That is how I would characterize the thought of putting Condi Rice on the Republican ticket.

I am sympathetic to the idea that McCain needs a veep candidate to satisfy conservatives. I expect most self-identified Republicans will ultimately vote for him in November, but their enthusiasm would be an asset. It would be good if he can firm them up with his veep choice.

However, McCain should not nominate anybody with strong attachments to the Bush administration.

George Bush's job approval rating is in the cellar. It has been in the cellar for two years, and there seems to me to be no reason to think that it will be anywhere but the cellar come Election Day. This means that the "median voter" - the guy or gal right smack dab in the middle of the electorate who will essentially decide the whole thing - disapproves of George W. Bush. If McCain wants to win this election, this is the person whose vote he must win. And nominating Bush's Secretary of State will hinder, rather than help him with this peron.

I can just imagine the announcement of Condi Rice as the nominee at the GOP convention. The next week, the media will revisit all of the foreign policy controversies of this administration. Democrats will supply them with plenty of handy-dandy sound-bites to populate the airwaves. That will be the week after Labor Day - the traditional start of the campaign. This is not what the Republican Party needs then.

The same goes for pretty much any Bush official - even somebody like Colin Powell. In that case, the media will revisit that speech he gave to the UN on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Does the GOP really want to have another pre-election conversation about those non-existent WMD's?

After all, nominating a Bush official plays against McCain's natural strengths as a general election candidate. He won the nomination in large part because Republicans who disapprove of George W. Bush supported him. The following chart makes that clear:

Voters in the Republican Party upset with Bush tended to prefer McCain to any other candidate. This is thanks to the image that McCain has cultivated over the last eight years. If McCain were to nominate Rice or any Bush Administration official, he would be acting contrary to this image. This would be a mistake. It is upon this image that the GOP's hope depends. The only way to win with an incumbent president at 33% in the polls is to run away from, if not against, that president. Nominating Condoleeza Rice or Colin Powell or Rob Portman or any other Bush official would impede that strategy.

Another bad idea when it comes to veep choices is the idea of nominating one of the Republican also-rans. I have heard Thompson, Huckabee, and Romney's names trotted out at varying points. All of these are poor selections. Each candidate this year manifested glaring political weaknesses. Thompson was a lousy campaigner. Huckabee was not a believable fiscal conservative. Romney seemed willing to say anything. McCain himself was weak. Above all, his campaign grossly misread the party's mood on immigration reform last year. Luckily for him, the Senate took that issue up last summer, not last fall.

Unfortunately for McCain, the Republican bench is a little old. The pool of Republican politicians has not been thoroughly refreshed since 1994. That's a long time. If McCain were young and inexperienced, this might be an asset, as the vice-presidential nominee would provide gravitas. But he's old. He needs vigor. That limits his choices considerably. In McCain's perfect world, Jeb Bush would have a different last name. But then again, if he had a different name, he'd probably be the nominee.

Posted by Jay Cost at 12:35 PM | Permalink

Yesterday's news that Ron Paul took in $4 million prompted Steven Stark to speculate that this means that, should Paul run as a third party candidate, he could be a viable force.

Steven and I discussed this publicly last month. He wrote a column arguing that the GOP would be devastated by a third party run. I didn't disagree with this outright, but I did assert that it remains to be seen whether Paul could obtain a non-negligible share of the vote (and I argued against expecting a religious right candidate to be able to do that).

At the time, I received an email from somebody who noted that Paul could run into trouble with "sore loser" laws. Those are laws that prohibit a candidate who runs for a party's nomination for a given office in the primary from running for the same office with another party's nomination in the general election. I had heard about this for the first time last year - as it was what might have kept Joy Padgett from running in OH 18. She had tried, but failed, to win the GOP's nomination for Lieutenant Governor. And so, there was, for a time, a question as to whether she could run as the Republican in OH 18.

Padgett was ultimately allowed to run as the GOP nominee in OH 18 because she was running for a different office. Paul would be running for the same office, and so I wondered whether this reader was on to something.

It turns out that he was, but not to a great extent. I did some digging and found this article from Ballot Access News, whose relevant points I will quote here.

