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.
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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.
8.16.2010
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).
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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).
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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.)
Automated Poll Produces Starkly Different Results on Gay Marriage Question
@ 1:58 PM
Not so fast, ladies and ladies (and gentlemen and gentlemen). On the heels of a CNN poll earlier this week which was the first ever to show majority support for gay marriage, Public Policy Polling has come out with a survey showing a clear majority of their respondents still opposed to it: 57 percent of registered voters who responded to their survey think gay marriage should be illegal, and 33 say it should be legal. This contrasts sharply with CNN's results, which showed either a 52-46 majority in support of gay marriage or a narrow 48-50 plurality opposed to it, depending on the question wording. In fact, the 33 percent PPP shows in support of gay marriage is the lowest of any poll since 2006.
There are several factors that might account for the differences:
Different sample frames. PPP's poll is of registered voters, whereas CNN's was conducted among all adults. Since adults who are not registered to vote tend to be younger, and younger people tend to be more supportive of gay marriage, that might account for a couple points' worth of difference. However, this might be counteracted to some extent by the fact that minorities are also more likely to be unregistered, and African-Americans tend to show demonstrably less support for gay marriage (it is not clear that this is true of Hispanics or Asians.)
Different question wording. PPP's poll asked whether gay marriage should be legal or illegal; CNN's asked whether there is currently, and whether there should be, a Constitutional right to it. These are somewhat different questions both in theory and especially in practice given the strong feelings that Americans have about the Constitution.
Sample variance. In other words, random noise. PPP's poll consisted of 606 voters, a relatively small sample; CNN's consisted of 1,000 adults, which is not much larger, and their sample was split into halves by the two forms of the question that they posed. Before the CNN and PPP polls came out, the trendline pointed to around ~44-45 percent support for gay marriage: it is possible, and perhaps somewhat likely, that both polls are statistical outliers on either side of this trend.
There is, however, somewhat more evidence that the PPP poll has suffered from sample anomalies. In particular, the age distribution they show is rather flat: just 44 percent of 18-29 year-old respondents said they supported gay marriage, versus 31 percent of registered voters aged 66 and up. By contrast, a Pew poll in August, 2009, which had a much larger (~2,000 person) sample and for which comprehensive cross-tabs are available , had 58 percent of 18-29 year-olds in support of gay marriage, but just 20 percent of those 66 and older. Likewise, the Proposition 8 exit poll in California in 2008, which also had a larger sample, had 61 percent of 18-to-29 year olds opposed to Prop 8 (that is, supporting gay marriage) versus 39 percent of those 65 and up.
Moreover, the PPP poll has only 11 percent of its respondents between ages 18-29, whereas 19 percent of actual voters in 2008 were. And they show essentially no racial split in support for gay marriage, which contradicts virtually all other research on the topic.
Part of this probably reflects the low response rates associated with automated surveys, as well as the fact that they don't call cellphones (although, to my knowledge, CNN does not currently poll cellphone voters either). Young people are hard to get on the phone, and the ones that you do get on the phone may not be especially representative of their cohort. It is hard to believe that a majority of Americans under the age of 29 think gay marriage should be illegal.
Automated versus live-operator. PPP's was, to my awareness, the first automated survey ("robopoll") that took a fair shot at asking the gay marriage question, notwithstanding a Rasmussen poll in 2006 that asked somewhat leadingly about the "definition of marriage". CNN's poll, by contrast, used live operators. There has been some speculation that people are apt to answer more honestly on delicate issues like gay rights when probed by a robopoll rather than a live-operator survey. Since it has become somewhat "politically incorrect" to oppose gay rights, it's possible that the automated surveys are relatively more immune from social desirability bias.
While there may be some truth to this, I don't think it entirely explains PPP's results. The reason is that their poll also showed fairly low levels of support for marijuana legalization: 34 percent in favor and 52 percent opposed. While that's not an enormous outlier, the average of the four live-operator polls on marijuana legalization since the start of 2010 have shown an average of 41 percent support for its legalization.
