Important Context On State's Objections to Benghazi Talking Points

Recently uncovered emails sent by Victoria Nuland about the CIA talking points are not as incriminating as some would have you believe.

The U.S. “diplomatic post” in Benghazi in flames after the attack of Sept. 11, 2012. (Esam Omran Al-Fetori/Reuters, copied from the Washington Post)

Update 5/15/13: When I originally wrote this article, I relied on interpretations of an email exchange by The White House, State Department, and CIA. These interpretations came from CBS News, ABC News, and The Weekly Standard. However, the White House has now released to CNN a series of 100 emails, including the aforementioned email exchange. Essentially, it looks as though the actual emails effectively debunk the theory that the Obama Administration intentionally mislead the American people about the nature of the Benghazi attacks. I have added updates explaining the differences as they apply to this post.

On Monday, May 10th, ABC News released an Exclusive Report on changes to the CIA Talking Points provided to congress shortly after the September 11th, 2012 attacks in Benghazi. Contrary to a previous assertion by White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, it appears as though the State Department and White House were heavily involved in the re-writing of those talking points:

"White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department. The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack." (ABC News Exclusive Report)

The gut reaction to this news may be that Republicans were right all along suggesting the administration engaged in a cover up, hiding the fact that Benghazi was a pre-planned terrorist attack, for political reasons.

But gut reactions can be very misleading. The addition of some context, as well as attention to detail, provide a few challenges to this reaction (Although there are many issues to explore with these revelations, this post will focus exclusively on State Department Spokesman Victoria Nuland's objections to the CIA's talking points).

Victoria Nulan's Smoking Gun?

One of the most contentious aspects to these revelations is a specific objection by Victoria Nuland to the initial references to al Qa'ida, as well as previous warnings by the CIA. The original Weekly Standard column gave a somewhat oversimplified account of these objections:

"The talking points were first distributed to officials in the interagency vetting process at 6:52 p.m. on Friday. Less than an hour later, at 7:39 p.m., an individual identified in the House report only as a “senior State Department official” responded to raise “serious concerns” about the draft. That official, whom The Weekly Standard has confirmed was State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland, worried that members of Congress would use the talking points to criticize the State Department for “not paying attention to Agency warnings.”"

A smoking gun right? Well, not so fast. Before we explore this in detail, it may be prudent to point out a somewhat obvious fact: Emails often lack context. Most of the time, when someone writes an email, they are not actively thinking that those emails are going to one day become public. As a result, being careful to provide appropriate context is not always a common priority. When viewing "leaked emails," don't be surprised if you find a few "hide the decline" instances. In addition, a closer inspection of the talking points, as well as her specific reactions should provide some insight.

The first thing to note is what exactly Victoria Nuland was objecting to. Here is the version of the talking points Nuland saw at 6:52 pm:

• The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex. This assessment may change as additional information is collected and analyzed and currently available information continues to be evaluated. On 10 September we notified Embassy Cairo of social media reports calling for a demonstration and encouraging jihadists to break into the Embassy. 

• The investigation is ongoing as to who is responsible for the violence, although the crowd almost certainly was a mix of individuals. We do know that Islamic extremists participated in the violent demonstrations. 

• Initial press reporting linked the attack to Ansar al-Sharia. The group has since released a statement that its leadership did not order the attacks, but did not deny that some of its members were involved. Ansar al-Sharia's Facebook page aims to spread Sharia in Libya and emphasizes the need for jihad to counter what it views as false interpretations of Islam, according to an open source study. 

• The wide availability of weapons and experienced fighters in Libya almost certainly contribute to the lethality of the attacks. 

• The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qa'ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya. These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador's convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals has previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks. 

• The U.S. Government is working w/ Libyan authorities and intelligence partners in an effort to help bring to justice those responsible for the deaths of U.S. citizens.

Luckily, CBS News provided a much more detailed account of Nuland's response:

7:39 p.m. email: State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland expressed the most sweeping concerns. "I have serious concerns about all parts highlighted below in arming members of Congress with information to start making assertions to the media that we ourselves are not making because we don't want to prejudice the investigation... Why do we want the Hill to be fingering [al-Qaeda linked] Ansar al-Sharia when we aren't doing that ourselves until we have investigation results? And the penultimate point is a paragraph talking about all the previous warnings provided by the Agency [CIA] about al-Qaeda's presence and activities of al-Qaeda...[which] could be abused by members of Congress to fault the State Department for not paying attention... so why would we want to cede that, either?"

 Update 5/15/13: The interpretation of Nulan's email differs slightly from the actual email. However, none of the differences appear substantial, although the final sentence is significantly less verbose than its interpretation. 

Notice that her objections are two-fold:

1. Her objections to the mention of al-Qa'ida links are based on a fear of prejudicing the FBI investigation. Nuland herself was constrained from mentioning this information in her daily press briefings. Given this fact, it is no surprise why she questions why the CIA would give congress information she was not herself allowed to divulge yet. However, as CBS News points out, A facilitator of the email threads mentions the FBI did not voice any major concerns. Yet despite this, the following version of the talking points, released at 8:59pm, removes the third talking point discussing the link to Ansar al-Sharia. Since the CIA originally removed the strongest reference to "Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa'ida" during internal distribution, the only mention remaining of a terrorist group possibly being involved is the 5th talking point. It is not yet clear why this talking point was removed. It is possible there was a miscommunication somewhere that led the FBI to mistakenly approve the talking point about Ansar al-Sharia. Perhaps they changed their mind for security reasons.
   
