, is running to the right of the rest of the field. Interestingly, Herrera has explicitly opposed partial privatization of Social Security, an unusual position for Republicans this year.
In all but one county in Washington, all voting is by mail, which means the primary has been underway for some time. The official estimate of expected primary turnout is 38%, a bit above average for midterm primaries.
In Wyoming, the very popular outgoing Democratic Gov. David Freudenthal decided against a third-term bid (which would have required a legal challege to the state's term limit laws) relatively late, leaving Democrats scrambling for candidates. Ultimately state party chair Leslie Peterson decided to run, with her major competition being former University of Wyoming football star Pete Gosar. A Mason-Dixon poll at the end of July showed Peterson up over Gosar 30-22. There's not a lot of difference between the two candidates on issues; both pledge to continue Freudenthal's legacy.
The Republican primary, however, has had a few ideological flashpoints. The two front-runners have been former U.S. Attorney Matt Mead and State Auditor Rita Meyer. Mead has drawn fire from other candidates for entertaining the possibility of a fuel tax increase, and in general, is suspected by some conservatives of being excessively moderate. Meyer, whose military service in both the Gulf War and in Afghanistan is a key credential, has won backing from Sarah Palin and also from the Susan B. Anthony List, the anti-abortion counterpart to Emily's List. A third candidate, former state legislator Ron Micheli, has been bashing Mead's position on fuel taxes and generally comporting himself as the "true conservative" candidate, obtaining endorsements from Wyoming-based anti-abortion groups. And finally, state House Speaker Colin Simpson, son of former Sen. Alan Simpson, has secured an endorsement from his father's old friend George H.W. Bush.
The late-July Mason-Dixon survey showed Meyer leading leading the field at 27%, with Mead at 24%; Simpson at 17%; and Micheli at 12%.
How Stable is the Generic Ballot?
@ 6:53 AM
I'm fairly deep in the weeds of building our House forecasting model, which we hope to debut for you at some point late next week. We're basically taking a "kitchen sink" approach -- that is, looking at five or six different sources of information (polls, ratings by professional forecasters like Cook and CQ, fundraising data, etc.), and seeing what has had the most predictive power over the past six election cycles. This is not an easy thing to do -- the data-collection efforts alone are formidable.
One of the challenges I've faced is in coming to grips with the generic ballot, which is the primary indicator of the nationwide standing of the two major parties. The basic question is to what extent the generic ballot ought to take precednece over local-level indicators: for instance, if the generic ballot looks really bad for one party (as it does for the Democrats this year), but the local polls are more favorable, which indicator tends to prevail? I don't have an answer to that yet -- you'll have to tune in next week, I suppose. Still, there are some questions about the generic ballot that I'm now in a better position to address.
For instance: how stable is the generic ballot? I don't mean individual polls of the generic ballot, which in the case of Gallup and some other organizations, can be quite "bouncy" from week to week. Rather, suppose that you're able to remove most of this noise: how quickly can the underlying, macro-level dynamics change when it comes to elections to the Congress?
The way that I've evaluated this is to collect all generic ballot polls since 1998 and looked at what they would have told us at certain intervals before each election. Specifically, I built Pollster.com-style LOESS regression curves around the generic ballot polls, and evaluated the result they would have projected on the morning of the election, and then at 10, 20, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, 150, 200, 300 and (where there is sufficient early polling) 400 days beforehand. There is no "cheating" allowed: for instance, if a poll came out 199 days before the election, it isn't used in the 200-day forecast, since it wouldn't have been available to us at that time.
The one "fancy" thing I have done is to build in an adjustment to translate registered voter polls into likely voter polls, as we now do for our Senate forecasts. This is worthwhile: although there are some cycles (2006, 2008) where there is little systemic difference between registered voter and likely voter polls, there are other cases (1998, 2000, 2010) where likely voter polls tend to be 4 or 5 points more favorable to Republicans, and accounting for this as early as possible tends to improve the stability of one's forecasts. (There have been no cases recently in which Democrats performed demonstrably better in likely voter polls than in registered voter polls: in years where Democratic mobilization is strong, the two say about the same thing; in bad years for the party, registered voter polls lowball the Republican position by several points.)
Here, for instance, is what the trendline would have looked like at various points during the 2008 election cycle:
As you can see, 2008 was a rather stable cycle. Democrats maintained a consistent lead of about 10 points throughout the entirety of the cycle, and that carried forward to election day, when they won the national popular vote by 11 points.
Several other cycles were also quite stable. For example, 2002:
In spite of the potential idiosyncrasies resulting from redistricting (not to mention 9/11) that cycle, the generic ballot remained quite well-behaved all year.
Likewise, in 2000:
A generic ballot projection a year in advance of election day would have told you pretty much the same thing as one on Election Eve. This is in spite of the fact that the Presidential race that year was one of the more volatile in recent memory.
Nor did the generic ballot move very much at all in 1998, a low-turnout year in which Democrats arguably underperformed given Bill Clinton's favorable standing at that time:
On the other hand, the generic ballot moved a fair bit in 2004. Over the summer, the Democrats built up a generic ballot lead of as large as 8 points, but it evaporated by November; adding insult to injury, the Democrats underperformed their generic ballot standing (losing the national popular vote by 3 points) on Election Day:
There was also a fair amount of movement in 2006 -- and this time, it was uniformly in a direction favorable to Democrats -- although there were some weird polls late in that cycle that perhaps overshot the mark a bit:
***
In spite of these partial exceptions, the generic ballot is generally fairly stable -- almost certainly more stable than something like Presidential polling. This makes a certain amount of sense: whereas something like a gaffe or a victory in a debate can considerably altar the outcome of a Presidential race, there are 435 separate elections to the House, and gaffes in individual districts tend to cancel one another out. Instead, things usually boil down to the national mood that was established during the first half of a Congress's two-year term.
This is basically bad news for Democrats in the context of this cycle: a last-minute reversal of fortunes is unlikely. Where we sit right now, about 75 days before the election, the generic ballot will be off, on average, by only about 2 points from what it will read on Election Morning. The Democrats' standing is poor enough now that a 2- or 3-point shift in their direction would not really be enough to prevent the party from enduring significant losses in the House.
With that said, there is another issue at hand: how much does the generic ballot really tell us about what will happen on Election Day? It might be the case that the generic ballot is fairly stable, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's all that useful an indicator. In addition to the fact that the consensus of polls (however careful we are about calibrating it) might be off in one or the other direction, there's also the fact that the thing which the generic ballot is ostensibly trying to predict -- the national House popular vote -- is relatively irrelevant to the disposition of the chamber, or the number of seats that each party earns. Instead, what we want to know is how the generic ballot translates into each of the 435 congressional districts; this is the sort of problem that we're hard at work upon.
