This blog focuses on a variety of subjects including skepticism, science, philosophy, economics, and politics. Although I tend to ague from a liberal (and naturalist) perspective, I understand that reality itself does not have a political preference. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.
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 specificrules 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!
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."
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 deeplyflawed. But that hasn't stopped a number of pundits from giving similarly absurd projections:
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.
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 whateverpollsI 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!
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 eventoday, 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...
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.
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:
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."
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.
The Washington Post’s WONKBLOG has beenrepeating 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:
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.
Paul Ryan has been LYING about Obamacare and payroll taxes.
During a campaign stop at Miami University in Ohio, Paul Ryan made the claim that payroll taxes will now be used to fund the Affordable Care Act:
"Ryan slightly reframed the attack by arguing that Obamacare is effectively taking hundreds of billions from payroll taxes. “Take a look at your paycheck next time. Look at that line on your paycheck that [reads] payroll taxes," Ryan said. "You see our payroll taxes from our paychecks are supposed to go to two programs--Social Security and Medicare period. Now because of Obamacare they’re also going to pay for Obamacare." The crowd booed." (emphasis mine)
One problem with this: It is completely false. And the Romney campaign knows it.
Earlier this week, FactCheck.org released probably the best article on Mediscare claims since they began resurfacing after the Ryan VP pick. This article is an absolute must read for anyone wanting to understand how Medicare works, as well as what Romney, Ryan, and Obama each plan to do about Medicare's fiscal problems. The article begins with explaining the troubles Medicare faces down the road, mainly focusing on insolvency (which is different from bankruptcy). The article then summarizes the history of Medicare, as well as the different "Parts" of Medicare (A,B,C, and D). Understanding this is crucial for understanding the Ryan, Romney, and Obama Medicare plans (Obama has already passed his plan as part of the ACA). Here is a basic summary of what each Part of Medicare covers:
Medicare Part A: Hospital insurance
Medicare Part B: Insurance for doctor visits
Medicare Part C (Medicare Advnatage): Combines both Part A and B but uses a private insurer.
Medicare Part D: Prescription Drugs
The article also debunks the claims from both the Obama and Romney campaigns about how each candidate plans to cut benefits and push the cost of healthcare further onto seniors. I will not spend any time in this post talking about whether or not either campaign's arguments hold water (See my previous post and Roundup from last week for that). This post will be dedicated to understanding why Paul Ryan is lying about payroll taxes going to fund the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare, PPACA, ACA).
One area where FactCheck's article falls a bit short is on explaining why Paul Ryan's claim mentioned above is wrong. The article is a bit vague and inconclusive. However, a campaign speech by Paul Ryan finally motivated FactCheck to get more detailed and help explain specifically why Paul Ryan's claim is wrong (the article also debunks Medicare bankruptcy claims). This article is another absolute must read. I will summarize and expand here:
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).3 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 limited1 in what it can target.
So it should be pretty clear Paul Ryan's claim is false. But remember I accused Ryan of more than just telling him a falsehood. I accused him of lying, meaning he knew what he was saying was false. What is my evidence? Besides Ryan's work on the medicare program (meaning he should know this Medicare 101 knowledge) and acceptance of Obama's ACA Medicare savings (he should know what he is accepting), when FactCheck asked Romney's campaign about their claims, the campaign responded this way:
"When we asked the campaign how it could argue that Obama’s spending reductions didn’t extend the life of the trust fund, a spokesman replied that it didn’t extend the fund “unless the administration is ready to admit their law blows a huge hole in our deficit.”"
So essentially they are accusing Obama of double counting the savings from hospital insurance. If that money has to be put into the trust fund, it can't also cover the non-Medicare related Obamacare expenses. Fact Check explains (from their original article):
"The fact is that CBO and the guardians of the hospital trust fund say Obama’s health care law does both extend the life of the trust fund and reduce the deficit, but can’t be also counted as paying for the law’s added spending."
This may sound a bit confusing. It essentially comes from the fact that 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.2 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 (see Update 8/28/12). 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. The Romney campaign knows this and it is reasonable to assume Ryan does as well. So he knows payroll taxes will not fund the ACA, yet he still makes that claim. It is a lie.