If Paul fails to win the Republican presidential nomination, he could then seek the Libertarian nomination (which he would be virtually certain to obtain) and run in November as the Libertarian nominee. John Anderson established the precedent in most states that "sore loser" laws do not apply to presidential candidates. John Anderson ran in two-thirds of the 1980 Republican presidential primaries, and he also won a place on the November 1980 ballots as an independent candidate in all 50 states. In some of the states in which Anderson happened not to run in the 1980 Republican presidential primary, there is still a precedent that "sore loser" laws don't apply to president, because others set such precedents. These include Lyndon LaRouche (who ran in Democratic primaries and then as an independent in 1984, 1988 and 1992) and David Duke (who ran in Democratic presidential primaries in 1988 and then ran in November 1988 as the Populist Party nominee).

Only four states maintain that their "sore loser" laws apply to president: South Dakota, Mississippi, Ohio and Texas. After LaRouche won in court against Ohio in 1992, Ohio amended its "sore loser" law in 1993 to specifically apply to presidential candidates. No precedents have been set in Mississippi or South Dakota. In Texas, unfortunately, in 1996 the Constitution Party filed a lawsuit against Texas to get a ruling that the "sore loser" law doesn't apply to president. The federal judge who got the case, James Nowlin, refused to enjoin Texas' interpretation that the "sore loser" law does apply to president. The denial of injunctive relief is reported as US Taxpayers Party v Garza, 924 F Supp 71 (1996).

However, the opinion does not discuss the fact that the true candidates in November are running for presidential elector, not president. A presidential candidate's name is not listed on the November ballot in his or her role as a candidate. Instead, the name is an identifier for specific slates of candidates for presidential elector.

Of the four states where sore loser laws are still in at least nominal effect for presidential elections, only Ohio is a swing state. And even in those four states, Paul may be able to get on the ballot. So, by and large, it looks as though Paul would be relatively unimpeded should he decide to run as the Libertarian Party nominee (though I do not know nearly enough about Libertarian Party politics to know whether Paul would be "virtually certain" to obtain the nomination if he sought it). I still think there are other potential impediments to a Paul third party candidacy - but it appears ballot access is not one of them.

Posted by Jay Cost at 12:00 AM | Permalink

Steven Stark had an interesting column today on third party candidacies. As per usual with him, it was quite good - and it gives me an opportunity to offer some additional thoughts I have had on the prospects of such a candidacy.

Stark writes:

Every 12 years or so, a new independent or third-party candidate gains momentum during an election cycle. Almost always, when these candidacies arise, it's the incumbent party that loses the election. In 2000 with Ralph Nader, in 1992 with H. Ross Perot, in 1980 with John Anderson, in 1968 with George Wallace, and on back through modern-American political history, the lesson of third parties is twofold: they never win and, because their ire is often directed at the status quo -- thus the party holding power -- they damage the candidate of the incumbent party.

First off, I have a mild methodological quibble. I object to the implication of a third party cycle. Third party candidacies are not like Haley's Comet. Generally, I do not think cycles should be referenced when discussing politics. The reason is that there are two potential explanations for a cycle. It is either caused by some set of factors, or it is the product of random variation. Take this proposed third party cycle. There is either a reason why third parties emerge every "12 years or so," or there is not. If there is no reason, then we should not expect a third party candidate next year based solely upon the date. If there is a reason, what really matters is the reason itself. That is what we should discuss - because it may or may not be in play this cycle. After all, politics is not Newtonian physics. The political environment is stohcastic. Causal processes can be and often are interrupted by random variation - and so, even if there is a third party cycle that is caused by something, the cause may very well be "off" this year.

That aside, I think the column is quite good - and it brings to my mind a few additional historical lessons that can further shape our expectations for this cycle.

First, third party challengers have historically tended to be one of two types. On the one hand, they have been representatives of people with sectional grievances that the two major parties have failed to satisfy. Think of the Populist Party of the 1890s, the Dixiecrats in 1948, and the American Independents in 1968. These are concentrated groups of people who feel that neither party has something to offer them, and therefore are susceptible to a third party challenge. On the other hand, if they have not been sectional in nature, they usually tend to spring up momentarily around a relatively famous personality. Ross Perot comes instantly to mind. John Anderson does, too. Head back a few decades and you'll see that the best third party challengers who were non-sectional were TR in 1912 and "Fighting Bob" LaFollette in 1924.

This pattern makes intuitive sense. A third party can sustain itself if it has a geographical base to work with because our elections are geographically based. So, it can win some states and develop some viability in that way. Barring that, it needs some kind of big personality to drive the campaign, to use media attention to reach its group of potential supporters, who are dispersed across the country. Without such a personality, the party lacks the resources to communicate its message - and it goes nowhere.

