U.S. Politics XL--Double Down it

[lokisnow]

what I've never really understood is just how awful the democratic party must have been to not have converted Nixon's impeachment/resignation into at least 12 consecutive years of presidency. Instead they got four, and then 12 years of domination (and the beginning of the whole country being fucked over.

Reagan getting elected is basically why I think Palin has a really strong chance of getting elected. I do not think her candidacy is a joke at all, I do not think her being chosen in the primary will give Obama an easy campaign. I think she's a serious threat to win the whitehouse and it makes me mad that people seem to think dems automatically win 2012 if Palin gets the nom, that's a surefire path to defeat.

[ThinkerX]

Missed this one somehow:

9pertaining to cost of health care)

How would you stop this, short of turning America into a totalitarian state that will make Brezhnev's Soviet Union look like Denmark.

Turn that one right back at you: the cost of medical treatment in most of the rest of the 'free world' is vastly less than it is in the US. Why not take a page from their book?

[Shryke]

Can't get it through Congress.

They barely got the Bill that passed through Congress. And that bill, as pointed out above, is essentially the same as bills the REPUBLICANS have proposed before.

Like many major pieces of legislation in US history, they passed a framework now and will simply retrofit it to be better as time goes on.

The important thing though is it hits several major points that needed to be dealt with.

Shit, woodchippering "Pre-Existing Conditions" and "Rescission" as much as it does is enough of a victory.

[mcbigski]

He won by pushing the Southern Strategy, a horror that still haunts us to this day.

Keep repeating it, and it might become true eventually. In 1968 Nixon won only a portion of the South, losing 5 states and an one electoral vote in North Carolina to the Dixiecrats (Not Dixiepublicans!). In 1972 Nixon won every single state that borders Canada. Nothing terribly 'Southern' about that. Unless you think it was Nixon's appealling to Southerners that put him over the top in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Alaska etc.

To the extent Republicans appeal to racists in the South it's because they're generally not in favor of affirmative action. For 150 years, the Republican party has consistently been in favor of treating blacks more equally to whites under the law. Oh the horror.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Another good thing to point out is that the Clinton plan of the early 90's and the Dem plan of this year are pretty dramatically different, yet the right-wing hysteria is almost identical. In fact, I think you could argue that it's even more intense today, though it may just feel that way because of how much more media we have now.

Or maybe its because the Clinton plan never got past the drawing board legislatively. Obviously, the closer something gets to becoming law, the more vocal the opposition is going to become. The Clinton plan was opposed by some influential Democrats, which pretty much doomed it.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

what I've never really understood is just how awful the democratic party must have been to not have converted Nixon's impeachment/resignation into at least 12 consecutive years of presidency.

Voters were pissed about Nixon's political actions, not his substantive views on policy. Just because you may have a crooked Democrat like the former governor of Illinois doesn't mean Illinois Democrats are suddenly going to become political conservatives.

[Nymeria Sand]

While the proposed Medicare cuts in the new bill aren't nearly enough, it's amazing to see the Dems cutting Medicare and so-called stewards of financial responsibility defending Medicare so much.

The bottom line is that Gen X and Gen Y need to unite against the Baby Boomers. Medicare is something like 10% of GDP now and is projected to double by 2030 while social security stays about the same.

Unfortunately for us, the Boomers are still in charge. But our turn is coming...soon. We've literally grown up with this mess that THEY caused. Maybe we can fix it.

[TrackerNeil]

Reagan getting elected is basically why I think Palin has a really strong chance of getting elected. I do not think her candidacy is a joke at all, I do not think her being chosen in the primary will give Obama an easy campaign. I think she's a serious threat to win the whitehouse and it makes me mad that people seem to think dems automatically win 2012 if Palin gets the nom, that's a surefire path to defeat.

