How To Evaluate Presidential Candidates

I think that one good thing to look at for early Presidential polls is not so much how Obama's doing against individual Republicans but the difference between his net approval ratings and his margins against various candidates. For instance, the recent Fairleigh-Dickinson poll has Huckabee at E, Romney at -1, Christie at -6, Pawlenty at -14, Gingrich at -15, and Palin at -20 against Obama. But it also has Obama with 44/48 approval numbers, a net -4. Assuming that changes in the approval ratings of incumbent Presidents will produce very similar changes in his performance against his opponents, which I think is reasonable, I think one good way to read this poll is that Huckabee is giving Obama a 4-point handicap, while Romney's giving him 5 points, Christie 10, Pawlenty 18, Gingrich 19, and Palin 24. These are the expected margins on election day if Obama's got 50/50 approval ratings by then. They're what the opposition candidates contribute to the election beyond its inherent referendum-on-the-incumbent quality. None of these Republicans is contributing less than -4. I think that's a broader trend across all polls, by the way: Obama consistently outperforms his approval numbers in the match-ups, and that probably means that yes, these candidates are all lousy. Just something to keep an eye on.

Quasi-Liveblog

This isn't really a liveblog, since I'm not updating it continuously, but it's just a series of reactions, mainly to idiotic things Republican Congressmen say:

1. These Republicans are funny when they're about to lose. I don't think they're acting differently from usual, but when they're going to lose I can let myself find their antics entertaining.
2. Floor action, hot as it sounds, is pointless and meaningless. When's the last time a Congressman changed their mind during this kind of faux-debate? The only worthwhile part is when they get rowdy, at which point it's just good fun.
3. The government's power is the people's power. That's why they call it a democracy.
4. Yes, the idea that "Washington knows better than the American people" is part of a notion that the bill ought be passed even if the populace narrowly opposes it, or even if they did overwhelmingly oppose it (which they don't). But actually, you know, that idea was one that almost every Founding Father endorsed overwhelmingly: that's why we are a "constitutional republic," as Texas now says, rather than a direct democracy. And, of course, We the People don't particularly oppose it; several recent polls show the very bill at net-popular status.
5. Somebody said that money would be taken from students to pay for health-care reform. Uhhhhmmmmmmm, let me see, of the $68 billion in student-loan savings, $9 billion will be used to pay for HCR. So $59 billion goes to Pell Grants etc. Right. Horrible deal for students. Especially since the bill also lets us students stay on our parents' insurance until the age of 27. (It's actually a bum deal for student-loan corporations, which is pretty epic.)
6. Republicans are literally booing on the House floor. Loudly. They'd be thrown out of any golf tournament for that kind of behavior.
7. If we're so socialist, how would you like it if we did something actually socialist? Theoretically, if it wanted to, the Democratic Party could've whipped up legislation last year to institute genuine national single-payer sometime this year and passed it all by ourselves. That would've been partisan socialism. That isn't what we did.
8. lol @ the guy who, denouncing partisanship, said he had never operated on a "Republican or a Democrat cancer." non-partisan FAIL.
9. Thirty-seven states are proposing legislation to "opt out" of the Obama health-care legislation if it passes. Let me know how many of those bills pass. Also, isn't this kind of like the idea of nullification? I think I remember something about a war on the issue of nullification. Which side won that again?
10. All these people bloviating about how "we're not listening to the American people" are on really shaky factual grounds. Almost every component of the bill polls above 60%, consistently. The bill itself is around a -5% net disadvantage: that's a very narrow margin. Essentially as many people want the bill as don't want it, and vastly more people want what's in the bill than don't. So stop acting all populist. And we'll see in November whether you're right about our forthcoming electoral massacre.
11. Eric Cantor: "We believe that Americans who deeply oppose shouldn't have to pay for it." Hmmmm, why is it that this logic applies for abortion but not for the death penalty or for wars? Can I say I don't want to pay for capital punishment? Or for bombing Pakistani civilians? No? Then why, exactly, do you get to say you don't want to pay for a literally constitutionally-protected procedure?
12. The most prosperous country in the history of the world? These people make ambitious claims. According to one ranking, our current standard of living in this country is the 7th-highest in the world, behind France (France! France is literally number one on this list!), Australia, Switzerland, Germany, New Zealand, and Luxembourg. France is kicking our ass, at fucking prosperity!!!!!!!! And a WSJ/Heritage Foundation study puts the US at 5th in Economic Freedom, behind Hong Kong (dirty commies!), Singapore, Ireland, and Australia. And they're wicked conservative.
13. These people are just raising stupid, dilatory points to mess stuff up. Grow up, people. And yes, I would tell the Democrats to grow up if they were in the same position and acting the same way. It's pointless and stupid.
14. You know why the bill doesn't adequately address the rising health-care premiums, Republicans? Because you, and Democrats close to you on the ideological spectrum, would object to the kinds of things that would definitely do that. Like a public option. Or single-payer.
15. Somebody said, earlier, "We could reform health care without setting the groundwork for a move to socialized medicine." Yes, we could, but it would be such a pity.
16. Rob Andrews, D-NJ, whom I believe I may have once proudly voted against, or at least rooted strongly against prior to my 18th birthday, is making a good point. What kind of country are we? Well, we should be a country that guarantees basic health to all our citizens, that's what. It's called common kindness, and it's actually a very convincing moral philosophy.
17. Circular logic: "The bill should be bipartisan. We, the minority party, are deciding to oppose it. Therefore it is not bipartisan, and is therefore bad, and we are therefore opposing it."
18. Criticizing the bill because we're passing first a Senate bill that no one much likes and then amending it immediately, and that therefore we're "passing a bill we all know is flawed," is stupid and simplistic.
19. It is impossible to have gravitas with a name like Boehner. And evidently if you are John Boehner, it is also impossible to have charisma. Or at least it doesn't happen empirically speaking.
20. Burden every job creator in our land? Hmmmmm, isn't the employer-based system kind of doing that? So you would support single-payer, taking the burden off of small businesses, Mr. Boehner? Oh, what's that? You wouldn't support that? Why am I not surprised?
21. Since when is simply saying things that are not true a valid arguing style?
22. Wait, fail. Boehner just said "Have you read the bill? Have you read the reconciliation bill? Have you read the manager's amendment?" and the gallery kept calling out, "YES! YES!". Then Boehner was like, "Hell no you haven't!" Good job, leader of the Silly Party.
23. Speaking of which, fuck John Boehner, I'm watching Python. Also, the Republican Party is henceforth the Silly Party, and the Tea Partiers are, of course, the Very Silly Party. (Python literally has a Wood Party at one point. Seriously.)
24. Pelosi. That's more like it. She's not exactly being the most rousing of speakers, but whatever. We're gonna win. And the rhetoric itself is good, though obviously not going to move a single vote. On the other hand, she's clearly pissed about the "being a woman is a pre-existing condition" thing. As she should be. Sexist bastard insurance companies.
25. Addendum to the earlier point about bipartisanship: if there are really 200 GOP amendments in the bill, then to every Republican who complains about the partisanship: shut the fuck up. Feel free to vote against the bill, although it's still kind of a dick move to amend the bill and then vote against it, but don't complain about having been shut out of the process.
26. Aaaand, here's the vote. Debate's being over, I think I'm probably done having things to say. Obama gets a lot of Accomplishment Points for this. Pelosi jumps way the fuck up my list of Best Speakers Ever; give her another decade of controlling the House and she'll be up there with Rayburn and O'Neill. Agree with Nate Silver that she deserves Person of the Year from Time Magazine. And I don't think Republicans really believe that this passage will hurt the Democrats in November.

