FLEX YOUR HEAD

Posted on | by Ed

It's a good day when I can introduce talk of polling with Minor Threat lyrics.

If you need to crystallize contemporary presidential politics you could do worse than pointing to the recent (9/10-9/11) Newsweek/Princeton survey questions about Sarah Palin:

"Based on what you have seen or heard about Sarah Palin so far, please tell me whether or not you think each of the following phrases describes Palin. What about [see below]? Does this describe Palin, or not?"
"Has taken on her own party to fight corruption in the Alaska state government"
"Has a record of opposing wasteful earmarks or 'pork barrel' government spending"
"Shares your views on the abortion issue"
"Shares your views about environmental policy and climate change"

Keep in mind, this poll is asking Americans (and we know how much substantive political information the man-in-the-street has) questions about someone they had never heard of five days prior. In short, aside from the abortion issue – on which her position was made front and center – an individual would have to be a voracious political junkie to answer any of these questions with information beyond the campaign PR that accompanied her nomination.

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This reduces the system to the worst, most cynical brand of Newspeak: just introduce her as Sarah the Reformer and it'll stick more often than not.
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Sure, that strategy punts on the 25% of the population who will do some research to determine the veracity of that claim, but that's an acceptable consequence of firmly planting the idea in the remaining 75%. Don't bother finding a candidate who is a reformer or a feminist or whatever.
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Just nominate whoever you want and stick the label on 'em.

The question, in essence, is not asking "Do you think Sarah Palin fights corruption?" What the folks at Princeton and Newsweek are really asking (probably unwittingly) is "Of the marketing slogans hurled at you over the past week relative to Sarah Palin, which ones managed to stick?"

N.B. the Red Flag Polling No-No of prompting responses with information embedded in the questions. If they asked "What word comes to mind when I say Sarah Palin?" I wonder how many people would say "reformer?" On the other hand, I don't need to wonder how many will agree when the question is phrased, "Sarah Palin may be a reformer. Do you think she is?"

THINGS I COULDN'T MAKE UP

Posted on | by Ed | 3 Comments on THINGS I COULDN'T MAKE UP

So of all the hypotheticals being thrown around during the General Election season, my favorite thus far was the friend who asked me "What happens if McCain dies before the election?" That's an obscure, interesting question to which I respond with another question – which election? The popular vote and the formal vote of the Electoral College are about six weeks apart, meaning that the correct response depends very much on when the nominee/candidate dies. And, believe it or not, there is precedent here.

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Seriously. I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.

If McCain/Obama died tomorrow, the candidates would be replaced according to the rules of their respective parties. For the Republicans, Rule #9 of the party bylaws states:

(The RNC) is hereby authorized and empowered to fill any and all vacancies which may occur by reason of death, declination, or otherwise of the Republican candidate for President of the United States or…Vice President…as nominated by the national convention, or the Republican National Committee may reconvene the national convention for the purpose of filling any such vacancies.

Assuming that they would not go through the logistical nightmare of re-staging the national convention, the RNC leadership would hold a meeting (with one week of public notice required) and make the call. Shooting from the hip, I imagine that the committee would choose someone based on name recognition and ability to foster a sympathy vote. Given that Sarah Palin isn't even allowed to talk to reporters, I doubt they'd thrust her into the captain's chair. A recycled name (Giuliani, Thompson, etc) would likely get the call.

For the Democrats, their charter describes a similar process. The Chairperson (in this case, Howard Dean) has the sole power to convene the National Committee and fill a void on a "National ticket." An Obama death would almost certainly be followed with the nomination of Hill-dawg, retaining Biden for continuity.

This has never happened. A candidate has never responded to a nomination by dying before the general election. The same cannot be said of responses to the election itself.

1872 was not a good year for Democrats (more accurately, 1860 to 1932 were not good years for the Democrats). In that year the party was literally unable to scrape up a nominee to run against incumbent Republican and most-popular-man-in-America Ulysses S. Grant. For shits and giggles, newspaper magnate Horace Greeley ran on the entirely made-up "Liberal Republican" ticket. Content to allow some eccentric millionaire to waste his own money rather than the party coffers, the Democratic Party simply endorsed Greeley's kamikaze run.

