tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34125838471450435202024-03-16T01:08:52.608-06:00Enik RisingPolitics, popular culture, pastriesSeth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.comBlogger1919125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-81511344339520293792013-08-12T06:30:00.000-06:002013-08-12T06:30:00.674-06:00"V" and the Radicalization of the Comfortable<br />
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I recently re-watched the original 1983 "V" miniseries with my kids. If you don't recall it, the premise is that aliens come to Earth offering peace and prosperity, but their benevolence quickly changes to tyranny, their political opponents start disappearing, and it turns out that they're actually lizards bent on stealing our seawater, enslaving some of us, and eating the rest. The show is filled with unsubtle references to the Third Reich, so probably the dominant interpretation of the show's theme is an unobjectionable but trite "Don't let the Holocaust happen again."</div>
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But there's another theme running through the miniseries: the radicalization of the comfortable. The show begins with the following dedication:</div>
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To the heroism of the Resistance Fighters — past, present, future — this work is respectfully dedicated.</blockquote>
The show then opens in the middle of El Salvador's civil war, where a local rebel leader is being interviewed about recent losses to government soldiers. During the interview, the rebel looks directly into the camera and promises that he will keep fighting until his people are free, and then asks the audience, "You got that, Mister?" We then see him heroically defy an attacking government helicopter with a handgun.<br />
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With this setup, the mission of the show is to get us to identify with that rebel leader. What would it take to get comfortable suburban Americans to take up arms in the same way? Our stand-in is Juliet Parish (Faye Grant), a bright and mousy (if conventionally Hollywood-attractive) medical student living on the L.A. coast with her stockbroker boyfriend. She's perfectly content measuring tumors on laboratory mice and doesn't seem to have a political or violent bone in her body.<br />
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Over the course of the four-hour miniseries, though, she and a group of others find themselves marginalized and persecuted by the new alien regime and slowly find each other and take up arms. The group includes a cross-section of 1980s Los Angeles -- a white anthropologist, an African American refinery worker, a Latino gardener, an elderly Jewish Holocaust survivor -- but it is Julie's transformation that is most central to the story. Ultimately, the new rebels turn to her for organizational leadership, and she finds herself transformed into guerrilla, to the point where she reenacts the opening scene (at which she was not present), shooting defiantly at an alien vessel.<br />
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In hindsight, this is a pretty radical message. The show is encouraging us to empathize with armed guerrillas in El Salvador and essentially everywhere else in the world. (This is particularly interesting given that the U.S. was backing the El Salvadoran military at the time.) We're not so different, the show is saying. Under the right circumstances, we all could -- indeed, <i>should</i> -- become rebels. This was a similar tack taken by the "Galactica" reboot during the New Caprica occupation, when the show asked us to sympathize with a subjugated population building IEDs and employing suicide bombers, and they got some pushback for that. "V" was made over 20 years earlier.<br />
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Note: I have ignored the main character of Mike Donovan (Marc Singer) above in part because his role is, to me, the least interesting, even if it probably takes up the most screen time. Not that the actor does a bad job -- I like him! -- but the character just doesn't really undergo much of a transformation. He's mainly just used by the script to show us things the other humans don't get to see.<br />
Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com285tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-25710280435883502092013-03-25T14:30:00.002-06:002013-03-25T14:30:11.610-06:00Where the action isLoyal readers will notice that I haven't posted much on these pages in a while. I'm devoting my blogging energies these days to <a href="http://mischiefsoffaction.blogspot.com/">Mischiefs of Faction</a> and to my <a href="http://www.psmag.com/author/seth-masket/">weekly gig at <i>Pacific Standard</i></a>. These commitments seem like more than enough to keep me busy right now. I'm keeping Enik Rising open for business, in case I feel compelled to say something about "Star Wars" or a cake I'm baking, but for now, if you want to catch me, please check the sites above. Oh, and definitely <a href="http://twitter.com/smotus">follow me on Twitter</a>. I'm not even close to done with that yet.Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com52tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-47629451426219745532013-02-18T07:59:00.000-07:002013-02-18T08:00:20.567-07:00Raising barriers to voting, with predictable consequencesWhat happens to the electorate when you tighten up rules for voting? Does everyone have a harder time voting, or are some groups of voters affected more than others?<br />
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We got some evidence on this question in Colorado recently. For several election cycles, Colorado has provided mail-in ballots automatically to those who have registered as requesting mail-in ballots in previous cycles. In late 2011, Secretary of State Scott Gessler announced that the state's mail-in ballots would henceforth only be sent out automatically to those who were "active" voters, meaning they had voted in the last general election. This led to a dispute between Gessler's office and the counties of Denver and Pueblo, with the Brennan Center and Colorado Common Cause getting involved. I was brought in as an expert witness to help determine the effect that the change would have on the electorate, specifically with regards to race.<br />
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With the help of University of Denver geographer <a href="http://www.du.edu/nsm/departments/geography/facultyandstaff/sutton_paul.html">Paul Sutton</a>, I compared voting precincts in Denver, Pueblo, and throughout the state based on their racial breakdowns and on the percent of voters listed as IFTV ("Inactive - failed to vote," meaning they did not vote in the last general election). Below is a scatterplot showing the percent of residents who are Latino compared to the percent who are IFTV status, by precinct within Denver:<br />
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That's a very strong relationship, suggesting that the rule change would have a disproportionate impact on Latinos, making it less likely that they'll receive a mail-in ballot. Basically the same trend was found among African American residents:<br />
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I found these same patterns within Pueblo County and across the state as a whole.<br />
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Sutton then made these maps for Denver County, showing roughly the same trends geographically (click to expand):<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6BJ9BpO5BGFKSZLVGcyf55HkejyydblmrmYqUKtiY4Vag6tVpSps_2h-sTWKjzLzqT8LNMML28o3MjWTgExK1Kml3EMb65ET8qr6aVZ75RvVlqF3TrkRyF1tMXDn78VFCw3upEzTEsTmo/s1600/Figure_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6BJ9BpO5BGFKSZLVGcyf55HkejyydblmrmYqUKtiY4Vag6tVpSps_2h-sTWKjzLzqT8LNMML28o3MjWTgExK1Kml3EMb65ET8qr6aVZ75RvVlqF3TrkRyF1tMXDn78VFCw3upEzTEsTmo/s320/Figure_2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Again, the trend is quite consistent: the higher concentration of a racial minority group within a precinct, the more people in that precinct who did not vote in the previous general election, and the more people who would be deprived of an automatic mail-in ballot.<br />