As I explained at length here, you'd expect social desirability bias on the marijuana question to run the other way, i.e., people might be more willing to express support for legalizing marijuana to an automated script rather than to a real person on the other end of the line who might be a mother, an impressionable teenager, etc. And indeed, there is some evidence that marijuana rights poll better on automated surveys. But this one was an exception, which leads me to wonder whether it simply drew a non-representative sample.
***
I mentioned yesterday that the graph we produced, which appeared to show accelerating support for gay marriage, was quite sensitive to new polling data on the endpoints. If we include the PPP poll in the graph, and re-run the LOESS regression, we no longer show an accelerating trend toward support for gay marriage but instead, a steady-as-she-goes one, with support currently on the order of 43-44 percent and opposition at about 52 percent. The lines are converging at a rate of about 1.5 points per year which means that they would cross at some point in 2013, 2014, or thereabouts.
In a lot of ways, this is probably the more neutral hypothesis on support for gay marriage, particularly given that, as PPP's Tom Jensen notes, gay marriage initiatives recently failed, albeit narrowly, in blue states like Maine and California. (Although bear in mind that the California and Maine results reflect only people who voted, and not all adults in those states.)
At the same time, the graph I posted yesterday is arguably a more apples-to-apples comparison, since PPP's is the only automated survey on this subject. If we look at trendlines in the individual surveys, by contrast, CNN and Gallup have both shown increases in support for gay marriage of about 4 points over the past year. While I have nothing against automated surveys in general, and there is something to be said for their capacity to avoid social desirability bias, they are far less tested when it comes to measuring support for policy questions, rather than producing "horse race" numbers. Meanwhile, some of the cross-tabs in the PPP poll are dubious.
Here's what I think it's safe to say: it is dangerous, and probably even a little irresponsible, to say "Americans think so-and-so" based on the results of one individual survey -- especially when it's your survey. Jensen, for instance, headlined his article "Americans still opposed to gay marriage". That's a little presumptuous, particularly when you are not calling unregistered voters, and are not calling anyone who uses a cellphone rather than a landline, which will disqualify around 45 percent of the American population -- and when most of the remaining 55 percent will hang up once they recognize its a pollster calling. Statements like these are even more dubious when they come from a pollster like Rasmussen, which takes far more shortcuts than PPP does and probably excludes 75 or 80 percent of Americans from even having the opportunity to answer one of their surveys.
By all means, there should be more polling on gay marriage, including from automated survey firms. But particularly when your survey produces results that are "different" from the consensus -- this is arguably true of the CNN poll, and certainly true of the PPP poll -- you should perhaps go back and do some additional diligence, whether that means going into the field with a larger sample size, asking the questions in a different way, or paying for a cellphone sample, rather than proclaiming what may be a bug to be a feature.
UPDATE: A FOX News poll, also out today, shows increasing levels of support for gay marriage since 2009. Giving their respondents a three-way choice of marriage, civil unions, and no legal recognition, they find numbers of 37/29/28, with marriage getting the plurality. A year ago, their numbers were at 33/33/29.
There are several factors that might account for the differences:
Different sample frames. PPP's poll is of registered voters, whereas CNN's was conducted among all adults. Since adults who are not registered to vote tend to be younger, and younger people tend to be more supportive of gay marriage, that might account for a couple points' worth of difference. However, this might be counteracted to some extent by the fact that minorities are also more likely to be unregistered, and African-Americans tend to show demonstrably less support for gay marriage (it is not clear that this is true of Hispanics or Asians.)
Different question wording. PPP's poll asked whether gay marriage should be legal or illegal; CNN's asked whether there is currently, and whether there should be, a Constitutional right to it. These are somewhat different questions both in theory and especially in practice given the strong feelings that Americans have about the Constitution.
Sample variance. In other words, random noise. PPP's poll consisted of 606 voters, a relatively small sample; CNN's consisted of 1,000 adults, which is not much larger, and their sample was split into halves by the two forms of the question that they posed. Before the CNN and PPP polls came out, the trendline pointed to around ~44-45 percent support for gay marriage: it is possible, and perhaps somewhat likely, that both polls are statistical outliers on either side of this trend.
