Wired magazine just published an absolutely wrong-headed piece advocating “small group” or lottery voting systems. Why do I mention it, if it’s so bad? Because on pages 169-171 of my book, I lay out exactly why. Gosh, makes me feel prophetic. I won’t bother to repeat it here; suffice it to say that basically everything that basically everything he says in that article is exactly wrong. If you want to know more, go buy a copy of my book–or just find a local bookstore that carries it and read pages 169-171.
May 162012
The conservatives at the Times are having a good week. Today’s entry comes from Ross Douthat, who has an excellent analysis of the basic problem of the attempts to kick-start a moderate third party in the United States. To summarize: “From the (inarguable) premise that the public is wearied by the failures of the political and economic establishment, it leaped to the (preposterous) conclusion that the country is crying out for a presidential candidate who mostly represents the interests and values of exactly that same establishment.”
Now, let me take that analysis a step further. Douthat notes that the successful protest movements of the last few years, the Occupy and Tea Party movements, both came from a place of anger at the establishment. I will add that this anger was largely irrational. A lot of that anger seems to come, in both cases, from a general fear that the “American Dream” is slipping away for many Americans. For the Occupy movement, that was the fault of the 1% and big money’s control over politics. For the Tea Party, that was the fault of the increasingly insular liberal elite who are trying to over-regulate a country that they don’t truly understand. But a common refrain from everyone who is upset at government is that “they just can’t get anything done.”
So what is the solution to “can’t get anything done”? Apparently, it’s to elect radicals who refuse to compromise, and get even less done. That’s the irrational part.
See, it’s not like the Tea Party and Occupy protesters flocked towards Olympia Snowe, Lincoln Chaffee, Joe Leiberman, and Ben Nelson. They didn’t stand up and demand reasonable compromise on health care policy and fiscal reform. No, they dug their heals in, and through their weight behind the most intransigent, radical candidates that they could find.
If Americans Elect was really interested in compromise and reasonable, bipartisan reform on a variety of issues, they should be throwing whatever money and influence they have, not behind a new third party, but instead behind countering the radicalizing influences that already exist within the first two.
May 152012
David Brooks is so close to getting it right, he can almost taste it. Brooks notes that by a traditional economic analysis, Obama should be losing. The economy is bad. Public perception of the economy is bad. Public perception is that the economy is worse than it was four years ago. And people blame the president for that, at least to some extent.
Brooks credits Obama’s resilience on his “leadership style”. He invents a clever sounding narrative about the “ESPN Man”, as “postfeminist … hypercompetitive, restrained, not given to self-doubt, rarely self-indulgent.” Sorry, David, not buying it.
You want to know why Obama is ahead in the polls, despite being behind on the economy? Likability. Obama’s likability number, that is the percentage of likely voters who tell pollsters that the president is “generally likable” since becoming president, has generally hovered in the upper 50s. Last week, according to Gallup, it was up to 60%. (Romney’s was at 31%.)
What does likability mean? It gets back to something we talk about in the book. Voters tend to vote for candidates for whom they have a positive first reaction. Think of it this way: the more likable a candidate is, the harder that voters will work to try to talk themselves into voting for them. Voters like Obama, and they don’t like Romney. That means that they will look for excuses to vote for Obama and look for excuses to vote against Romney.
That internal logic, conscious or unconscious, ends up going something like this: “So yeah, the economy is bad, but maybe that’s Congress’ fault, or the fault of the big banks, or maybe Obama will get better his second term. Besides, is Romney (Romney? Really?) the kind of guy who would do better?”
From that perspective, this election isn’t a toss-up, as Brooks predicts. From that perspective, Romney is in real trouble, unless some kind of game-changer comes along to dramatically alter people’s perceptions of one or both of them.
A conventional political view of President Obama’s statement of support in favor of gay marriage would suggest that it was a very risky political maneuver. After all, polling has demonstrated repeatedly that most Americans are opposed to gay marriage–and it is always risky for the president to take a minority position in an election year, right?
But in this case, the conventional viewpoint is wrong.
This November, we can basically divide the electorate up into three groups; roughly a third of likely voters will come from each category, more or less. On the left, the liberals will vote for Obama no matter what. For the most part, these people like Obama, are disappointed that he didn’t get more done, but are so scared of how conservative the GOP has gotten that they are willing to give Obama a pass on just about anything. On the right, conservatives dislike and distrust Obama at a very deep level. American conservatives, especially evangelicals, seem willing to believe that Obama is capable of almost any “evil”, from communism to Islam to atheism to radical black nationalism. Then in the middle, the moderates tend to like Obama personally, but are dissatisfied with the economy and are willing to consider alternatives.
So let’s look at how the gay marriage announcement will play in each of these three groups.
Liberals tend to be pro-gay marriage. They have generally greeted Obama’s announcement with jubilation, and my guess is that Obama will see a sharp spike in fund-raising over the next couple of weeks.
Conservatives tend to be anti-gay marriage. But they weren’t going to vote for Obama anyway. In fact, the irony is that most of them already believed that Obama was pro-gay marriage. They are treating this announcement, for the most part, as much-ado-about-nothing.
Moderates tend to be anti-gay marriage, but not strongly so. In other words, when asked (on a poll or on a ballot) they will tend to express discomfort with gay marriage, but the issue doesn’t seem to motivate them strongly to go to the polls, give money, or really affect who they do or don’t support. Again, these are people who tend to like Obama personally–they’re just a little skittish about voting for an incumbent during a bad economy. This announcement won’t change that logic at all.
So, in other words, Obama’s announcement probably gave him more money at the cost of basically no votes. Sounds like a winner to me.
May 042012
Self-identity is complicated–even for a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) like me. I generally list myself as white or Caucasian. And I am–mostly. That is certainly how the rest of the world interacts with me–because that’s what the rest of the world assumes me to be, based on my appearance. And the majority of my ancestors came to this country from the English Isles or France. The majority… but not all.
So why do I bring this up now? Because of a controversy here in Massachusetts involving Democratic Senate Candidate Elizabeth Warren. Warren claims to be 1/32 Cherokee–she was actually born in Oklahoma, although she hasn’t lived there during her adult life. Warren isn’t an official member of the Cherokee Nation, although if that 1/32 claim is true she could be. (Native American ancestral claims can be very difficult to document, as most people who claim some Indian blood do so based on family oral histories.) But at times during her adult life, she has listed that part of her heritage on certain official documents.
Some are claiming that as false advertising, accusing her of trumping up an Indian heritage to gain preferential treatment. And yet, there is no evidence that she ever received preferential treatment because of that. And she would have never had to; women of that age are rarities in law schools, business schools, and economics departments, and her qualifications as an academic are impeccable. Moreover, there are times when I’ve listed myself as having some Native American blood–usually on medical questionnaires, but even occasionally on other documentation that allows for more than a simple “check one box” ethnicity answer. Because while I identify as white, first and foremost, I AM proud of my Native American heritage, and don’t like completely dismissing it.
I realize that some of you may be saying to yourself “but he doesn’t look Indian!” And I don’t. But I am 1/32 Chickasaw. Continue reading »
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