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Now, there is an ecological inference issue here: I'm making individual-level interpretations using precinct-level data. To try to get around this, I employed the ecological inference program <a href="http://imai.princeton.edu/research/files/ecojss.pdf">Eco</a> to make some approximations of the individual-level behavior. The results estimated that roughly 10 percent of eligible white voters were IFTV status, but roughly a third of Latinos and African Americans were IFTV status. The change in the rule on mail-in ballots would have meant racial minorities having a harder time voting by mail than whites.<br />
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Based partially on this analysis, the judge in the case <a href="http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/{FB3C17E2-CDD1-4DF6-92BE-BD4429893665}/CCC-Gessler%20Order-DebraJohnson%201.21.2013.pdf">ruled against Gessler</a>, and the change in mail-in voter policy is not being implemented. But given <a href="http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/race/president">partisan voting patterns among different racial groups</a>, it's not hard to imagine how this would have played out electorally had it been enforced.<br />
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(Cross-posted from <a href="http://mischiefsoffaction.blogspot.com/2013/02/raising-barriers-to-voting-with.html">Mischiefs of Faction</a>)Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-11738350166132672272013-01-09T10:03:00.000-07:002013-01-09T10:03:11.973-07:00Temperature TrendsAndrew Gelman is right: <a href="http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2013/01/08/how-2012-stacks-up-the-worst-graph-on-record/">this graph</a> is pretty bad. If you want to get a sense of what<a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html"> temperature trends </a>look like over the past century or so, I find a lowess trendline useful:<br />
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<br />Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-73773739769738766342013-01-05T14:31:00.000-07:002013-01-05T14:31:52.216-07:00Are (some) academic stresses self-imposed?<div>
<a href="http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/01/05/some_realkeeping_on_academia_and_stress">Dan Drezner</a> makes some nice points in response to the <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/01/03/the-least-stressful-jobs-of-2013/"><i>Forbes</i> article</a> that lists academia as one of the least stressful occupations. While he rightly notes that adjuncts face a great deal of career stress, he concedes that those of us in tenure or tenure-track positions enjoy a degree of autonomy and flexibility that those in careers at similar pay levels do not have.</div>
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He also makes a point about us self-selecting into this line of work, and I think this is an important one in the discussion of stress. Academics generally do their jobs because it's a career they actively sought out and they study a subject that deeply interests them. (No one ever wrote a <a href="http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2012/12/against-springsteen">folk song</a> about being forced to become an academic because it was the only job in town.) Thus, we end up committing to a lot of things we don't actually have to do -- such as conference papers, journal reviews, academic blogs, etc. -- because we find them intrinsically interesting or we believe we have a decent contribution to make. Now, it's good for the discipline and for our own career reputations and professional advancement that we do these things, but they're not always mandatory, particularly for tenured faculty. So the professional commitments I took on during that blessed year between gaining tenure and becoming department chair certainly added to my stress levels, but a) I could have declined many/most of them and kept my job, b) the commitments brought some satisfaction that partially offset the stresses, and c) the stresses weren't remotely like those faced by firefighters, police officers, soldiers, miners, commercial fishermen, etc. That is, no MPSA paper is going to kill me, although some have tried.<div>
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Similarly, with teaching, many of us endeavor to improve our teaching or offer new courses because we believe it's important to do so. Taking on such a commitment invariably generates new stresses -- teaching a new course sometimes leads to initially lower course evaluations, generating a new course is harder than repeating an old one -- and we could usually just not do these things and still keep our jobs. Nonetheless, we take on the task of improving our course offerings, and the concomitant stress, because to quote Hyman Roth, "this is the work we have chosen," and we think this is the best way to do it.</div>
Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com45tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-27220675573173343572012-12-04T11:35:00.003-07:002012-12-04T11:35:38.367-07:00Finally, a good film about the presidency<br />
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I saw "Lincoln" the other night. This is a very good and very rich film -- it contains a great deal of detail, both in the script and on the screen -- and I'd like to see it again soon to look for things I missed the first time around. Much has already been written on the film (I'm particularly enjoying <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/ta-nehisi-coates/">Ta-Nehisi Coates</a>' and <a href="http://www.mappingthenation.com/blog/">Susan Schulten</a>'s perspectives, and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/23/opinion/brooks-why-we-love-politics.html">David Brooks</a> makes some interesting observations), but I wanted to mention a particular point: this is probably the best film on the American presidency ever made.<br />
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The premise of the film is that Lincoln has an agenda item (the thirteenth amendment) he wants to push through Congress. He's recently been reelected -- after very publicly supporting emancipation -- and believes he has a mandate to see this agenda through. But he faces numerous obstacles. First, a Confederate peace envoy is offering to cease hostilities if slavery can be retained in some form; news of this will likely erode support for the proposed amendment. Second, his party, while maintaining large majorities in Congress, doesn't command two-thirds of the House, and members of the minority Democrats must be won over if the amendment is to pass. Third, his party is hardly united on the amendment; conservatives think it goes to far, radicals think it doesn't go far enough, and none of them like him forcing this on a lame duck Congress. Fourth, Lincoln's own views on slavery and the war have evolved over his first term, and many in Congress and in his own cabinet distrust him as a result.<br />
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These struggles are the essence of the American presidency. And the film nicely portrays both the powers and the limitations of the president. It makes the point that should be so obvious but is so rarely portrayed in political films: the president has no direct power over Congress. He is not a member of it, he cannot author bills, he cannot force Congress to consider a bill, and he cannot (despite what the creators of <a href="http://enikrising.blogspot.com/2009/10/contender.html">"The Contender"</a> would have you think) demand a roll call vote. The president runs and is elected on an agenda but is largely dependent on Congress to see it through. The film also notes that the president can't dictate to his party: Preston Blair, one of the founders of the Republican Party, makes far more demands on Lincoln than the other way around, and Lincoln basically begs Thaddeus Stevens and the Radicals for their support. And in terms of the president's legal powers, Lincoln himself is shown wrestling with whether his Emancipation Proclamation was actually constitutional or whether it would have any authority in peacetime. He well knew that he was exploring uncharted and potentially dangerous areas of the law and was unclear about his power to do so.<br />