1 Most of what the IPAB targets is the extra money paid into Medicare Advantage (Part C,except for hospital insurance), making costs from the expensive program fall into line with traditional Medicare. You can argue this will indirectly affect benefits, but the program is forbidden from directly cutting benefits. Romney and Ryan, on the other hand, give congress practically unlimited power to save money however they desire, including through benefits (and we all trust congress, don't we).
As Ezra Klein and others have repeatedly noted, ObamaCare and Ryan's plan call for approximately the same-sized reductions in future medicare growth. The difference is in how it is implemented.
Without a doubt though, Romney's plan to avoid the $716 in slowed growth is the worst. It will actually hasten insolvency.
Update 8/28/12:
For the last few weeks, the Washington Post Fact Checker has been on vacation. So he as not been posting fact checks on this issue since the Ryan VP pick. Today he finally posted a response to readers' questions on Medicare Cuts, bankruptcy, and cost shifting. Overall, the post was not all that impressive compared to FactCheck's posts. However, he did link to an old article talking about the "double counting" issue mentioned above. This article is another absolute must read for anyone interested in this issue. It turns out double counting has been an acceptable practice for both parties for the last few decades. That's right, Republicans use this as well:
"When President Bill Clinton signed the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, then House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) was one of the speakers. “On Medicare, we came together and we saved the system for at least a decade,” he declared. How could he make this claim? Through the same double-counting that Republican now decry.
The
Fact Checker especially frowns on hypocrisy, and Republicans should acknowledge that they have gladly played this game before, including under President George W. Bush." (emphasis mine)
However, playing the "you did it too" game is not a good excuse for doing something potentially harmful. But it does turn out this practice isn't really that bad, since it increases gross debt without increasing public debt. The Fact Checker explains:
"Some argue that the increase in the gross debt is evidence of double-counting but the CBO has said that focusing on the health care law’s impact on the gross debt is not very illuminating: “That measure of debt conveys little information about the federal government’s future financial burdens and has little economic meaning.” (emphasis mine)
This may explain why the Romney campaign has avoided this line of argument and instead chosen a demonstrably false line of argument. He would be open to criticisms that both parties do this and could put the reputation Reputation of congressional Republicans in 1997 in jeopardy. It is much easier to tell a simple lie.
Note: Just to head off a potential criticism, Ryan cannot say that he was talking about Medicare funds being loaned Obamacare when he said payroll taxes were being used to fund Obamacare. If he had meant it in this way, he would have to admit payroll taxes also fund national defense, congressional pay, the war on drugs, and most any program funded by congress through general revenue. However, his statement started by claiming that payroll taxes only fund Medicare and Social Security. So either way, he was lying.
2 I reworded this to make it clearer. It used to say "However, as with any "savings account", that money is available for other uses when it's not being spent"
3 I added the qualifier in parenthesis to make it clear that this money can still be loaned out, even if it still belongs to the trust fund. It has to be paid back.
The Roundup
Best Thing to Happen to The Internet Since Al Gore! ... Here is a cat singing the theme from Game of Thrones(Thanks to The Washington Post):
"Chopra’s article was inspired by a New York Times article by researchers into nocebo effects. The researchers, however, make very different points from Chopra. They review the scientific evidence, which is pretty clear. People will report negative side effects even when taking placebos. If they are warned about a particular side effect, they are more likely to report that one. Again – there is no reason to think this is anything other than subjective reporting. Stress is the one factor that can cause real physiological consequences, and therefore illnesses that significantly respond to stress (like heart disease) can be affected by anxiety or hopefulness. This is not true, however, of most diseases." (emhpasis mine)
The Solyndra Standard
A MUST READ on the GOP's hypocrisy in the Solyndra case. Stephen Lacey puts the case in context:
"And here’s the really astonishing disconnect: While supporting tens of thousands of jobs, the loan guarantee program is expected to cost $2 billion less than Congress budgeted for, according to an analysis from Herb Allison, John McCain’s former National Finance Chairman.
Meanwhile, amidst the Solyndra saga, we casually accept a $300 million aircraft failure without batting an eye. No outrage. No sustained political campaign. It’s just another day testing our military toys.
Why? Because we don’t often see programs like this as a “failure” in the political arena. We would never use one failure as an excuse to abandon investment in new technologies. Most politicians accept losses in military R&D expenditures because the long-term gains are potentially so important for national defense and for eventually developing technologies for civilian use.