I think any comparison between Reagan and Palin has to take into account a few of their differences. First, Reagan did not have to enormous amount of unpopularity that Sarah Palin does; IIRC, her unfavorables are higher than those of Hillary Clinton, and that's saying something. The Palinistas love her, sure, but they aren't numerous enough to get her elected. Second, there's the issue of character. Americans will happily elect idiots and fools, it's true, but they don't elect someone they perceive as a joke, and Sarah Palin fails that test. She's leadfooted in interviews, and even Glenn Beck called her out for a lame answer. She couldn't even serve a full term as governor of a low-population state. She has feuded publicly with a late-night comedian and her daughter's baby-daddy. Reagan, on the other hand, had completed two full terms as governor of California, and presented himself in a much more dignified manner. He also spent time pre-1980 paving the way for his presidential bid by making valuable connections with various party power-brokers, whereas Ms. Palin has burned more bridges than she's built and the Republican elites, I am told, despise her. Reagan was no intellectual powerhouse, it's true, but he never came across as a reality TV show star, either.

Also, if you look at Palin's history, she has a clear record of getting herself into jobs she really can't handle and then taking the first face-saving way to the exit. That works if you're on an energy commission or maybe even as the governor of a thinly inhabited state, but in a presidential race? No way. By all accounts running for president is an ordeal, and I don't think Palin has the stomach for it. Does anyone really see Sarah Palin spending a year in Iowa, going from diner to town hall meeting to bake sale, grinding away on the campaign trail? I certainly don't. At best I think she'll flirt with the idea of running, and maybe even make a few halfhearted moves in that direction before finding some excuse to pack it in. I expect she'll say she's waiting for a clear sign from the party or some other nonsense that means nothing to nobody.

[CelticBrennus]

To the extent Republicans appeal to racists in the South it's because they're generally not in favor of affirmative action. For 150 years, the Republican party has consistently been in favor of treating blacks more equally to whites under the law. Oh the horror.

With all due respect, if you actually believe this, you have no idea what you are talking about. The Southern Stategy is well known and admitted part of Republican political history, and you are either being intellectualyl dishonest here, or simply lack a rather considerate amount of basic knowledge regarding US poltiical history over the last 50 years.

[Alcibiades]

Nixon didn't win the entire south. But you have to compare this to the "Solid South" of Democratic domination there. He did fantastically well for a Republican.

And the fact that he still won northern states doesn't show much. It was more possible back then to modulate your message for different audiences. In addition, his law and order, dog whistle politics, code words were couched in such terms as to be non offensive in northern states.

And there's plenty of racism up north too. See MLK's march through Cicero.

[BloodRider]

Why would it invalidate the sample wrt the differential?

As I said, if a poorly worded question is to blame, why the stark difference in answers?

They were all asked the same questions, why isn't this "error" systemic?

Well onthe face of it there could be a differential on how those supporters of the tea party approach and interpret such questions. That is to say the difference might be in that people who strongly support the tea baggers are also deeply suspicious of any pollsters and automatically parse these questions differently than those who strongly disagree. I think there is sufficient evidence of this on this thread given how FLOW reacted to the questions vs how you did. Point is even the social sciences need to keep their criteria tight or risk invalidating their survey.

but beyond that you also need to look at sample size. Because if strong supporters of the tea party as a sufficinetly small portion of the entire sample it doesn't take very much at all to skew the results dramatically one way or the other. In other words if you have a sample of 1000 people and 10% identify as a strong supporter of the tea party then that 20% difference is caused by all of 2 people. Which is too marginal a number to be of any real concequence.

I guess I'd like to see the number from a rigerous analysis. I still suspect that the conclusions would be much the same. You know - 'cause I'm a jackyl like that.

Unfortunately for us, the Boomers are still in charge. But our turn is coming...soon. We've literally grown up with this mess that THEY caused. Maybe we can fix it.

Here, here. Just expect a big fuck you while we are doing it. It'll be a replay of this tea bagger situation where we are on the floor scrubbing up the turf that they left all while they yell how we are doing it wrong and destroying thief beautiful floor.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

I think any comparison between Reagan and Palin has to take into account a few of their differences. First, Reagan did not have to enormous amount of unpopularity that Sarah Palin does; IIRC, her unfavorables are higher than those of Hillary Clinton, and that's saying something. The Palinistas love her, sure, but they aren't numerous enough to get her elected. Second, there's the issue of character. Americans will happily elect idiots and fools, it's true, but they don't elect someone they perceive as a joke, and Sarah Palin fails that test. She's leadfooted in interviews, and even Glenn Beck called her out for a lame answer. She couldn't even serve a full term as governor of a low-population state. She has feuded publicly with a late-night comedian and her daughter's baby-daddy. Reagan, on the other hand, had completed two full terms as governor of California, and presented himself in a much more dignified manner. He also spent time pre-1980 paving the way for his presidential bid by making valuable connections with various party power-brokers, whereas Ms. Palin has burned more bridges than she's built and the Republican elites, I am told, despise her. Reagan was no intellectual powerhouse, it's true, but he never came across as a reality TV show star, either.