Second, Stark notes correctly that third parties have always lost. I think this has some wide-ranging implications for the possibility of such a challenge. If we assume that voters are generally rational, and therefore prefer not to waste their votes, how do we explain support for third party candidates? I think that you tend to see such support when a significant bloc of voters sees no difference between the two major parties - at least as far as their interests are concerned. A vote for a third party is therefore like a vote of no confidence in the two party system. Some voters who vote for third party candidates are probably irrational - they would be better off supporting a candidate in one of the major parties. But the rest of them are indicating that, as far as their interests are concerned, the two major parties offer no differences. I do not see any other way to explain the Nader vote in 2000. Nader voters of course knew that he stood no chance. So, why did they support him? It was because they saw Bush and Gore - to quote Nader himself - as "Tweedledee and Tweedledum." Their votes were statements about the two party system.

Occassionally, third party candidates can become electorally viable. It is true that they have always lost, but it is not true that in every year everybody expected them to lose. Think of Perot in 1992. One could have possibly made an argument that he would win on election day. Ditto TR in 1912. These years the logic of supporting a third party candidate changes. One might be pulling the lever expecting that the guy might go to the White House.

Having teased out these additional observations, let's continue with Stark's column.

It certainly won't help matters for the GOP that this year's splinter candidates will probably come from nominally Republican ranks. The media has focused on New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, but he's actually the unlikeliest of the three to make a third-party bid. The likeliest is current GOP candidate Ron Paul, who already has one independent general-election run under his belt as a Libertarian (in 1988, when he garnered just 0.5 percent of the vote) and would have no trouble making another. As this year's version of Perot, Paul's already shown unexpected grassroots appeal and fundraising ability. And he's so far refused to say he would support the party's nominee, which is always a telling sign.

Then there's the Religious Right, some of whose adherents have put the GOP on notice that, if Giuliani -- the party's strongest general-election candidate -- receives the nomination, they, too, would consider going the independent route. (Some later backed off the threat, but it's still there.)

Given what we observed above, I think we can say that it is more likely that Ron Paul would be a significant third party threat than a Christian right candidate. Paul and his supporters fit both of the observations that we made. He is certainly a media personality at this point - and he has garnered a very loyal and devoted following. This can serve as a substitute for the fact that he does not represent a sectional interest. What is more, even though he is campaigning as a Republican right now - his arguments could translate to a third party candidacy. What is the difference between the GOP and the Democrats, from the perspective of a Paulite? Very little.

Compare this to the situation on the Christian right. At present, there is no personality who has expressed interest in a political campaign. And, as the Christian right is a diffused interest group, a no-name cannot rely upon a strong geographical basis for support. The story would be different if James Dobson himself were thinking of running - rather than thinking of backing a third party candidate. But, at present, there is nobody of his notoriety pondering a run to the GOP's right. Furthermore, while Christian conservatives might be unsatisfied with Rudy Giuliani as their presidential candidate, they nevertheless would perceive a difference between him and the eventual Democratic nominee. This perception of difference would increase should the Democratic nominee turn out to be Hillary Clinton. This makes a vote for a third party candidate much more difficult. It is one thing to argue that there is not a dime's worth of difference between the major party candidates. It is quite another thing to argue that we should effectively support the opposition to punish our side for not listening to us.

That leads me to think that Paul is more likely to be viable. But there are complications with such a candidacy. While it is certainly possible that Paul could command a non-negligible share of the general election vote - that remains to be seen. It all depends on how great his "not a dime's worth of difference" pitch would be. And bear in mind that primary voters for Paul would not necessarily translate to general election voters. A lot of those people might very well support Paul today, but in the general election could see a difference between Giuliani and Clinton. Relatedly, Paul is running for reelection as a Republican in TX-14. This might make it difficult for him to develop a broader base of support - as it begs the question, "If the parties are so similar, why are you a Republican?"

Now - don't get me wrong. I am not predicting that there will be no significant third party candidate emerging. My argument is simply that, at this point, several useful metrics are not indicating that such a candidate will come forth. I say that while at the same time ceding that there is potential for a third party candidate. A lot of people, especially on the right, are disgruntled by both major parties. The catch with this disgruntlement is that it has to be translated into political action. That requires the work of political leaders. And, at this point, nobody seems to be positioning themselves to translate this aggravation into support.