Predictably, Grant trounced his token opponent, although under the circumstances Greeley's 43% of the popular vote wildly exceeded expectations.

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Then Horace decided to die on November 29, weeks after the election but before electors cast their votes in early December. The Democratic electors, unconstrained by rules, scattered their votes among Thomas Hendricks of Indiana (future VP under Grover Cleveland) , Greeley's running mate B.G. Brown, and Georgia Governor Charles Jenkins.

That the dead candidate lost the election took much of the pressure off of the process; it really didn't matter for whom the Democratic electors voted. What if the victorious candidate died? The default option for electors would be the Vice President-Elect, but note well that this is not required. Electors could pick anyone, and in fact that is exactly how the system was originally intended to operate. Some very, very strange things could happen, and Americans could end up with a President who wasn't even a candidate at any point in the election. Or someone who was a candidate but got tossed on the reject pile.

The example of 1872 reminds us that, unbeknownst to most Americans, nearly any electoral oddity we can imagine (and disregard as improbable) happened at some point in the 19th Century.
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THE GHOST OF SPIRO AGNEW

Posted on | by Ed | 8 Comments on THE GHOST OF SPIRO AGNEW

Among the political figures to whom Sarah Palin has been compared, Spiro T. Agnew is conspicuously absent. This is unsurprising from the GOP's perspective, as he resigned in disgrace because of the basest forms of corruption during his pre-VP political career (it's a common misconception that he went down with Watergate, but he was a felon without Nixon's help). On the other hand, his absence from the narrative is suprising given that Palin's nomination is a spitting image of Agnew's out-of-nowhere appearance on the national scene four decades ago. The two politicians are eerily similar and the scenario surrounding their nomination is downright identical: choose a neophyte who isn't qualified to run a kindergarten class and then turn the election into a pitched moral battle pitting Good Reg'lar Folk against that condescending liberal media.

Karl Rove has accurately opined that the Obama campaign forgets that its opponent is McCain, not Palin. That said, McCain needs to remember that he is running against Obama. Without that reminder, one would walk away from this race with the impression that he is running against the media. Scoring points off the tsunami of criticism directed at Palin is the campaign's newest strategy. But they didn't invent it.

This technique was pioneered by none other than Spiros Anagnostopoulos, spiritual godfather of the Liberal Media narrative (see Tom Lehmann's "The eyes of Spiro are upon you" from The Baffler). He was the suprise choice as Nixon's running mate after just 18 months as the Governor of Maryland. Before that his political experience consisted of four years as a shockingly corrupt mayor. Sound familiar yet? Like Palin, the Nixon campaign used its nominee as little more than a prop to inflame populist sentiments about "liberal elites" of whom the media are the living, omnipotent embodiment.


"I'm so Greek, it hurts."

The cultural myth of the liberal media was in its infancy in the 1960s and its proponents loved how Agnew was greeted with incredulity, sarcasm, and open hostility. How, the media wondered, can this corrupt hack with zero experience be a heartbeat away from the White House? Relying on every tired trick from Huey Long-style anti-intellectual populism, the GOP used this hostility to its advantage. It gave Agnew a believable martyr complex and plenty of appeal among empathetic voters. Attacking Agnew for his ignorance and inexperience was an attack on the Average Man. The conservative Southern voters Nixon so badly wanted had no trouble identifying with Spiro: "We too hate those know-it-alls, those east coast elites, those college professors who tell us we're wrong when we lynch negroes and mandate creationism."

