An eye-opening view into demographics and politics

Columbia University School of Journalism professor and New York Times op-ed contributor Tom Edsall has a very interesting piece citing a number of studies about the correlation between demographic changes and political ideology. Of particular note is the following passage:

"In 1988, the Democratic presidential nominee, Michael Dukakis, carried 26 percent of the nation’s counties, 819 of 3,144, on his way to losing the Electoral College 426-111 and the popular vote by seven percentage points. In 2012, President Obama won fewer counties, 690, but he won the popular vote by four points and the Electoral College in a landslide, 332-206."

While the title of the op-ed piece is misleading, the content is very interesting and worth reading.

CNN/ORC Poll: Republicans too extreme | POLITICO

Not a very surprising result from the recent CNN/ORC poll:

"Fifty-three percent of Americans said the GOP is too extreme, according to a CNN/ORC poll. That’s up 17 percentage points from two years ago, when Republicans were coming off a midterm walloping where they took control of the House. A matching 53 percent said Republicans should compromise more. However, Americans don’t want the GOP to lose control of the lower chamber, according to the poll."

The GOP's media cocoon - Jonathan Martin | POLITICO.com

POLITICO's Jonathan Martin writes an excellent analysis piece on the Right's media bubble (something I will admit I've taken great pleasure in reading about the last few days.) While others have written about this particular phenomenon:

"Facebook and Twitter feeds along with email in-boxes have taken the place of the old newspaper front page, except that the consumer is now entirely in charge of what he or she sees each day and can largely shut out dissenting voices. It’s the great irony of the Internet era: People have more access than ever to an array of viewpoints, but also the technological ability to screen out anything that doesn’t reinforce their views."

... Martin also talks about the emerging split between conservatives over 50 and those 49 and under:

"Some younger conservatives worry that the effects of cocoonism are just as evident after the race as before — and not only in the disbelief that Obama won. The knee-jerk reaction by some on the right to Romney’s poor performance with Hispanics has been to simply say that all will be well with the party if they pass an immigration bill and elevate Cuban-American Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

But to many next-generation Republicans, this smacks of tokenism and is more than a tad patronizing.

“They just want to put a sombrero on the Republican elephant,” said one Latino GOP operative, who didn’t want to be identified discussing such a sensitive topic.

Similarly, [45-year-old GOP strategist Bruce] Haynes fretted that “the mistake Republicans are going to make is thinking this is a demographic and political problem and not a social and cultural problem. You can’t fix this with Orca (the Romney campaign’s ill-fated GOTV software) or iPad apps or to some extent even running Hispanic candidates.”

To young Republican strategists and writers, a fundamental shift of how the party communicates is required. That doesn’t mean delegitimizing hugely popular and powerful outlets on the right, but rather transcending them.

“Communicating to the country’s changing demographics and outside of the Fox News echo chamber is a strategic imperative,” said GOP operative Phil Musser, 40.

“The rise of conservative media has been one of the best things to ever happen to the conservative movement. It has helped us reach new voters, has helped with voter persuasion and even motivation,” said GOP strategist Todd Harris, 41. “But with all the positives, there is this fact: If all you did was watch and read the conservative media, you were probably pretty shocked at what happened Tuesday. There’s a huge and ever-growing segment of the vote that Republicans just aren’t talking to and in some cases didn’t even know existed.”"

All-in-all this is a great read worth checking out regardless of whether you're on the left or the right.

Are liberals more pro-woman? A cool graph from a natural experiment | The Incidental Economist

Interesting how the more daughters a representative has, the more likely he/she is to support women's issues compared to the mean for his/her party.

Conservatives that believe in climate change!

Tom Friedman found conservatives that believe climate change is real! Unfortunately, they live in Australia and New Zealand. Friedman makes some great points comparing Australian and Kiwi conservatives with their American counterparts:

"Indeed, to go from America — amid the G.O.P. primaries — to Down Under is to experience both jet lag and a political shock. In New Zealand and Australia, you could almost fit their entire political spectrum — from conservatives to liberals — inside the U.S. Democratic Party.