There is, however, somewhat more evidence that the PPP poll has suffered from sample anomalies. In particular, the age distribution they show is rather flat: just 44 percent of 18-29 year-old respondents said they supported gay marriage, versus 31 percent of registered voters aged 66 and up. By contrast, a Pew poll in August, 2009, which had a much larger (~2,000 person) sample and for which comprehensive cross-tabs are available , had 58 percent of 18-29 year-olds in support of gay marriage, but just 20 percent of those 66 and older. Likewise, the Proposition 8 exit poll in California in 2008, which also had a larger sample, had 61 percent of 18-to-29 year olds opposed to Prop 8 (that is, supporting gay marriage) versus 39 percent of those 65 and up.
Moreover, the PPP poll has only 11 percent of its respondents between ages 18-29, whereas 19 percent of actual voters in 2008 were. And they show essentially no racial split in support for gay marriage, which contradicts virtually all other research on the topic.
Part of this probably reflects the low response rates associated with automated surveys, as well as the fact that they don't call cellphones (although, to my knowledge, CNN does not currently poll cellphone voters either). Young people are hard to get on the phone, and the ones that you do get on the phone may not be especially representative of their cohort. It is hard to believe that a majority of Americans under the age of 29 think gay marriage should be illegal.
Automated versus live-operator. PPP's was, to my awareness, the first automated survey ("robopoll") that took a fair shot at asking the gay marriage question, notwithstanding a Rasmussen poll in 2006 that asked somewhat leadingly about the "definition of marriage". CNN's poll, by contrast, used live operators. There has been some speculation that people are apt to answer more honestly on delicate issues like gay rights when probed by a robopoll rather than a live-operator survey. Since it has become somewhat "politically incorrect" to oppose gay rights, it's possible that the automated surveys are relatively more immune from social desirability bias.
While there may be some truth to this, I don't think it entirely explains PPP's results. The reason is that their poll also showed fairly low levels of support for marijuana legalization: 34 percent in favor and 52 percent opposed. While that's not an enormous outlier, the average of the four live-operator polls on marijuana legalization since the start of 2010 have shown an average of 41 percent support for its legalization.
As I explained at length here, you'd expect social desirability bias on the marijuana question to run the other way, i.e., people might be more willing to express support for legalizing marijuana to an automated script rather than to a real person on the other end of the line who might be a mother, an impressionable teenager, etc. And indeed, there is some evidence that marijuana rights poll better on automated surveys. But this one was an exception, which leads me to wonder whether it simply drew a non-representative sample.
***
I mentioned yesterday that the graph we produced, which appeared to show accelerating support for gay marriage, was quite sensitive to new polling data on the endpoints. If we include the PPP poll in the graph, and re-run the LOESS regression, we no longer show an accelerating trend toward support for gay marriage but instead, a steady-as-she-goes one, with support currently on the order of 43-44 percent and opposition at about 52 percent. The lines are converging at a rate of about 1.5 points per year which means that they would cross at some point in 2013, 2014, or thereabouts.
In a lot of ways, this is probably the more neutral hypothesis on support for gay marriage, particularly given that, as PPP's Tom Jensen notes, gay marriage initiatives recently failed, albeit narrowly, in blue states like Maine and California. (Although bear in mind that the California and Maine results reflect only people who voted, and not all adults in those states.)
At the same time, the graph I posted yesterday is arguably a more apples-to-apples comparison, since PPP's is the only automated survey on this subject. If we look at trendlines in the individual surveys, by contrast, CNN and Gallup have both shown increases in support for gay marriage of about 4 points over the past year. While I have nothing against automated surveys in general, and there is something to be said for their capacity to avoid social desirability bias, they are far less tested when it comes to measuring support for policy questions, rather than producing "horse race" numbers. Meanwhile, some of the cross-tabs in the PPP poll are dubious.
Here's what I think it's safe to say: it is dangerous, and probably even a little irresponsible, to say "Americans think so-and-so" based on the results of one individual survey -- especially when it's your survey. Jensen, for instance, headlined his article "Americans still opposed to gay marriage". That's a little presumptuous, particularly when you are not calling unregistered voters, and are not calling anyone who uses a cellphone rather than a landline, which will disqualify around 45 percent of the American population -- and when most of the remaining 55 percent will hang up once they recognize its a pollster calling. Statements like these are even more dubious when they come from a pollster like Rasmussen, which takes far more shortcuts than PPP does and probably excludes 75 or 80 percent of Americans from even having the opportunity to answer one of their surveys.