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But the president does have other powers, notably the power to make patronage appointments and control the military. He can influence media coverage but can't control it. And while we do see a few examples of the president attempting to personally persuade some members of Congress, it's not clear how effective that is, and this isn't remotely treated as his most important power. (A lesser film would likely have shown the president using his bully pulpit powers, but that would have been both ahistorical and stupid here.)<br />
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I'm open to suggestions here, but I have a hard time coming up with another film about the presidency that gets at these core issues of executive limitations and powers. "The Contender" was a joke in this regard. "All the President's Men" is great but is basically about the media. "The American President" is pretty much a romantic comedy. It does show the president struggling with pushing bills through Congress, but largely resorts to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3NI5sE3KeY">magical bully pulpit powers</a> in the end. "Dave" is lighthearted comedy. "Seven Days in May" addresses some of these issues but almost completely ignores Congress. The one film that handles these issues seriously, I think, is "Advise and Consent," which chronicles a president's difficult nomination of a new secretary of state, although much of that film's focus is on the blackmailing of a particular senator rather than on the president, who disappears for much of the film. "West Wing" actually addresses a number of these issues in a serious way, although scattered across many different television episodes.<br />
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So I plan to use "Lincoln" in my film class, and I'm grateful for a film that finally deals with the executive branch in all its glory and shortcomings.<br />
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[Cross-posted from <a href="http://mischiefsoffaction.blogspot.com/2012/12/finally-good-film-about-presidency.html">Mischiefs of Faction</a>]<br />
Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-81115628714282291992012-12-02T14:25:00.000-07:002012-12-02T14:25:16.242-07:00Superman II: Kal-El is Horny<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In my ongoing efforts to visit the sins of the father on my children, I recently watched "Superman II" with them. While "Superman I" holds up quite well, the second one really doesn't.<br />
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For one thing, the effects in "Superman I" were actually quite good. Chris Reeve really does look like he's flying -- it looks effortless and quite natural, with little evidence of green screens or wires or anything else. The effects just weren't as believable in the sequel. But beyond that, the dialogue in the second one is pretty miserable. While Lois once sounded like an ambitious cynic, she now sounds like a naive, lovelorn putz; it's hard to imagine why she's so highly valued as a reporter. Clark/Superman is laden with some pretty cruddy dialogue, as well. Either Terence Stamp and Gene Hackman had better writers, or they just had the acting skills to pull off some pretty silly lines and recognize them for the camp they were.<br />
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But one of the things that struck me as particularly weak was Superman's big decision: giving up his super powers for a chance to hook up with Lois. After they confess their love for each other, Superman goes off and has a conversation with a holographic image of his mother, asking her how he can consummate his love with Lois. (Someone's got issues.) She tells him that to be with a mortal, he has to become one, and that this move is <i>irreversible</i>. And he's all, "Where do I sign up?" I mean, I guess this is hardly the first guy to make an important and rash decision just for a chance to get laid, and there's no reason Kryptonian men should be any different from Earth men in this regard, but you'd think he'd have given this just a tad more thought. His powers and responsibilities are pretty important to who he is. I mean, he couldn't have saved Lois' life in the first movie (multiple times!) if not for those super powers. On a more practical level, how the hell do they get out of the North Pole if neither of them can fly? And what the hell are they going to eat?<br />
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But he ignores all this, enters the molecule chamber, and has his super powers stripped. He then emerges as a regular human, wearing a clean white shirt and lacking the hair gel. He and Lois hug, and then, literally five seconds later...<br />
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Boom. How convenient that he has a king-sized bed in his fortress of <i>solitude</i>. Those crystals are amazing, and surprisingly comfortable. This is a pretty impressive quid pro quo. Clark actually <i>motions toward the bed</i> while still hugging Lois, with the look of a guy who just bought an expensive meal or got a vasectomy and is hankering for some gratitude booty.<br />
<br />
Clark also becomes hardly the first guy to pay an extraordinary price for sex and quickly regret it, as the very first human being he meets after they return to society beats the crap out of him. Then the TV shows the president surrendering to General Zod and exhorting Superman to save the world. So the honeymoon ends rather abruptly. And then, most disappointingly, Clark finds that he can still get his superpowers back by building a new fortress. Huh? So could any human do that? And how did he get back there anyway? (Note: this would be even harder today, given the receding polar ice.)<br />
<br />
So it ends up being a kind of cheap "Last Temptation of Christ" story, with Superman being offered a chance for worldly pleasures in exchange for his job as savior. Only, unlike Christ, he actually gets the worldly pleasures (for a few minutes, anyway), and then gets to give them up and take his old job back. He gives up his chance for Lois only after he already slept with her. Typical guy.Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com55tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-26887813441162574732012-11-26T15:08:00.000-07:002012-11-26T15:08:42.292-07:00Don't blame me; it was just my unrestrained id that tried to rape you<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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If you want to understand American gender relations in the 1960s, skip "Mad Men" and tune into classic "Star Trek." I recently re-watched "The Enemy Within" with the kids and it was an eye-opener.<br />
<br />
A brief synopsis: due to a transporter malfunction, Kirk is split into two identical beings, a "good" Kirk who has the original's intellect and moral code, and an "evil" Kirk who has the original's lust and strength. On the surface, the episode is a nice discourse on leadership; good Kirk appears to be the ideal captain, but he can't make any command decisions without his evil half. And it's also a great example of William Shatner's genius as an actor. He makes the most of his evil side using just eyeliner and a few camera zooms.<br />
<br />