Or as Paul Quinn, a parliamentarian from New Zealand’s conservative National Party, once told a group of visiting American Fulbright scholars: “I will explain to you how our system works compared to yours: You have Democrats and Republicans. My Labor opponents would be Democrats. I am a member of the National Party, and we would be ... Democrats” as well.

For instance, there is much debate here over climate policy — Australia has a carbon tax, New Zealand has cap and trade — but there is no serious debate about climate science. Whereas in today’s G.O.P. it is political suicide to take climate change seriously, in Australia and New Zealand it is political suicide for conservatives not to."

He also touches briefly on mandatory voting in Australia and New Zealand and how it forces politicians to pander to the center rather than the extremes. It is a big reason both parties in both countries down under support climate change legislation and single-payer health care systems. Mandatory voting is a great idea that, unfortunately, will never fly in the United States.

America's Investment Problem.

Great op-ed piece by Fareed Zakaria in today's Washington Post. He pragmatically lays out the issues with the economy today, which are none of the things the Republican Party claim are the problem:

"One theory heard a lot these days is that the economy is burdened by excessive government regulation, interference and taxes. All these pressures on business, especially small business, are keeping the economy down. Cut them, the Republican candidates all say, and the economy will be unleashed. It’s a compelling picture, but the data simply do not support it."

Some of the data he presents in his column:

* A World Economic Forum survey that ranks countries on their overall economic competitiveness puts the United States fifth; the countries ahead of it, including Singapore and Finland, are tiny, with populations around 5 percent that of the United States.

* The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released a study last week measuring tax revenue as a percentage of gross domestic product. The United States came in 27th out of 30 countries.

* The World Bank study finds that the only category in which the United States is not in the top 20 is “paying taxes,” where it ranks a miserable 72.

* Only five years ago, American infrastructure used to be ranked in the top 10 by the World Economic Forum. Now we’re 24th. U.S. air infrastructure has gone from 12th to 31st, roads from eighth to 20th.

* The United States used to have the world’s largest percentage of college graduates. We’re now No. 14, according to the most recent OECD data, and American students routinely rank toward the bottom of the developed world.

* The number of engineering degrees conferred annually decreased more than 11 percent between 1989 and 2000. Even with the increase in college attendance over the past two decades, there were fewer engineering and engineering technologies graduates in 2009 (84,636) than in 1989 (85,002).

So yeah, tax cuts are the problem to fix issues in national infrastructure and education caused by a lack of tax revenue. Let me know when this alien math is supposed to work.

When Did the GOP Lose Touch With Reality? When Did Liberals Become So Unreasonable? | New York Magazine

Jonathan Chait offers a left-wing critique of liberals. Likewise, David Frum offers a right-wing crtique of conservatives. Both very long yet interesting reads.

Climate change skeptics running out of excuses...

Eugene Robinson's column today talks about a climate change skeptic that decided he would disprove all the global warming science and ended up proving it himself.

I'm guessing the Republican Party will disavow this guy pretty quickly now that he hasn't fallen in line with the ideology. The future will talk about today's Right Wing like the way the church is described today for executing Copernicus for saying the sun is at the center of our solar system. Of course, if there is a future since we may not survive it based on the science proven in the op-ed.

Jon Huntsman makes no one happy...

In an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, former Utah Governor, former US Ambassador to China, and current Republican Presidential Candidate Jon Huntsman complains about Too Big To Fail and the Dodd-Frank Act. However, he says the following, which will not be well received on the Right:

"Congress should explore reforms now being considered by the U.K. to make the unwinding of its biggest banks less risky for the broader economy. It could impose a fee on banks whose size exceeds a certain percentage of the GDP to cover the cost they would impose on taxpayers in a bailout, thus eliminating the implicit subsidy of their too-big-to-fail status. Congress could also implement tax reform that eliminates the deduction for interest payments that gives a preference to debt over equity, thus ending subsidies for excess leverage."