By all means, there should be more polling on gay marriage, including from automated survey firms. But particularly when your survey produces results that are "different" from the consensus -- this is arguably true of the CNN poll, and certainly true of the PPP poll -- you should perhaps go back and do some additional diligence, whether that means going into the field with a larger sample size, asking the questions in a different way, or paying for a cellphone sample, rather than proclaiming what may be a bug to be a feature.
UPDATE: A FOX News poll, also out today, shows increasing levels of support for gay marriage since 2009. Giving their respondents a three-way choice of marriage, civil unions, and no legal recognition, they find numbers of 37/29/28, with marriage getting the plurality. A year ago, their numbers were at 33/33/29.
Schaller's Law of Constitutional Amendment Politics
@ 10:44 AM
If you are not already familiar with Godwin’s Law, it refers to the phenomenon of extended if not heated arguments eventually devolving to the point where somebody compares an idea or person to Hitler, the Nazis, or Nazism. The corollary to the Law is that, by doing so, the person who brought the discussion to that point thereby lost the argument.
I’ve coined a few terms in my day. In the weeks leading up to the 2002 Maryland governor's race, I forecast that the “New Big 5” counties of suburban Baltimore would be pivotal for Republican Bob Ehrlich, and that the so-called “Big 3” Democratic jurisdictions of Baltimore City, Prince Georges and Montgomery counties would be insufficient to pull Kathleen Kennedy Townsend across the finish line. And I suppose I'm the progenitor of the “non-southern strategy,” even if that term has failed to catch on as much as I had hoped. (The strategy itself worked.)
So herewith, my gambit to burnish my name into Wikipedia-dom forever with “Schaller’s Law.”
You might have already guessed that I have proposed Schaller’s Law and its first corollary in response to the recent calls--including a soft endorsement by House minority John Boehner--to amend the 14th Amendment for the purpose of removing or at least clarifying the so-called “birthright citizenship” provision.
Now, let me clarify at the outset that, on the policy dispute itself, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about birthright citizenship: I can see merit in (some of) the arguments made by those who want to clarify its meaning or remove the provision altogether, as well as those--including Mike Huckabee--who want to leave the 14th Amendment alone. And although I'm sure there are some dishonest brokers who want to tinker with the 14th Amendment because of their expressed or latent xenophobia and even racism toward immigrants and their children, the fact is we do have very serious border problems, including the subset of problems that arise when illegal immigrants give birth to children within the physical borders of the United States.
I’ve written previously here at 538 about the dangers of attempting to solve policy disputes via constitutional amendment. I wrote my doctoral dissertation at UNC about Article V, the constitutional amendment process, and specifically the fascinating, if at times ugly, Prohibition-Repeal episode. (An episode which also had its own, rather unfortunate racial aspects: Some prohibitionists couched their arguments using scary language about the dangers of rape, violence and insurrection that non-whites, “black” or “red,” posed to decent society when they had access to alcohol.) In general, I believe it’s dangerous to use the Constitution other than to define the basic rights of citizens; the prescription and proscription of the powers and parameters of government; and the means for s/electing or removing the official who run that government.
I’m not a legal scholar, and so the legal question of whether there is a viable, non-amendment legal solution that Congress, the president and the courts can devise is something I’m unqualified to answer. But the issue of citizenship clearly falls within this constricted space: Defining who is a citizen rises to the level of constitutional resolution, as opposed to merely statutory or regulatory decision-making.
The political question, however, is whether the very act of calling for amending the 14th Amendment advances the cause of those who most worry about the negative impacts of children born to illegal immigrants, or of illegal immigration more generally. To use another coined term, I suppose calling for an amendment can expand the Overton window—that is, because amendments are a rare and, arguably, an extreme measure, advocating for them may compel politicians to take non-amendment action. And, indeed, note the coincidence that just yesterday Congress passed and President Obama signed a new Southwest Border Security Act that appropriates $600 million to ramp up security along the US-Mexico border. But there is also the cry-wolf effect of Corollary 1: A person or group that repeatedly calls for amendments for this and that can undermine their larger cause by appearing capricious about the proper use of the amendment process.