Still, to expect that the national environment will just spontaneously get better for Democrats is probably not realistic. They'll have a poor hand to play, and the task is basically in figuring out exactly how bad the current milieu will translate in terms of a loss of seats.
One of the challenges I've faced is in coming to grips with the generic ballot, which is the primary indicator of the nationwide standing of the two major parties. The basic question is to what extent the generic ballot ought to take precednece over local-level indicators: for instance, if the generic ballot looks really bad for one party (as it does for the Democrats this year), but the local polls are more favorable, which indicator tends to prevail? I don't have an answer to that yet -- you'll have to tune in next week, I suppose. Still, there are some questions about the generic ballot that I'm now in a better position to address.
For instance: how stable is the generic ballot? I don't mean individual polls of the generic ballot, which in the case of Gallup and some other organizations, can be quite "bouncy" from week to week. Rather, suppose that you're able to remove most of this noise: how quickly can the underlying, macro-level dynamics change when it comes to elections to the Congress?
The way that I've evaluated this is to collect all generic ballot polls since 1998 and looked at what they would have told us at certain intervals before each election. Specifically, I built Pollster.com-style LOESS regression curves around the generic ballot polls, and evaluated the result they would have projected on the morning of the election, and then at 10, 20, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, 150, 200, 300 and (where there is sufficient early polling) 400 days beforehand. There is no "cheating" allowed: for instance, if a poll came out 199 days before the election, it isn't used in the 200-day forecast, since it wouldn't have been available to us at that time.
The one "fancy" thing I have done is to build in an adjustment to translate registered voter polls into likely voter polls, as we now do for our Senate forecasts. This is worthwhile: although there are some cycles (2006, 2008) where there is little systemic difference between registered voter and likely voter polls, there are other cases (1998, 2000, 2010) where likely voter polls tend to be 4 or 5 points more favorable to Republicans, and accounting for this as early as possible tends to improve the stability of one's forecasts. (There have been no cases recently in which Democrats performed demonstrably better in likely voter polls than in registered voter polls: in years where Democratic mobilization is strong, the two say about the same thing; in bad years for the party, registered voter polls lowball the Republican position by several points.)
Here, for instance, is what the trendline would have looked like at various points during the 2008 election cycle:
As you can see, 2008 was a rather stable cycle. Democrats maintained a consistent lead of about 10 points throughout the entirety of the cycle, and that carried forward to election day, when they won the national popular vote by 11 points.
Several other cycles were also quite stable. For example, 2002:
In spite of the potential idiosyncrasies resulting from redistricting (not to mention 9/11) that cycle, the generic ballot remained quite well-behaved all year.
Likewise, in 2000:
A generic ballot projection a year in advance of election day would have told you pretty much the same thing as one on Election Eve. This is in spite of the fact that the Presidential race that year was one of the more volatile in recent memory.
Nor did the generic ballot move very much at all in 1998, a low-turnout year in which Democrats arguably underperformed given Bill Clinton's favorable standing at that time:
On the other hand, the generic ballot moved a fair bit in 2004. Over the summer, the Democrats built up a generic ballot lead of as large as 8 points, but it evaporated by November; adding insult to injury, the Democrats underperformed their generic ballot standing (losing the national popular vote by 3 points) on Election Day:
There was also a fair amount of movement in 2006 -- and this time, it was uniformly in a direction favorable to Democrats -- although there were some weird polls late in that cycle that perhaps overshot the mark a bit:
***
In spite of these partial exceptions, the generic ballot is generally fairly stable -- almost certainly more stable than something like Presidential polling. This makes a certain amount of sense: whereas something like a gaffe or a victory in a debate can considerably altar the outcome of a Presidential race, there are 435 separate elections to the House, and gaffes in individual districts tend to cancel one another out. Instead, things usually boil down to the national mood that was established during the first half of a Congress's two-year term.
This is basically bad news for Democrats in the context of this cycle: a last-minute reversal of fortunes is unlikely. Where we sit right now, about 75 days before the election, the generic ballot will be off, on average, by only about 2 points from what it will read on Election Morning. The Democrats' standing is poor enough now that a 2- or 3-point shift in their direction would not really be enough to prevent the party from enduring significant losses in the House.
With that said, there is another issue at hand: how much does the generic ballot really tell us about what will happen on Election Day? It might be the case that the generic ballot is fairly stable, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's all that useful an indicator. In addition to the fact that the consensus of polls (however careful we are about calibrating it) might be off in one or the other direction, there's also the fact that the thing which the generic ballot is ostensibly trying to predict -- the national House popular vote -- is relatively irrelevant to the disposition of the chamber, or the number of seats that each party earns. Instead, what we want to know is how the generic ballot translates into each of the 435 congressional districts; this is the sort of problem that we're hard at work upon.
Still, to expect that the national environment will just spontaneously get better for Democrats is probably not realistic. They'll have a poor hand to play, and the task is basically in figuring out exactly how bad the current milieu will translate in terms of a loss of seats.
8.16.2010
More on FiveThirtyEight's Moving Plans
@ 12:51 AM
This has not been the most relaxing summer for me -- lots of Saturday nights spent staring at a spreadsheet, and lots of time on the 2 train shuttling back and forth to Midtown -- but you should start to see the fruits of that labor very soon. We are now planning to migrate FiveThirtyEight to NYTimes.com on Tuesday, August 24th. This is roughly a week later than we had originally planned, but our feeling is that we want to be rolling at pretty much full speed from the very outset of our re-launch there, and so we have indulged in a few extra days of development time.
The next update to our Senate model will likely come on launch day, the 24th. The forecasts will be significantly more rich, interactive and navigable than they are now. The plan is then to debut our House and gubernatorial forecasting models within a week or so of launch -- tentatively, we have the our first House forecast scheduled for Thursday the 26th, and the first gubernatorial forecast scheduled for Monday the 30th, although these dates are subject to change. The House forecasts in particular are, we think, pretty innovative, and will involve our forecasting the outcome of all 435 individual House races as well as the disposition of the entire body. Updates to the Senate, House and gubernatorial forecasts will then begin to cycle through on a regular basis, with each being updated approximately once a week. (For instance, there might be an update to the House forecast each Thursday.)
We also plan to run a quick update of our pollster ratings before re-launching at the New York Times, likely sometime toward the end of the upcoming week.
To answer several further questions about our move to the Times that I've gotten over e-mail:
-- All of our current freelance contributors will be migrating to the New York Times along with me.
-- The main changes you will notice to the content flow are that I will begin posting more frequently after having been on a somewhat reduced schedule for most of the summer. Also, I will be working out of the New York Times newsroom most days and that may somewhat affect the timing and pacing of posts, with a relatively higher percentage of content to be posted on weekday mornings and afternoons; it is unlikely, on the other hand, that you'll be seeing as many posts at times like these, at 1 in the morning.