Hmm, a model based on one from a European country? Strike 1 says the Republican Party that prefers fake "American exceptionalism" over logic and reason any day of the week (and twice on Sunday). Impose a fee on banks that are too big? This is Socialism (as they see it) by having the government try to limit the size of a business; strike 2! Tax reform that eliminates the deduction for interest payments? Hey, that's a corporate tax increase! Strike 3!

Then he says the following:

"Once too-big-to-fail is fixed, we could then more easily repeal the law's unguided regulatory missiles, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. American banks provide advice and access to capital to the entrepreneurs and small business owners who have always been our economic center of gravity. We need a banking sector that is able to serve that critical role again. Otherwise the sector's endgame will be continental Europe—an unsustainable socialist state and the death of entrepreneurship."

This very obviously misses the point of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, whose job is akin to the Better Business Bureau and protects consumers from those de-regulated companies that are allowed to profit from taking advantage of consumers since there is no regulation to prevent them from acting unethically. So the Democrats that liked you (like the guy that appointed you Ambassador to China) won't like this op-ed piece either.

You're usually a reasonable sounding guy Jon but the policy analyst that wrote this piece for you (FYI, politicians don't write op-eds for themselves. Someone writes it for them.) clearly doesn't share your sense of reason.

"...if it weren't for the politicians, the economy would have a fighting chance."

The Economist explains how politicians are getting in the way of, rather than spurring on, a recovery:

"In America, the biggest policy-related threat is the fiscal tightening that will happen automatically in the next four months as prior stimulus expires and legislated cuts to discretionary spending bite. Barack Obama has proposed $447 billion in new or renewed stimulus to neutralise that threat, but it requires an ambitious deal in Congress’ super committee, and odds of such a deal by its November 23rd deadline are shrinking. Democrats are reportedly trying to get it to consider tax hikes immediately, and Republicans are apparently saying that puts a big deficit reduction deal out of reach."

Blue-collar Republican voters vote against their self-interest. It was only a matter of time before Republican politicians started doing the same. Old habits die hard, I guess.

The difference between NJ Republicans and the Tea Party folks

The Week lists five reasons why Chris Christie cannot win the GOP nomination. They are:

1. Christie is no hardliner on immigration
2. He has a soft spot for gun control
3. Hardliners won't like his stand on the "ground zero mosque"
4. He's got an uncomfortable Madoff connection
5. A possible clincher: He believes people are causing climate change

So aside from #4 (which, if you read the article, is a dubious connection at best), Gov. Christie would be unacceptable to the Republican base because he prefers to take his posiitons based on common sense rather than party orthodoxy? I'm no Chris Christie fan but this essentially validates Bill Maher's claim in 2009 that Democrats Have Moved To The Right and The Right Has Moved Into The Mental Hospital.

Today's Flavor of the Day: NJ Gov. Chris Christie

It seems like there is such disappointment with the Republican field right now that everyone is trying to entice New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to join the already convoluted race. "Should he or shouldn't he?" aside, Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post and Politicker NJ both weigh in -- no Christie-related pun intended (although Politicker NJ does bring it up) -- with three and five reasons, respectively, on whether or not he should run.

Additionally, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight tries to figure out how Christie differentiates from Republican frontrunners Mitt Romney and Rick Perry.

And these are just the article about this topic today. If this Republican field gets any less appealing, who knows how many calls there will be for Christie to enter the race. Stay tuned.

"Tell me lies, Tell me sweet little lies (Tell me lies, tell me, tell me lies...)"

PolitiFact does its usual fact check of the latest Republican debate. I don't know if it was because the candidates knew it would be Fox News viewers watching or if they were just having a very comfortable day but there were some whoppers in the debate.

"Oh, no, no you can't disguise..."

FactCheck.org - CNN/Tea Party Debate

Ever notice how these fact checks of the Republican debates get longer and longer after each debate?

Whose Lie Is It Anyway?