   Update 5/15/13: According to the original email, when Nuland received the response about the FBI not having any major concerns, that email already includes the updated talking points. This means that we can rule out the possibility that Nuland had anything to do with the removal of that talking point beyond her conserns about prejudicing the investigation. It may be the case CBS meant to convey this point with their interpretation. However, CBS's use of the word "they" was slightly ambiguous. 
   
   Either way, this case proves that some discussions were happening outside of the email thread, which means that readers should be very mindful of the context behind the emails. It is also interesting to note that the mention of terrorist groups in the 5th talking point were kept. However, it can also be noted that this specifically talks about past events and at best vaguely implies a link between the aforementioned terrorist groups and the Benghazi attacks. If there was a grey area over what would or would not have prejudiced the FBI investigation, it is possible this may have fallen into the latter category. Either way, the bottom line is that Nuland's objections to these terrorist references have virtually nothing to do with politics.
2. Her last objection deals exclusively with the 5th talking point. Her worry that the talking point could be "abused by members of Congress to fault the State Department for not paying attention" does sound quite political and pretty incriminating. However, as mentioned before when reading leaked emails, one should always be mindful of context. There are a few facts that need to be examined before coming to any conclusion about Nuland's objection. I will dedicate the rest of this post to exploring these facts and what relevance they have to Nuland's objection.

 Throwing The State Department Under The Bus 

First and foremost, we should observe that the first talking point mentions the attack took place at two places, a State Department consulate and CIA annex.  However, it has since been revealed that the "consulate" in question was not actually a consulate, but a CIA compound. Eli Lake of The Daily Beast explains:

"The CIA’s role in the Benghazi facility’s security was part of an arrangement with the State Department, according to a November 1 Wall Street Journal story that first disclosed several details about the true nature of the U.S. mission in Benghazi. That piece also said 23 of the 30 people evacuated from the Benghazi compound on the evening of the attack were CIA officers using State Department cover. Other U.S. officials confirmed this to The Daily Beast. “The Benghazi compound was a U.S. intelligence station with State Department cover,” one U.S. official said."" (emphasis mine)

Ambassador Stevens was merely visiting the compound at the time of the attack. Tragically, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, given the secretive nature of the mission, administration officials could not reveal this at the time.

With that in mind, let's take a second look at that 5th talking point in more detail:

The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qa'ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya. These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador's convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals has previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks.(emphasis mine)

If we pair the emphasized parts with the first talking point, mentioning the attack was "a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex," it is clear the CIA was putting the blame for any screw-ups on the State Department.

As Glenn Kessler explains, this is no trivial matter:

"The clear implication is that State screwed up, even though internally, it was known that this was a CIA operation. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland especially objects to the reference to previous warnings, saying it “could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings.”"

Essentially, Victoria Nuland objects to the CIA throwing the State Department under the bus for what is arguably a CIA screw-up. Is this completely innocent? Well, it is a bit too early to tell until more information comes out about the US Mission in Benghazi. Either way, it is far from the smoking gun some sensationalist headlines make it out to be.

Update 5/15/13 from CNN:

"Senior administration officials say that long before the CIA heard concerns from the State Department about warnings being put in the talking points, CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell advocated for removing the warnings out, since he felt the talking points should focus on what happened in Benghazi on September 11, rather than the previous six months. He also felt it was unprofessional and unfair for the CIA to cite its own warnings to the State Department, officials said." (emphasis mine)

Subsequent Revisions

As mentioned earlier, the following version of the talking points, released at 8:59pm, removed the third talking point discussing the link to Ansar al-Sharia. The Weekly Standard column mentioned that, despite this and other small changes, Nuland was still unhappy. However, The Weekly Standard fails to mention the obvious reason why this is. Despite Nuland's arguably justified objection to the 5th talking point (you know, the one where the CIA throws the State Department under the bus), it still remained in the 8:59pm revision of the talking points, only with one minor revision. Again, context matters!

Misleading Journalism

Clearly all we can tell from these details that Nuland voiced two separate concerns about two separate aspects of the talking points. Her objection to the inclusion of references to terrorist organizations had to do with her current understanding of what information could and could not be divulged to the public. This was generally apolitical. However, her objection to the CIA throwing the State Department under the bus was in fact political, although arguably justified and essentially unrelated to any mentions of terrorist organizations. The only reference to terrorists scrubbed as a result of this objection was entirely incidental. So Nuland's objection provides no further evidence of the popular GOP conspiracy that the Obama Administration covered up uncomfortable details about the Benghazi attack due to the election. Be skeptical of sensationalist stories that suggest otherwise.