I would certainly agree, though, that an eye should be kept on Ron Paul. There would be difficulties for him to establish himself as a third party contender - but the problems I see with the challenge might be surmountable. He may be able to translate his primary support into general election support, and the fact that he is running for reelection as a Republican might not bother the kinds of voters who would support him.

Posted by Jay Cost at 10:14 AM | Permalink

Mike Murphy and Mark Mellman offered an interesting take on the early 2008 presidential campaign in yesterday's LA Times.

They gave some much-needed pushback to all this polling data that has been overtaking us. They wrote:

Although the political and media elites may think the campaign is in full swing, with the fortunes of each candidate rising and falling with every new poll, the truth is that voters -- the ones who are really going to decide this race -- don't start the campaign until much later.

Because voters are not required to make a decision until election day, they remain open at this stage in the race to new information, alternative perspectives and late-breaking developments -- all of which render today's poll results, to one degree or another, meaningless.

Consider this: More than two-thirds of the Democrats who voted in the 2004 Iowa caucuses didn't decide who to vote for until a month before the caucuses. Four in 10 decided in the last week. In 2004, 54% of New Hampshire Democrats decided within a week of the primary. It's no surprise, then, that in the 2004 election, John Kerry was lagging in third place until only a few weeks before the Iowa caucuses. Kerry then more than doubled his vote in Iowa and nearly quadrupled it in New Hampshire -- all in less than 20 days.

Iowa's Republican caucus-goers are no different. In 1996, nearly a quarter chose their candidate on caucus night or in the preceding two days; fully 42% decided in the last 10 days. And in New Hampshire, only 12% of Republicans decided in 2000 who they would support in the primary before Jan. 1 of election year.

Ahhh...music to my ears!

Unfortunately, this is a note that is not sustained so perfectly. To my chagrin, Murphy and Mellman join the ranks of those who have abused the Heisenberg uncertainty principle to make a rhetorical point. As anybody who has undergone the graduate school experience in the social science or humanities will attest, this is the bane of every introductory data analysis course. It is inevitable. Some newbie grad student - working from 90% enthusiasm and 10% learning - is all flushed with excitement after having read his first postmodern treatise on the power-relations inherent to "knowledge"
(probably Foucault's Discipline and Punish) and - not realizing how it nullifies his entire purpose for being in graduate school - trots out good old Werner Heisenberg to obliterate the whole project of studying. Whoops. I guess it's off to business school (although he never seems to go)!

Anyway, Murphy and Mellman write:

Meanwhile, the press ignores Heisenberg's principle -- that the measurements themselves, printed in bold type on Page 1, create their own distorted results, inaccurately advantaging some while disadvantaging others. By creating a potentially illusory sense of momentum or of failure, these pseudo-measures affect the extent of media coverage, fundraising, endorsements and the willingness of volunteers to engage.

I am not so sure that I agree with this. My intuition is that the polls are simply reflecting the elite dialogue in the nation. Average voters hear that Hillary or Rudy is "up" amidst the dribs-and-drabs of news analysis they acquire, and they toss their support to one of them when queried by a pollster. The source of the response is real - it is just not from the respondent. It is a "sampling" of the elite dialogue. So, I don't think that the poll results are "illusory." They are just something other than what they appear to be at first blush. They do not reflect the views of the electorate per se. Rather, they reflect the elite dialogue on the candidates.

I would agree with Murphy and Mellman if they argued that the elites systematically create a fictitious, actively-engaged, Jeffersonian public so that they can think that they are analyzing the average voter - rather than analyzing themselves. What is more, I'd like to see this process end. Minimally, it hampers the elite dialogue. It creates what is essentially an echo chamber effect. The polls are an echo of the elite conservation, but elites falsely take them as fresh voices joining the discussion. This makes elites less susceptible to alter their views when new, valid data presents itself.

Nevertheless, elite analysis is not idle. It has real value. Political elites of all stripes are trying to gauge these candidates to see who will be the most competitive in both the primary and the general elections. In so doing, they are narrowing the choices down for the voters. This is a needed and valuable civic service.

Thus, I think that Murphy and Mellman's basic hypothesis is close to accurate, but a little off. They argue:

Don't get us wrong -- an awful gaffe at this stage could be deadly, and there's no question that early money is crucial. But let's be honest. The absurdly early start of this primary season has a lot more to do with entertaining bored political elites than with persuading actual primary voters.

