Rockies go down

The last time I cared about a World Series was in 1981, when the righteous L.A. Dodgers beat the pants off the smug New York Yankees. But I finally got into it again this year during the Rockies' incredible pennant drive. So I cared. I actually cared. And then we got creamed 0-4.

Weird series. It really seemed like the Rockies were doing an excellent job at whatever particular sport they were playing. It just wasn't the same sport the Red Sox were playing. Sigh.

So look for me with box seats at the next World Series that matters to me, probably in 2033. I'm predicting that the Bakersfield Pigfuckers will narrowly beat the Time-Warner Megastars.

Downsian convergence at the local level?

Here's an interesting article. Two economists, Ferreira and Gyourko, looked at a large sample of cities in which the Democratic candidate for mayor had either won or lost by a narrow margin. Then they looked to see if there were important differences in the policies those cities produced. They found none, suggesting that parties really don't matter all that much locally. Electoral competition fosters convergence, running counter to evidence gathered at the state and national level.

This is a pretty interesting and surprising finding, and it might actually be true, but there are a few rather glaring omissions:

1) They don't differentiate between cities with partisan elections and those with nonpartisan elections. (I'm guessing there'd be a much bigger party effect on policy in the partisan election cities.) Shockingly, they were aware of this distinction and just tried to find out the mayor's party affiliation anyway, sometimes using party registration records. Footnote 14 bizarrely suggests that L.A. functionally has partisan elections. (Hahn v. Villaraigosa? And just how many voters knew Riordan was a Republican?)

2) They don't incorporate mayoral strength into their calculations. A weak Republican mayor working with a strong Democratic city council just isn't going to cut city services all that much.

Tucker Carlson

I'll admit that sometimes I like Tucker Carlson. He's bright, engaging, and sometimes willing to part with party doctrine on matters of principle. But then he's got to go and say something like this:

OK, but here’s the fact that nobody ever, ever mentions — Democrats win rich people. Over 100,000 in income, you are likely more than not to vote for Democrats. People never point that out. Rich people vote liberal. I don’t know what that’s all about.

That is flatly untrue, as any exit poll will quickly confirm. Tucker's too bright not to know that. Which means that he is blatantly ignoring readily available data in order to perpetuate a myth that makes his party look better. Which means that he is, as Jon Stewart said, a dick.

Go Rockies?

Okay, we're not off to a rollicking start.

4:20

I was just showing "Network" in my film class. Check out the time in Los Angeles while Howard Beale screams about how mad he is:

Huck-mentum!

Not only did Huckabee tie for first place in the Values Voter straw poll, but he apparently just won Chuck Norris' endorsement. You can't stop this kind of mojo!

Dracula

I love this bit.

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