American Elections, Part 1: Personality Effects, Debt, and Stickiness

This is the beginning of an undefinedly-long and irregularly-spaced series on my analysis of state-by-state voting patterns in American Presidential elections. As the title mentions, this installment will discuss personality effects, debt, and stickiness, which will be discussed later. First, a brief overview of what data I have and how I've been manipulating it.

This started almost entirely by accident. I wanted to figure out the relationship between how high a percentage of the electorate a Presidential candidate take and how large the variance in their performance across states. To do this, I ended up copying down the state-by-state popular vote data for every state and every candidate (with approximately 1% or more of the national vote) since 1828, the start of the popular vote in earnest, from Dave Leip's elections atlas site, which is truly wonderful. Some time later, I realized that I had just created a Microsoft Excel document with the entire history of US Presidential elections on it, to the hundredth of a percent, and that this was a gold mine.

That Excel document now has fifteen worksheets in it. "Total," the first one, is what I copied directly, the vote percentages of each candidate in each state since 1828. "Democrats," "Republicans," and "Whigs," respectively, are the data for just the Democratic, Republican, and Whig candidates; no shocker there. "Total Votes" is, again rather obviously, the number of total votes cast for President in a given state in a given year; "Vote %" is the share of the total national electorate that each state had in a given year. Two others relate to an attempt by me to figure out, for instance, how many people from each era of American politics have cast their votes for Democrats in Alabama. Then comes the interesting part. "Margins" is fairly simple: it's the Democratic margin of victory in a given state in a given year, in percentage terms. Sometimes when third parties get involved things get tricky, but it's a fairly simple concept. "Relative Margins" for a given state is the Margin in that state minus the national popular vote margin. So, for instance, if Candidate D wins State X by 10% and nationally by 3%, their Relative Margin in State X is 7%. This is about seeing where the strongholds of a party are, filtering out the actual balance of the electorate. "Swing" is fairly simply defined as the change in the Margin in a state between two elections. "Trend" (and I'm taking these terms from Dave Leip's site) is the change in the Relative Margin in a state between two elections. "Rolling Average" is the average Relative Margin in a state in the five Presidential elections prior to a given year, and "Trend Adjusted" is a state's Relative Margin minus its Rolling Average. The point of Trend and Adjusted Trend is to see a) how the party strongholds are changing over time, filtering out who's winning elections, and b) to see how well each candidate did in various states relative to the approximate recent status quo heading into that election. For various reasons, which have a lot to do with personality effects, debt, and stickiness, I found that the adjustment was useful for Point b).

2012 State-Level Data

The good folks at PublicPolicyPolling, one of 2010's best pollsters, have begun a series of state polling for the 2012 cycle. In each state they're testing Obama against a standard battery of Romney, Palin, Huckabee, and Gingrich, plus occasional 'bonus' candidates in relevant states. I have checked for each of the numbers from each of the states what that poll suggests about the 2012 election, under the assumption of uniform national swing. In Britain they use UNS to go from national polls to district-level polls; here, I'm going from state-level to national-level. But then I'm going back to state-level to see how many electoral votes Obama would then win, using a likely 2010 apportionment. The takeaway? The only polls showing Obama losing are from essentially Mitt Romney's home states. Obama is leading this election.

Schadenfreude

Here's a position-by-position comparison of the current projected Yankees and Red Sox for next year. Each position is classified as toss-up, leans, likely, or strong for one team or the other; these are electoral categories, but I'm using them anyway. Deal with it. The numbers are the player's approximate average WAR per season, either since their first full season or since something like 2003 if they've been around since the 90s.