Whose lies were more outrageous than the others? Go to FactCheck.org's recap and PolitiFact's recap of the MSNBC/Politico Republican Debate to find out.

The missing pragmatism on the right

David Brooks pens another great piece calling out Republicans again from the Right on their positions of late:

"Stable societies are breeding grounds for interest groups. Over time, these interest groups use government to establish sinecures for themselves, which gradually strangle the economy they are built on — like parasitic vines around a tree.

Yet as great as the need is to streamline, reform and prune the state, that will not be enough to restore America’s vigorous virtues. This is where current Republican orthodoxy is necessary but insufficient. There are certain tasks ahead that cannot be addressed simply by getting government out of the way.

In the first place, there is the need to rebuild America’s human capital. The United States became the wealthiest nation on earth primarily because Americans were the best educated.

That advantage has entirely eroded over the past 30 years. It will take an active government to reverse this stagnation — from prenatal and early childhood education straight up through adult technical training and investments in scientific and other research. If government is “inconsequential” in this sphere, then continued American decline is inevitable."

When Republicans suddenly need government

Great column on salon.com about how the Republican Party's position on government changes when faced with a disaster. More importantly, the article points out how the party has changed today:

"...the true believers who make up today’s GOP base probably are more sympathetic to [Texas Congressman Ron] Paul’s claim that "we just don’t have the money" for federal disaster relief than they are to [New Jersey Governor Chris] Christie’s statement that "your No. 1 goal as governor in a situation like this is the saving of human life -- and everything else is secondary."

This underscores a serious political problem for the Obama-era Republican Party. It used to be that GOP elected officials had some wiggle room when it came to balancing the demands of their base with the imperatives of keeping the broader public happy. This was important because the general public has some very mixed feelings when it comes to the role of government. While conservative rhetoric about government being bloated, wasteful, inefficient and unnecessary is quite popular, so are most big ticket government programs and services. Republicans have learned this in the past when they’ve bent too far toward pleasing their base -- think of Newt Gingrich’s attack on Medicare in 1995 or George W. Bush's planned Social Security overhaul in 2005.

But the wiggle room is basically gone, and today’s GOP base demands absolute ideological purity from its leaders. It’s no longer enough for them to campaign on generic anti-government rhetoric."

Pataki website shows hints of presidential run

Uh oh. Here comes trouble.

Schumpeter: American idiocracy | The Economist

Great blog post in The Economist chastising Washington for their handling of pretty much everything over the past few years. Here's a part on why there may not be any hope:

"Optimists argue that S&P’s decision may act as a wake-up call. Yet in Washington it is being treated as another battle cry, with Republicans raging about “the Obama downgrade” and Democrats railing against “tea-party terrorists”. The roots of America’s current polarisation are distressingly deep. The parties have reorganised themselves along ideological lines, as white conservatives have abandoned the Democrats and northern liberals the Republicans. The ideological factions have built mighty propaganda machines stretching from Washington think-tanks to the studios of Fox and MSNBC. And ideologues have resorted to previously taboo weapons, such as the threat of default.

This ideological civil war has led to the marginalisation of corporate America. In the Republican Party country-club types have been elbowed aside by Rush Limbaugh listeners. In the Democratic Party the business-friendly centrists who flourished under Bill Clinton have been sidelined by Ivy League intellectuals and trade-union and minority activists."

Avoirdupois

Aside from giving a great SAT word (avoirdupois), Ross Douthat also gives us his reasons why Chris Christie would be a better candidate than Rick Perry and Mitt Romney:

"What Perry doesn’t have, though, is the kind of moderate facade that Americans look for in their presidents. He’s the conservative id made flesh, with none of the postpartisan/uniter-not-a-divider spirit that successful national politicians usually cultivate.

Imagine if the Democratic Party nominated a combination of Al Franken and Nancy Pelosi for the presidency, and you have a sense of the kind of gamble Republicans would be taking with Perry. And even if that gamble worked, little in his record suggests that he’s prepared to preside over a polarized country, or negotiate his way through a divided Washington."