Sarah Palin's interview with Charlie Gibson is the McCain campaign's effort to reanimate Spiro's corpse. In the interview, Palin was unable to answer a question about the Bush Doctrine because…well, she doesn't know what it is. With five years' teaching experience at a Big Ten school, my experience is that the average college sophomore can explain it. That someone who expects to be the VP cannot is front-page news, right? No, the story from that interview was not "PALIN UNABLE TO ANSWER HIGH SCHOOL-CALIBER FOREIGN POLICY QUESTION." The story is the media itself: "LOOK HOW MEAN CHARLIE GIBSON WAS TO OUR QUEEN." Palin must have looked bad because the media made her look bad, not because she doesn't know her ass from a tea kettle. That is Spiro's legacy: the story is not that a woman who wants to be one step from Commander in Chief is thunderingly stupid and has an infantile grasp of basic foreign policy concepts (no wonder all those reporters on her plane aren't allowed to talk to her). The story is that Charlie Gibson sneered at her. Of course the voters McCain-Palin is targeting can empathize – they too are ignorant of facts and details, they too have received that sneer. Thus a vote for McCain is a bold act of rebellion, an ego-boosting "fuck you" to the fancy book-learnin' crowd. No "damage control" is necessary – the whole point is for Americans who don't know shit to bond with one of their own.

Agnew is watching this from his recliner in hell and smiling. He channels Tom Joad, reminding all of his fellow Republicans: Wherever the media embarrass a talentless right-wing hack, I'll be there. Wherever two or more gather in my name, searching for ways to divert attention from lousy candidates, I'll be there. Wherever "regular folk" flip on Fox News in search of a candidate who reminds them of themselves – biased, ignorant, provincial in the extreme, and full of opinions unsupported by facts but which feel true – I'll be there.

FOR THE OHIOANS

Posted on | by Ed | 1 Comment on FOR THE OHIOANS

Since the GOP has literally created an industry centered on making sure people (young, brown, or poor ones, anyway) can't vote, I think it is important for Ohioans to realize that a failure to produce certain forms of identification does not preclude voting.

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According to our friends at the Franklin County (Columbus) Board of Elections, state law mandates:

Voters must bring identification to the polls in order to verify identity. Identification may include current and valid photo identification, a military identification, or a copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document, other than this reminder or a voter registration notification that shows the voter's name and current address. Voters who do not provide one of these documents will still be able to vote by providing the last four digits of the voter's social security number and by casting a provisional ballot. Voters who do not have any of the above forms of identification, including a social security number, will still be able to vote by signing an affirmation swearing to the voter's identity under penalty of election falsification and by casting a provisional ballot.

Note that, aside from the list of acceptable ID being far more expansive than you've been led to believe, voters without any identification can still vote provisionally via affirmation. I don't have a list of 50 states' laws in front of me, but nearly every state has provisional balloting rules which require little more than an affidavit that a voter is not lying about his or her identity.

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In short, someone who tells you that you cannot vote is lying as long as you are registered.
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Oh, and no matter how actively involved in politics you happen to be, there's still a decent chance that you're not properly registered at your current address. Do it now.

2008 SENATE RACES, PART IV: SAFEBUTS

Posted on | by Ed

We've done the uncompetitive seats and the open/toss-up races. All that remain are the safebuts – seats for which assertions of safety are immediately followed by "but…." This small group of races are not what we could call competitive. Nor are they uncompetitive. Think of them as the sasquatches of American politics, the missing link between man and ape. I'll let you determine which primate represents which party.

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  • NE Open (Hagel retirement): Nebraska's conservative. Scott Kleeb is a good Democratic candidate for a plains state. I like him. But Mike Johanns, the former Governor, seems like he will be too much for a rookie to handle. A weaker Republican might be in trouble, but if the queen had a dick I suppose she might be the king. In a year that favors Democrats this is potentially a little competitive, but a whole lot would have to go right for Kleeb (and a lot wrong for Johanns) to make it close. Call it for Johanns with a 1% chance of Kleeb prevailing and a 15-20% chance that he causes the GOP a few sleepless nights.