But damn, the gender dynamics! Evil Kirk has a fascinating trip through the Enterprise. He first visits Dr. McCoy's office and demands brandy. (Why is the ship's doctor the source of liquor?) Then, good and boozed up, he pays a visit to the quarters of Yeoman Rand, whom he tries to rape. While she scratches his face, the rape is only really averted when Crewman Fisher walks by, sees what's going on, and tries to summon help. Evil Kirk disables Fisher and escapes the scene.<br />
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Later, good Kirk visits Rand and pleads his innocence, but Rand sticks to her story. To his credit, Crewman Fisher stops in and backs up Rand's story, knowing full well that he's accusing the captain of rape and doing so at risk to his own career.<br />
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Eventually, Scotty and Spock are able to repair the transporter and re-merge the two Kirks into the moral-but-decisive leader they all know and love. So then Kirk has to face Yeoman Rand, who has occasional business on the bridge. This should theoretically cause considerable discomfort to both of them, as she has to work with her would-be rapist and he can now see his past actions through the eyes of someone with a conscience. But the only discomfort appears to be from Rand, who seems to <i>apologize</i> to Kirk in the final scene, and he dismisses her with a simple smiling "thank you." Then Spock, out of nowhere, says with a smirk, "The imposter had some interesting qualities. Wouldn't you say, Yeoman?" Because apparently Vulcans have no emotions other than contempt for victims of sexual violence.<br />
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And keep in mind that "Star Trek" was one of the more socially liberal programs of its day, although one could probably judge from the uniforms that women's equality didn't have much of place in the creators' hearts just yet. Still, the whole I-only-raped-you-when-I-didn't-have-a-conscience-but-now-that-I-do-bygones! argument is pretty impressive.Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com33tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-45362316778510523102012-10-03T11:08:00.001-06:002012-10-03T11:10:37.665-06:00The Debate <p class='bloggerplus_text_section' align='left' style='clear:both;'>I'm inside the media filing center at the University of Denver for the presidential debate today and live-tweeting as much as possible. I hope to have a detailed post up tonight or tomorrow, but for now, my <a href='http://www.twitter.com/smotus' target='_blank'>Twitter feed</a> will have to do. (Hashtag: #debatedenver)</p>Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-66024040885965852222012-09-08T09:54:00.002-06:002012-09-08T09:54:57.882-06:00Desperately seeking trends<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443847404577631150151855674.html?mod=rss_opinion_main">Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell's latest piece of advice</a> to Obama suggests that his campaign is in trouble and needs a sudden change. As evidence of Obama's recent troubles, they cherry-pick from a number of polls, noting that Obama is trailing Romney badly in the "battleground" state of Missouri (which isn't actually a battleground this year) and that Romney has closed the gap with Obama nationwide since <i>May</i>. Then they do this:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
President Obama now leads by just one point in the latest PPP Florida poll (48%-47%)—down from a four-point lead (50%-46%) in an Aug. 22-26 CNN poll. </blockquote>
Look, I'm no pollster, but isn't comparing results across different polling firms and calling it a trend one of the cardinal sins of polling interpretation? And, given those polls' margins of error, aren't those two results statistically indistinguishable from one another?Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-80016668369568334342012-08-30T10:15:00.000-06:002012-08-30T10:15:05.350-06:00How to criticize Obama without making crap upI <a href="https://twitter.com/smotus/status/240858297383649280">tweeted</a> the other day that the GOP convention had thus far offered an excellent critique of things Obama hasn't actually said or done. Paul Ryan seemed to double down on that strategy last night, saying numerous things that were, at best, highly misleading. Poor Jonathan Bernstein <a href="https://twitter.com/jbplainblog/status/241003824712667136">blew a fuse</a> when Ryan criticized Obama for opposing the debt commission recommendations that Ryan himself had voted against, and then later offered <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/paul-ryan-fails----the-truth/2012/08/29/bbfe1eac-f254-11e1-b74c-84ed55e0300b_blog.html">this explanation</a>. <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/08/30/paul-ryans-speech-in-three-words/">Even Fox News</a> called Ryan's speech "deceiving" and "distracting" (if also "dazzling").<br />
<br />
But all this seems to be part of a convention strategy of attacking an alternate reality Obama rather than the one who currently resides in the White House. A national convention is a rare opportunity to get your message out to voters unfiltered, and when you spend nearly all of it criticizing the government takeover of health care that didn't happen, the apology tour that didn't happen, the war on religion that didn't happen, etc., and then make the entire convention's theme ("We built it") a response to an out-of-context quote that only works as a gaffe when you selectively edit the president's speech, and when it seems the media is finally willing to call bullshit on this stuff, it makes you look bad. It makes it look like the real Obama must be a brilliant, flawless president -- otherwise, why would you have to make stuff up about him?<br />
<br />
Now, even the most ardent Obama fan (even Obama himself, I'll bet) would admit to some flaws over the past 3 1/2 years. Can Republican speechwriters not come up with any? Let me just offer a few suggestions for those still working on some speeches for tonight:<br />
<ul>
<li>The economy is still not great! Would it be so hard to say something like, "Yes, Obama inherited a lot of challenges in 2008, but so did Reagan in 1980. By 1984, we had 7% economic growth. Where's the Obama recovery?" I mean, tinker with the wording or whatever, but that's actually true. Is that not enough?</li>
<li>Solyndra! Yes, it's small potatoes -- just the narrowest sliver of stimulus spending, which overall was well-spent and actually saw good results. But at least with Solyndra, the president took a gamble with taxpayer money and gambled wrong. There must be at least a handful of similar cases out there. Find them.</li>
<li>Federal judges. I know this is generally a left-wing critique of Obama, and most Republicans are thrilled that there are fewer Obama judges on the bench. But the fact that he hasn't nominated more judges actually is a bit of a scandal. You can spin that to make it look irresponsible, can't you?</li>
<li>You could attack ACA for what it actually does. It requires people to purchase something they might not have purchased. Yes, it's constitutional, but it seems like you could frame it as inconsistent with the current conservative vision of liberty without blowing it up into some Marxist caricature. </li>
</ul>
I just have to think there's enough factual material out there to fill a 30-minute speech. The viewers on Fox (<a href="http://mischiefsoffaction.blogspot.com/2012/08/whos-watching-conventions.html#comment-form">the primary audience for this event</a>) might be content with the fantasy world attacks, but if you want to speak to a larger audience, a bit more might be demanded of you.Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-1615747381125868272012-08-27T07:00:00.000-06:002012-08-27T07:00:02.097-06:00Colorado: It's not just a ski resort that burns down each summerThe University of Denver and the Glover Park consulting group conducted a press conference last Monday in Washington, DC, to discuss Colorado politics, the presidential debates, and the 2012 election. I was one of four DU faculty members in attendance, along with DSCC Executive Director Guy Cecil and former Colorado Republican Party Chair Dick Wadhams. Dee Dee Myers hosted. You can see all the action <a href="http://www.c-span.org/Events/University-of-Denver-Hosts-Discussion-on-Colorado-Politics/10737433249/">here on C-SPAN</a>.<br />