The Downside of Rating Systems In Political Fact Checking

In his farewell message to fans of political fact checking, departing FactCheck.org director Brooks Jackson reflects on the growth of the fact checking industry, the merits of fact checking, criticisms of fact checkers, and various legitimate pitfalls made by various fact-checking sites. Among the pitfalls he discussed, the one that most caught my eye dealt with the ratings systems fact checkers use so often:

Rating statements with devices such as “truth-o-meters” or “Pinocchios” are popular with readers, and successful attention-grabbers. But such ratings are by their nature subjective — the difference between one or two “Pinocchios” is a matter of personal judgment, and debatable. Some statements are clearly true, and some provably false, but there’s no agreed method for determining the precise degree of mendacity in any statement that falls somewhere in between. Rating systems have also led to embarrassment. A senator who said a “majority” of Americans are conservative was rated “mostly true” (and later “half true”) even though the statement was false. The story cited a poll showing only 40 percent of Americans rated themselves conservative. That’s more than said they were moderate (35 percent) or liberal (21 percent) but still far from a majority. The senator had a point, but stated it incorrectly, thereby exaggerating. A simple “truth-o-meter” had no suitable category for that. Our approach would have been to say that it was false. But we would also note that the senator would have been correct to say Americans are more likely to call themselves conservative than moderate, or liberal, when given those three choices.

While I disagree that ratings systems are entirely subjective (most have specific rules for each category), I do agree that the organization of categories is not rigorous. There are obviously statements that do not easily fit into any given category. Furthermore, these rating systems can be a distraction, giving the reader an incentive to merely look at the rating and ignore the actual fact checking. Although I do understand not everyone has time to read an tire article over every claim that has been checked, simple summaries (such as the ones used by FactCheck.org) at least give the reader a basic idea as to what was right and/or wrong with the checked claim. I will admit ratings systems have doubtless contributed to the rising popularity of fact checking. But it isn't clear whether or not they actually do more harm than good.

In addition to discussing the pitfalls of fact checking, Jackson also made some very good points about the actual purpose of fact checking in political discourse:

"Complaining that fact-checkers failed to stop politicians from lying is like complaining that a firefighter failed to prevent an arsonist from starting a fire.

Furthermore, it seems to me that anyone who asks the very political operatives behind the 2012 falsehoods to rate our performance is pretty much interviewing the arsonists about the merits of the firefighters. We don’t write to impress politicians or their hirelings. We write to help the voters — and we don’t expect to get an invitation to dinners at the White House. We can’t stop politicians from trying to bamboozle voters. But we can make voters harder to fool."

Indeed there is an extremely important role for fact checkers to play in political discourse. And Jackson sums it up quite nicely. Scientific skepticism, which fact checkers apply to politics, has a role in nearly every aspect of life, including politics. In this spirit I thank Mr. Jackson for the quality work both he and his team have done over the past nine years. FactCheck.org is my favorite fact checking site and I wish him the best of luck in the future!

A Balanced Budget Ammendment Is A Terrible Idea

Bobby Jindal attempts to make the case for a federal balanced budget amendment:

"A federal balanced budget amendment. States have balanced budget laws, small businesses have to balance their budgets, and families have to do the same. This is an idea that is supported by virtually every American who does not live in the 202 area code. It’s common sense. It is also laughed at in Washington. When you mention the BBA as a solution, they roll their eyes and write you off as a non-serious person. But the American public is dead serious about it, and they should be."

A federal balanced budget amendment is one of the most popular horrible ideas in political discourse today. You simply cannot compare personal budgets, business budgets, or even state budgets to national budgets in this way. People and businesses can balance their budgets because in doing so they don't also jeopardize their incomes (unlike the government, as can be seen very clearly from the austerity crisis/fiscal cliff). State governments can balance their budgets because they can always count on the federal government to both make up the shortfall. Calling a balanced budget "common sense" shows just how ridiculous the idea of "common sense" can be when applied to counter intuitive fields like this. Americans who are calling for a balanced budget do not truly understand what they are doing. This is evidenced by the fact that so many Americans are so completely ignorant of what is actually in the federal budget. This leaves conservative pundit David Frum to ponder a hypothetical question:

"It would be wonderful to hear Gov. Jindal identify the specific cuts he would have made during the nadir of the recession, when revenues as a share of GDP were around 15%, the lowest since the Second World War. At that point, cutting PBS and foreign aid won't get you to 15%. At 15%, you have to slash entitlements (can't do that!) and the Department of Defense (good luck getting southern senators on board with that!)."

Frum also notes that conservatives can still be conservative without going to such absurd lengths:

"Yes, Washington is too bloated. Yes, Washington is trying to do too many things it should leave to private citizens and state governments. Yes, Washington should be aiming to leave the federal government's share of GDP near the historical norm of 18-20 percent. And yes, I too am concerned by Ezra Klein's warning that 18 percent won't be able to pay for our existing and future obligations. We have to address these problems, and as conservatives, we must work to restrain the federal government from consuming an ever larger share of the gross domestic product.

But you don't win elections by promising to cut benefits, retard growth, and paralyze government when it is needed most -- during the depths of recessions. That's a terrible electoral strategy, but it's also horrible leadership from a party elite. Gov. Jindal can unload all the populist rhetoric he'd like, but he's as elite as anyone in Washington, DC, and that role comes with obligations."

No doubt the left has quite a few bad ideas as well. But that does not excuse the right from avoiding the most important responsibilities expected of an elected politician:

"Endorsing a balanced budget amendment, laughing off the uncertainty of messing with the debt ceiling, and deriding efforts to keep our nation functioning is an abdication of those responsibilities. I hope we see better in the future from Gov. Jindal."

Punditfulls of Predictions!