-- Although, as of the 24th, the front page of FiveThirtyEight.com will re-direct to NYTimes.com, the archives of this site will remain browsable in their entirety.
-- Comments at NYTimes.com will be moderated, which I hope will be a welcome change for 99 percent of you.
-- We will retain our current Twitter feed and it will continue to alert you when new articles have been posted.
-- We will continue to run posts occasionally on non-politics topics, like sports and science, although these will be relatively infrequent at the outset given the immediacy of the midterm elections.
-- As with all content that appears at NYTimes.com, our posts will receive an edit before being published. The most obvious impact of this should be that our copy will be a bit crisper, and that we'll begin to start referring to people as Mr. John Zogby or Mrs. Michelle Bachmann. This is not to say that our teammates on the edit desk will never raise questions when we come to conclusions that are not adequately supported by the evidence -- the Times has high standards, as we do. But the blog should continue to have a strong "voice" and an independent perspective.
-- Finally, I have heard some concerns about the New York Times's metered model, which it says it will implement at some point after the midterms. I would encourage people who have worries about this to browse the entirely of the comments that the New York Times has made on the public record about the model, which is quite different from the versions used by some other news organizations. For example, in addition to the free allotment of pages, users who come to the site through third-party referrers, like other blogs or social networking platforms, will not trigger the pay wall. With that said, I of course hope that you'll at least consider subscribing to the New York Times in print, or one if its various e-reader or digital editions. Having gotten an up-close-and-personal view of the newsroom, I can't emphasize enough how much dedication the New York Times has to its craft, and how much support it provides to its writers in the form of things like editors, photographers, news assistants, its international bureaus, and its exceptional team of graphic and interactive journalists.
***
We very much appreciate your patience and your loyalty to this site and hope you will continue to join us as we embark on new adventures at the Times.
The next update to our Senate model will likely come on launch day, the 24th. The forecasts will be significantly more rich, interactive and navigable than they are now. The plan is then to debut our House and gubernatorial forecasting models within a week or so of launch -- tentatively, we have the our first House forecast scheduled for Thursday the 26th, and the first gubernatorial forecast scheduled for Monday the 30th, although these dates are subject to change. The House forecasts in particular are, we think, pretty innovative, and will involve our forecasting the outcome of all 435 individual House races as well as the disposition of the entire body. Updates to the Senate, House and gubernatorial forecasts will then begin to cycle through on a regular basis, with each being updated approximately once a week. (For instance, there might be an update to the House forecast each Thursday.)
We also plan to run a quick update of our pollster ratings before re-launching at the New York Times, likely sometime toward the end of the upcoming week.
To answer several further questions about our move to the Times that I've gotten over e-mail:
-- All of our current freelance contributors will be migrating to the New York Times along with me.
-- The main changes you will notice to the content flow are that I will begin posting more frequently after having been on a somewhat reduced schedule for most of the summer. Also, I will be working out of the New York Times newsroom most days and that may somewhat affect the timing and pacing of posts, with a relatively higher percentage of content to be posted on weekday mornings and afternoons; it is unlikely, on the other hand, that you'll be seeing as many posts at times like these, at 1 in the morning.
-- Although, as of the 24th, the front page of FiveThirtyEight.com will re-direct to NYTimes.com, the archives of this site will remain browsable in their entirety.
-- Comments at NYTimes.com will be moderated, which I hope will be a welcome change for 99 percent of you.
-- We will retain our current Twitter feed and it will continue to alert you when new articles have been posted.
-- We will continue to run posts occasionally on non-politics topics, like sports and science, although these will be relatively infrequent at the outset given the immediacy of the midterm elections.
-- As with all content that appears at NYTimes.com, our posts will receive an edit before being published. The most obvious impact of this should be that our copy will be a bit crisper, and that we'll begin to start referring to people as Mr. John Zogby or Mrs. Michelle Bachmann. This is not to say that our teammates on the edit desk will never raise questions when we come to conclusions that are not adequately supported by the evidence -- the Times has high standards, as we do. But the blog should continue to have a strong "voice" and an independent perspective.
-- Finally, I have heard some concerns about the New York Times's metered model, which it says it will implement at some point after the midterms. I would encourage people who have worries about this to browse the entirely of the comments that the New York Times has made on the public record about the model, which is quite different from the versions used by some other news organizations. For example, in addition to the free allotment of pages, users who come to the site through third-party referrers, like other blogs or social networking platforms, will not trigger the pay wall. With that said, I of course hope that you'll at least consider subscribing to the New York Times in print, or one if its various e-reader or digital editions. Having gotten an up-close-and-personal view of the newsroom, I can't emphasize enough how much dedication the New York Times has to its craft, and how much support it provides to its writers in the form of things like editors, photographers, news assistants, its international bureaus, and its exceptional team of graphic and interactive journalists.
***
We very much appreciate your patience and your loyalty to this site and hope you will continue to join us as we embark on new adventures at the Times.
8.15.2010
Iowa: Eighteen Months And Counting
@ 6:40 PM
About eighteen months before the 2012 Iowa Caucuses take place, shaping the next presidential campaign, the state’s second legendary event, the Iowa State Fair, which runs from August 12 until August 22, is being held in a relatively apolitical atmosphere.
But you are never too far from politics in Iowa, and pols were very evident in the vast, three-hour parade that kicked off the parade on Wednesday night. By ancient tradition, current elected officials ride or march at the beginning of the parade, and candidates who are not in office are at the tail-end. Thus, Democratic Governor Chet Culver was right up front, while the once-and-perhaps-future governor, Republican Terry Branstad, was scheduled to appear well behind the Iowa Pork Queen, the Shriners, the vintage John Deere tractors, two roller-derby teams, and the Southwest Iowa High School Honor Band, among many others (which may be why he ultimately let his running-mate represent him in the event). It was, joked many, the first time Culver’s led Branstad all year.
There were only three putative presidential candidates on this year's Fair schedule, Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, but they are simply the first wave. As one of my Iowa friends put it: “Next year at the Fair there'll be so many candidates, you won’t be able to stir 'em with a stick.” Presumably they will be better briefed than doomed 2008 candidate Fred Thompson, who showed up wearing Gucci loafers and spent the day tooling around on a golf cart (a definite no-no unless you are a Major Fair Sponsor; everyone else must walk the goo-encrusted dust or mud).
Even in the dog days of an unusually hot summer with widespread recent flooding, the midterm campaigns here are gearing down for a heavy stretch-run, fueled by the generous subsidies that would-be presidents routinely lavish on the state parties, and watched by an unusually checked-in electorate acutely aware of its role in national politics.