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<br />Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-58960187234289078262012-08-14T06:14:00.001-06:002012-08-14T06:14:52.943-06:00Explaining Olympic medals, a follow-upTwo weeks ago, <a href="http://enikrising.blogspot.com/2012/07/medals-per-athlete-2012-olympics.html">I posted some stats</a> on the nations that were winning the most Olympic medals in the first week of the games. I thought I'd follow up with some additional charts now that the games have concluded. These are for the top 21 medal-earning nations, rather than every country, so please forgive the incomplete dataset.<br />
<br />
I should also mention a little regression analysis I did showing that overwhelmingly the best predictor of how many medals a country won was how many athletes they sent to the games. The more you play, the more you win. Not shocking, I know, but still a better predictor than wealth. However, GDP turns out to be the best predictor of how many athletes a nation will send. So national wealth is important, but somewhat indirectly.<br />
<br />
Anyway, charts are below the jump. North Korea, while having a great first week, fell quite a bit in most rankings. The big story now is Jamaica, a small and relatively poor country that won a ton of medals.<br />
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Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-29795275766268308782012-08-06T10:15:00.003-06:002012-08-06T10:15:32.356-06:00Links for following the 2012 elections<br />
[Reposted from <a href="http://mischiefsoffaction.blogspot.com/2012/08/links-for-following-election.html">Mischiefs of Faction</a>]<br />
<br />
I recently did a talk for an Election Watchdog Workshop run by Investigative Reporters and Editors, during which I provided a list of recommended resources for following the fall campaigns. I figured I'd reproduce the list below. Please feel free to suggest any other good ones.<br />
<br />
<b>Campaign Resources</b><br />
<ul>
<li>Advertising - <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/track-presidential-campaign-ads-2012/">The Washington Post's Ad Tracker</a></li>
<li>Candidate travel - <a href="http://www.politico.com/2012-election/candidate-map/">Politico's Candidate Tracker</a> and <a href="http://www.p2012.org/chrn/fall12.html">P2012</a></li>
<li>Field office locations - <a href="http://www.barackobama.com/co?source=state-chooser">Obama's</a> and <a href="http://www.mittromney.com/states">Romney's</a></li>
</ul>
<div>
<b>Fundraising</b></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Federal races - <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/index.php">Open Secrets</a></li>
<li>State races - <a href="http://www.followthemoney.org/services/index.phtml">Follow The Money</a></li>
</ul>
<div>
<b>Voter Identification Laws</b></div>
</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.ncsl.org/legislatures-elections/elections/voter-id.aspx">National Conference on State Legislatures</a></li>
</ul>
<div>
<b>Polling</b></div>
</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Pollster - <a href="http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2012-general-election-romney-vs-obama">Candidate matchups</a> and <a href="http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/obama-job-approval">job approval</a></li>
<li>Real Clear Politics - <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.html">Candidate matchups</a> and <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html">job approval</a></li>
</ul>
<div>
<b>Economic Indicators</b></div>
</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bea.gov/national/index.htm">Bureau of Economic Analysis</a> (GDP, RDI, etc.)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.bls.gov/">Bureau of Labor Statistics</a> (Unemployment)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.realtytrac.com/trendcenter/">RealtyTrac</a> (Housing statistics - paid service for recent data)</li>
</ul>
<div>
<b>Election Forecasts</b></div>
</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/">FiveThirtyEight</a> (Nate Silver)</li>
<li><a href="http://votamatic.org/">Votamatic</a> (Drew Linzer)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.douglas-hibbs.com/">Bread And Peace</a> (Douglas Hibbs)</li>
<li><a href="http://electoralmap.net/2012/intrade.php">Intrade's Electoral Map</a></li>
<li><a href="http://frontloading.blogspot.com/">Frontloading HQ</a> (Josh Putnam)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/create-your-own-election/2012/04/24/gIQAuaOIeT_blog.html">Wonkblog</a> (Ezra Klein)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/">Crystal Ball</a> (Larry Sabato)</li>
</ul>
<div>
<br /></div>
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(h/t to John Sides and Lynn Vavreck for some helpful suggestions)</div>
</div>Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-50570568292750598682012-07-31T10:22:00.000-06:002012-07-31T15:33:34.709-06:00Medals per athlete, 2012 OlympicsI'm not surprised this statistic hasn't gotten a lot of attention so far, even though it's probably the fairest way to compare across countries.<br />
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Update: I'm not sure if this is a fairer measure, but here's medals won per million citizens. North Korea is still looking pretty solid, but Hungary's stomping the world.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVTLvFpyAH1Fkj3ixEpBRCDpr-xa6zMU6RSJlM3BZ_R1AyJMh5UjpBMxW_JmlfBD8xML9fAlPBdaF0fGYYVzMBEYMKNYkfO0n0_KngES3hlGi-0nV4yE9cSijprZq4JcDu4mWiuONYOQY/s1600/medals+per+capita.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVTLvFpyAH1Fkj3ixEpBRCDpr-xa6zMU6RSJlM3BZ_R1AyJMh5UjpBMxW_JmlfBD8xML9fAlPBdaF0fGYYVzMBEYMKNYkfO0n0_KngES3hlGi-0nV4yE9cSijprZq4JcDu4mWiuONYOQY/s400/medals+per+capita.png" width="317" /></a></div>
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Oh, and what the hell, here's the number of medals divided by nominal GDP, as reported in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)">CIA World Factbook</a>.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoNtzZxwoYN328AG6iIqmlwd9rMxxZWEVmuSOiYERLzkbQm-yjWCapgSwAhVIEoj7G1_gYrhBDGALxkZWp1RrCcBclLp-1XBqya5ZfOYGjisSb83c50xHgYx2-5O0pfz9Vji0zzdMx9mc/s1600/medals+per+gdp.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoNtzZxwoYN328AG6iIqmlwd9rMxxZWEVmuSOiYERLzkbQm-yjWCapgSwAhVIEoj7G1_gYrhBDGALxkZWp1RrCcBclLp-1XBqya5ZfOYGjisSb83c50xHgYx2-5O0pfz9Vji0zzdMx9mc/s400/medals+per+gdp.png" width="317" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com190tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-62251875492922886612012-07-30T10:55:00.000-06:002012-07-30T10:55:16.925-06:00Vacation tip: Minuteman Missile, South DakotaWe recently came back from a visit to western South Dakota, which was fantastic and surprising in many respects. I'd never been to the state, and the image I'd conjured in my mind was really nothing like what I saw. We were surrounded by bison in Custer State Park, we saw an active mammoth dig site in Hot Springs, we were mesmerized by the Badlands, we learned a lot about the Wounded Knee massacre in a tiny museum in Wall, and more. <div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9tjX9qskKv1w49IFdmIFwqooekl3WeNoKO3APHtza2GWEs-Qv6L0t14JnRYPc5wsVJudZl6Dckx4CU6uHCSZihHdCmVk11eoQvEs0pA-H7BAMpbSYbd1HXGkMQmShNcYLXxuhwWXwiIM/s1600/DSC_5878.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9tjX9qskKv1w49IFdmIFwqooekl3WeNoKO3APHtza2GWEs-Qv6L0t14JnRYPc5wsVJudZl6Dckx4CU6uHCSZihHdCmVk11eoQvEs0pA-H7BAMpbSYbd1HXGkMQmShNcYLXxuhwWXwiIM/s200/DSC_5878.jpg" width="133" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not a big workspace.</td></tr>