Also, if you look at Palin's history, she has a clear record of getting herself into jobs she really can't handle and then taking the first face-saving way to the exit. That works if you're on an energy commission or maybe even as the governor of a thinly inhabited state, but in a presidential race? No way. By all accounts running for president is an ordeal, and I don't think Palin has the stomach for it. Does anyone really see Sarah Palin spending a year in Iowa, going from diner to town hall meeting to bake sale, grinding away on the campaign trail? I certainly don't. At best I think she'll flirt with the idea of running, and maybe even make a few halfhearted moves in that direction before finding some excuse to pack it in. I expect she'll say she's waiting for a clear sign from the party or some other nonsense that means nothing to nobody.

That's just an excellent post all around, Neil. The recent trend is for people on the left to say how dangerous she is, likely in the hopes that the GOP is stupid enough to nominate her. Reagan came to political prominence with a speech he gave on behalf of Goldwater in 1964, which he wrote himself and is probably the greatest speech ever given by a conservative politician. You can see it on Youtube, and it's not actually full of "aw shucks" and "Golly". However much folks may despise him, Palin is a pathetic imitation. She may actually win some straw polls with a plurality because she's got a core of supporters, but opposition to her even among Republicans is over 50%.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/02/11/broder-palin/

[Shryke]

That's just an excellent post all around, Neil. The recent trend is for people on the left to say how dangerous she is, likely in the hopes that the GOP is stupid enough to nominate her. Reagan came to political prominence with a speech he gave on behalf of Goldwater in 1964, which he wrote himself and is probably the greatest speech ever given by a conservative politician. You can see it on Youtube, and it's not actually full of "aw shucks" and "Golly". However much folks may despise him, Palin is a pathetic imitation. She may actually win some straw polls with a plurality because she's got a core of supporters, but opposition to her even among Republicans is over 50%.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/02/11/broder-palin/

That's the funny thing though, she DOESN'T win in most of the polls either. Even of just the GOP. She's a spotlight whore and Fox News and the rest of the media eat it up. But she hasn't got a very big support base, just a very vocal one.

On top of that, she's just not that GOOD at being a politician. She's not good in interviews, she doesn't take direction and won't stay on message and she's generally just not equipped for the circus that is a presidential campaign.

She tends to get thrown up though because .... well, who else is there? Scandals and screw-ups and the like have brutally winnowed the GOP candidate field over the last like 5-6 years.

But really, speculating about who will run in 2012 is kinda ridiculous right now. It's way too far away.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

The individual mandate in the plan sprang from a Heritage Foundation idea that was endorsed years ago by a range of conservatives and provided the backbone of the Massachusetts plan that was crafted and, until recently, heartily defended by Mitt Romney. It would be fair to describe the new act as Romneycare crossed with the managed-competition bill proposed in 1994 by Republican Sens. John Chafee, David Durenberger, Charles Grassley and Bob Dole -- in other words, as a moderate Republican plan. Among its supporters is Durenberger, no one's idea of a radical socialist.

This is pure cherry picking among isolated Republicans who happened to vary on this one issue. Massachusetts is arguably the most liberal state in the country, so pointing to a Massachusetts plan as evidence that a similar federal plan is not liberal is just strange. Romney was blasted in the GOP primary in 2008 precisely because too many Republicans thought he was too liberal, and he was beaten over the head with the Massachusetts plan repeatedly by the vast majority of Republicans, who didn't like it any more than they like Obama's plan. Basically, the excuse his supporters used was "well, he was acting as governor of the most liberal state in the union and would be more conservative as President." It didn't wash in 2008, and even a conservative Mormon friend of mine who really likes Mitt agrees it will exclude him from the nomination in 2012.

