Unskewed Minds (Now with more Bayes!)

At the risk of feeding the troll at unskewedpolls.com and barackofraudo.com (both run by Dean Chambers) or legitimizing its claims of voter fraud which journalists are thoroughly debunking, let me add one more reason why the claim that voter fraud flipped the results of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and Florida is absurd.

If the claims of fraud are right, Obama would have won Nevada, Colorado, Michigan, Wisconsin and New Hampshire but lost Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia.  You don't have to be Nate Silver to know that the odds that Obama would win close swing states like Colorado, Nevada and Virginia, and at the same time lose a reliable Democratic state like Pennsylvania and other close swing states like Ohio and Virginia are very low.  That's just not a plausible electoral result.  If Obama is doing well enough to win swing states like New Hampshire and Nevada it's just absurd to think he would really lose a state like Pennsylvania.  Chambers' "map" belongs in the realm of unicorns and birtherism.

Moreover, for Chambers to be right, the polls, which were reasonably accurate nationwide, would have to be (for some unexplained reason) wrong for only those four states.  The whole thing is just nuts.

If you want to get nerdy, this comes down to Bayes theorem, which in very simple terms says that when judging the likelihood that something is true, we have to consider the evidence of its truth or falsity in the context of the baseline probability that that thing is true.  If you say the sky is purple, I should be very hesitant to agree based on your anecdotal evidence because I already know as an initial matter that the odds that the sky is purple are extremely extremely low.

As applied the voter fraud claims, before we even consider Chambers' anecdotal (and highly suspect) evidence of voter fraud, consider it in the context that the map he is proposing is highly highly implausible.  As a result, there is very little evidence that should convince anyone (thinking clearly) that voter fraud really caused the outcome he claims since that outcome to so unlikely.  Yet, hope springs eternal.

Earth to Rubio...

I think people miss the point a little bit when they look at Rubio's response to the question about the age of the earth in the context of Iowa.  The real state to watch for with Rubio is New Hampshire.  Right now Huckabee is leading the polls Iowa.  Let that sink in a bit, Huckabee.  Rubio's better path to the nomination, should he choose to accept it, would be to follow the McCain strategy and do well in New Hampshire, where a more moderate, independent Republican can do well, and then dominate the Republican primaries in the large blue states.  For two cycles now Iowa has nominated an unelectable fundamentalist and has diminished its importance in the process.  Rubio is better off skipping it and scoring a decisive win in New Hampshire, where an ambiguous answer on creationism is more useful than the definitive response that would play well in Iowa.

Personally, when I heard Rubio's waffling answer I got the sense that the answer in his mind was no, but that he had to be non-committal to offending his base.  Young earth creationists, as a group, tend not to be shy about their belief, and if he really thought the earth was less than 10,000 years old I imagine he probably would have said so.  This isn't an issue like abortion or rape where saying your fundamentalist beliefs out loud can sink your candidacy.  A substantial portion of Americans, and nearly all Republicans are still skeptical of evolution.  I embrace evolution, but am skeptical that there is a real downside to him embracing biblical geology as a Republican candidate as long as he really believed it. The fact that he gave such a non-committal response to me suggests that he isn't a true fundamentalist at heart and/or he won't be making a genuine play in Iowa.

Too Little, Too Late.

Watching Bobby Jindal decry the anti-intellectual trend of the Republican party reminds of when Jeb Bush spoke up a few months ago to say that he was very disappointed in the lack of bipartisan cooperation between Obama and Congressional Republicans.  Yes, I guess it's better that they say these things, but where were they the last four years?  Jeb Bush's point about compromise and cooperation would actually have been useful during the debt ceiling and health care debates, and Jindal's new-found voice of reason would have been nice before he had signed bills to permit and fund the teaching of creationism in Louisiana.

Forgive my eye rolling, but if they really wanted to get serious, they should have said so back when it would have mattered.  That they lacked the courage to do so then and only do so now says enough about them.

It's not a gift if you are entitled to it.

Isn't the whole "gifts" thing a perfect example of the sense of entitlement that has come over the American right.  When they explicitly vote for the candidate who will give them a tax cut, that's not a gift, it's a matter of patriotism.  When Democrats vote for candidates who propose programs they benefit from, it's a gift and bribery.  It's like the right thinks the largess they receive isn't a gift because they are entitled to it, but Democrats are entitled to nothing and therefore receive only "gifts."

