Class Warfare: The White House Has Thought It Through
In the New York Times Magazine this morning, "Here Comes Class Warfare," a fascinating piece of analysis by the pollster and statistician Nate Silver.
Briefly put, Silver finds that if Obama were to campaign on class warfare, losing votes among those who make over $100,000 a year but gaining votes among those who make less than $50,000, he might lose a couple of states, notably Colorado, Virginia and New Jersey, but he would gain more than half a dozen, particularly in the Midwest.
Although "Santorum would probably be weaker than Romney in the popular vote," Silver notes,
Republicans wouldn’t care about that...if Santorum carried Ohio and Michigan — and perhaps even his home state, Pennsylvania — places where economic concerns tend to take precedence. Under these conditions, in fact, Republicans might be able to win the Electoral College while losing the popular vote.
I am not quite ready to suggest that Santorum would be a better nominee than Romney. But the electability gap between the two is closer than it might appear because of the way Santorum’s strengths could play in the Electoral College.
Whomever the GOP nominates, Silver concludes, "the Obama folks...[will] be acting from a place of relative strength--so long as the economic numbers remain decent."
If the economy tips backward toward recession because of the situation in Europe or tensions in the Middle East, Obama would go right back to being an underdog against either Romney or Santorum.
So, who wants to bet on there being nine months of no bad news?
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Apr '11
Re: Class Warfare: The White House Has Thought It Through
James Gawron: Peter,
To be honest, I find this kind of hyper technical triangulation a joke. He is saying these things more to effect the outcome then to predict. If Santorum crushes Romney in Michigan, it is a sure sign that this year Santorum is connecting to the working class in the middle west. Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania are not far from Michigan in terms of how they vote.
Are you sure you're disagreeing with him, other than in your claim that his analysis is advocacy (which I'm pretty sure it's not)?
Dec '10
Re: Class Warfare: The White House Has Thought It Through
I beg to differ.
Employment is down. U-3 and U-6 are down as well only because the workforce participation rate has dropped from 66% to less than 64% since Obama has been in office according to BLS. Gallup's numbers are 9.0% and 19.0% respectively, apparently because they don't use the seasonal correction.
Then, there's the specter of $5/gal gasoline looming in the very near future. And it will take a lot of spinning to rub Obama's fingerprints off of that.
Re: Class Warfare: The White House Has Thought It Through
This is dead on accurate. I'd love to read that dissertation, if the full text is available.
Dec '10
Re: Class Warfare: The White House Has Thought It Through
James Of England
James Gawron: Peter,
To be honest, I find this kind of hyper technical triangulation a joke. He is saying these things more to effect the outcome then to predict. If Santorum crushes Romney in Michigan, it is a sure sign that this year Santorum is connecting to the working class in the middle west. Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania are not far from Michigan in terms of how they vote.
Are you sure you're disagreeing with him, other than in your claim that his analysis is advocacy (which I'm pretty sure it's not)? · 2 minutes ago
The point about the Kenny Rogers song is that it's almost impossible to predict until it happens. I can tell you that a strong showing in these middle western states makes the Republican cause much stronger. They are swing and constitute a huge hunk of electoral votes. Everything else counts too. Santorum can not be attacked on Ronmey Care and isn't vulnerable on the class warfare issue. His strong stance on abortion may be a secret weapon as huge numbers of Catholics may feel that the direct attack on their faith needs responded to.
Jul '10
Re: Class Warfare: The White House Has Thought It Through
Unemployment numbers aren't the end-all, be-all regarding how folks feel about the economy.
May '10
Re: Class Warfare: The White House Has Thought It Through
And I can see why...
An unemployment number, say for example 9%, is just a number. A curve going in the right direction is a strong hopeful visualization.
Gosh, I remember five years ago when the unemployment was 4.4%, a very left-wing friend of mine was completely aghast, hyperventilating that the number was so high. "Just imagine all the heartbroken people who can't get a job!"
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But any sufficiently well defined problem provides its own solution. In this case that would be a better visualization of the unemployment numbers. Instead of presenting the slope as the main visual cue, present the aggregate of the unemployed over the years.
(Interestingly enough, mathematically, that's equivalent presenting the integral of the curve instead of the derivative. )
Re: Class Warfare: The White House Has Thought It Through
Ben Domenech
This is dead on accurate. I'd love to read that dissertation, if the full text is available.
I think we could find you a copy. U. Michigan still keeps it in some form. Here's a short paper I spun out of it.
When I wrote that, this "which unemployment rate" question came up. What matters most are two questions. 1. Do people vote about underemployment versus unemployment? (A: Don't know, not enough data to study without survey data we don't have, at least last time I looked for it.) 2. Will people blame the incumbent for their unemployment? (A: The longer one is unemployed, the more one blames him or herself.)