My Election Prediction 2012 (270toWin)

During the primaries, I remember telling a friend of mine that if Romney was nominated, this election would look a lot like 2004.Turns out the similarities are striking. However, one of the most comical similarities is the denialism. In 2004, we had sites like the Donkey Rising Blog trying to explain away Bush's favorable numbers in the polls. Today we have sites like UnSkewed Polls doing the same thing to Obama's poll numbers, sometimes even projecting Romney will win in a near-landslide! However, the methods used to come up with these numbers are deeply flawed. But that hasn't stopped a number of pundits from giving similarly absurd projections:

• Michael Barone, The Examiner: Romney 315, Obama 223.  
• George Will, The Washington Post: Romney 321, Obama 217.
• James Pethokoukis: Romney 301, Obama 227.
• Dick Morris, FoxNews: Romney 325, Obama 213.
• Jim Cramer, CNBC: Obama 440, Romney 98.
• Dean Chambers, UnskewedPolls.com: Romney 311, Obama 227. 

Every one of these pundits is predicting a highly unlikely result. Other than Jim Cramer, each one predicts Romney picking up over 300 Electoral votes, meaning Obama would pick up at most 238 electoral votes. According to the RCP averages, this means the polls would have to be off by up to 4 points in some states! In the FiveThirtyEight model, such a thing would be historically unprecedented to an incredible degree! However, unlike Cramer's prediction, the FiveThirtyEight model at least holds this as a possibility, albeit an incredibly small one. One has to wonder why so many pundits are risking their credibility with such unbelievably unlikely predictions. Of course, one would also have to underestimate the level of cognitive dissonance some of these pundits have, as well as their fans.

I have to confess. Over the last couple of months, I have grown an unhealthy obsession with the polls. I have made trips to RealClearPolitics, Pollster, and FiveThirtyEight a regular habit. When I wake up in the morning to take the puppy out, I check the Rand Corporation's Daily Poll. Throughout the day, I check RCP for updates to the Rasmussen poll, the Gallup Poll, Investor's Business Daily, and ABC/Washington Post, as well as up to date averages of the state polls. I also make regular trips to Pollster to check on polls RCP doesn't factor in. I understand that you cannot cherry pick polls, that you have to account for house effects, and that you have to look at both the the national and state polls to get a clear picture of the race. As a result, I have mostly taken a break from blogging, preferring to post whatever thoughts I may have on Facebook rather than this blog, likely to the utter annoyance of all my friends. So before the election concludes tomorrow (hopefully), I thought I would put my own projection on the table (on the top of this page). Some explanations:

• Pennsylvania and Michigan: Despite Romney's recent play on Pennsylvania, the chances of him winning the state are extremely low: FiveThirtyEight gives Obama a 99% chance of taking the state. Other than the extremely right-leaning Susquehanna Poll, the most Romney-favorable polls still give Obama a comfortable 3 point lead. As Nate Silver has explained, this state is also incredibly inelastic, meaning there are rarely very many voters who will wait til the last minute to make a choice.  In Michigan, the only poll giving Romney any chance is the Baydoun/Foster poll. Although this poll is classified as a Democratic pollster, its numbers in Michigan have been extremely favorable to Romney, meaning it has a larger than normal house effect. Nate Silver gives Obama a 100% chance of winning the state and Romney has not seriously contested it.
• Nevada: Although RCP only gives Obama a 2.8 percent lead here, Nevada polls have consistently underrated Democrats for the elections in 2008 and 2010, by large margins. Given the issues among pollsters with the Latino vote, as well as Harry Reid's superior ground game in the state, I doubt 2012 will be any different. Nate Silver also has Obama at a 94% chance of winning Nevada.
• Wisconsin and Ohio: Both of these states show small but persistent Obama leads. And neither state show any poll with a  Romney lead. RCP has Obama up 2.9 points in Ohio and 4.2 points in Wisconsin. The distribution in Ohio has been very tight, despite the large number of polls conducted in the state. Wisconsin's distribution has been less so but it has also shown better numbers for Obama in its more Obama-favorable polls. However, both the polls showing strong Obama leads have been incredibly volatile over the course of this campaign. Nonetheless, Nate Silver gives Obama a 92% chance of carrying Ohio and a 97% chance of carrying Wisconsin. 
• Iowa and New Hampshire: Both of these states have had very sporadic polling. But Obama is still favored in both. RCP has Obama up 2.4 points in Iowa and 2.0 points in New Hampshire. In addition, only two polls give Romney a lead in Iowa and none give him a lead in New Hampshire. The two polls that give Romney a lead in Iowa tend to have very Romney-favorable results, and their leads are only a point. At least one Romney-favorable poll also gives Obama a 4 point lead in Iowa. In addition, Iowa's only local poll gives Obama one of his best leads. The situation is similar in New Hampshire. Nate silver gives Obama a 86% chance of winning Iowa and an 86% chance of winning New Hampshire.
• Virginia and Colorado: Both of these states appear to be toss-ups, although Nate Silver marked them both as "Likely Obama" today. According to RCP, Obama has a 0.3% lead in Virginia and a 1.5% lead in Colorado. However, there are still a few polls giving Romney slight leads in each state. Although early voting in Colorado seems to be favoring Mitt Romney, Democrats have been closing the gap (we should see the final results of early voting tomorrow morning). Some polls that have asked about early voting show that Obama is expected to do better on election day than he has in early voting. Others show he is expected to do worse but may get better results tomorrow morning. But this may not matter. In 2008, Obama barely edged out McCain in early voting, yet still won the state by 8.6 percentage points, meaning historically the early voting trend may not be unprecedented in Colorado given that Obama will likely not win by 8.6 percentage points anyway. For the purposes of my projection, I predict Obama will carry Colorado, mainly because of the polls. Virginia is very close nationally, and it is hard to come by good early voting statistics for the state. Their only local poll has also been extremely volatile. Given Nate Silver's projection, as well as the RCP average, I give Obama the slight edge in the state. Update 11/6/12: Wow, I cannot believe I didn't notice this until now. I fell for the fallacy of equating registration advantage with candidate advantage in Colorado. I took a look at whatever polls I could and noticed that Democrats do not have the identity advantage in Colorado that they do in other states. It appears as though, although Democrats and Republicans seem tied in terms of party identity, Republicans hold a 2-3 point registration advantage over Democrats in these polls, suggesting Obama is leading big with both registered and identified Independents. Indeed PPP's cross-tabs suggest as much. As a result, it is entirely possible, even likely, that Obama is still winning the early vote in Colorado, even though registered Republicans are ahead.
• Florida: On the surface, this state appears to be even more of a toss-up than other states. RCP has  Romney up 1.5 points, but FiveThirtyEight has Obama up 0.2 percentage points. In addition, this is a state where the inaccuracies in polling the Latino vote should make the final outcome more Obama-favorable than the polls suggest. However, the local polls are Romney's strongest polls, and local polls should be given more weight. As a result, I would buck the FiveThirtyEight model (just barely) and give Florida to Romney.
• North Carolina: RCP gives Romney a 3.0 point lead in this state and Nate Silver gives Romney a 72% chance of winning the state. Obama does have a significant lead in early voting, but the polls for North Carolina reflect the polls of Ohio, but in Romney's favor. Given the razor thin margin Obama won this state by in 2008, I seriously doubt Obama will win this state again in 2012.