As far as 1994, the obvious question is why that or a similar plan wasn't enacted into legislation if so many Republicans supported it. The answer is that they didn't. Chafee and Durenberger both were among the most liberal Republicans holding office, with Durenberger desperate at that time for anything that would distract people from his ethical lapses. Dole was always squishy on health-related issues --shown by his sponsorship of the Amreicnas with Disabilities Act -- but had to back off on this because pressure from conservatives on him for supporting either business or individual mandates was intense. If I recall, Dole got a rather nasty public letter from conservatives saying he was doomed in 1996 if he supported any form of mandate.

The idea that individual mandates is something Republicans in general supported back then is pure fiction. The ones like Dole who started moving in that direction faced an intra-party rebellion. And the same folks who rebelled in 1994 and are still around are fighting just as hard today.

[lokisnow]

A very good reason we should hope Kagan does NOT get appointed by Obama:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexington/2010/04/case_against_elena_kagan

Another possible objection, for Democrats, is that she would have to recuse herself from all cases in which, as solicitor-general, she played a role. That could be a huge number of cases. Ed Whelan, a socially conservative court-watcher, supplies some historical context:

[L]et’s look to the last justice who was appointed to the Court from the position of Solicitor General, Thurgood Marshall.

Marshall served as Solicitor General from August 1965 to August 1967. He joined the Court on August 31, 1967. According to Lawrence S. Wrightsman’s The Psychology of the Supreme Court (p. 79), “Marshall recused himself from 98 of the 171 cases that were decided by the Supreme Court during the 1967-1968 term.” That’s 57% of the total. (Wrightsman states that “most of these were cases in which the federal government had been a party”; I suspect that all or nearly all of them were.)

One well-informed source tells me that the percentage of cases in which the United States takes part is much higher than in Marshall’s day and that in a recent term that figure approached 80%. My quick tally of the hearing lists for cases argued so far this term yields a figure of around 76%.

In other words, during Ms Kagan's first year, the court would have a 5-3 conservative-liberal split on most cases, instead of 5-4. That's something to think about.

I think the administration is going to leak that its down to Ward Sears and Wood and imply heavily they're leaning toward Sears. Sears would ensure 41 easy votes against her, but playing her up would result in making Wood seem more moderate like Merrick, so I think they will go with Wood.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

That's the funny thing though, she DOESN'T win in most of the polls either. Even of just the GOP. She's a spotlight whore and Fox News and the rest of the media eat it up. But she hasn't got a very big support base, just a very vocal one.

On top of that, she's just not that GOOD at being a politician. She's not good in interviews, she doesn't take direction and won't stay on message and she's generally just not equipped for the circus that is a presidential campaign.

She tends to get thrown up though because .... well, who else is there? Scandals and screw-ups and the like have brutally winnowed the GOP candidate field over the last like 5-6 years.

But really, speculating about who will run in 2012 is kinda ridiculous right now. It's way too far away.

I only said that she "may" win some straw polls, but other than that, I agree with just about everything you said.

Santorum plans on running, but he has no chance. Romney will run, perhaps Palin but I think that's uncertain. Huckabee will probably run as well. None of those will be the nominee. And if you notice, all four of those are currently unemployed politically. The nominee most likely will be a sitting Governor or Senator, and those folks aren't going to toss their hats into the ring until they must, for a variety of pretty valid reasons. I'd guess Pawlenty will run out of that group, but he's a crappy candidate too.

[lokisnow]

The first time I heard of the Tea Party was two years ago today. some anti-tax nutjobs--like the terrorist that flew a plane into a Texas IRS building this year--held pathetic little mini rallies protesting having to pay income taxes which they said were unconstitutional.

One year ago today, the Tea Party came into its own by embracing a pantheon of nutjobs who had apparently never used a government service under Bush or paid a single cent in tax under Bush who suddenly believed their country was under attack by socialist/nazi/marxist/communist outer-space-aliens led by Chief Alien Obama because they now had to pay taxes and use government services which they never had never experienced before. They let the world know it was time to take back their country because Americans don't pay taxes when there is a republican president and have to pay taxes when there is a democrat president and it is UNJUST! On top of this, Deficits don't exist under a republican president, whilst democrat presidents are 100% responsible for all deficits in history. No democrat president has ever run a surplus and no republican president has ever had the country experience a year in the red! why would anyone want a democrat?