Iowa Democrats had a breakthrough year in the last midterms in 2006, winning control of the state legislature and the governorship together for the first time in 42 years. (They also picked up two congressional seats.) And in 2008, obviously, Iowa Democrats played a big role in the eventual nomination of Barack Obama, who carried the state handily in November. Iowa’s reputation for progressivism was also burnished in 2009, when its Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, making the state an unlikely spot for destination weddings. (One t-shirt I spotted at the State Fair had this legend: “8-4-10: California Is Finally As Gay As Iowa”).
But even though Iowa’s unemployment rate is well below the national average (6.8% in June), it has not escaped the sour mood that’s affecting politics, and particularly Democrats, nationally.
The President’s job approval ratings in Iowa aren’t that bad; according to a Rasmussen poll in early July, they stood at a 48-52 ratio, better than the 44-55 ratio the same pollster showed nationally at about the same time. But Chet Culver’s job approval ratio has been in the negative range for months in every poll taken since last fall; the Des Moines Register had it at 36-53 in February (with only 37% approval in union households, reflecting Culver's stormy relationship with public sector unions), PPP showed it at 28-56 in early June; and Rasmussen had it at 37-61 in early August.
Unsurprisingly, Terry Brandstad, who served as governor from 1983-1999 before "retiring," has been leading Culver by a minimum of fifteen points in every major poll taken in the last year. Branstad's biggest hurdle so far was winning the Republican nomination against 2006 nominee for Lt. Gov. (and 2008 Mike Huckabee Iowa campaign chairman) Bob Vander Plaats, whose underfunded campaign was a redoubt for restive social conservatives whose mistrust of Branstad goes back quite some time. Branstad's underwhelming 50-41 win in the June 8 primary--even after he was endorsed by Sarah Palin--was a reminder of the power of conservative activists in this state, particularly in lower-turnout caucuses like those that serve as an abbatoir for presidential candidates. Indeed, Branstad's camp had to endure post-primary reports that Vander Plaats was considering a third-party run that would have instantly made the general election a barnburner, before Vander Plaats finally announced he was devoting his immediate future to an effort to recall the State Supreme Court Judges (two of whom were appointed by Branstad) who legalized same-sex marriage. Vander Plaats has not, significantly, endorsed Branstad.
There are recent signs that Chet Culver's repairing his relationship with key elements of the Democratic base in Iowa (including those public-sector unions who have bad memories of the Branstad Administration) and the gubernatorial race could well tighten up. Moreover, Republicans are not currently favored to pick off any of the allegedly vulnerable Democratic U.S. House Members; top target Leonard Boswell's race is currently rated "Lean Democratic" by the Cook Political Report. The fight for control of the state legislature will be vicious and probably close.
But for those interested in Iowa primarily because of its role in the presidential nominating process, the things to watch are more limited. If Branstad wins, will his close association with Mitt Romney matter a lot going into the Caucuses, or will Palin's late (and unsolicited) endorsement of Branstad help keep him neutral? Will the Iowa conservative crusade against same-sex marriage in Iowa help mobilize right-bent activists and help candidates other than Romney (including perhaps Huckabee, who beat Romney here in 2008 despite a vast financial disadvantage)? Will candidates like Tim Pawlenty and long-shot Rick Santorum become viable by spending a lot of early time here? And will some potential president make Fred Thompson's mistake and violate the unwritten but iron rules of Iowa culture between now and then, perhaps disdaining a bite of Hot Beef Sundae or deep-fried Oreos, or failing to express admiration for the winner of the Big Boar Contest, with cameras nearby?
Those of us in the commentariat wondering about this right now are few, but a year from now, like the candidates at the Iowa State Fair, you won't be able to stir 'em with a stick.
But you are never too far from politics in Iowa, and pols were very evident in the vast, three-hour parade that kicked off the parade on Wednesday night. By ancient tradition, current elected officials ride or march at the beginning of the parade, and candidates who are not in office are at the tail-end. Thus, Democratic Governor Chet Culver was right up front, while the once-and-perhaps-future governor, Republican Terry Branstad, was scheduled to appear well behind the Iowa Pork Queen, the Shriners, the vintage John Deere tractors, two roller-derby teams, and the Southwest Iowa High School Honor Band, among many others (which may be why he ultimately let his running-mate represent him in the event). It was, joked many, the first time Culver’s led Branstad all year.
There were only three putative presidential candidates on this year's Fair schedule, Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, but they are simply the first wave. As one of my Iowa friends put it: “Next year at the Fair there'll be so many candidates, you won’t be able to stir 'em with a stick.” Presumably they will be better briefed than doomed 2008 candidate Fred Thompson, who showed up wearing Gucci loafers and spent the day tooling around on a golf cart (a definite no-no unless you are a Major Fair Sponsor; everyone else must walk the goo-encrusted dust or mud).
Even in the dog days of an unusually hot summer with widespread recent flooding, the midterm campaigns here are gearing down for a heavy stretch-run, fueled by the generous subsidies that would-be presidents routinely lavish on the state parties, and watched by an unusually checked-in electorate acutely aware of its role in national politics.
Iowa Democrats had a breakthrough year in the last midterms in 2006, winning control of the state legislature and the governorship together for the first time in 42 years. (They also picked up two congressional seats.) And in 2008, obviously, Iowa Democrats played a big role in the eventual nomination of Barack Obama, who carried the state handily in November. Iowa’s reputation for progressivism was also burnished in 2009, when its Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, making the state an unlikely spot for destination weddings. (One t-shirt I spotted at the State Fair had this legend: “8-4-10: California Is Finally As Gay As Iowa”).
But even though Iowa’s unemployment rate is well below the national average (6.8% in June), it has not escaped the sour mood that’s affecting politics, and particularly Democrats, nationally.
The President’s job approval ratings in Iowa aren’t that bad; according to a Rasmussen poll in early July, they stood at a 48-52 ratio, better than the 44-55 ratio the same pollster showed nationally at about the same time. But Chet Culver’s job approval ratio has been in the negative range for months in every poll taken since last fall; the Des Moines Register had it at 36-53 in February (with only 37% approval in union households, reflecting Culver's stormy relationship with public sector unions), PPP showed it at 28-56 in early June; and Rasmussen had it at 37-61 in early August.