Notice I rarely mentioned ground games. It is extremely hard to predict what kind of an effect a strong ground game will have on the election. Nevada is the obvious exception

So my final electoral vote prediction is Obama at 303 electoral votes and Romney at 235 electoral votes. I would expect the election to swing anywhere from Obama winning 281-257 to Obama winning 332-206. So let's see what happens!

Note: for early voting results, see here.

Busting The Romney Fauxmentum Myths

Those crazy polls are lying to us! At least that's what many pundits would have you believe. The polls tell that at the national level, the race is statistically tied (RCP Obama+0.1, Pollster Romney +0.1, TPM Obama +1.4. Yet state polls suggest a slight but persistent Obama lead. Serious election forecasters all predict an Obama win, although with slightly different levels of uncertainty. But for many pundits, their gut tells them something else. For many of them, Obama is such a terrible president they just cannot fathom the idea that not only is Romney not projected to beat Obama in a landslide, he isn't even projected to win at all! Yet they feel as though Romney has had some kind of momentum coming out of the Denver debate, meaning he should be poised to win. To them, there must be something wrong with both the forecasters and the polls. However, in the last few days HuffPost pollster has done an exceptional job busting a few of the more common myths coming from these pundits:

Myth: Polls are oversampling Democrats, making it look as though Obama is doing better than he really is.

I touched a bit on this claim back in September when it seemed as if pollsters and forecasters left it largely untouched. Since then, we have seen a few tackle this issue. However, it seems to persist even today, along with the observation that those polls which are "oversampling" Democrats also show Romney winning the Independent vote, often by large margins. Nowadays the focus on Ohio, which is no surprise given that it is the state most likely to decide the election. Now it is true there are polls giving Democrats up to an 8 point lead in Ohio. And it is true many of those same polls also show Romney winning the independent vote by large margins. And it is likely going to be the case that exit polls won't show Democrats with an 8 point lead among party identity either. In my last post, I pointed this out, but did not speculate as to why this is the case, and why we should still expect Obama to win by the same margins the polls predict. However, I suspected Romney's popularity among Independents was actually related, suggesting that Romney supporters were more often identifying as Independents than Obama supporters, boosting Romney's support among Independents as well as the Democrat party identification advantage. Today, Pollster blogger Nick Gourevitch confirmed this suspicion:

...in recent Ohio polling, Romney's lead with Independents is inversely correlated with Democratic party identification advantage.

What does this mean? It means that polls with larger Democratic party identification advantages are showing bigger leads for Romney with Independents. And vice versa. The following chart is a slight adjustment of a chart posted by @numbersmuncher last week showing party identification spreads vs. the vote among Independents in recent Ohio polls where this data is published. The chart below is sorted by Democratic party identification advantage -- so the polls with the greatest Democratic margins are up top and the polls with the lowest margins are at the bottom:

A quick glance at the chart above clearly shows this inverse correlation. Romney's biggest leads with Independents (except the one Suffolk poll) all come in polls where the Democratic party identification is largest. And the math backs up what the eye sees -- the correlation coefficient between the Independent vote and the party identification advantage is -0.61. While the correlation is by no means perfect (there are many other variables that impact these numbers), the trend clearly exists. (emphasis mine)

This shouldn't be too hard to understand. The first thing you should note is that there doesn't seem to be practically any correlation between Obama's lead and party ID advantages (with the exception of one Rasmussen Poll, which can be better explained by other factors). This suggests that the proportion of Romney and Obama supporters remains approximately the same throughout each poll, despite party ID advantages. Some polls such as CNN, U of Cincinnati, and Rasmussen are more likely to show Romney supporters identifying as Republicans and/or Obama supporters identifying as Independents than ARG, Time, or CBS/Quinnipac, which show approximately the opposite. As a result, the apparent Democratic ID advantage, as well as the Romney advantage among Independents, can best be explained by how a poll determines party identification. Remember that there is a substantial difference between party registration and party identification. It may also be interesting to note that the Republican-leaning Rasmussen poll gives Obama some of his best numbers with Independents.Yet why do these polls show such different results for party ID? Nick Gourevitch explains:

This can happen for a number of reasons. Pollsters use different questions and methodologies. Live interview polls and automated polls produce different party identification distributions (ones that are also different from in-person Election Day exit polls). Pollsters ask party identification in different ways. Some use three-point scales, others five-point scales and others seven-point scales. Some push "leaners" and some don't. Question ordering also matters - especially for pollsters who put party identification at the end of their survey. If you have a survey with a bunch of questions on social issues, it might cause more people to identify as Democrats in a socially liberal state, but might cause more people to identify as Republicans in a more socially conservative state.

However, why is it that most of these polls show Democrat party identification so much higher than Republican party identification? Pollster Thomas M. Holbrook finds something that should give us a clue:

"One way of assessing the relative value of party for each of the candidates is by looking at rates of party affiliation in the electorate... These data show that the Democrats have held an affiliation advantage throughout the 2012 campaign, one that has ebbed and flowed a little bit and now stands at approximately six percentage points.

...

throughout this campaign period the Democratic Party has been viewed more positively than the Republican Party. In fact, there is not a single poll in this series in which the Republican party registered a net positive rating, and not a single case in which the net Republican rating was higher than the net Democrat rating. The average net rating for the Republican Party in this series is -13, whereas the average for the Democratic Party is +.3." (emphasis mine)

This could explain why Romney supporters are more likely to identify as Independents this election. No doubt many of these self-described Independents identified as Republicans back during the 2010 elections. Yet throughout 2011, Republican party favorability dropped drastically, recovering some but not all in 2012. At the end of 2010, Republicans held a net favorability rating of -2.4. Today that number has fallen to -8.3. Democrats on the other hand, have seen very little change since the end of 2010. Democrats held a net favorability of ~1.4 points (can't see exactly). Today that number has slipped barely to -1.5, barely even statistically significant, and about half the drop seen by Republicans.

Update 11/5/12: I just found this article essentially confirming this suspicion. Actually most polls seem to indicate there are fewer voters identifying as Democrats now than in the 2008 exit polls, instead shifting to Independents. However, the drop is much larger with Republicans. This means that more Republicans than Democrats have shifted to thinking of themselves as Independents, causing Independents as a whole to be more conservative and Democrats to have a large identity advantage. 

All of this should show how wrongheaded attempts to "unskew" polls really are. Unless independents are adjusted along with party ID, you actually end up oversampling Romney supporters!

Myth: Undecideds will break toward Romney because he is the challenger.

While it is true that Obama's lead nationally and in state's like Ohio aren't large enough to put Obama's numbers over 50%, the "Incumbent Rule," which states that undecideds generally break towards the challenger, may be less of a factor than some would have you believe. Pollster blogger Mark Blumenthal explains:

"When The New York Times' Nate Silver examined polls from 1998 to 2009, he found no evidence that "the majority of the undecided vote broke against the incumbents." His advice: "Focus on the margin between the candidates, just as you might instinctively do."

In addition, he found little evidence this year will be an exception. This weekend, we will see the release of Pew's final survey report, which should shed more light on this question.

I will continue to update this posts as new information arrives... 

Are Election Polls Oversampling Democrats? Not Really.

As of right now, Obama leads Romney by 2.9 points nationally, according to RealClearPolitics. And his lead among swing states is even higher. Thanks to Fox News and NBC/WSJ/Marist, Obama leads by 4.8 points in Ohio, possibly the most important swing state in the election. His lead is also at 4.7 points in Virginia, and 2.0 points in Florida. Thanks to polling like this, Intrade has Obama's chances of winning at 67.4%.

However, some Republicans are skeptical of this lead, arguing these polls tend to oversample Democrats in order to make it look as though Obama's lead is actually much smaller than it appears. Attempts to "unskew" these polls have resulted in Romney leads of 9%! So it is a legitimate question to ask, have these polls been oversampling Democrats in order to make Obama look stronger than Romney, perhaps in order to create some kind of self-fulfilled prophecy?

No doubt conservative "skeptics" of the mainstream media would be quick to answer with a resounding "YES!" Could you have any more proof of a liberal media bias? Of course, the truly skeptical mind would probably see a few red flags first.

Jim Geraghty at the National Review's Number-Cruncher raises one such red flag:

Starting in 1992, EVERY Pew poll appears to lean to one direction — always towards the Democrat, and by an average of more than 5 percentage points. Worse this is a reflection of the “final” poll which even the Democratic firm, Public Policy Polling, usually gets right." (emphasis not mine)

After listing the final polls for Pew for the 1988-2008 presidential elections, the Number-Cruncher wonders why Pew doesn't try to adjust their numbers? Actually, the answer to this is rather simple. The numbers he used were for Registered Voters (RV), not Likely Voters (LV). In fact, LV models are actually used to better predict the outcome of an election since not all registered voters actually vote. Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight points out that, when choosing between polls of LVs verses RVs, always go with the former. This may not necessarily be the case early on, before the conventions. But it is definitely the case now. As a result, out of the 7 polls included in the RCP average, 6 are LV polls.  In fact, if we are to look at Pew's results for their final LV polls, they actually are quite accurate:

• 2008 error: D-1 (Republican numbers were accurate but Democrat numbers off by 1)
• 2004 error: 0
• 2000 error: R+2
• 1996 error: D+6

Other than 1996, their recent track record has been very good, with only small errors of 0-2 points favoring Republicans. 