We should always strive to make programs as efficient and cost-effective as possible. But a few bankrupt clean energy companies representing a fraction of the program’s budgeted cost is no excuse for abandoning federal investments in clean energy — a strategically important sector that is becoming one of the largest drivers of business this century." (emphasis mine)
Will the Fed’s efforts to boost the economy only benefit the wealthiest?
Thanks
to the inaction of congress, quantitative easing may be one of the last
options to help stimulate the economy. It effectively lowers the value
of debt using inflation, which could help tackle the crippling
deleveraging that is keeping consumer demand down and slowing the
recovery (particularly in the housing market). But there is a price. That price is increased income inequality.
"none of the most severe instances of
hyperinflation appear to be triggered by a central bank simply trying to
inject money into a basically intact economy in order to reduce the
unemployment rate." (emphasis mine)
"Leading members of the Christian Coalition and the Young Republicans on Monday will launch nationwide the Young Conservatives for Energy Reform, a grassroots group aimed at engaging Republicans on the goals of cutting oil use, backing alternative energy and clean-air regulations, and fighting climate change."
Turns out racists aren't necessarily more likely to be republican than democrat.
Libertarianism will not sure racism for essentially the same reason free markets work: individual cases of racism are "spontaneous orders—of phenomena that are the product of human action, but not of human design"
Todd Akin is taking the GOP down with him. Yes, Plenty of Republicans Want to Ban All Abortions, Full Stop
The
Todd Akin incident reminds us that this election could easily decide
the future of a woman's right to choose. Multiple states have attempted
to pass bills that could effectively ban all abortions if Roe v Wade was
overturned (thanks to a
conservative appointee from a Romney administration and the inevitable GOP controlled senate).
"UltraViolet has a point that the bill Ryan backed
could significantly alter the way in vitro fertilization is practiced.
However, the group exaggerates when it says the bill in question would
"outlaw in vitro fertilization." The bill doesn
’t outlaw the procedure directly -- whatever impact it has would likely
require action by states, which many states may be unwilling to
undertake. And while the bill likely outlaws specific practices that
have historically been considered important for practicing in vitro
fertilization, it would not ban the procedure itself."
"It’s true that Romney has voiced support for the
2008 platform’s call for an unspecified “Human Life Amendment” to the
Constitution, and the language approved by the party’s platfor
m committee for 2012 is identical. But that’s a far cry from advocating
an abortion ban that would apply in cases of rape or incest."
And
it turns out that we have been to careless over speculation that these
Human Life Amendments will ban abortions in the cases of rape and
incest:
"As we’ve said before, there have been numerous
versions of human life amendments proposed over the years, some of which
include exceptions for rape and incest and some of which don’t. For
details, see our July 31 item, “Falsifying Romney’s Abortion Stance,
Again.” Most of these amendments didn’t get out of committee."
However, the speculation is not entirely unfounded:
"Furthermore, Romney’s chosen running mate, Paul
Ryan, opposes exceptions for rape or incest. And it would be accurate to
say that the GOP platform calls for a constitutional amendment that
would leave states free to adopt abortion bans without exceptions."
So Red States would be screwed still....
However, as Suzy Khimm of The Washington Post finds, it may also be the case that none of this matters.
"But
do party platforms even matter? Much of the political science research
suggests not — at least when it comes to the candidates’ own views and
actions. “The nominee is not necessarily constrained by the formal
platform. They can agree with whatever bits and pieces and ignore the
rest,” says John Sides, a political science professor at George
Washington University."
"The debate over Rep. Todd Akin's widely condemned comments on "legitimate rape" has largely centered on abortion and Republican efforts to outlaw the procedure, even in cases of rape. But the controversy has also uncovered a little-discuss
ed issue: When some rape victims do choose to give birth to a child conceived through sexual assault, they find that the legal door is left wide open for their victimization to continue. It sounds unfathomable, but in many states the law makes it possible for rapists to assert their parental rights and use custody proceedings as a weapon against their victims."
"More broadly, the "they only intended to exclude statutory rape" defense misses the point. Most serious abortion foes oppose the rape exception—full stop. It's no surprise that the abortion rights opponents who wrote H.R. 3 didn't foresee
that simply narrowing the rape exception—a move far short of their preferred position—might provoke more controversy than opposing the rape exception itself."
...