Unsurprisingly, Terry Brandstad, who served as governor from 1983-1999 before "retiring," has been leading Culver by a minimum of fifteen points in every major poll taken in the last year. Branstad's biggest hurdle so far was winning the Republican nomination against 2006 nominee for Lt. Gov. (and 2008 Mike Huckabee Iowa campaign chairman) Bob Vander Plaats, whose underfunded campaign was a redoubt for restive social conservatives whose mistrust of Branstad goes back quite some time. Branstad's underwhelming 50-41 win in the June 8 primary--even after he was endorsed by Sarah Palin--was a reminder of the power of conservative activists in this state, particularly in lower-turnout caucuses like those that serve as an abbatoir for presidential candidates. Indeed, Branstad's camp had to endure post-primary reports that Vander Plaats was considering a third-party run that would have instantly made the general election a barnburner, before Vander Plaats finally announced he was devoting his immediate future to an effort to recall the State Supreme Court Judges (two of whom were appointed by Branstad) who legalized same-sex marriage. Vander Plaats has not, significantly, endorsed Branstad.
There are recent signs that Chet Culver's repairing his relationship with key elements of the Democratic base in Iowa (including those public-sector unions who have bad memories of the Branstad Administration) and the gubernatorial race could well tighten up. Moreover, Republicans are not currently favored to pick off any of the allegedly vulnerable Democratic U.S. House Members; top target Leonard Boswell's race is currently rated "Lean Democratic" by the Cook Political Report. The fight for control of the state legislature will be vicious and probably close.
But for those interested in Iowa primarily because of its role in the presidential nominating process, the things to watch are more limited. If Branstad wins, will his close association with Mitt Romney matter a lot going into the Caucuses, or will Palin's late (and unsolicited) endorsement of Branstad help keep him neutral? Will the Iowa conservative crusade against same-sex marriage in Iowa help mobilize right-bent activists and help candidates other than Romney (including perhaps Huckabee, who beat Romney here in 2008 despite a vast financial disadvantage)? Will candidates like Tim Pawlenty and long-shot Rick Santorum become viable by spending a lot of early time here? And will some potential president make Fred Thompson's mistake and violate the unwritten but iron rules of Iowa culture between now and then, perhaps disdaining a bite of Hot Beef Sundae or deep-fried Oreos, or failing to express admiration for the winner of the Big Boar Contest, with cameras nearby?
Those of us in the commentariat wondering about this right now are few, but a year from now, like the candidates at the Iowa State Fair, you won't be able to stir 'em with a stick.
ESPN Umpire Study Blows The Call
@ 3:48 PM
Suppose that an organization studied videotape of Major League Baseball umpires over a two week period. They reviewed every play in every game, other than balls and strikes. And they found that, in the 184 games they studied, there were only 47 missed calls -- about one for every four games.
That'd be quite vindicating for the umpires, I would think. Just 0.2 or 0.3 missed calls a game? A 2004 study of NFL games, by contrast, found 40 reversals on challenges initiated by the replay booth in the final two minutes of each half**; that would extrapolate out to 600 miscalls over the course of the entire game, or about 2.3 per contest (and not all calls are reviewable). And several NBA insiders that I spoke with for the book chapter that I'm writing about hoops said there were 15 or 20 "questionable" calls a game in their sport.
Indeed, this is exactly what a study by ESPN just found. Baseball umpires very rarely blow calls.
But that's not the framing that ESPN used. Instead, they said that umpires missed 1 in 5 "close" calls, which sounds much more damning. The question, of course, is how one defines a "close" call -- something which is completely arbitrary. If ESPN had used a more expansive definition of a "close" call, perhaps umpires would only have missed 1 in 10 "close" calls, or 1 in 20, rather than 1 in 5. If they used a narrower definition, perhaps the umpires would have missed 1 in 3. All of which tells you nothing about the performance of umpires and a lot about the semantic proclivities of a bunch of research assistants sitting around a conference room somewhere in Bristol.
__
** The reason it's preferable to look at this statistic, rather that at the number of reversals on coach-initiated challenges as occur in the first 28 minutes of each half, is because coaches are limited in the number of challenges they may make and penalized for incorrect ones with the loss of a timeout. Thus, many incorrect calls will go undetected, because it is not worth it for a coach to initiate a challenge, even if there is some likelihood that the call was incorrect. The reply booth has no such restrictions, however, and should therefore provide for a more reliable estimate.
That'd be quite vindicating for the umpires, I would think. Just 0.2 or 0.3 missed calls a game? A 2004 study of NFL games, by contrast, found 40 reversals on challenges initiated by the replay booth in the final two minutes of each half**; that would extrapolate out to 600 miscalls over the course of the entire game, or about 2.3 per contest (and not all calls are reviewable). And several NBA insiders that I spoke with for the book chapter that I'm writing about hoops said there were 15 or 20 "questionable" calls a game in their sport.
Indeed, this is exactly what a study by ESPN just found. Baseball umpires very rarely blow calls.
But that's not the framing that ESPN used. Instead, they said that umpires missed 1 in 5 "close" calls, which sounds much more damning. The question, of course, is how one defines a "close" call -- something which is completely arbitrary. If ESPN had used a more expansive definition of a "close" call, perhaps umpires would only have missed 1 in 10 "close" calls, or 1 in 20, rather than 1 in 5. If they used a narrower definition, perhaps the umpires would have missed 1 in 3. All of which tells you nothing about the performance of umpires and a lot about the semantic proclivities of a bunch of research assistants sitting around a conference room somewhere in Bristol.
__
** The reason it's preferable to look at this statistic, rather that at the number of reversals on coach-initiated challenges as occur in the first 28 minutes of each half, is because coaches are limited in the number of challenges they may make and penalized for incorrect ones with the loss of a timeout. Thus, many incorrect calls will go undetected, because it is not worth it for a coach to initiate a challenge, even if there is some likelihood that the call was incorrect. The reply booth has no such restrictions, however, and should therefore provide for a more reliable estimate.
8.14.2010
Palin's Endorsements: More Method Than Madness
@ 6:05 PM
Yesterday my esteemed FiveThirtyEight colleague Tom Schaller published a post suggesting that Sarah Palin isn't doing herself or her party any favors by endorsing candidates in Republican primaries around the country (with the possible exception of accidentally helping candidates whose moderate credentials she indirectly burnishes by endorsing their opponents, like Bobby Ehrlich in Tom's home state of Maryland).
Since a big chunk of Tom's argument is based on the testimony of a congressman from my own home state of Georgia, and the results of Tuesday's gubernatorial runoff there, I feel entitled to dissent, at least in part. You don't have to agree with Michelle Cottle's assessment of Palin as a strategic genius to conclude that St. Joan of the Tundra is not just messing around pointlessly.
In an interview, Congressman Jack Kingston implied that Palin was "meddling" in Georgia to the detriment of her endorsee, who was, he complained, "clearly the more moderate person in the race." Kingston was a supporter of Nathan Deal, who edged Palin's candidate, Karen Handel, in the runoff, so he's not exactly objective on the subject. In fact, Palin's original endorsement of Handel occurred just as she was beginning her ascent from second or third in the primary field to first (the same uncanny timing she showed in South Carolina with her endorsement of Nikki Haley). Her single personal appearance with Handel, the day before the runoff, probably occurred too late to matter much either way, and in any event, Handel's loss by a couple of thousand votes after more than a year as an underdog doesn't seem that bad a performance.
