Don't blame me; it was just my unrestrained id that tried to rape you

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 apologize 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.

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.

The Debate

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 Twitter feed will have to do. (Hashtag: #debatedenver)

Desperately seeking trends

Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell's latest piece of advice 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 May. Then they do this:

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.

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?

How to criticize Obama without making crap up

I tweeted 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 blew a fuse when Ryan criticized Obama for opposing the debt commission recommendations that Ryan himself had voted against, and then later offered this explanation. Even Fox News called Ryan's speech "deceiving" and "distracting" (if also "dazzling").

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?

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:

• 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?
• 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.
• 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?
• 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. 

I just have to think there's enough factual material out there to fill a 30-minute speech. The viewers on Fox (the primary audience for this event) 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.

Colorado: It's not just a ski resort that burns down each summer

The 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 here on C-SPAN.

Explaining Olympic medals, a follow-up

Two weeks ago, I posted some stats 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.

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.

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.

Links for following the 2012 elections

[Reposted from Mischiefs of Faction]

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.

Campaign Resources

• Advertising - The Washington Post's Ad Tracker
• Candidate travel - Politico's Candidate Tracker and P2012
• Field office locations - Obama's and Romney's

Fundraising

• Federal races - Open Secrets
• State races -  Follow The Money

Voter Identification Laws

• National Conference on State Legislatures

Polling

• Pollster - Candidate matchups and job approval
• Real Clear Politics - Candidate matchups and job approval

Economic Indicators

• Bureau of Economic Analysis (GDP, RDI, etc.)
• Bureau of Labor Statistics (Unemployment)
• RealtyTrac (Housing statistics - paid service for recent data)

Election Forecasts

• FiveThirtyEight (Nate Silver)
• Votamatic (Drew Linzer)
• Bread And Peace (Douglas Hibbs)
• Intrade's Electoral Map
• Frontloading HQ (Josh Putnam)
• Wonkblog (Ezra Klein)
• Crystal Ball (Larry Sabato)

(h/t to John Sides and Lynn Vavreck for some helpful suggestions)