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But what I wanted to mention was our visit to the <a href="http://www.nps.gov/mimi/index.htm">Minuteman Missile National Historic Site</a>. Much to their credit, the Park Service decided to maintain a Cold War-era launch control facility and silo. We toured the launch control facility -- it was free, but you need to obtain tickets in advance. The facility is basically a small base on the ground level, where roughly 10 people were stationed starting in the mid-1960s. They provided security, maintained communications, and cooked food for the two-person crew stationed thirty feet below in the launch control center.</div>
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The underground center is basically a capsule with 3-foot thick concrete walls, held to the surrounding earth by giant shock absorbers. It was built to withstand a nuclear detonation as close as a mile away. The two chairs inside it have seat belts so that the officers wouldn't be thrown around the chamber in the event of a blast.</div>
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The Park Ranger leading our tour gave us a good impression of the lives of the people stationed in this facility. They worked in 24-hour shifts but only had roughly 1-2 hours of work during that time. Beyond that, they just sat and waited for the order to kill millions of people. It's a serious head trip. Officers picked for this job were usually under the age of 25, making them more likely to follow orders and less likely to have families. </div>
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Here's me about to turn my key to start World War III:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgibNFYjT30OovlO2SSsgzySaT2YsPZWMr6nKzFY4c7cuo0UV34Rx75JiSaFHRgjwcTJqjI9lXTFT4ukSyLPdQTVpy2QDGGhCbZLh8dJFSuknX1I2zwuTqWILkZTAORxZ_CWizaNqg9zzs/s1600/DSC_5875.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgibNFYjT30OovlO2SSsgzySaT2YsPZWMr6nKzFY4c7cuo0UV34Rx75JiSaFHRgjwcTJqjI9lXTFT4ukSyLPdQTVpy2QDGGhCbZLh8dJFSuknX1I2zwuTqWILkZTAORxZ_CWizaNqg9zzs/s320/DSC_5875.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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And here's some interesting gallows humor painted on the center's concrete door:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh35tbFTTTxPhamzR7Wd6s5Tz1OJzd0Ni0wghmVJlV4mdcSBiUtU_7tf7sPj5GKcyOZX4PrwQ6RL1t92wZZdjq7SsB2bHHA-EHhGc5DdGMvht6PtCRLrT2RhGkGBxwWWN5tlDV54eZoVdk/s1600/DSC_5864.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh35tbFTTTxPhamzR7Wd6s5Tz1OJzd0Ni0wghmVJlV4mdcSBiUtU_7tf7sPj5GKcyOZX4PrwQ6RL1t92wZZdjq7SsB2bHHA-EHhGc5DdGMvht6PtCRLrT2RhGkGBxwWWN5tlDV54eZoVdk/s320/DSC_5864.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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Anyway, it's a fascinating piece of history and very much worth the visit.</div>
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<br /></div>Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com87tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-45224601420692883822012-07-04T09:37:00.002-06:002012-07-04T09:37:34.014-06:00A reason to celebrate<br />
(Reposted from <a href="http://mischiefsoffaction.blogspot.com/2012/07/a-reason-to-celebrate.html">Mischiefs of Faction</a>)<br />
<br />
Want a reason to celebrate this Independence Day? Try this: elections. Yes, elections can be annoying, and if you live in a swing state, you are undoubtedly already being hammered with mind-numbing attack ads, with Republicans claiming that everything that Democrats do is craven or evil and vice versa.<br />
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But what's the alternative? I've spent far too much of my leisure time in the last year listening to the <a href="http://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/">History of Rome podcast</a> and watching "Game of Thrones," and one thing those tales drive home is the challenge of succession. Many (perhaps most?) of the battles fought by soldiers of the Roman Empire were fought against other Roman soldiers, either putting town a rebellion or taking the throne from a usurper. Passing power along by bloodline can help -- at least it's some sort of system -- but it can create just as many problems when an <a href="http://hotnewshome.com/2012/04/04/game-of-thrones-the-making-of-season-2-in-pictures/15607/attachment/15619">heir proves incompetent</a> or there are <a href="http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b385/JosephJoeyJoe/StannisBaratheon-02.jpg">multiple legitimate claimants</a>. One of the reasons for the successes of the Roman emperors of the 2nd century AD was that most of them did not have male children -- they were able to choose qualified successors and groom them for leadership. Marcus Aurelius, of course, did produce a male heir, and he turned out to be an insane Joaquin Phoenix, ending the empire's century of competence.<br />
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I find this important because the Roman Empire was pretty much the most advanced civilization the world had ever seen. It had sophisticated systems of currency and trade, an advanced legal system, a functional bureaucracy, not to mention its amazing military capabilities. But they were never able to resolve the problem of succession of power.<br />
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And yet this is something we take for granted today. Elections are fought fiercely, but they end. The results are rarely disputed, and <a href="http://www.theonion.com/articles/bush-executes-253-new-mexico-democrats,189/">basically never with violence</a>. We do not fear for our lives if we pick the wrong presidential candidate, and we do not waste blood and treasure putting down rebellions and ousting usurpers.<br />
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No, we're not the only nation to figure this out, but it's nonetheless something to be proud of, especially since so many advanced societies before us failed on this point. So this Independence Day, let's celebrate by volunteering for a candidate, donating money to a campaign, or just watching an attack ad.<br />
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Happy Fourth.<br />Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-67180078951399220312012-06-21T09:34:00.000-06:002012-06-21T09:36:43.529-06:00Not "scientifically valid"<div class="tr_bq">
Sounds like some of the folks at the Douglas County (Colorado) School District could use a statistics refresher course. Writes the <i><a href="http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_20903890/douglas-county-schools-says-spring-survey-inconclusive">Denver Post</a></i>:</div>
<blockquote>
The Douglas County School District has deemed its <a href="https://www.dcsdk12.org/cs/groups/public/@webcomm/documents/webasset/dcs1062374.pdf">spring survey of parents</a> "inconclusive" — a poll in which a majority of responding parents saw the district's suspended voucher program as "unfavorable" and expressed unhappiness with the district's overall direction.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
District officials contend that not enough parents participated in the survey to make it a valid representation. As a result, they stamped every page of survey results posted on the district's website in red letters saying: "Inconclusive due to insufficient response rate."</blockquote>
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More than 4,900 parents completed the survey. There are approximately 76,500 parents whose children attend Douglas County schools.<span style="background-color: white;"> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">[...]</span></blockquote>
