Polls

Who’s Left?

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The headline reads “Obama losing some support among nervous Dems”. Fair enough, but I found the following paragraph to be very interesting.

“In Missouri, which Obama narrowly lost to McCain, Democratic strategist Steve Glorioso said hardcore base voters were as enthusiastic as ever for Obama but that there was a sense of disappointment about him among less committed Democrats and independents.”

So the dyed-in-the-wool Dems are still rah-rah-rah for their guy, but the shine has worn off for independents and “less committed” Democrats.

Look at it like this. True Conservatives will always balk at Obama because of his statist policies. Those who drank the Liberal kool-aide will always love their guy no matter what.

That means the phrase “less committed Democrats and independents” actually refers to just about everyone who might change their minds. Right?

(Hat tip to Glenn.)

Vote for McCain, He May Win

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Probably most of the people who read this blog want McCain to win. He may not, as the odds appear to be against him. (As I write this, the evil conservative propagandists on Faux News are more or less predicting an Obama landslide, and are helpfully suggesting that the election will be over as soon as Obama wins Indiana. Thanks, guys. Don’t expect your fair-mindedness to buy you much consideration from an Obama FCC.)

But, if you can vote, you should vote for McCain despite the apparent odds. You should do this because no one really knows what the odds are. The Obama campaign, the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) want Republican voters to believe that the election is a done deal and that voting Republican is wasted effort. They want to discourage McCain votes and votes for other Republicans down the ticket. They are doing this because McCain and the other Republicans still have a chance to win. That chance will be reduced to the extent Republican voters take the Democrats’ advice. Don’t fall for it, vote for McCain.

It would be a shame if Republicans made media prophecies self-fulfilling by allowing themselves to be talked out of voting. Ignore media projections and vote for McCain. The only poll that matters is the election itself.

UPDATE: Rand Simberg has similar thoughts.

Why Most of Us No Longer Read The Economist

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I just received a press release promoting The Economist‘s new survey of academic economists about McCain’s and Obama’s respective economic programs. Here are the results:

What’s going on here?

This is a junk survey. Look at the data. Now look at the article.

Here’s The Economist‘s explanation of how they generated a survey sample:

Our survey is not, by any means, a scientific poll of all economists. We e-mailed a questionnaire to 683 research associates, all we could track down, of the National Bureau of Economic Research, America’s premier association of applied academic economists, though the NBER itself played no role in the survey. A total of 142 responded, of whom 46% identified themselves as Democrats, 10% as Republicans and 44% as neither. This skewed party breakdown may reflect academia’s Democratic tilt, or possibly Democrats’ greater propensity to respond. Still, even if we exclude respondents with a party identification, Mr Obama retains a strong edge—though the McCain campaign should be buoyed by the fact that 530 economists have signed a statement endorsing his plans.

The stuff about 683 research associates and the NBER is meaningless. What matters is that this was an Internet poll arbitrarily restricted to academic economists and with a self-selected sample. This is a problem because:

-Academic economists are likely to be more leftist than economists as a whole.

-Only 14 out of the 142 respondents identified themselves as Republicans.

-There is no way to know why only 10% or respondents identified as Republicans, but several possibilities implying gross sampling error are obvious. In other words, either most academic economists lean as far to the Left as do other academics, which seems unlikely and would impeach the survey results, or the sample is unrepresentative and impeaches the survey results.

-The labels “Democratic economist”, “Republican economist” and “unaffiliated economist” are self-selected and may be inaccurate. My guess is that most of the unaffiliateds usually vote for Democrats even if they are not registered Democrats. In this regard I am reminded of media people who claim to be independent even though everyone knows they vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.

So this is a worthless survey for research purposes. It is not, however, worthless, for business purposes, as I am sure it will generate a lot of discussion and outraged debunking by bloggers, and therefore a lot of traffic for The Economist‘s Web site. It may also help to get Obama elected, and perhaps that is part of the plan.

Where have we seen this kind of politically driven statistical analysis before?

UPDATE: The vagueness of the self-reported categorizations, “Republican”, “Democrat” and “independent” is obvious. One wonders why the survey did not also, or as an alternative, ask respondents to report for whom they voted in recent elections.

Jim Bennett on Sarah Palin

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I have been as guilty as anybody of indulging in Palin-Mania, or Palin Obsessive Disorder. Like most people, my thinking has been overly fact-lite, if not fact-free, about Gov. Palin.

So, as the need to think about other things asserts itself, it is a relief to read a brilliant summary from Jim Bennett based on facts and history, which presents Gov. Palin’s story as a coherent narrative.

Bennett’s article in the Telegraph is the single best thing yet written by anybody about who Sarah Palin is and what she has accomplished.

Most news reports and other commentary, both fair and foul, have dwelt on “exotica – the moose shooting, her Eskimo husband” without comprehending or explaining how “a woman can go from being mayor of a town of 9,000, to governor, to prospective VP within the space of a few years.”

Bennett explains how Palin worked her way up in a rugged political environment, how she built her political base, and how she came to realize “that Alaska had the potential to become a much bigger player in global energy politics.”

As with most poor, distant places that suddenly receive great natural-resource wealth, the first generation of politicians were mesmerised by the magnificence of the crumbs falling from the table. Palin was the first of the next generation to realise that Alaska should have a place at that table.
 
Her first target was an absurd bureaucratic tangle that for 30 years had kept the state from exporting its gas to the other 48 states. She set an agenda that centred on three mutually supportive objectives: cleaning up state politics, building a new gas pipeline, and increasing the state’s share of energy revenues.

She proceeded to execute this strategy, as chairman of Alaska’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and as Governor.

Far from being a reprise of Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Palin was a clear-eyed politician who, from the day she took office, knew exactly what she had to do and whose toes she would step on to do it.
 
The surprise is not that she has been in office for such a short time but that she has succeeded in each of her objectives. She has exposed corruption; given the state a bigger share in Alaska’s energy wealth; and negotiated a deal involving big corporate players, the US and Canadian governments, Canadian provincial governments, and native tribes – the result of which was a £13 billion deal to launch the pipeline and increase the amount of domestic energy available to consumers. This deal makes the charge of having “no international experience” particularly absurd.

The prospect of Palin in Washington has caused “her enemies in Alaska” to break out in a cold sweat, according to Bennett, “at the thought of Palin in Washington, guiding the Justice Department’s anti-corruption teams through the labyrinths of Alaska’s old-boy network.”

Obama would not be the first person who has gone down to defeat underestimating Mrs. Palin.

Read Bennett’s piece for the rest of the details.

UPDATE: Two responses by Helen Szameuly, here and here are very much worth reading.

UPDATE 2: A balanced, fair, unemotional assessment of Palin’s track record as mayor and governor, on economic issues. (Via The Right Coast.) See also this equally good one contrasting Palin and Obama on ethics and reform. Both from CATO. Both are nice companion pieces to Bennett’s article.

UPDATE 3: Michael Barone weighs in with a capsule history of Obama’s career as a community organizer, and his initial entry into politics. His conclusion, we need not treat this part of Obama’s career with “reverence”.

Barone is also astute to observe that community organizing only makes sense, if it ever does, where the political process does not work. A one-party machine-run city is the perfect example, and Chicago is the epitome of that. Alinsky was the doppelganger of the first Mayor Daley, for a reason. Most places, if there are rotten services or whatever, that is an invitation to a political challenge by the “out” party. Only where that political option is foreclosed does it make sense to resort to guerilla activity on the Alinsky model, a/k/a “organizing”.