USA Presidential Politics - 2008

[Daddy B]

Hillary's a dodo?

[ryberg]

Originally Posted by roni

We'll be able to do a direct comparison of Obama's general election totals to Bill Clinton's in 1992 in November.

Comparing primary vote share with general election vote share is not exactly an exercise in legitimate comparisons.

The three primaries noted by the author, those had different levels of openess to non-Democratic registered voters, did they not?

Hillary Clinton doesn't seem to have a problem with it. In fact the entire electability argument she's been making for some time now seems to rest fundamentally on it being a legitimate comparison, as far as I can see, right down to the "hard-working Americans, white Americans . . . broader base" comment the other day.

(Edit: Well not entire, sorry, as she does also cite polling results not related to a particular vote or contest. Sorry for the oversight. However I take those as being significantly less important in her view than the voting results on the whole.)

On the latter question, as I say, I don't think the match is perfect, but it certainly seems more logical to see a similarity between Obama's and Bill Clinton's degree of success (if you call it that, at just under 40%) with the white vote than to argue argue that there's no relation and that Obama can't win with such a base when Bill Clinton did (which seems to be Hillary Clinton's approach, here).

And yes, of course, Jacko, Mel and many others have commented on such about the campaign! My comment wasn't to try to lay claim to such thinking, but rather to acknowledge that I had also thought such things despite being an Obama supporter and complaining a lot about the campaign, you see.

Steve

[MikeW]

It's Mothers Day, give her a break.

[ryberg]

Originally Posted by MikeW

It's Mothers Day, give her a break.

Well happy Mothers' Day to Hillary Clinton. She seems to have done a fine job despite the difficulties in their situation of raising her daughter.

Steve

[Jacko]

Originally Posted by ryberg

..........................
And yes, of course, Jacko, Mel and many others have commented on such about the campaign! My comment wasn't to try to lay claim to such thinking, but rather to acknowledge that I had also thought such things despite being an Obama supporter and complaining a lot about the campaign, you see.

Steve

Well, I certainly wasn't trying to suggest you did....can one actually "lay claim" to a certain way of thinking anyway...and if they did, would it matter to anyone?

My initial comment there was not about you...it was about melliedee.

And I was thinking some more about your concern here...isn't the ultimate poll the primary election result? Don't feel so bad.

Originally Posted by ryberg

However, on your first point, there, you may be right, but note that the poll referenced was one of likely Democrat voters. So maybe I should edit the phrase of mine you bolded to read, "she's simply more accepted without question as a serious candidate for leading the country as a woman (even) by Democrats than he is as a black man." But I'm not sure that makes me feel much better about the situation!!! If anything, worse...

[Just Lucky]

I thought this article in the NYT about demographic changes in the electorate interesting. I've read some of this before somewhere. I noted they singled out my and roni's communities. Maybe were famous?