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<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">District spokesman Randy Barber said the approximately 6 percent of parents who responded to the survey this spring was significantly under the 30 percent the district wanted to make it "scientifically valid."</span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white;">Yes, people usually have more confidence in a survey if it has a higher response rate. But that doesn't mean that the results of this survey aren't valid, and there's nothing magic or "scientific" about the 30 percent threshold. We can conduct very accurate national surveys based on just 1,000 responses -- roughly a fifth of what they managed in this parent survey. More important than overall numbers is </span><i style="background-color: white;">representativeness</i><span style="background-color: white;">. That is, does the sample of parents who responded to the survey look roughly like the overall population within the school district? This can probably be figured out using demographic questions (although the only one I can find in the survey is just a race question. Area of residence, income, family size, ideology, etc., would be really helpful here.) </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">Of course, maybe the reason that the district rejected the results as "inconclusive" has less to do with sample size than it does with the results, which were less than flattering for the district. If they really want to know what district parents think, they could conduct a survey of a representative (and probably smaller) sample and get solid results. But if they just want certain results, then by all means they should just keep doing surveys until they get the answers they want.</span>Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-49182665855978662922012-06-20T21:43:00.000-06:002012-06-20T21:43:24.628-06:00The foie gras lobbyOn July 1st, the production and sale of foie gras will become illegal in California, a result of a state law passed back in 2004. Ed Leibowitz at <i>The Atlantic</i> has <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/the-last-days-of-foie-gras/9009/">an entertaining story</a> about some of the lobbying surrounding this new law. According to the article, over 100 chefs are now lobbying for the reversal of the law, and they have some effective talking points:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Foie gras is low-hanging fruit,” [Chef Josiah] Citrin* says, in the resigned tone of someone explaining the obvious. “You think the foie gras industry has money to fight, like the beef industry?” He points out that a class barrier also keeps voters from rallying in defense of foie. “You go out in the street and ask 25 people ‘What do you think about fattened duck liver?’ and they’ll say ‘Ooh, I don’t like that.’ You don’t have to take a poll.”</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Citrin has joined a coalition of more than 100 chefs lobbying for the reversal or suspension of the foie gras ban. (The coalition, which insists that it does not oppose animal rights, says it favors the humane treatment of all livestock, waterfowl included.) In a few days, many of the chefs will travel to Sacramento to lobby on foie’s behalf, and in the weeks ahead, high-end restaurants will hold foie-filled dinners to raise funds for their quixotic fight.</blockquote>
On the other side of the issue is the ever-quotable John Burton, the one-time lion of the state legislature and now chair of the state Democratic party:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The chefs’ coalition has warned about the ban’s potential impact on California’s high-end restaurants in a bad economy, and the state’s diminished standing in the world of haute cuisine. “California will no longer be a food destination?,” Burton said. “In other words, a guy’s sitting around and says ‘Let’s go to California. They’ve got these beautiful views. They’ve got Yosemite, the bridges, Universal City, the redwoods. Oh, shit! They don’t have foie gras! Let’s go to South Dakota.’”</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Nor did he buy the argument that a restaurant could go broke without foie gras, unless that restaurant’s specialty was incredibly narrow. “If you had the House of Foie Gras, you’d be fucked,” he said.</blockquote>
Anyway, a great story that manages to humanize both sides of a lobbying battle, over an issue on which the vast majority of people probably don't have strong opinions and will never be affected.<br />
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*Disclosure: Citrin is a family friend.Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-33845271535590336812012-06-14T15:26:00.004-06:002012-06-14T15:26:49.689-06:00NetworksLight posting here this week, as I'm attending the <a href="http://socsci.colorado.edu/~stwo0664/index.html">Political Networks conference</a> in Boulder. You can follow all the action at the <a href="http://twitter.com/polnetworks">Political Networks Twitter feed</a>, or on the hashtag <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23polnet2012">#polnet2012</a>.Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-15338770278065956092012-06-12T22:59:00.001-06:002012-06-14T09:36:43.322-06:00Zombie fundraising memeLast week<i>, <strike>Politico</strike> Buzzfeed</i> <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/obamas-2008-donors-dont-give-in-2012">ran a story</a> claiming that Obama is having fundraising problems, noting that many of his 2008 donors haven't given him any money this year. (<a href="http://enikrising.blogspot.com/2012/06/obamas-suffering-because-hillary.html">Here</a> was my response to that.) Today, it followed up with <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/rebeccaelliott/obama-sees-sharpest-drop-in-donors-from-western-st">an analysis of where Obama's fundraising shortfall relative to 2008 has been greatest</a>. For the record, I was actually interviewed for this story, and I explained to the reporter (Rebecca Elliott) that I didn't think there was any there there. That is, Obama hasn't received donations this year from a lot of his 2008 donors for one main reason: he didn't face a primary challenger this year, while he was in one of the most competitive presidential nomination races in modern history four years ago. We had a good chat about this, but nothing along these lines made its way into the article.<br />
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The new article, meanwhile, starts from the premise that Obama is suffering, and tries to explain why his fundraising shortfall relative to 2008 has been greater in some states than in others. But again, I just don't think there's much here. As Elliott reports, 88% of Obama's 2008 donors nationwide have yet to contribute to him this year, and when you break those figures down by state, the highest shortfall is in Oregon at 91%. Now, if the mean is 88% and the highest value is 91%, it just doesn't sound like we're talking about a whole lot of variation here. The political scientists quoted in the story do a valiant job coming up with some reasons why Western state donors would experience higher dropoff, but it just doesn't sound like there's much of a phenomenon to explain here.<br />
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I understand the desire to run stories about how Obama is having a harder time this year than he did in 2008, and that is certainly true in many measurable ways. And who knows -- maybe we'll ultimately find that he did have a hard time raising money. But drawing these comparisons between a campaign with a well-funded opponent and a campaign with no opponent is misleading, and terribly, terribly frustrating.<br />
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Update: I inaccurately claimed that the above stories were from <i>Politico</i>. Rather, they were from <i>Buzzfeed</i>.Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-7789039192645904052012-06-06T09:34:00.000-06:002012-06-06T09:34:01.175-06:00What the President needs is a good bleedingI so love <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/report-first-doctor-reach-shot-lincoln-found-175353998.html">19th century medicine</a>.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The first doctor to reach President Abraham Lincoln after he was shot in a Washington theater rushed to his ceremonial box and found him paralyzed, comatose and leaning against his wife. Dr. Charles Leale ordered brandy and water to be brought immediately.</blockquote>