As for Handel's ideology, which is presumably germane to the question of whether Palin knows what she is doing, Kingston is faithfully repeating the Deal campaign's "liberal" spin on Handel. But for the record, her platform included abolition of the state income tax, a very hard line on immigration, and support for a ban on abortions that displeased Georgia's right-to-life lobby only because she insisted on rape-and-incest exceptions and wouldn't support sharp restrictions on IV fertility clinics--hardly raging liberalism. Aside from Palin, Handel was also strongly supported by RedState's Erick Erickson (a Georgian), whom nobody would describe as a "moderate."
More generally, it's important to remember that Palin's "meddling" in Republican primaries has involved very different levels of activity. In several cases (most famously her last-minute, unsolicited endorsement of Terry Branstad in Iowa) she's put up a statement on Facebook and left it at that. In a few others (e.g., Carly Fiorina of California, Todd Tiahrt of Kansas) she's recorded robocalls for endorsees, a very common and low-risk tactic so long as the calls don't involve negative attacks on other Republicans. Only in five so far has she personally campaigned with "her" candidates: in New Mexico for Susana Martinez (who won), in Idaho for Ward Vaughan (who lost), in South Carolina with Nikki Haley (another win), in Georgia, with Karen Handel (who made a runoff, which she lost by an eyelash), and in Arizona, with the man who made her famous, John McCain (McCain's primary is on August 24, but he's heavily favored to win).
It's also worth remembering that other potential 2012 presidential candidates have heavily engaged in endorsements and robocalls, along some personal campaigning (e.g., Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich with Kingston's candidate Nathan Deal) without raising nearly as many questions about "meddling" as has Palin.
Tom suggests that the only rational factors that would lead Palin to make endorsements in competitive races involve either strategic goals or personal connections, and he's right, Palin's endorsement of the obscure Maryland candidate Brian Murphy (or for that matter, of Bob McConnell in Colorado) doesn't seem to meet those criteria. But that's not to say that many of her other endorsements don't make sense on those grounds.
Most obviously, she's endorsed successful Republican gubernatorial primary candidates in two of the four states that will kick off the 2012 presidential nominating contest (Iowa and South Carolina), and has also endorsed the front-running candidate for U.S. Senate in a third (New Hampshire). Neither the State of Maryland or Bobby Ehrlich is likely to play a major role in 2012, so while her endorsement of Murphy may not help a possible presidential campaign, it probably won't hurt it, either.
As for "personal connections," there's clearly one at play in Arizona. Family issues have also been a factor. According to some reports, her ill-fated involvement in Ward Vaughan's campaign in Idaho could be attributable to her father, Chuck Heath, who endorsed Vaughan back in 2009 after meeting him during the presidential campaign (Heath also was an early backer of Danny Tarkanian in Nevada, which may well explain why his daughter didn't jump into that primary and endorse "Mama Grizzly" Sharron Angle or early front-runner Sue Lowdon).
Family aside, I'd argue that the whole "Mama Grizzly" phenomenon is deeply personal to Palin. She's very invested in the idea that she's a pioneer for a new breed of conservative women who are shaking up the GOP and politics generally, and her endorsements of Martinez, McGowan, Bledsoe, Fiorina, Haley, Fallin, Heil, Handel and Ayotte all meet that criterion as well.
There may be something else going on with Palin's career generally that is difficult for those of us who don't share her ideology to comprehend, but that could be quite real to her: she truly does think of herself and most of her endorsees as, well, "mavericky." A number of her endorsees, including some of the less likely ones such as Heil and McConnell, but also bigger names like Haley and Handel, have been candidates with unusual backgrounds who were struggling to raise the money necessary to become or remain competitive candidates. For all her disdain for the "lamestream media," the one thing Sarah Palin knows she can offer, instantly, is free media attention.
And to get back to Jack Kingston's characterization of Palin's "meddling" in Georgia, that's exactly what she offered Karen Handel, a "Mama Grizzly" whose message as a "conservative reformer" was, from Palin's point of view, a "mavericky" assault on the good ol' boys of the Georgia GOP, and who was struggling to keep up with John Oxendine, Eric Johnson and Nathan Deal on the fundraising trail. These are all qualities that made her campaign remarkably similar to that of Nikki Haley in next-door South Carolina, who never raised a lot of money and was ultimately lifted to a big primary and runoff victory by clumsy sexual and ethnic allegations that made every other factor, including Palin, largely irrelevant.
I still don't know what business Sarah Palin has endorsing Brian Murphy. But describing her general pattern of endorsements in the midterms as irrational or counterproductive strikes me as far too sweeping a generalization. I invite Tom to retreat to a more natural posture of disagreement with Jack Kingston.
Since a big chunk of Tom's argument is based on the testimony of a congressman from my own home state of Georgia, and the results of Tuesday's gubernatorial runoff there, I feel entitled to dissent, at least in part. You don't have to agree with Michelle Cottle's assessment of Palin as a strategic genius to conclude that St. Joan of the Tundra is not just messing around pointlessly.
In an interview, Congressman Jack Kingston implied that Palin was "meddling" in Georgia to the detriment of her endorsee, who was, he complained, "clearly the more moderate person in the race." Kingston was a supporter of Nathan Deal, who edged Palin's candidate, Karen Handel, in the runoff, so he's not exactly objective on the subject. In fact, Palin's original endorsement of Handel occurred just as she was beginning her ascent from second or third in the primary field to first (the same uncanny timing she showed in South Carolina with her endorsement of Nikki Haley). Her single personal appearance with Handel, the day before the runoff, probably occurred too late to matter much either way, and in any event, Handel's loss by a couple of thousand votes after more than a year as an underdog doesn't seem that bad a performance.
As for Handel's ideology, which is presumably germane to the question of whether Palin knows what she is doing, Kingston is faithfully repeating the Deal campaign's "liberal" spin on Handel. But for the record, her platform included abolition of the state income tax, a very hard line on immigration, and support for a ban on abortions that displeased Georgia's right-to-life lobby only because she insisted on rape-and-incest exceptions and wouldn't support sharp restrictions on IV fertility clinics--hardly raging liberalism. Aside from Palin, Handel was also strongly supported by RedState's Erick Erickson (a Georgian), whom nobody would describe as a "moderate."