In fact, many of the most heavily criticized polls do extremely well at predicting the vote. This prompts the obvious question: so why are people saying there is a problem?

Despite the fact that many of these critiques point to RV polls, LV polls often show a stronger Democrat presence than Republican:

• 9/13-17/12 AP/GfK: Democrats+1
• 9/12-16/12 Pew: Democrats+7 (unweighted, so likely less for the actual results)
• 9/12-16/12 NBC/WSJ: Democrats+5
• 9/13-16/12 Monmouth/SurveyUSA/Braun: Democrats+4

 Note: I did not Include Rasmussen because I do not have access to their numbers

In recent elections, party turnout has swung from a tie between Democrats and Republicans in 2004 and 2010, to a 7 point lead for Democrats in 2008, which was an unprecedented year for Democrat voter turnout. So it may be a stretch to assume Democrats will turnout in numbers like the Pew poll suggests.

So why is this the case? Some conservatives have speculated pollsters may be oversampling to try and replicate the unusual 2008 voter turnout among Democrats.  However Emily Perkins of reason.com finds there is little support for this theory:

It is hard to say whether pollsters are in fact relying too heavily on 2008 partisan turnout, because it is extraordinarily difficult to track down how these pollsters define likely voters.

According to Chris Jackson at Ipsos-Reuters, “most research organizations use a combination of prior voting behavior, interest in the election and self-report likelihood to vote to categorize likely voters. ...Some pollsters also use ‘voter lists’ or commercial lists of people who voted in the last election instead of screening these individuals from the population.”

Rasmussen gives a vague explanation here, “The questions involve voting history, interest in the current campaign, and likely voting intentions. Rasmussen Reports determines its partisan weighting targets through a dynamic weighting system that takes into account the state’s voting history, national trends, and recent polling in a particular state or geographic area.”

ABC News explains, they “develop a range of ‘likely voter’ models, employing elements such as self-reported voter registration, intention to vote, attention to the race, past voting, age, respondents’ knowledge of their polling places, and political party identification.”

As Huffington Post’s Mark Blumenthal reports, “CNN has published no explanation of how they select likely voters.” (emphasis mine)

In addition, there is little reason for polls to adjust their samples to fit 2008 at all. Pew explains:

"While all of our surveys are statistically adjusted to represent the proper proportion of Americans in different regions of the country; younger and older Americans; whites, African Americans and Hispanics; and even the correct share of adults who rely on cell phones as opposed to landline phones, these are all known, and relatively stable, characteristics of the population that can be verified off of U.S. Census Bureau data or other high quality government data sources."

"Party identification is another thing entirely. Most fundamentally, it is an attitude, not a demographic. To put it simply, party identification is one of the aspects of public opinion that our surveys are trying to measure, not something that we know ahead of time like the share of adults who are African American, female, or who live in the South"

...

In effect, standardizing, smoothing, or otherwise tinkering with the balance of party identification in a survey is tantamount to saying we know how well each candidate is doing before the survey is conducted."

In other words, while pollsters may adjust party identification in LV models to reflect the fact that not all registered voters actually vote, there is little they may do to adjust party turnout for surveys in general (RV, All), other than assign weights due to census factors. Since the appearance of Democrat oversampling is stronger in other surveys than LVs, there is little reason to think the LV adjustments would be responsible for the appearance of Democrat oversampling. This means that the appearance of Democrat oversampling may only exist because more voters actually consider themselves Democrats at the time the polls are conducted.

Now it is highly unlikely we will have the same composition of voters once election time comes around. However this is not all that much of a problem since party identification, unlike registration, changes during the election season. Pew explains:

"Particularly in an election cycle, the balance of party identification in surveys will ebb and flow with candidate fortunes, as it should, since the candidates themselves are the defining figureheads of those partisan labels."

This "ebb and flow" can be drastic. Rasmussen measured party identification in July 2012 with a 1 point advantage for Republicans and again in August 2012 with a 4 point advantage for Republicans. Gallup saw an even larger bounce from Nov 7-9 2008, where Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 5 points, to Nov 13-16 2008, where Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 13 points. That is an 8 point change in a few weeks! From Aug 20-22 2012, Gallup measured a 3 point lead for Democrats. A few weeks later, from Sep 6-9, that lead extended to 8 points. So there is even less reason to try and adjust polling since it will adjust itself if necessary anyway. Pollsters that do try and adjust based on party identification risk skewing the results to show a situation not reflective of the country as a whole.

So we are left with one more question: Why do the results of party identification differ so much between polls? Other than sampling error, this can be explained by differences in methodology. Nate Silver explains one such difference:

"Although there are exceptions on either side, like the Gallup national tracking poll, for the most part Mr. Obama seems to be getting stronger results in polls that use live interviewers and that include cellphones in their samples — enough to suggest that he has a clear advantage in the race.

In the polls that use an automated dialing method (“robopolls”) or which exclude cellphones, Mr. Obama’s bounce has been much harder to discern, and the race looks considerably closer."