The buzz these days is that American politics may be entering a “postpartisan” era, as a new generation finds the old ideological quarrels among baby boomers to be increasingly irrelevant. In reality, matters are not so simple. Far from being postpartisan, today’s young adults are significantly more likely to identify as Democrats than were their predecessors. Along with colleagues at the Brookings and Hoover institutions, we recently completed a comprehensive study of the nation’s polarization. Our research concludes not only that the ideological differences between the political parties are growing but also that they have become embedded in American society itself.....Most strikingly, political polarization has become akin to political segregation. You are less likely to live near someone whose politics differ from your own. It’s well known that fewer states are competitive in presidential races than in decades past. We find similar results at the county level. In 1976, only 27 percent of voters lived in landslide counties where one candidate prevailed by 20 points or more. By 2004, 48 percent of voters lived in such counties.
What accounts for the decline of ideologically mixed localities? Bill Bishop, a journalist, and Robert Cushing, a sociologist, who have studied this issue, stress that the age of “white flight” to the suburbs is over. Instead, during the past two decades, many whites have moved to one group of cities and many blacks to another. Meanwhile, young people have deserted rural and older manufacturing areas for cities like Austin and Portland. Places with higher densities of college graduates attract even more, so that the gap between such communities and less-educated areas widens further. Zones of high education, in turn, produce more innovation and enjoy higher incomes, generating communities dominated by upper-middle-class tastes. Lower-educated regions, by contrast, tend to be more family-oriented and more faithful to traditional authority.
Not surprisingly, this demographic sorting correlates with a widening difference in political preferences. What’s more, according to Bishop and Cushing, once a tipping point is reached, majorities tend to become supermajorities. This is consistent with the findings of recent political science and social psychology: individuals in the minority of their group tend to shift their views toward the majority, while members of the majority become more extreme in their views. In such circumstances, discussions within groups often intensify, rather than moderate, the underlying polarization.
Our study shows that this geographical sorting worsens polarization in several ways. When counties become more homogeneous, it becomes harder to use redistricting to create more competitive Congressional districts. (Recent research indicates that gerrymandering accounts for, at the very most, one-third of noncompetitive districts in the House of Representatives.) When states become more homogeneous, presidential campaigns begin by conceding a large number of contests to the opposition, disheartening their supporters in those states and increasing the majority’s electoral advantage. Polarization feeds on itself.
..

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/ma...=1&oref=slogin

[Jacko]

Originally Posted by Just Lucky

I thought this article in the NYT about demographic changes in the electorate interesting. I've read some of this before somewhere. I noted they singled out my and roni's communities. Maybe were famous?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/ma...=1&oref=slogin

Hmmm...I must say that articles like these, sometimes sound to me so over-analytical to the point of suspicion....I wonder about statements like these..

Zones of high education, in turn, produce more innovation and enjoy higher incomes, generating communities dominated by upper-middle-class tastes. Lower-educated regions, by contrast, tend to be more family-oriented and more faithful to traditional authority.

Does this intend to mean that higher educated, higher income people are less family oriented?

While mostly agreeing with the opening premise and fully agreeing with the conclusion as summarized here...

Because politics is a contact sport, hard-hitting partisan competition is unavoidably part of the game. A party system that differentiates sharply between alternatives has virtues, not the least being that it engages more voters, offers clearer choices and enhances accountability. But hyperpartisan politics also do damage, not least to public trust and confidence in government — and many Americans understandably yearn for less polarization. Because the underlying structure of our politics remains so deeply divided, the 2008 election may not requite their wish

........as I read the article, especially the middle part, I was thinking a great deal about Jabberwocky and horsepucky. Too many pundits, think tanks and pollsters with too much money and not enough productive and relevant things to do.

[Just Lucky]

Originally Posted by Jacko

Hmmm...I must say that articles like these, sometimes sound to me so over-analytical to the point of suspicion....I wonder about statements like these..

Zones of high education, in turn, produce more innovation and enjoy higher incomes, generating communities dominated by upper-middle-class tastes. Lower-educated regions, by contrast, tend to be more family-oriented and more faithful to traditional authority.

Does this intend to mean that higher educated, higher income people are less family oriented?

While fully agreeing with the opening premise and the conclusion...as summarized here...

Because politics is a contact sport, hard-hitting partisan competition is unavoidably part of the game. A party system that differentiates sharply between alternatives has virtues, not the least being that it engages more voters, offers clearer choices and enhances accountability. But hyperpartisan politics also do damage, not least to public trust and confidence in government — and many Americans understandably yearn for less polarization. Because the underlying structure of our politics remains so deeply divided, the 2008 election may not requite their wish

........as I read the article, especially the middle part, I was thinking a great deal about Jabberwocky and horsepucky. Too many pundits, think tanks and pollsters with too much money and not enough productive and relavent things to do.

Maybe.

There are more areas which vote almost one party only with a tendency to lean either further to the left or right. That is not only according to this article but others I've read. In my neighbourhood one would very seldom see a Republican yard sign. However there are a number of houses within a few blocks of me which have had anti-war signs up for years.