More generally, it's important to remember that Palin's "meddling" in Republican primaries has involved very different levels of activity. In several cases (most famously her last-minute, unsolicited endorsement of Terry Branstad in Iowa) she's put up a statement on Facebook and left it at that. In a few others (e.g., Carly Fiorina of California, Todd Tiahrt of Kansas) she's recorded robocalls for endorsees, a very common and low-risk tactic so long as the calls don't involve negative attacks on other Republicans. Only in five so far has she personally campaigned with "her" candidates: in New Mexico for Susana Martinez (who won), in Idaho for Ward Vaughan (who lost), in South Carolina with Nikki Haley (another win), in Georgia, with Karen Handel (who made a runoff, which she lost by an eyelash), and in Arizona, with the man who made her famous, John McCain (McCain's primary is on August 24, but he's heavily favored to win).
It's also worth remembering that other potential 2012 presidential candidates have heavily engaged in endorsements and robocalls, along some personal campaigning (e.g., Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich with Kingston's candidate Nathan Deal) without raising nearly as many questions about "meddling" as has Palin.
Tom suggests that the only rational factors that would lead Palin to make endorsements in competitive races involve either strategic goals or personal connections, and he's right, Palin's endorsement of the obscure Maryland candidate Brian Murphy (or for that matter, of Bob McConnell in Colorado) doesn't seem to meet those criteria. But that's not to say that many of her other endorsements don't make sense on those grounds.
Most obviously, she's endorsed successful Republican gubernatorial primary candidates in two of the four states that will kick off the 2012 presidential nominating contest (Iowa and South Carolina), and has also endorsed the front-running candidate for U.S. Senate in a third (New Hampshire). Neither the State of Maryland or Bobby Ehrlich is likely to play a major role in 2012, so while her endorsement of Murphy may not help a possible presidential campaign, it probably won't hurt it, either.
As for "personal connections," there's clearly one at play in Arizona. Family issues have also been a factor. According to some reports, her ill-fated involvement in Ward Vaughan's campaign in Idaho could be attributable to her father, Chuck Heath, who endorsed Vaughan back in 2009 after meeting him during the presidential campaign (Heath also was an early backer of Danny Tarkanian in Nevada, which may well explain why his daughter didn't jump into that primary and endorse "Mama Grizzly" Sharron Angle or early front-runner Sue Lowdon).
Family aside, I'd argue that the whole "Mama Grizzly" phenomenon is deeply personal to Palin. She's very invested in the idea that she's a pioneer for a new breed of conservative women who are shaking up the GOP and politics generally, and her endorsements of Martinez, McGowan, Bledsoe, Fiorina, Haley, Fallin, Heil, Handel and Ayotte all meet that criterion as well.
There may be something else going on with Palin's career generally that is difficult for those of us who don't share her ideology to comprehend, but that could be quite real to her: she truly does think of herself and most of her endorsees as, well, "mavericky." A number of her endorsees, including some of the less likely ones such as Heil and McConnell, but also bigger names like Haley and Handel, have been candidates with unusual backgrounds who were struggling to raise the money necessary to become or remain competitive candidates. For all her disdain for the "lamestream media," the one thing Sarah Palin knows she can offer, instantly, is free media attention.
And to get back to Jack Kingston's characterization of Palin's "meddling" in Georgia, that's exactly what she offered Karen Handel, a "Mama Grizzly" whose message as a "conservative reformer" was, from Palin's point of view, a "mavericky" assault on the good ol' boys of the Georgia GOP, and who was struggling to keep up with John Oxendine, Eric Johnson and Nathan Deal on the fundraising trail. These are all qualities that made her campaign remarkably similar to that of Nikki Haley in next-door South Carolina, who never raised a lot of money and was ultimately lifted to a big primary and runoff victory by clumsy sexual and ethnic allegations that made every other factor, including Palin, largely irrelevant.
I still don't know what business Sarah Palin has endorsing Brian Murphy. But describing her general pattern of endorsements in the midterms as irrational or counterproductive strikes me as far too sweeping a generalization. I invite Tom to retreat to a more natural posture of disagreement with Jack Kingston.
The 'International Desk' is Moving
@ 3:30 PM
'Moving' is the operative word these days at FiveThirtyEight, with the re-launch of the site as part of the NY Times looming and change afoot all around. Coincidentally, this is also the case for the physical locale of the international desk here.
After two good years here in Europe, I will be packing things up for a transatlantic move to South America, with Quito, Ecuador as the final destination.
Naturally, this should improve the quality and focus of our coverage of Latin American politics and elections, as part of an overall effort to continually broaden and improve the international affairs section of the site. That said, this won't entail any big changes in the character or coverage choices of the international desk -- OECD country elections, politics of the Middle East and South Asia, and African affairs will remain high on the agenda. As we move forward, however, the hope is that other areas that have been less considered here, such as East and Central Asia, Eastern Europe and Southern Africa, will be included more and more often.
The lifestyle change should be interesting. While I've spent plenty of time in lowest and highest parts of the income and development scale with Switzerland, US and France on one end and Sierra Leone on the other, Ecuador is very much the (upper) middle ground. In practical terms, of course, the cost of living is far far less (Geneva in the top 5 most expensive cities on the planet, Quito as one of the cheapest).
---
Renard Sexton is FiveThirtyEight's international affairs columnist. He can be contacted at sexton538@gmail.com
After two good years here in Europe, I will be packing things up for a transatlantic move to South America, with Quito, Ecuador as the final destination.
Naturally, this should improve the quality and focus of our coverage of Latin American politics and elections, as part of an overall effort to continually broaden and improve the international affairs section of the site. That said, this won't entail any big changes in the character or coverage choices of the international desk -- OECD country elections, politics of the Middle East and South Asia, and African affairs will remain high on the agenda. As we move forward, however, the hope is that other areas that have been less considered here, such as East and Central Asia, Eastern Europe and Southern Africa, will be included more and more often.
The lifestyle change should be interesting. While I've spent plenty of time in lowest and highest parts of the income and development scale with Switzerland, US and France on one end and Sierra Leone on the other, Ecuador is very much the (upper) middle ground. In practical terms, of course, the cost of living is far far less (Geneva in the top 5 most expensive cities on the planet, Quito as one of the cheapest).
---
Renard Sexton is FiveThirtyEight's international affairs columnist. He can be contacted at sexton538@gmail.com
Obama Defense of "Ground Zero Mosque" Less Risky Than it Seems
@ 12:03 PM
President Obama's decision last night to defend the right of a group of Muslim businessmen and religious leaders to build a mosque and Islamic cultural center near the Ground Zero site has won praise from some of his harshest critics -- and criticism from Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, who seem to be in a competition to see who can stoke the most outrage among the Republican base. Indeed, it was a bold decision -- Obama could have stayed out of what is ostensibly a local matter. But a careful evaluation of the polls reveals it to be less politically risky than it might at first appear.