The children of immigrants are a small, but not insignificant part of the immigration policy debate. And maybe the language of the 14th Amendment--which by most accounts I’ve read was intended to constitutionalize the citizenship of freed slaves rather than children physically born in-country to illegal immigrants--does require further clarification by court rulings or, yes, even by a constitutional amendment. Like I said, the legal and constitutional aspects are above my pay grade.
But the political and strategic aspects are not. And the very fact of calling for an amendment suggests that some opponents of illegal immigration have reached the Schaller’s Law point of political exasperation.
UPDATE: Friends have pointed me to what conservative critics of the 14th Amendment movement are saying, including Erik Erikson of Red State, who calls it a "non-issue, will not happen, and is unnecessary anyway to deal with the issue"; Slate's Dave Weigel, who seems to confirm the Overton view when he writes that the "restrictionist hope is not that the Constitution will be amended. It's that Americans will start thinking about birthright citizenship; and the American Spectator's Jim Antle who concludes that if "conservatives have a different set of priorities [on immigration or other issues], constitutional amendments with little chance of passage should be very low on that list."
I’ve coined a few terms in my day. In the weeks leading up to the 2002 Maryland governor's race, I forecast that the “New Big 5” counties of suburban Baltimore would be pivotal for Republican Bob Ehrlich, and that the so-called “Big 3” Democratic jurisdictions of Baltimore City, Prince Georges and Montgomery counties would be insufficient to pull Kathleen Kennedy Townsend across the finish line. And I suppose I'm the progenitor of the “non-southern strategy,” even if that term has failed to catch on as much as I had hoped. (The strategy itself worked.)
So herewith, my gambit to burnish my name into Wikipedia-dom forever with “Schaller’s Law.”
Schaller’s Law: In American politics, the eventual call for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to solve a problem that some exasperated individual and/or group has deemed otherwise unsolvable absent a constitutional amendment.
Corollary 1: Calling for the amendment almost never results in its adoption, and may in fact undermine the policy agenda or reduce the political capital of amendment-seekers—particularly if an individual, group or groups repeatedly claim that amendments are the only or best way to solve public policy controversies.
You might have already guessed that I have proposed Schaller’s Law and its first corollary in response to the recent calls--including a soft endorsement by House minority John Boehner--to amend the 14th Amendment for the purpose of removing or at least clarifying the so-called “birthright citizenship” provision.
Now, let me clarify at the outset that, on the policy dispute itself, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about birthright citizenship: I can see merit in (some of) the arguments made by those who want to clarify its meaning or remove the provision altogether, as well as those--including Mike Huckabee--who want to leave the 14th Amendment alone. And although I'm sure there are some dishonest brokers who want to tinker with the 14th Amendment because of their expressed or latent xenophobia and even racism toward immigrants and their children, the fact is we do have very serious border problems, including the subset of problems that arise when illegal immigrants give birth to children within the physical borders of the United States.
I’ve written previously here at 538 about the dangers of attempting to solve policy disputes via constitutional amendment. I wrote my doctoral dissertation at UNC about Article V, the constitutional amendment process, and specifically the fascinating, if at times ugly, Prohibition-Repeal episode. (An episode which also had its own, rather unfortunate racial aspects: Some prohibitionists couched their arguments using scary language about the dangers of rape, violence and insurrection that non-whites, “black” or “red,” posed to decent society when they had access to alcohol.) In general, I believe it’s dangerous to use the Constitution other than to define the basic rights of citizens; the prescription and proscription of the powers and parameters of government; and the means for s/electing or removing the official who run that government.
I’m not a legal scholar, and so the legal question of whether there is a viable, non-amendment legal solution that Congress, the president and the courts can devise is something I’m unqualified to answer. But the issue of citizenship clearly falls within this constricted space: Defining who is a citizen rises to the level of constitutional resolution, as opposed to merely statutory or regulatory decision-making.