Catcher, Jason Varitek (2.0) vs. Jorge Posada (3.5): Leans Yankees. They're both old, so I think both numbers are overestimates of their worth, but there's no reason to think Posada's moreso than Varitek's.
First Baseman, Adrian Gonzalez (4.5) vs. Mark Teixeira (4.5): Leans Red Sox. Obviously, it's an exact tie, but Gonzalez is trending over the last few years (2.9, 3.8, 2.9, 7.0, 6.3), and he's going to be moving from PETCO to Fenway.
Second Baseman, Dustin Pedroia (4.5) vs. Robinson Cano (4.0): Toss-Up. Pedroia's coming back from injury, and Cano's trending, but basically they're both MVP-caliber players.
Shortstop, Marco Scutaro (2.5) vs. Derek Jeter (4.5): Toss-Up. Scutaro isn't nearly the level of player as his opponent, for their careers. But Jeter's trending... down. No reason to think that changes. Heheh.
Third Base, Kevin Youkilis (4.5) vs. Alex Rodriguez (6.0): Likely Yankees. Sorry, Youk, there's no denying it. (Though Youkilis' WAR numbers will be inflated a little by a shift to third base).
Left Field, Carl Crawford (3.2) vs. Brett Gardner (2.8): Likely Red Sox. Crawford's been in the 4.5-range the last couple of years, and with that offense behind him... yeesh.
Center Field, Mike Cameron or Jacoby Ellsbury (2.0-ish) vs. Curtis Granderson (4.0): Likely Yankees. No denying it, Granderson's a better player than the other two.
Right Field, J.D. Drew (4.0) vs. Nick Swisher (2.7): Likely Red Sox. Swisher's just not all that good, when you come right down to it.
Designated Hitter, David Ortiz (2.5) vs. Marcus Thames (0.7): Likely Red Sox. Lest you think I'm overselling Ortiz, he was worth 3.3 last year.
First Starting Pitcher, Jon Lester (5.6) vs. C.C. Sabathia (4.0): Toss-Up. Their ERA+ for the last three years are both right around 140.
Second Starting Pitcher, John Lackey (3.5) vs. A.J. Burnett (2.0): Likely Red Sox. They're both trending down, but in Lackey's case that means he was average last year; in Burnett's, it means he was sub-replacement.
Third Starting Pitcher, Josh Beckett (3.0) vs. Phil Hughes (1.0): Likely Red Sox. If it weren't for the other guys, Beckett could be an ace; indeed, he recently was their ace. Phil Hughes... yeah.
Fourth Starting Pitcher, Clay Buchholz (2) vs. ??? (0): Likely Red Sox. Andy Pettite (2.5) is said to be retiring; if so, the Yankees don't actually have a fourth starter right now. And Buchholz is trending, having been worth 5.4 in his first full season.
Fifth Starting Pitcher, Daisuke Matsuzaka (2.5) vs. ??? (0): Solid Red Sox. Again, the Yankees don't have anyone, and Matsuzaka is not a fifth starter on a normal team. Hell, he's practically be the Mets' ace until Santana got back...
Closer, Jonathan Papelbon (2.8) vs. Mariano Rivera (3.5): Leans Yankees. Yeah, well, Rivera is better than Papelbon. Worse still, he's coming off, like, his best year ever, or close, while Papelbon just had his worst. But it's worth noting that Papelbon has a higher ERA+ for his career than Rivera, and much higher than Rivera's through a similar age, and after all he's over a decade younger. So who knows?

The total projected wins using these WAR numbers are 101 for Boston, 97.5 for the Yankees. Oh, actually, that was including Pettite, so taking him out the Yankees fall to 95 wins, 6 games back. Cliff Lee is only worth a 3.0 in this algorithm, so they need two Cliff Lee-level pitchers to make up the gap. The Red Sox are better than the Yankees. This is going to be fun.

Dear Republicans

Through long December nights we talk in words of rain or snow,
while you, through chattering teeth, reply and curse us as you go.
Why not spare a thought this day for those who have no flame
to warm their bones at Christmas time?
Say Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow.

Now as the last broad oak leaf falls, we beg: consider this:
there's some who have no coin to save for turkey, wine or gifts.
No children's laughter round the fire, no family left to know.
So lend a warm and a helping hand:
say Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow.

    As holly pricks and ivy clings, your fate is none too clear.
    The Lord may find you wanting, let your good fortune disappear.
    All homely comforts blown away and all that's left to show
    is to share your joy at Christmas time
    with Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow.

Through long December nights we talk in words of rain or snow,
while you, through chattering teeth, reply and curse us as you go.
Why not spare a thought this day for those who have no flame
to warm their bones at Christmas time?
Say Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow.




(If I were to be overly literal/optimistic, I'd say the word "Lord" refers, in this case, to the American sovereign, We the People.)

Constructive Criticism

While I tend to think that the current framework for a deal is at least good enough that it should be passed if the alternative is passing nothing, I also agree with the criticism that Obama's harsh words for liberals at the end of his press conference last night were a pointless and counterproductive venting of personal frustration that is somewhat undeserved by the left anyway. But I think the left has been rather pointless and counterproductive in the way we treat Obama, and I do mean that from a strategic point of view.

When Obama makes some compromise with Republicans, we tend to say of him the following sorts of things: He has betrayed us. He's just a corporate shill after all. He doesn't actually have anything he really believes in. He's not much of a liberal after all. Etc, etc. And Hillary supporters love to mock we Obama supporters for having believed, you know, that the sky would open and the light would come down, etc.