"While I was reporting out the forcible rape story last year, one of the sources I called, a very accomplished woman, told me she had been a victim of statutory rape as a young teenager. Decades later, she nearly broke down about it on the phone while talking to a stranger. Should she have been denied the option of a Medicaid-funded abortion because her rape wasn't rapey enough?" (emphasis mine)
"In the world as Ferguson describes it, Obama is a
big-spending, weak-kneed liberal who can't get the economy turned
around. Think Jimmy Carter on steroids. But the world is not as Ferguson
describes it. A fact-checked version of the world Ferguson describes
reveals a completely different narrative -- a muddy picture of the past
four years, where Obama has sometimes cast himself as a stimulator, a
deficit hawk, a health care liberal and conservative reformer all at
once. And it's a world where the economy is getting better, albeit
slowly.
It would have been worthwhile for Ferguson to explain why Obama doesn't
deserve re-election in this real world we actually live in. Instead, we
got an exercise in Ferguson's specialty -- counterfactual history."
Paul Krugman: Kinds Of Wrong
Within this analysis lies an important point about different
types of wrongness in terms of discourse. The diagnosis may be related
to subjective claims. It may be related to objective claims too far
above the head of the average person. Finally, it could be the kind of
easily verifiable wrongness common in Niall Ferguson's column. It is
this last one that is the most troubling. It is also where Paul Krugman
directs his attention in this post.
"Whatever you believe about Obama’s policies, the Ferguson/WSJ/Ryan
theory has clearly failed in its main predictions, and it’s worrying to
see that this hasn’t led to a more serious effort to rethink its
premises. After all, Romney and Ryan
might well win this election, and it would be nice if the people they
were listening to were pushing them to fix what’s actually gone wrong
rather than what they wish had gone wrong." (emphasis mine)
Debates don’t lead to deals
The
sad truth about this election is that this big "debate" is trivial.
This election will come down to a small number of minimally informed
swing voters in a few battleground states. If Obama wins, we will look
forward to two years of nothing happening since congress will be GOP
controlled. If Romney wins, we may face disaster as the GOP pushes its
ideology through and makes many of this country's worst problems even
worse. An Obama win is about avoiding that kind of catastrophe and
avoiding a dangerous change to the supreme court.
"So Ryan gamed the system: he got CBO to produce a
report which looks to those who don’t actually read it like a
validation of his numbers, when in fact he prevented any actual scoring
of his proposals. If you think otherwise, you’ve been snookered."
"Just as Ryan's proposed Medicare expenditure
would fail to keep up with rising medical costs, the GOP ticket's likely
cuts to disaster management and weather forecasting budgets would come
at a time in which, fueled by climate change, natu
ral disasters are becoming increasingly more potent and expensive. There
were 14 billion-dollar disasters in the United States in 2011—the most
on record. For the GOP in Tampa, Hurricane Isaac isn't just a nuisance;
it's the elephant in the room."
"Let's try a counterfactual. Say Ferguson hadn't made his big errors about Obamacare. Then his smaller errors of omission would not seem quite so serious -- or deliberate. But Ferguson did make his big errors. And he defends these omissions
with more elisions. It makes it impossible not to read his entire piece as an effort to deceive. Ferguson should consider what kind of grade he would give an undergraduate who turned in a paper that treated facts and counter-arguments so cavalierly." (emphasis mine)
"Romney wants to repeal the unpopular Obamacare,
and promises he’d do something for some people with preexisting
conditions — because replacing it with nothing would be even more
unpopular. Romney says he’d get rid of Wall Street reform, and vows to
replace it with unspecified “common sense” regulations — because
replacing reform with nothing is also a political nonstarter. Romney
says he’d cut whole agencies to make government more efficient and
cost-effective, but won’t say which ones; and Ryan won’t explain
in meaningful detail how he’d achieve the draconian spending cuts
necessary to make his numbers work — because when the talk turns to specifics, suddenly cutting government is politically very difficult indeed,
and gutting social programs would be very unpopular. Romney and Ryan
won’t say how they’d pay for their tax cuts — because they must be paid for by hiking the middle class’s tax burden or exploding the deficit, neither of which is politically palatable." (emphasis mine)
When asked about cutting the size of government, most people are conservatives. When you get into asking about the specifics, the leftward shift is incredible!
Ezra Klein: Obama’s money gap: Incompetence, incumbency or meaningless?