Never tested the integral, Don, and that's doable. Wish I had the time. Any grad students here looking for a dissertation?
Sep '10
Re: Class Warfare: The White House Has Thought It Through
I totally agree with your analysis, ~Paules. Just because we're not hearing about it (except from Michael Barone) doesn't mean that political reform movements aren't happening in the states. Not to mention that many states are in big trouble and realize that federal bailouts cannot sustain the public employment status quo. (Christie's major success over the public unions in N.J. is surely evidence of this phenom.) Other issues that weaken a likely Obama return include $5 gas over the summer and heading into election time. (Please GOP and moderate Democratic candidates everywhere: hammer down the Keystone debacle argument!) I don't see how this won't slow the economy and turn the employment news sour. The inevitable clash of the greens—economy versus environment—will surely wake up the middle, who are much more conservationist than environmentalist. I hear lots more folks say things like "this can't continue" than ever before.
Re: Class Warfare: The White House Has Thought It Through
You could be right. We will see.
Re: Class Warfare: The White House Has Thought It Through
This is what I believe.
Dec '10
Re: Class Warfare: The White House Has Thought It Through
King Banaian
2. Will people blame the incumbent for their unemployment? (A: The longer one is unemployed, the more one blames him or herself.)
An interesting follow-on question: will the long-term unemployed tend to give up on voting as hopeless? Will they refuse to vote for an incumbent if unemployment is only falling slowly on the assumption that it's too little, too late? Will they be motivated to regain hope and vote for a challenger who promises action to get employment growing again?
These seem less like economic questions than sociological and/or psychological ones, but they touch on all three disciplines.
Re: Class Warfare: The White House Has Thought It Through
Could not a blogger at the Daily Kos or some such site have written, in February 2010, "The 2008 election gave Democrats a sweep of historic proportions. Does anyone think that the voters who provided this victory have just thrown in the towel since then? Or changed their minds about Barack Obama? ..."
The problem is that "the voters" are not "the voters" -- an entity. "The voters" are a small-ish group of committed "movement liberals," a small-ish group of committed "movement conservatives," and a larger number of people who range from sort-of liberal, through moderate, to sort-of conservative, who are simply not that invested in the Manichean struggle of Left vs. Right, and who are, in a word, fickle.
Dec '10
Re: Class Warfare: The White House Has Thought It Through
Steve Manacek
Could not a blogger at the Daily Kos or some such site have written, in February 2010, "The 2008 election gave Democrats a sweep of historic proportions. Does anyone think that the voters who provided this victory have just thrown in the towel since then? Or changed their minds about Barack Obama? ..."
The problem is that "the voters" are not "the voters" -- an entity. "The voters" are a small-ish group of committed "movement liberals," a small-ish group of committed "movement conservatives," and a larger number of people who range from sort-of liberal, through moderate, to sort-of conservative, who are simply not that invested in the Manichean struggle of Left vs. Right, and who are, in a word, fickle.
Except that in 2009-2010, Obama governed differently than he had promised to when he ran. The TEA Party Congressmen haven't necessarily broken faith (even if the Republican leaders they empowered haven't been steadfast).
Jun '10
Re: Class Warfare: The White House Has Thought It Through
Steve Manacek
Could not a blogger at the Daily Kos or some such site have written, in February 2010, "The 2008 election gave Democrats a sweep of historic proportions. Given that it's Kos anything is possible! And since when is a Democrat in the White House with control of both houses of congress somehow historical? It's the norm which is why they get so bent out of shape when they lose. Does anyone think that the voters who provided this victory have just thrown in the towel since then? Or changed their minds about Barack Obama? ..." Well, yes. There's deep dissatisfaction within Democratic ranks. I seem to recall a few weeks ago that a couple of pundits (Mike Murphy?) suggested that Mr. Obama needed a primary challenge. All is not well in liberalville.
Dec '11
Re: Class Warfare: The White House Has Thought It Through
If it's true that voters vote for their pocketbooks, then gas prices will kill Obama's chance for reelection. Purely anecdotal, people in my upstate NY college town, regardless of their liberal persuasion, complain about three things constantly: high property taxes, high gas prices, increasing cost of food. They might vote for Obama in the fall, after all the GOP is out to get their contraceptives, but they are not excited about it.
Oct '10
Re: Class Warfare: The White House Has Thought It Through
This is merely arranging the next crisis. Which, of course, will not go to waste.
Aug '10
Re: Class Warfare: The White House Has Thought It Through
Of course there will be nine months of no bad news. The executive branch controls how the statistics are compiled.