Brandy -- good for what ails ya! Like massive head trauma!<br />
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<embed src="http://www.hulu.com/embed/uiqFtAQxOCBHYwDBjuEI1Q" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="512" height="288" allowFullScreen="true"></embed></object></div>Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-86077811710337156542012-06-05T16:38:00.000-06:002012-06-05T16:38:14.981-06:00Farewell to Ed QuillenThe <i>Denver Post</i>'s Ed Quillen has passed away at the age of 61. I must admit I was rather a fan of his columns. He came off as kind of a lefty mountain crank, but his columns were cogent, well-written, and well thought out. Note <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/quillen/ci_17850612">this one</a>, in which he compares modern day Republicans with the Confederates of 1860. I don't necessarily subscribe to everything he wrote, but it's a nice observation about the persistence of ideology, even if party labels may jump around a bit.<br />
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Rest in peace, Ed.Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-4560257674470835872012-06-05T09:58:00.001-06:002012-06-05T09:58:36.175-06:00Research: It's so important that someone else should pay for itIf you're interested in the ongoing saga over NSF funding for political science, please do not miss <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/congress-should-cut-funding-for-political-science-research/2012/06/04/gJQAuAJMEV_story.html">Charles Lane's op/ed</a> in yesterday's <i>Washington Post</i>. Lane starts by taking on <a href="http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2012/05/11/how-to-engage-the-flake-amendment/">Christopher Zorn's post</a> at the Monkey Cage, in which Zorn raised concerns about the politicization of NSF funding decisions. Then Lane goes on to make some odd economic claims, such as:<br />
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The relevant question... is whether society could have reaped equal or greater benefits through other uses of the money — and how unreasonable it would be to ask the political scientists to rely on non-federal support. [...] </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If this research is as valuable as its proponents say, someone other than the U.S. Treasury will pay for it.</blockquote>
That last sentence is pretty astounding. Swap out the words "this research" for "the study of cancer" or "national defense" just to get a sense of it. Just because something is important does not automatically mean it is popular or well-funded. Strangely, Lane seems to concede as much just two paragraphs later:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The private sector chronically underinvests in basic scientific research; the costs and risks are relatively high, and the benefits relatively hard to commercialize. Government support compensates for this “market failure,” enabling society to reap “positive externalities” — economic, environmental or military.</blockquote>
Um, yeah! That's just what I was saying! But Lane thinks this logic only applies to the "hard" sciences, not the social sciences:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Though quantitative methods may rule economics, political science and psychology, these disciplines can never achieve the objectivity of the natural sciences. Those who study social behavior — or fund studies of it — are inevitably influenced by value judgments, left, right and center. And unlike hypotheses in the hard sciences, hypotheses about society usually can’t be proven or disproven by experimentation. Society is not a laboratory.</blockquote>
Wow. Okay, last point first: Of course we can use experiments to test claims about society! Political psychologists, among others, do this all the time. Political scientists also use natural experiments all the time. <a href="http://people.umass.edu/schaffne/wright_schaffner_apsr.pdf">Here's one</a>: Nebraska and Kansas have very similar populations but different institutional rules for their state legislatures, and this has important effects on legislative partisanship. Yes, society can be a laboratory.<br />
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Now, as for Lane's other points in there, let's just pretend for a moment that those who study the hard sciences are not influenced by value judgments, such as desires to cure cancer, to make fusion energy cheaply available, to prove or disprove human-made climate change, etc. Are social scientists influenced by value judgments? Well, I suppose we'd need to define the word "influenced." Their political beliefs probably cause them to find certain questions interesting and to spend time researching them as opposed to other questions. So I suppose that's a form of influence. But that's probably not what Lane is saying. Rather, he seems to be suggesting that our political judgments cloud our results.<br />
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So here's a challenge for Lane: Please browse through the most recent edition of the <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=PSR"><i>American Political Science Review</i></a>, the <a href="http://www.ajps.org/"><i>American Journal of Political Science</i></a>, the<a href="http://www.journalofpolitics.org/"> <i>Journal of Politics</i></a>, or any of the other major political science journals and show me where scholarship has been compromised by the scholar's ideological judgments. If you don't have access to these articles, just let me know and I'll send them to you. Hell, you can find most of my publications <a href="http://mysite.du.edu/~smasket/Research.html">here</a>: show me where my findings have been influenced by my value judgments.<br />
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The question of whether society should be subsidizing research about politics is an interesting one, and while I certainly have my opinions, I welcome debate on the topic. But the idea that social scientists can't do research without being clouded by political judgments and that this makes our research inferior to that of the other sciences is, frankly, offensive.<br />
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(Cross-posted from <a href="http://mischiefsoffaction.blogspot.com/2012/06/research-its-so-important-that-someone.html">Mischiefs of Faction</a>)Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-74684277350096482042012-06-04T12:00:00.001-06:002012-06-04T12:00:44.354-06:00Obama's suffering because Hillary Clinton didn't challenge him in the primariesI think that's what <i>Politico</i> is arguing <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/obamas-2008-donors-dont-give-in-2012">here</a>. It's hard to tell. Ben Smith and Rebecca Elliott have written another in the<a href="http://enikrising.blogspot.com/search/label/problems%20Obama%20doesn%27t%20actually%20have"> long line of articles</a> alleging that Obama's slow fundraising pace in 2012 relative to the pace in 2008 is evidence of a serious problem for Obama. And like the other articles, it fails to note that <i>Obama didn't face a primary challenger in 2012</i>. It just offers a whole bunch of other possible narratives -- donors are hurting financially, Obama's big supporters from four years ago are disappointed in him, the thrill is gone, etc. And while all of this may be true, it doesn't change the biggest difference, which I guess I'll italicize yet again: <i>Obama didn't face a primary challenger in 2012</i>. The major reason Obama hasn't raised the kind of money in the spring of 2012 that he raised in 2008 is because he hasn't needed it.<br />
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(via<a href="https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/209621275277148160"> Jamelle Bouie</a>)Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.com0