  • Mitch McConnell (KY): McConnell is another guy who should be safe by a mile, but…well, people just don't seem to like him very much. I suppose that is the harvest of being a mean, partisan bastard all of one's political life. He has under 50% approval in his state and can't crack 50% in polling against war vet Steve Lunsford (although McConnell is consistently ahead in said polls). McConnell has the upper hand but this is going to be a lot closer than anyone expects of one of the highest-profile Senators. The guy in charge of making sure other Republican Senate candidates win better watch out for his own ass.
  • Elizabeth Dole (NC): Governor Mike Easley proved that Democrats can win statewide races in NC, although he politiely declined to give up the statehouse to battle Dole. Challenger Kay Hagan is the clear #2 in this race, but there has been enough variance in polling and signs of hope from the DNC to suggest that a massive investment of resources could put this in play. Worth it? Probably not. It's important to note, though, that North Carolina is changing more rapidly than any state east of the Mississippi – especially the high-tech area and PhD factory known as "The Triangle." As the blue menace creeps down the coast and claims Virginia, North Carolina could become competitive within 10 years. But right now Dole is likely to be OK.

  • Susan Collins (ME): George W. Bush's bestest friend in the Senate might seem to be in trouble in a state Kerry won by 9%. The reality of New England's strange political schizophrenia argues otherwise. Rep. Tom Allen is as strong a statewide Democratic challenger as Maine can produce in this era, so if he fails to seriously test Collins then both she and Olympia Snowe (who beat a token challenger by 35% in 2006) can safely be considered incumbents-for-life.
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    Essentially, these are the "Oh, Shit" races for the GOP. If November rolls around and they are legitimately worried about any of these, they're in big trouble. These are races that only become competitive when everything has gone wrong for one party and everything went right for the other.

    If that sounds familiar, well, that was 2006 – an election night that saw Republicans sweating out a Senate race in Virginia, losing 3 House seats in Indiana, and seriously contemplating the possibility of losing a House race in Wyoming. The GOP is clearly in a transitional period and, unfortunately, sometimes a 1994-style thrashing is necessary before the ship can get pointed in the right direction again.

    • LE SYSTEM D

    Posted on | by Ed | 10 Comments on LE SYSTEM D

    There is a phrase used among chefs which, like so much of culinary culture, has its origins in France during the Escoffier era: le system 'd'. The phrase loses some of its meaning in English, as the "D" refers to a word, débrouillard, with no direct translation. It can be either an adjective or a noun, roughly meaning adept at handling unexpected situations in stride, often by improvising a solution. The closest English equivalent would involve invoking MacGyver. That man is débrouillard.

    Turning to System D means jury-rigging a solution. To a chef this means reacting quickly when bad things happen at the worst (busiest) time without breaking the flow of the kitchen.
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    Out of spinach? Use arugula. Deep fryer crapped out? Throw a pot on a burner and get to work.
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    Twice as many guests at the banquet as anticipated? Fluff out the portions with filler, just don't make it too obvious.
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    Chefs take pride in this sort of thing, seamlessly circumventing roadblocks with customers none the wiser.

    Maybe it's a male thing, but I believe most of us take pride in putting System D into action – opening a locked car door with a coat hanger, plugging a leak with gum, fixing something with duct tape, and so on. I had a System D moment with my dissertation this evening – a very complex problem with a laughably low-brow solution. I dare not put it in writing, lest it come back to haunt me in the future, but I can say with great pride that I am quite débrouillard when it comes to spatial analysis of political behavior. No one else cares, of course, but the whole point of System D is the pride in knowing that you are more clever than the obstacles in your path.

    And to impress MacGyver. Assuming he reads this, regale him (and me) with your finest System D stories in the comments.

    WHAT WE'VE LEARNED

    Posted on | by Ed | 10 Comments on WHAT WE'VE LEARNED

    It is a rite of passage for major world leaders to tour Auschwitz and other Holocaust-related sites during visits to continental Europe; George W. Bush did in 2003. His father, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, and other American presidents have made similar pilgrimages of contrition during or after their terms in office. George W., in fact, enjoyed it so much he went back a second time. These visits are as regular as they are pre-scripted, involving the usual combination of somber photo-ops, Formal Apologies, and earnest resolutions that these tragedies will happen Never Again.