Happy anniversary Tea Party, you grew up a lot in 2008, but you really came into your own in 2009. I hope you get a lot of candidates on the official ballots as a third party. :D

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

According to Rasmussen, the repulican nominee should be...Ron Paul.

Pit maverick Republican Congressman Ron Paul against President Obama in a hypothetical 2012 election match-up, and the race is virtually dead even.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of likely voters finds Obama with 42% support and Paul with 41% of the vote. Eleven percent (11%) prefer some other candidate, and six percent (6%) are undecided.

[lokisnow]

It should be reiterated that nobody involved with the poll EVER asked a question like "do you think blacks are intelligent?" "do you think latinos are hardworking?"

Well onthe face of it there could be a differential on how those supporters of the tea party approach and interpret such questions. That is to say the difference might be in that people who strongly support the tea baggers are also deeply suspicious of any pollsters and automatically parse these questions differently than those who strongly disagree.

but beyond that you also need to look at sample size.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/04/pollster-responds-to-your-questions.html

quick summary: he's a respected pollster, question design was taken from standard highly respected polls. Only seven states were polled, 1000 people, about 350 completed the poll (another 160 completed but said they'd never heard of the tea party). Strongly support tea party was 117 individuals, strongly oppose tea party was 66 individuals. The race presentation in the chart is based on regression analysis of sets of much less inflammatory questions.

There is enough info in this article to confirm every one of FLoW's suspicions (and not change his or any other conservative's mind about the veracity of the polling) and enough info to satisfy Shryke that the polling was totally above board and is reliable despite small sample size. In other words. reading the full article, I think there's a 99.99% chance that each person with an agenda--left or right--will see exactly what they expect to see and want to see from the following interview. I do think it is very clarifying, though.

I understand why some readers are curious about support for the tea party among whites who are not on either end of the distribution. Here's what I have: Based upon 354 valid cases for this item (30% say they never heard of the tea party or have no opinion), 19% (N = 66) strongly disapprove of the tea party; 17% (N = 59) somewhat disapprove of it; 32% (N = 112) somewhat approve of the tea party; and 33% (N = 117) strongly approve of it. (Of course, when those that have never heard of the tea party (30%; N= 157) are included, increasing the number of observations to 511, the cell sizes change: 13% strongly disapprove; 12% somewhat disapprove of it; 22% somewhat approve; and 23% strongly approve of it.)

...

I'll draw upon three for illustrative purposes. For the first two models, the dependent variables are ordinal, so I report predicted probabilities. The dependent measure for the third model is an index, and is therefore continuous. For this, I estimate a simple regression model. Controlling for political ideology and party identification, support for the tea party (as it goes from its minimum to maximum value) results in a 23% increase in the likelihood that whites believe that "recent immigration levels will take jobs away from people already here." Moreover, support for the tea party decreases support, by 22%, for gay or lesbian adoption. Support for the tea party also promotes racism. In this example, I draw on Kinder and Sanders' (1996) work on racial resentment. I use the following four items to represent racial resentment: "Irish, Italians, and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without any special favors"; "Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for blacks to work their way out of the lower class"; "Over the past few years blacks have gotten less than they deserve"; and "It's really a matter of not trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites." (alpha = .75) I use this instead of the stereotype items because it better captures the contours of more modern racism, one in which whites perceive blacks in violation of traditional American values.

In any case, racial resentment increases by approximately 25% as support for the tea party increases from its minimum to its maximum value. Again, each model controlled for possible confounds associated with partisanship and ideology. In sum, based upon this analysis, the data suggest that increasing support for the tea party is likely associated with xenophobia, homophobia, and

[TheLoneliestMonk]

but beyond that you also need to look at sample size. Because if strong supporters of the tea party as a sufficinetly small portion of the entire sample it doesn't take very much at all to skew the results dramatically one way or the other. In other words if you have a sample of 1000 people and 10% identify as a strong supporter of the tea party then that 20% difference is caused by all of 2 people. Which is too marginal a number to be of any real concequence.

Honestly, 2 is 20% of 100? 100 is the easiest number to figure out percentages for. Because it means "out of 100".

According to Rasmussen, the repulican nominee should be...Ron Paul.

Does that mean we can finally return to the gold standard?