The political question, however, is whether the very act of calling for amending the 14th Amendment advances the cause of those who most worry about the negative impacts of children born to illegal immigrants, or of illegal immigration more generally. To use another coined term, I suppose calling for an amendment can expand the Overton window—that is, because amendments are a rare and, arguably, an extreme measure, advocating for them may compel politicians to take non-amendment action. And, indeed, note the coincidence that just yesterday Congress passed and President Obama signed a new Southwest Border Security Act that appropriates $600 million to ramp up security along the US-Mexico border. But there is also the cry-wolf effect of Corollary 1: A person or group that repeatedly calls for amendments for this and that can undermine their larger cause by appearing capricious about the proper use of the amendment process.
The children of immigrants are a small, but not insignificant part of the immigration policy debate. And maybe the language of the 14th Amendment--which by most accounts I’ve read was intended to constitutionalize the citizenship of freed slaves rather than children physically born in-country to illegal immigrants--does require further clarification by court rulings or, yes, even by a constitutional amendment. Like I said, the legal and constitutional aspects are above my pay grade.
But the political and strategic aspects are not. And the very fact of calling for an amendment suggests that some opponents of illegal immigration have reached the Schaller’s Law point of political exasperation.
UPDATE: Friends have pointed me to what conservative critics of the 14th Amendment movement are saying, including Erik Erikson of Red State, who calls it a "non-issue, will not happen, and is unnecessary anyway to deal with the issue"; Slate's Dave Weigel, who seems to confirm the Overton view when he writes that the "restrictionist hope is not that the Constitution will be amended. It's that Americans will start thinking about birthright citizenship; and the American Spectator's Jim Antle who concludes that if "conservatives have a different set of priorities [on immigration or other issues], constitutional amendments with little chance of passage should be very low on that list."
8.12.2010
In Which I Find Myself In Agreement With Jack Kingston
@ 4:20 PM
So my column this past Tuesday for the Baltimore Sun was about whether and to what degree former Alaska governor Sarah Palin is an asset or liability to the Republican Party in general, and the Republicans she endorses in specific GOP primary races. The column was prompted by Palin’s conspicuously Heismann Trophy-like treatment of former Republican Gov. Bob Ehrlich with her Facebook-announced endorsement of Ehrlich’s virtual no-name primary opponent, Brian Murphy. A quick excerpt:*:
My criticism of Palin as a liablity to her party tends to proceed from the assumption that Palin's endorsements will have the effect of helping candidates win primaries who might be too conservative (or simply too unknown or untested) to win in the general election. This was the case in Maryland, where she touted Murphy's conservative credentials in a very blue state where Ehrlich, the party's only real statewide figure of substance--former Lt. Gov. Michael Steele is slowly destroying his reputation at home as well nationally--needs to position himself as close to the center as possible. But in the GA case, apparently the woman she endorsed, Karen Handel, was more moderate than the man she lost to, Nathan Deal.
So, on one hand, it would appear that Palin's impact is not necessarily to balkanize the party between hard right and center-right. But on the other, if Palin in fact drove some Republicans toward Deal, it just means that Palin is a liability no matter the ideological orientation of the candidate whom she chooses to endorse. To be fair, we can't know with absolute certainty whether and to what degree Palin's support for a candidate in fact hurts or hurt that candidate, like the Tennessee House candidate (CeCe Heil) she endorsed who lost last week. The evidence in cases like this is always to some degree circumstantial.
And then there is the related matter of Palin's own ambitions, whatever they may be. Now, perhaps I seriously misunderstand the method behind Palin's meddling madness, but her behavior looks to me like that of a politician liberated from seeking the Republican presidential nomination, rather than one with her eyes on that prize. Most smart pols avoid making primary endorsements unless the intra-party primary fight is:
(a) uncontested;
(b) features an obvious and safe favorite the whole state and/or county party leadership is backing over a bunch of wannabee cranks and yahoos;
(c) the endorser has some personal connection to a particular candidate; or
(d) the endorsee can do something unique for the endorser [e.g., the endorsee happens to be, say, the governor or state party chair of Iowa].