Romney
is currently outspending Obama 2 to 1, partly because of Obama's
negative attitude toward wall street. However, there seems to be little
if any effect on the polls. The country already largely feels like they
know Obama. So negative a
advertising will only do so much to hurt him.
Romney would theoretically be better off running on his own strengths
rather than attack Obama. But those strengths in the most important
areas (jobs, budget) are quite suspect to say the least.
"And so, if you look at Ryan’s specific cuts, most
of them are programs for poor people. In fact, the Center for Budget
and Policy Priorities estimates that more than six of every 10 dollars Ryan cuts from the federal budget is coming from programs for the poor" (emphasis mine)
"Conservatives are excited about Ryan because he's a true believer, not because they've developed a sudden love of budget wonkery. They would have been equally ecstatic about Bobby Jindal or Marco Rubio, and they're breathing a sigh of rel
ief that Romney didn't pick Rob Portman or Tim Pawlenty, both of whom are plenty serious policy wonks but don't have quite the right-wing fire in their eyes that the other guys do."
Desperate Measures: Paul Ryan Tries To Revive the “Death Panel” Canard
Spreading malicious lies about ObamaCare in 2010 helped bolster Republicans to take over the house in 2011. Only problem, Obama is campaigning now and, even though he is behind in spending (for the last month or so), he has money in the cof
fers to help keep him from falling too far behind. And he has the incmbant advantage, meaning attacks against him are much less effective. So he has the means to dispel this misinformation campaign (and the sad truth: start some of his own)
"But even if seniors like the first Gen Xer on a presidential ticket personally, the Pew poll shows that they dislike Ryan’s plan even more than their younger counterparts.
This points to an information vacuum, which is why death panels are back, and why this campaign is only going to get uglier from here."
"If conservatives do indeed want a "truce" on issues like abortion, that's fine with me: let them start observing one. Leave Planned Parenthood the hell alone. Stop pushing for laws that challenge Roe v. Wade. Shut down all your ultrasounds
. Tell Bob Vander Plaats to stop trying to run pro-marriage-equality judges off the Iowa Supreme Court. Take all those dog whistles about "respect for life" and "constitutional originalism" out of your platforms and speeches. Promise us you won't put unholy pressure on a President Romney to ensure the next new member of the Supreme Court will vote to turn abortion policy back to the states or even protect zygotes under the 14th Amendment."
"If the right was at all consistent, it would be denouncing the CBO report for failing to take into account the impact of a lower deficit in deterring the invisible bond vigilantes and encouraging the confidence fairy."
North American energy independence is already expected to largely happen by 2020, regardless of who is in the white house
Romney's refusal to accept Obama's fuel-efficiency standards will make his
plan more difficult.
Energy independence will not significantly lower prices since oil is still traded in world markets (exhibit A: Canada)
Although energy independence may have gross job gains (likely much smaller than what Romney has predicted), the net effect will likely be insignificant.
Romney does not tackle environmental concerns (global warming, fracking, oil spills), which may mean "public concern over fracking could stymie gas development."
"So think of it this way. In 1980, Jimmy Carter didn't have an argument for re-election that appealed very far beyond the Democratic base. Similarly, in 1984, Walter Mondale simply didn't have much of an argument for getting rid of Ronald
Reagan. The Republicans didn't have a good argument for holding on to power in 2006, nor did the Democrats in 2010. The elections reflect that.
This year, Barack Obama has an argument -- he didn't inherit the mess, and the economy is slowly expanding. That's an argument that is probably good enough to get him to 46 or 47 percent of the vote. Similarly, Mitt Romney has a pretty good argument for electing a new president, one that will shore up his base and Republican-leaning independents. Thus, we should probably expect what we're presently seeing in the polls: a close race, to be decided by a relatively small slice of the electorate." (emphasis mine)
Ezra Klein: The GOP has picked the wrong time to rediscover gold
When people think of returning to the gold standard, they think of it as a way of controlling inflation. However, it actually does precisely the opposite. Gold prices are tied to demand across global markets, meaning inflation would be tied to the whims of gold buyers and the fed would lose its ability to control it.
"Unlike 1981, in other words, when the gold standard made a kind of superficial sense as a response to our problems, 2012 is a moment when a gold standard would clearly have worsened our problems. Dramatically. As Eichengreen concludes, the idea’s “proponents paint the gold standard as a guarantee of financial stability; in practice, it would be precisely the opposite.”