But I at least never believed that. I knew that there was essentially no policy daylight between Obama and Clinton (and Hillary supporters should remember that now!). I supported Obama mainly because I thought he would have a better chance of winning. The entire point of "change we can believe in" was that this time, we'd actually be getting someone who would get the change done. And what we have gotten are a series of incremental measures each of which changes the country for the good in a non-negligible way, but a smaller way than could have been. Is Obama a "liberal"? Not the way I am. Is he more liberal than any President since at least Lyndon Johnson? Definitely. Is he more liberal than any Democratic nominee since at least McGovern if not Humphrey or Johnson himself? Again, yes. He is what I call an idealistic pragmatist, one who believes that the country can and should be made better but that the way to do this is by taking what you can, compromise, deal-making, politicking. He has always advertised himself as this. Yeah, maybe he was naive about how well he could get Republican support, but remember, he has needed Republican support (or Lieberman support, which is almost as bad) every day of his Presidency. And honestly, if it had worked, if the current culture of total obstruction had not taken total hold of the Republican caucus, if he had managed to be successful in his overtones toward them, we'd be in much, much better shape today.

So what should liberals say when Obama makes a disappointing deal with Republicans? We should say this: Look, Barack, we know you're trying and that your heart is in (approximately) the right place, and that you believe very strongly in the art of the possible. But this deal is not acceptable. You need leverage to drive a harder bargain from Republicans, well here it is: we can't support this current package. Improve it enough, maybe we will. If this position means that the whole deal falls apart, feel free to blame us; we're mainly from safe enough districts that we don't lose our elections because of it.

If, instead, we make criticisms like "Obama is just a tool of our corporate overlords" (which I've seen recently popping up on DailyKos), he has little or no incentive to cooperate with us. It's an irrational criticism. It is unlikely, given the fact that he's compiled the best domestic-policy record of any liberal President since LBJ, that there's very much he could do to placate it. And yeah, we have nowhere else to go; it's just true. So he has no particular incentive to cooperate with us. If we make it clear that we are not personally abandoning him, but that we are going to hold him to a high standard and in doing so we are going to strengthen his hand toward the Republicans with whom he must negotiate, then he does have an incentive to work with us. So there's plenty of blame to go around, but part of it lies with those Obama was criticizing.

The Game Theory of Deal-Making

The President has announced the framework of his deal on tax cuts, and as I see it there are now four possible outcomes:
1. The deal passes, more or less as is.
2. A stronger version of the deal passes (stronger = more liberal)
3. A weaker version of the deal passes
4. No deal passes.
What, I wonder, are the consequences of each outcome? In order of how obvious I think the answer is:

4: Everyone gets mad at everyone. Liberals are mad at Obama for giving in to Republican rhetorical points, and for failing to get UI extension, DADT repeal, the DREAM Act, etc. Republicans are mad because they don't get their tax cuts. Centrists are mad because the parties have failed to get along with each other.
3: Republicans are gleeful. Democrats are, legitimately, mad as hell, primarily at Obama.
1: Many liberals continue to be very disappointed with Obama; others think it was a pretty good deal, and not any worse than anything we had seen before from him. Republicans are probably reasonably happy.

2: Now here's the question. In this scenario, does Obama get credit? Might there be some way for him to pivot around to the front end of that strengthening effort that would get him some credit? Probably Pelosi and Reid get most of the praise from liberals, and scorn from Republicans. Would this help Obama's standing among liberals at all? Should it? If not, does he have an incentive to cooperate with liberal efforts to sweeten the deal? Should liberals make it clear that, by working the deal into a yet-better shape, Obama can win back some of our support, just to incentivize him to do so? Can we?

And more importantly... how far toward Option #2 can we push the scenario before Republicans pull out and we're back at Option #4? Do we, liberals, prefer Option #1 to Option #4? How far do we have to go toward Option #2 before we do prefer the status quo to Option #4? Is there an overlap where we and Republicans will both be happy enough about the deal to go along with it? If not, what do we do?

(My guess is that there is some room to make the deal better and keep the GOP on board, since this is the one thing they actually care about, and that ultimately Obama will dodge most, but not all, of the criticism he's come in for if the final deal ends up being significantly better than the current one. Sort of like with HCR: when we thought he had just massively bungled the whole thing, lots of liberals got really mad at him; once it passed, the active mutiny died down, but his standing with liberals, especially the liberal "elite," was noticeably diminished.)

More Mets Thoughts

Apparently the Mets and Red Sox are talking: Beltran (Boston wants) for either Daisuke Matsuzaka or Marco Scutaro (Mets want). I'd definitely do it for Matsuzaka, who would fill our pitching wants in a hurry. Scutaro would be the solution at second base. Obviously, if we trade Beltran, we move Pagan to center field and put who in right field? Nick Evans? Jason Pridie? Fernando Martinez? Daniel Murphy? Lucas Duda? All of which is a considerable trade down from Beltran. Basically, this trade makes sense iff you think that Beltran will have a year considerably below his career standards in 2011, which I'm not sure I do. I might do it for Matsuzaka, but I'm less convinced as to Scutaro.