The Murphy-over-Ehrlich case meets none of these standards, which makes it all the more puzzling to me. Or maybe it makes perfect sense once one assumes that Sarah Palin quite simply is not running for president in 2012--which has been my contention all along. Palin poking her nose into state and local GOP races only reinforces my belief that she won't run.
Whatever she does in 2012, and however much she is hurting or helping Republican primary candidates this year, one thing is for certain: Jack Kingston isn't the first Republican Sarah Palin has frustrated, and he damn sure won't be the last.
Mr. Ehrlich is fortunate that Ms. Palin poked her nose into Maryland's political tent to endorse Mr. Murphy. In doing so, the ex-governor who last year abandoned her post in Juneau became a useful foil for the former governor who would like this year to recapture his post in Annapolis....A day later, conservative Republican congressman Jack Kingston of Georgia spoke out about Palin's meddling in GOP primaries. "Why Sarah Palin decided to get in the race is beyond me," said Kingston, regarding the Georgia Republican gubernatorial primary race in which Palin endorsed a female candidate who eventually lost. "I don't know why she feels compelled to get into primaries all over the country. But, you know, fortunately Georgia voters are doing their own thinking on things like this....[I]t makes Republicans say, well, maybe we do need to rethink ... Sarah Palin, as somebody who does shoot from the hip a little bit too much."
Mr. Ehrlich said the snub didn't matter, but he knows better and ought to be giddy. Ms. Palin would have done far more harm to his candidacy by endorsing him, and if anything she gave Mr. Ehrlich the opportunity to polish his preferred image as a non-ideological pragmatist...
Ms. Palin has done Mr. Ehrlich a great favor. Whatever support he may lose from Palin-loving conservatives during September's primary will be more than compensated by votes he stands to gain in November from Maryland voters who distrust her.
With some of the highest negative approval ratings of any national politician, the unavoidable truth is that Sarah Palin is more of a curse than a blessing for most Republicans.
My criticism of Palin as a liablity to her party tends to proceed from the assumption that Palin's endorsements will have the effect of helping candidates win primaries who might be too conservative (or simply too unknown or untested) to win in the general election. This was the case in Maryland, where she touted Murphy's conservative credentials in a very blue state where Ehrlich, the party's only real statewide figure of substance--former Lt. Gov. Michael Steele is slowly destroying his reputation at home as well nationally--needs to position himself as close to the center as possible. But in the GA case, apparently the woman she endorsed, Karen Handel, was more moderate than the man she lost to, Nathan Deal.
So, on one hand, it would appear that Palin's impact is not necessarily to balkanize the party between hard right and center-right. But on the other, if Palin in fact drove some Republicans toward Deal, it just means that Palin is a liability no matter the ideological orientation of the candidate whom she chooses to endorse. To be fair, we can't know with absolute certainty whether and to what degree Palin's support for a candidate in fact hurts or hurt that candidate, like the Tennessee House candidate (CeCe Heil) she endorsed who lost last week. The evidence in cases like this is always to some degree circumstantial.
And then there is the related matter of Palin's own ambitions, whatever they may be. Now, perhaps I seriously misunderstand the method behind Palin's meddling madness, but her behavior looks to me like that of a politician liberated from seeking the Republican presidential nomination, rather than one with her eyes on that prize. Most smart pols avoid making primary endorsements unless the intra-party primary fight is:
(a) uncontested;
(b) features an obvious and safe favorite the whole state and/or county party leadership is backing over a bunch of wannabee cranks and yahoos;
(c) the endorser has some personal connection to a particular candidate; or
(d) the endorsee can do something unique for the endorser [e.g., the endorsee happens to be, say, the governor or state party chair of Iowa].
The Murphy-over-Ehrlich case meets none of these standards, which makes it all the more puzzling to me. Or maybe it makes perfect sense once one assumes that Sarah Palin quite simply is not running for president in 2012--which has been my contention all along. Palin poking her nose into state and local GOP races only reinforces my belief that she won't run.
Whatever she does in 2012, and however much she is hurting or helping Republican primary candidates this year, one thing is for certain: Jack Kingston isn't the first Republican Sarah Palin has frustrated, and he damn sure won't be the last.
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