And there is good reason why this is the case:

"These results are consistent with some past research. Roughly one third of American households rely solely on mobile phones and do not have landlines, meaning they will simply be excluded by polls that call landlines only. Potential voters who rely on cellphones belong to more Democratic-leaning demographic groups than those which don’t, and there is reasonably strong empirical evidence that the failure to include them in polls can bias the results against Democrats, even after demographic weightings are applied."

PEW has confirmed this trend in the past. And Nate Silver has confirmed this is the case for the 2012 election as well:

Since Rasmussen uses only landlines, and others like Fox News, NBC, WSJ, and Quinnipac use a mixture of landlines and cellphones, it is easy to see why Rasmussen tends to poll a larger sample of Republicans than Democrats, and thus also tends to poll to the right of other polls as well. This effect has become more pronounced over the last few years, leading to a decline in Rasmussen's ability to predict election results.

So, to answer the question originally posed in this article, any appearance of party oversampling is likely caused by one party being better represented in the population at a given time than another. And since these polls look at party identification, not registration,  we should expect this to change over time, meaning we don't necessarily expect to see the exact same party identification distribution on election day. However, poor sampling methodology that may bias one party over another, such as ignoring cellphones when sampling, is likely a better explanation for the appearance of bias in one poll or another.

Why Are The Washington Post Wonkbloggers Repeating A Romney Campaign Falsehood About Medicare?

The Washington Post’s WONKBLOG has been repeating the Romney Campaign's falsehood about Obamacare and Medicare. From their fact check of Bill Clinton's 2012 DNC Speech:

FALSE: [Clinton:]“Both Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan attacked the president for allegedly robbing Medicare of $716 billion. That’s the same attack they leveled against the Congress in 2010, and they got a lot of votes on it. But it’s not true.”

The Affordable Care Act did indeed cut Medicare spending by $716 billion, as the Congressional Budget Office wrote in a July 24 report. It does that by reducing payments to Medicare hospitals and doctors, essentially ratcheting down the amount they receive when they see a patient.

...these Medicare cuts do indeed exist.

However, all three major fact checkers have come to pretty much the opposite conclusion:

• FactCheck.org (here, here, and here) 
• Washington Post Fact Checker (here and here)
• Politifact.com (here, here, here, and here):

In my post on Ryan’s Medicare claim, I explained why this is the case using the findings of both FactCheck and The Washington Post Fact Checker (PolitiFact did an exceptionally poor job explaining the problem):

"Medicare payroll taxes go to pay for Medicare Part A. What revenue is left over goes into the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund. And that fund goes to finance shortfalls in Medicare Part A. As of late, there is not enough revenue coming from payroll taxes to cover hospital insurance for medicare beneficiaries. As a result, the trust fund is being drained and will eventually be empty, meaning Medicare Part A will become insolvent. To help mitigate the problem, the Affordable Coverage Act slows the amount of money coming out of the trust fund via reduced payments to hospitals. Obama can get away with those reduced payments to hospitals largely without causing them to drop out of the program because of a deal he stuck with hospitals, promising new patients through the ACA, more than making up for the lost revenue. This saved money stays in the trust fund (although it can be loaned out, more on that later). It does not go to cover the uninsured not currently in Medicare. In addition, Obama increases the revenue coming into the trust fund via a 0.9 percent tax "on earnings above $200,000 for single taxpayers or $250,000 for married couples."

The savings from Medicare that actually go into Obamacare come from Medicare Parts B, C, and D, and only from funds that come from congress (income taxes, corporate taxes, etc...) to cover outlays. This accounts for approximately 2/3 of $716 Billion in slowed medicare growth. Obama decreases the growth of money congress spends on Medicare from general revenue using the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which is incredibly limited in what it can target."

...a bill can both reduce the deficit and not be "paid for." This is because some of the revenue that comes in goes "into savings" instead of being used to pay the bills. And just like a bank uses savings accounts to make loans, so too can this Medicare money "in savings" be loaned out to pay for other programs. FactCheck explains:

"What happens in government accounting is that after Treasury issues a bond that it will have to pay later, it can spend the money it received on other things. And it often does, whether that’s coverage expansion, as called for in the health care law, or any number of things. The Romney spokesman said it was “a shell game.”"

But that doesn’t mean that the Medicare trust fund will be slashed or its “piggy bank” “robbed” or “raided,” or any other claim we’d put firmly in the category of “senior scare.” (emphasis mine)

Romney does have a point in essentially calling this an accounting trick. And he could spend time making that claim instead of a demonstrably false one. You can argue over whether or not the CBO was therefore wrong to say the ACA cuts the deficit. But you cannot say payroll taxes are going toward the ACA anymore than you can say your personal savings in the bank are going toward someone else's loan. Just like those savings are still legally yours, so are the trust funds still legally Medicare's. Any money that is borrowed from the fund has to be paid back.

I am not quite sure why the Wonkbloggers are doing this. And I can find no explanation as to why they keep coming to the exact opposite conclusion as these major independent fact checkers, including the Washington Post’s own Glenn Kessler. Could It be the double counting? Romney could certainly say Obamacare isn’t paid for, or that it adds to the debt (but not deficit). However, as Glenn Kessler has noted, that would open Republicans (including his own VP Pick) to criticisms of hypocrisy since those claims can be leveled at nearly any deficit reduction plan, including many of the GOP's own.