How the Republican Primary Proves Money Still Can Buy You an Election

There has been this idea floating around for a few weeks that Romney's inability to trounce his opponents despite vastly outspending them proves money can't buy elections.  Some Republicans have been running with this to try and make the point that this proves that concerns over Citizens United are overblown.  I'd like to take a minute to show why that is nonsense.

The easiest way to make this point is by way of example, so here is one that has frustrated Democrats for three years.  After the stimulus bill was passed unemployment increased.  Fact.  Some Republicans argued that this proves that the stimulus increased unemployment.  This is obviously bad thinking, since the only way to measure the impact of the stimulus is to compare it to what unemployement would have been if there was no stimulus at all or if the stimulus was bigger.  If unemployment would have been higher without the stimulus, then the stimulus did not increase unemployment, even if unemployment increased after the stimulus was passed.

The same applies to spending by a candidate.  The way to judge the impact of money (and Citizens United) on a campaign is not whether the best funded candidate wins or loses, but by how the race would be different if a candidate had more or less money.  Does anyone think Gingrich would still be in the race except for his Super-Pac?  I doubt it.  Romney has fended off challengers by carpet-bombing them with massive ad campaigns, and even then only barely Santorum in his home state.  Does anyone think that Romney would have done just as fine without the money to destroy his opponents?  I am skeptical.

Saying Romney's money proves money doesn't buy elections is like saying Romney nomination proves that supporting an individual mandate will win you the Republican nomination.  I will have more to say about the state of the race tomorrow, but it should suffice to say now that this is an example of the sloppy and/or deceptive thinking being used by some to undermine criticism of Citizens United.

Citizens United is a major problem and needs to be addressed.  This primary season only proves further how small groups of undisclosed donors can vastly distort campaigns and politics.  Don't let sloppy thinking invade this discussion.

Romney and Leadership: Why he should learn to get a bill out of committee.

I typically focus my writing on political strategy and the big picture, but I did work in politics for several years, and want to say something about this quote from Romney that he has been repeating in various forms for a few months:

"Where I come from real leadership is starting a business, not getting a bill out of committee."

That's like Michael Jordan showing up at a hockey team and saying "where I come from leadership is about hitting the game winning shot in the playoffs, not skating around and trying to score a goal."  The response to Michael Jordan would be, "Yes, it is true and impressive how you exercised leadership in basketball, but this is hockey.  To succeed you have to know how to skate and shoot the puck."

To complete the analogy, Romney is basically saying he has a big agenda and is qualified to be President because he has no idea how to pass his agenda.  Someone needs to tap him on the shoulder and remind him that the way you pass your agenda in Washington isn't by a vote of the Board of Directors, it's by getting bills out of committee.

On the other hand, I suspect Romney knows this from his time as Governor and this is just another one of his throwaway lines to appease the hyperventilating base.

The Health Care Tipping Point & Political Calculus

Today was a momentus day for health care reform because one of the nation's foremost conservative judges, Larry Silberman, wrote an opinion upholding the Affordable Care Act.  Judge Silberman is the second prominent conservative judge to uphold the health care law, as Judge Sutton from the 6th Circuit also wrote an opinion upholding the health care law.  This may yet to be a turning point at which it becomes safe for more conservative and moderate judges, like Anthony Kennedy, to side with precedent and uphold the health care law.

Now, here is the political aspect.  You may recall that some time ago Obama decided to request the Supreme Court to review the health care law sooner rather than later, setting up a possible election year showdown in the Supreme Court.  Many interpreted this through a legal lens, assuming that it was done because Obama thought he would win if he went for it now or didn't want to delay implementation.  Perhaps, but I see it differently.

Obama made a very short-sighted decision when he ordered the Justice Department not to defend the "Defense of Marriage Act"  because it opened the door for future Presidents to follow this precedent and refuse to defend laws they do not agree with.  Should Obama lose, President Romney or Cain(!!!) would now be able to use Obama's example as an excuse to refuse to defend the law.  Obama had to go for it now because there was no guarantee the next President would actually defend the law!  That makes this recent decision all the more important, because it may give health care reform much needed momentum to win now before the next President has a chance to sabotage it.