Undead FDR SMASH Denver Post

Today's NY Times:

Though unemployment levels dropped to 8.6 percent last month, they remain higher than the level at which any president has been re-elected since the Great Depression. [emphasis added]

The version that appeared in today's Denver Post:

Although the nation's unemployment rate dropped to 8.6 percent last month, no president has been re-elected with an unemployment rate so high.

For the record, here are the unemployment levels during FDR's three successful reelection bids:

1936: 16.9%
1940: 14.6%
1944: 1.2%

What, there wasn't space for the four words that would make the sentence true?

Grrrr...

No one can make a cheeseburger

Last year I linked to Matt Ridley's wonderful TED lecture in which he argues that no one person knows how to build a computer mouse from scratch. Extracting petroleum from the ground, turning it into plastic, building a circuit board, refining the metal for it, etc.... these are highly specialized tasks. Ridley estimated that it takes perhaps a million people to actually build a mouse. He took this as a positive sign; we are all profoundly interconnected, allowing us to create things that none of us could create on our own.

Via Brad DeLong, Waldo Jaquith makes a similar argument about the cheeseburger, which he attempted to create from scratch:

Further reflection revealed that it’s quite impractical—nearly impossible—to make a cheeseburger from scratch. Tomatoes are in season in the late summer. Lettuce is in season in the fall. Mammals are slaughtered in early winter. The process of making such a burger would take nearly a year, and would inherently involve omitting some core cheeseburger ingredients. It would be wildly expensive—requiring a trio of cows—and demand many acres of land. There’s just no sense in it. 

A cheeseburger cannot exist outside of a highly developed, post-agrarian society. It requires a complex interaction between a handful of vendors—in all likelihood, a couple of dozen—and the ability to ship ingredients vast distances while keeping them fresh. The cheeseburger couldn’t have existed until nearly a century ago as, indeed, it did not…

This is something to celebrate. Perhaps with a cheeseburger.

Fairness and power in redistricting

The Colorado Supreme Court has ruled in favor of state Democrats' plan for Colorado's new congressional districts. It's been interesting to listen to the rhetorical arguments on both sides during this drawn-out process. Republicans have been arguing in favor of keeping districts as similar to the previous map as possible, citing the inviolability of county lines (Douglas County is split into two districts in the new map). Of course, hewing close to the current districts aids Republicans, who currently control 4 of the 7 CDs. 

Democrats, for their part, have been arguing in favor of greater competitiveness. Here's what attorney Scott Martinez had to say:

The Supreme Court supported the needs of Colorado families over election-day politics today by creating more modern, competitive districts.... Instead of contributing to the hyper-partisanship in Washington D.C, the court supported Colorado's opportunity to elect moderate candidates who see the needs of our state over the needs of one party or another. In these districts, problem-solvers will win while partisan politicians will struggle, and we are all better off for that.

District competitiveness is an odd goal for a party, as it can mean that more districts swing away from your party in a bad election year. So were the Democrats being foolish in their approach?

In the below graph, I compare the voter registration in the current districts (as measured by the Democratic share of major party active voters) with the figures in the new districts. The green diagonal line charts where the district would be if there were no change; if a district is above the line, its Democratic share of registered voters has just increased.

From this graph, it looks like the Democratic redistricters did the smart thing for their party. They drew some Democratic voters out of their safest districts -- the 1st (held by Diana DeGette) and the 2nd (held by Jared Polis) -- and drew Democratic voters into some Republican-leaning districts -- notably the 3rd (held by Scott Tipton) and the 6th (held by Mike Coffman). The 6th is really seeing the biggest shift. Just a few years ago, this was Tom Tancredo's district, and now it's a tossup.

So, yeah, you could see this as goo-goos moving the state toward greater competitiveness. But you could also see this as a pretty aggressive move by Democrats to break Republican hegemony on one of seven districts.

Once again, the 70s were awesome

Cover of the 1971 legislative handbook of the Minnesota chapter of Americans for Democratic Action:

Can you dig it?

Wordle of Cyrus' speech from "Warriors." Happy Saturday.

The Activists

I want to bring some attention (and maybe a bit of money) to a film project called "The Activists: War, Peace, and Politics in the Streets." The film is a documentary of political activism in the United States over the past few years, focusing mainly on anti-war activism. Political scientist Michael Heaney, a co-author of mine, is one of the producers of the film, and he conducted some of the interviews while we were surveying protesters at the Democratic convention in 2008.

The film is in post-production now and they need a few thousand more dollars to get this thing out the door. If you'd like to help, please check it out.

A Newt win would be very surprising indeed

Okay, we are right in the middle of a massive Newtmentum surge, or the Newtening, or Electric Newtaloo or something. Gingrich is surging in the polls. Yes, Bachmann, Perry, and Cain all had surges, but maybe this time it's different?

Personally, I'm unconvinced. Here's why:

The above chart shows the percentages of endorsements from governors, U.S. Senators, U.S. Representatives, and former presidential candidates claimed by the current GOP candidates (courtesy of Nate Silver). As can be seen, Romney and Perry are splitting in terms of gubernatorial endorsements, but the former is walking away with all the other categories.

Remember, as The Party Decides reminds us, endorsements do a much better job predicting presidential nominations than polls do, and insider support is much more important than one bad TV interview. Now, is it possible that the universe described by The Party Decides no longer exists? Sure! Maybe Internet fundraising has changed everything, maybe the Tea Party has thrown off the equations, etc. It's hard to say in advance. But given the choice, I tend to fall in with the argument that what has governed elections in the past probably governs them today.

At any rate, this race is turning into a great test of Cohen et al.'s theory.