The suburb to the north of me is just the opposite, and may be one of the reasons I think the demographic changes in the article are relevant.

I did enjoy your criticism. Of course, liberals don't love their children or their mamas.

[Jacko]

Originally Posted by Just Lucky

Maybe.

There are more areas which vote almost one party only with a tendency to lean either further to the left or right. That is not only according to this article but others I've read. In my neighborhood one would very seldom see a Republican yard sign. However there are a number of houses within a few blocks of me which have had anti-war signs up for years.

The suburb to the north of me is just the opposite, and may be one of the reasons I think the demographic changes in the article are relevant.

I did enjoy your criticism. Of course, liberals don't love their children or their mamas.

I was just thinking that polls and pundit predictions seem to be much less accurate this year than I have seen in the past... This would seem to indicate to me that what we think we may know about the electorate, remains more a work in progress this year, than it has been in years past.

8 years of extremely "polarizing" leadership under GW, his resulting extremely low approval ratings, the normal political pendulum swing (each of these factors causing complete disarray in the Republican party ranks) and the 30-40 year pendulum "millennial makeover" talked about recently on the NewsHour here, seems to me to be driving a good deal of confusion into the pundit's and think tank's analysis resulting in a breakdown in their traditional abilities to predict outcomes as accurately as they had in the past...perhaps not.......

...and we do love our children and our mama's despite what they say....

[Just Lucky]

Originally Posted by Jacko

I was just thinking that polls and pundit predictions seem to be much less accurate this year than I have seen in the past... This would seem to indicate to me that what we think we may know about the electorate, remains more a work in progress this year, than it has been in years past.

8 years of extremely "polarizing" leadership under GW, his resulting extremely low approval ratings, the normal political pendulum swing (each of these factors causing complete disarray in the Republican party ranks) and the 30-40 year pendulum "millennial makeover" talked about recently on the NewsHour here, seems to me to be driving a good deal of confusion into the pundits and think tanks analysis resulting in a breakdown in their traditional abilities to predict outcomes as accurately as they had in the past...perhaps not.......

...and we do love our children and our mama's despite what they say....

I've said this before, but I think much of the demographic modeling is in error.

I haven't quite decided whether or not to start a re-education camp for pundits.

My dog thinks I don't love him because I don't buy him steak.

[Jacko]

Originally Posted by Just Lucky

I've said this before, but I think much of the demographic modeling is in error.

I haven't quite decided whether or not to start a re-education camp for pundits.

My dog thinks I don't love him because I don't buy him steak.

You see? That's what I am talking about!

[ryberg]

Either of you guys read that Urban Archipelago essay (really sort of an attitude piece or manifesto) I posted about some time back? Just Google those 2 words if you didn't and you want to. Seems very relevant.

Steve

[Jacko]

Originally Posted by ryberg

Either of you guys read that Urban Archipelago essay (really sort of an attitude piece or manifesto) I posted about some time back? Just Google those 2 words if you didn't and you want to. Seems very relevant.

Steve

I feel.....well ..a good deal better after reading that...especially out loud.

Sounds a lot like Bill Maher.

It is kinda the anti-Obama approach to dealing with things though isn't it?

[ryberg]

I just thought it was very entertaining.

Steve

[Just Lucky]

Originally Posted by Jacko

You see? That's what I am talking about!

No matter how many times I try and tell my dog how much better it is for the for the entire world that we eat grains rather than red meat, he still maintains a strong desire for red meat.

He is also less than egalitarian. For example, he may be a speciesist. He sees little value in having an inclusive yard. He is quite vociferous about cats and squirrels even getting near his yard!

In addition I am beginning to suspect him of right wing tendencies. Perhaps he'd fit in better in one of those suburbs in Steve's urban archipelago except he refuse to get a job.

Typical Austin slacker.