    The actual lessons leaders, nations, and people choose to take from their visits to Holocaust sites, in stark contrast to their solemn rhetoric, are shockingly superficial. If the lesson to be learned from the Holocaust is that nations should not elect leaders with toothbrush mustaches and swastika armbands, then we have learned it quite well. This terrible thing happened, and it serves as a reminder that we shouldn't elect Nazis.
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    What neither George W. Bush nor most other Americans acknowledge is the actual lesson – that the Holocaust is an extreme example of what happens when societies, governments, and people decide to scapegoat, legislate against, and ostracize people based on political, religious, ethnic, or lifestyle differences.

    No, instead we remind ourselves: Hitler bad, Nazis bad, "freedom" prevents Hitler and Nazis.

    As cheapened, exploited, and distorted as the Holocaust has become, I can only imagine what the 10th, 20th, or 50th anniversaries of 9-11 are going to look like. Right now it has been seven years since that day, and what have we learned?

    For most Americans, it seems that the lesson was Muslims are Violent and They Are Trying to Kill Us. The lesson is that They must be stopped. The lesson is that there is no lesson, just an evil, fanatical enemy to be destroyed before They destroy us.

    The real lesson is that times like these test the resolve of nations (and their people) and if we respond by becoming what our enemies have always accused us of being, we have lost a lot more than two iconic buildings and 2,752 human lives.
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    While the superficial lessons abound today and have done so for seven years, we patiently wait for our political leaders, media, and neighbors to indicate that they have learned anything at all from this event that so dominates their worldview. I am not holding my breath.

    BREAK GLASS IN CASE OF EMERGENCY

    Posted on | by Ed | 8 Comments on BREAK GLASS IN CASE OF EMERGENCY

    I have turned over too many plausible tie scenarios in the Electoral College (play around here) to neglect looking beyond Election Day to our eminently logical contingency procedures.

    Short answer, if you want to skip the next few paragraphs: in case of a tie, Obama wins.
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    The long answer is that elections not decided in the Electoral College are decided in the House. But members do not vote – states do. This is called the Unit Rule. Each state's delegation to the House meets and casts a single vote.
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    We expect that this takes place along party lines within the states, i.e. Indiana has 5 Democrats and 4 Republicans, and hence Indiana's 1 vote presumably goes to Obama.
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    The incumbent Congress, not the folks who get elected in November, make the call (see comments for correction: incoming Congress decides). Right now, here is how our state delegations break down:

    Republican (21): AL, AK, DE, FL, GA, ID, KY, LA, MI, MO, MT, NE, NV, NM, OH, OK, SC, TX, UT, VA, WY

    Democrat (27): AR, CA, CO, CT, HI, IL, IN, IA, ME, MD, MA, MN, MS (!!!), NH, NJ, NY, NC, ND, OR, PA, RI, SD, TN, VT, WA, WV, WI

    Split (2): AZ, KS

    The scenario, even assuming AZ and KS throw their support to McCain, clearly favors Obama. The GOP, in response, will suddenly develop a very principled stance (unrelated to the fact that standard unit voting leads to their defeat) in favor of state Congressional delegations voting in accordance with the popular vote in their states. This, coincidentally, would almost certainly lead to a McCain win, as the GOP excels at winning lots of states in which no one lives.

    Of course the Democrats in the House wouldn't go along with that at gunpoint, but that's not the goal. The goal will simply be to flood the talk radio airwaves with torrents of "fairness" and "disenfranchising" and "the will of the people" talk.

    I wouldn't call a tie likely, but it could happen. Among swing states, let's say IA, MN, CO, and NM go to Obama. Give McCain VA, OH, and NH and you've got yourself a tie. That, in my opinon, is entirely plausible. Accordingly I have a hard time seeing how McCain wins without sweeping the big trio of OH-PA-VA. Single-state polling isn't great, but Obama has sizeable leads in IA, NM, MN, and other supposedly competitive states that McCain would have to win if he doesn't sweep the Big Three.

    (Polling caveat: I rip on it a lot, but even if results fall within margins of error I subscribe to the belief that consistency counts. For example, Obama's lead in various Michigan polls is always within the margin of error but he is the consistent winner in poll after poll (see also: McCain in Missouri). While I wouldn't put any stock in a single poll showing one guy with a 2-point lead, twelve polls over 4 months are a different story.)