2012 Landscape

So, I took some data from Gallup's "State of the States" report, most notably about party ID and Obama approval. What I did was take their total 2009 Obama national approval number, 57.2, and then adjust it down to 50%, with a commensurate increase in disapproval. Applying this -14.4 shift to the 2009 approval data from each state, which is admittedly a net +9 landscape since there were, evidently, 9 points of "undecided" in 2009, I got an interesting landscape.

Non-Ideological

Here's what I think Obama means when he says he's "not an ideologue" or is in favor of "non-ideological" policy making:

"The facts have a liberal bias. I don't."

That is, he wants to convey that he's not against, say, privatization because of some sort of inherent Socialistic nature but rather because it doesn't work. Well, uhhhhh.... that's actually why people have inherent socialistic natures, me included. Hey, if it works, if he can convince people that believing what you believe because you believe it is factually correct makes you not an ideologue, instead of making you an ideologue, more power to him!

Question Time

President Barack Hussein Obama is a brilliant politician. I have thought that most of the time I have been aware of him, though over the past few months my conviction has wavered. I am now returned to confidence in that opinion. The reason: his "question time" with the House Republican caucus.

Define "Blizzard"

Evidently, a blizzard must last for at least three hours to count. Fuck that. We had a temporary little blizzard here in Providence this evening, completely unexpectedly (by me), and it was awesome. Especially since I went walking through the snow clear across campus today only to discover my destination not really there, twice. (Which was actually kind of fun. Honestly.)

Here's another thing I liked about Obama's speech, and I kind of think it might be something I like about a lot of Obama's speeches. I didn't notice it at first, but some good old-fashioned hard numerical analysis revealed it and I think it's important. He doesn't use values buzzwords.

O! BA! MA!

I must say, I really, really liked the State of the Union speech. Sure, I don't agree with 100% of his policies; the spending freeze still sounds somewhat unnecessary, though they might be able to leverage it politically (I'm inclined to doubt this), and of course if I were President we'd be in many fewer wars right now. But none of that was new to this speech. My favorite line, in a sense the "thesis statement" of the whole thing, was, "I don't quit." That man giving that speech was not the kind of person who is going to settle for a world in which he can't really get anything done except for meaningless half-measured that are more in line with the opposition's worldview than his own. That was the main thing I wanted to see, and I saw it.

The State of the Union is...?

...stronger, I'd say, than most people give it credit for. The State of the President? A somewhat more complex question. All in all, though, I am excited for this speech, I think one way or another it will be a turning-point, and as an amateur political scientist at least that can't help but be fascinating.

New Foundation

Obama needs a catch-phrase. I've thought this for a while. He really does have a very ambitious domestic policy agenda, rivaling certainly that of the Great Society programs if not the New Deal (and maybe, just maybe, rivaling the New Deal as well). Every time a previous progressive President has presented such an agenda, it's had a catch-phrase. Teddy Roosevelt had the Square Deal, Franklin Roosevelt (obviously) had the New Deal, Harry Truman had the Fair Deal (they weren't great originalists, but whatever...), Kennedy had the New Frontier, and Johnson the Great Society. Other than the Fair Deal, most of these programs got enacted, and they certainly made great strides toward reshaping our society. Obama's policies are just as important and major and good (in my opinion), but he doesn't have a catch-phrase. Until now.

Massachusetts Very-Post-Mortem

My first substantive blog post! It gets to be first, even though it's a week out of date (horrors!), because I promised various people some in-depth analysis of Massachusetts, intending to do so on this blog, and then didn't get around to it for a while. So here goes. I am going to format this by asking myself a series of rhetorical questions, and then answering them, just because that's how this speech seems to be outlining itself in my head.