As I pointed out two weeks ago, there has been considerable ambiguity in most polls on the topic, which did not distinguish one's personal position on the tastefulness of the mosque from one's view about whether or not the developers had the right to build it:
But Fox also followed up with this question:
Essentially, public opinion on this issue is divided into thirds. About a third of the country thinks that not only do the developers have a right to build the mosque, but that it's a perfectly appropriate thing to do. Another third think that while the development is in poor taste, the developers nevertheless have a right to build it. And the final third think that not only is the development inappropriate, but the developers have no right to build it -- perhaps they think that the government should intervene to stop it in some fashion.
Obama's remarks, while asserting that "Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country," and that the "principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are," simply reflected the view that the developers had a First Amendment right to proceed with the project -- a view that at least 60 percent of Americans share. True, Obama could have hedged a little bit more, by saying something along the lines of "they have every right to build it, but I hope they will consider another location". On the other hand, it is not as though he said "this is a wonderful thing, and I'm going to make sure to take Sasha and Malia there once it's built." Instead, he acknowledged the sensitivity over the Ground Zero site, calling it "hallowed ground", but couched the controversy in terms of the First Amendment.
So it is not really so clear whether Obama has staked out an unpopular position or not. While it is almost certainly riskier than his remaining mum on the issue, the assertion that the developers have a Constitutional right to proceed with the project is not particularly controversial. Palin and Gingirch will scream and shout, but they may be doing little more than preach to the converted.
EDIT: Sorry for pre-coffee typos.
As I pointed out two weeks ago, there has been considerable ambiguity in most polls on the topic, which did not distinguish one's personal position on the tastefulness of the mosque from one's view about whether or not the developers had the right to build it:
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. [...] 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.The only poll to have gotten the distinction right, believe it or not, is the one from Fox News. They asked two separate questions about the planned development. First, they asked:
A group of Muslims plans to build a mosque and Islamic cultural center a few blocks from the site of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City. Do you think it is appropriate to build a mosque and Islamic center near ground zero, or do you think it would be wrong to do so?Only 30 percent of respondents said "appropriate", while 64 percent said "wrong" -- consistent with the apparent unpopularity of the mosque in other polls.
But Fox also followed up with this question:
Regardless of whether you think it is appropriate to build a mosque near ground zero, do you think the Muslim group has the right to build a mosque there, or don’t they have that right?Here, the numbers were nearly reversed: 61 percent of respondents, including 69 percent of independents and 57 percent of Republicans, said the developers had the right to build the mosque; 34 percent said they did not.
Essentially, public opinion on this issue is divided into thirds. About a third of the country thinks that not only do the developers have a right to build the mosque, but that it's a perfectly appropriate thing to do. Another third think that while the development is in poor taste, the developers nevertheless have a right to build it. And the final third think that not only is the development inappropriate, but the developers have no right to build it -- perhaps they think that the government should intervene to stop it in some fashion.
Obama's remarks, while asserting that "Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country," and that the "principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are," simply reflected the view that the developers had a First Amendment right to proceed with the project -- a view that at least 60 percent of Americans share. True, Obama could have hedged a little bit more, by saying something along the lines of "they have every right to build it, but I hope they will consider another location". On the other hand, it is not as though he said "this is a wonderful thing, and I'm going to make sure to take Sasha and Malia there once it's built." Instead, he acknowledged the sensitivity over the Ground Zero site, calling it "hallowed ground", but couched the controversy in terms of the First Amendment.
So it is not really so clear whether Obama has staked out an unpopular position or not. While it is almost certainly riskier than his remaining mum on the issue, the assertion that the developers have a Constitutional right to proceed with the project is not particularly controversial. Palin and Gingirch will scream and shout, but they may be doing little more than preach to the converted.
EDIT: Sorry for pre-coffee typos.
8.13.2010
Political Consultants vs. Political Scientists
@ 7:28 PM
Self-described "political operative" Les Francis, with real-world experience as former executive director of the Democratic National Committee:
Political scientists Joe Bafumi, Bob Erikson, and Chris Wlezien, from elite, out-of-touch, ivory-tower institutions Dartmouth, Columbia, and Temple Universities:
Game over.
P.S. I tried to keep this one short because sometimes a picture is worth more than a thousand words. But, after reading the first few comments, I think I need to explain a bit. So here goes:
Les Francis wrote, "I don’t need any polls to tell me that Republicans will do well in November."
Bafumi, Bob Erikson, and Wlezien's graph show that the generic ballot polls (these are what's shown on the horizontal axes of the graphs above), even months before the election, yield a very good prediction (via a linear model that Bafumi et al. fit to past elections, as shown in the graphs) of actual congressional voting (these are what's shown on the vertical axis). So, whether or not Les Francis "needs any polls," they can be very useful for the rest of us. See here for further thoughts on the political implications of the predictability of early generic ballot surveys.
Francis's anecdotes and insights about Obama, Pelosi, etc., can be valuable but he's doing himself no favors by dismissing the polls--just because he personally doesn't understand their value, not having seen, perhaps, the Bafumi et al. graph displayed above--or by making statements such as "Barack Obama’s 2008 winning margin was somewhat out of synch with the political alignment of the country at the time," which is unsupported by any data I've seen. (See, for example, this discussion, from nearly two years ago, on how the Democrats' gains in House voting in 2008 were in fact as large as their gains in the presidential vote.)
I don’t need any polls to tell me that Republicans will do well in November. The “out” party almost always shows significant gains in the first midterm election of a new President.
Political scientists Joe Bafumi, Bob Erikson, and Chris Wlezien, from elite, out-of-touch, ivory-tower institutions Dartmouth, Columbia, and Temple Universities:
Game over.
P.S. I tried to keep this one short because sometimes a picture is worth more than a thousand words. But, after reading the first few comments, I think I need to explain a bit. So here goes:
Les Francis wrote, "I don’t need any polls to tell me that Republicans will do well in November."
Bafumi, Bob Erikson, and Wlezien's graph show that the generic ballot polls (these are what's shown on the horizontal axes of the graphs above), even months before the election, yield a very good prediction (via a linear model that Bafumi et al. fit to past elections, as shown in the graphs) of actual congressional voting (these are what's shown on the vertical axis). So, whether or not Les Francis "needs any polls," they can be very useful for the rest of us. See here for further thoughts on the political implications of the predictability of early generic ballot surveys.
Francis's anecdotes and insights about Obama, Pelosi, etc., can be valuable but he's doing himself no favors by dismissing the polls--just because he personally doesn't understand their value, not having seen, perhaps, the Bafumi et al. graph displayed above--or by making statements such as "Barack Obama’s 2008 winning margin was somewhat out of synch with the political alignment of the country at the time," which is unsupported by any data I've seen. (See, for example, this discussion, from nearly two years ago, on how the Democrats' gains in House voting in 2008 were in fact as large as their gains in the presidential vote.)
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