I don't think that the early contest is for the sake of entertaining the elites. Rather, I think it is a campaign designed specifically for their consumption because they serve an important function in this - and any - presidential election. They decide who is, and who is not, politically viable. They set the agenda. This is not to say that I think this uniquely early start date is an efficient way for elites to accomplish this civic task. They do not need so much time to make up their minds. However, I think it is appropriate and inevitable for the campaign season to begin at least a few months before the average voter starts to give a damn. Elites have a role to play - and their role comes before the average voter's role.

As I have indicated in prior posts, I think that this agenda-setting power of the elites is actually inevitable in a democratic system such as ours. Political elites have almost always set the agenda in our elections. Take elections to Congress. The party convention system for nominating candidates was replaced by the primaries in the hopes that it would "open up" the process and give the people a greater say in who would be a candidate for office. What happened? The parties turned from the conventions to candidate recruitment so that, once again, they still retain power over who does and who does not make a viable run for Congress. Why is it that some congressional elections are contested and others, while there is a nominal opponent, are uncontested? Much of it has to do with the actions of the Washington-based congressional committees, who set the agenda.

There is something similar going on right now with the presidential election system. The difference is the breadth of elite participation in the presidential election, which is at an all-time high. Elites of all stripes - journalists, pundits, Washington power brokers, donors, and even the well-informed who chime in via the blogosphere - are actively engaged in determining the agenda for the 2008 election, i.e. who shall and who shall not be a candidate worthy of the average voter's consideration.

I do think that Murphy and Mellman are accurately intuiting that political elites are engaged in what amounts to a fairly robust lie to themselves about exactly what they are doing. They consider themselves to be analyzing when in fact they are judging. But this process is not without value.

So why has this contest to woo the elites started so early? My guess is that the candidates themselves are to blame. Nobody wanted to be last to the campaign. It's similar to the strange social process I see every time I fly Southwest (which is ridiculously cheap to Pittsburgh from Chicago). Southwest does not have assigned seating. In advance of the boarding, everybody is seated in the lounge. Inevitably, when an attendant goes to the booth, everybody starts to form a queue - even though there is obviously 10 minutes to go until boarding starts. Why the queue? Somebody misread the actions of the flight attendant, and got in line. As none of us wants to be last in line (remember: no assigned seats!), we all start to queue up. Thus, we are left standing in line for 10 minutes with all of those comfy lounge seats going unoccupied. So inefficient, and yet so predictable! Similarly, my intuition with this campaign season is that most candidates felt that being last to start would be political suicide. So, when the first ones jumped into the race, the rest felt compelled to do likewise.

My feeling is that the campaign is just like the Southwest queue. It is not futile. The queue serves a necessary purpose because there are no assigned seats on the plane. However, its timing is inefficiently early. We could all have been seated for a bit longer.

Posted by Jay Cost at 12:18 PM | Permalink

Why is the media so fascinated with the potential candidacy of NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg? Jonathan Alter argued the following over the weekend:

Mike Bloomberg is a long shot to be the next president. Even a trillion dollars couldn't change that. But Bloomberg's vast fortune and reputation for competent management may yet make him vice president.

Alter suggests that he would be a good fit on the Democratic ticket, which makes absolutely no sense to me. First off, as he notes, the 12th Amendment bars Hillary Clinton from picking him because they are both from New York state. So, he'd only be the veep if Obama selected him. And what of Obama? Alter writes:

And while an Obama-Bloomberg ticket would be Archie Bunker's worst nightmare, the presence of a highly successful manager as the chief operating officer of the United States would prove a big asset for Obama, Edwards or anyone else at the top of the ticket.

This seems to me to be a very bad fit. Regarding what Alter might call the "Archie Bunker Factor" - we can write it off, if we like, but that does not mean it would not be a factor. So, does it not strike you as a little risky for Obama? What's more, would this pick not alienate the left? How disappointed would the left - whose hard work in the field will be a requisite for a Democratic victory next November - be? Would this not alienate everybody in the Democratic Party - if Obama went outside the party to find a veep? And, more generally, are there no Democrats who have reputations as "highly successful managers?"

Here's a question I can't help but ask: who the hell cares about this guy Bloomberg? Is there anybody with a zip code that does not begin with "10" or "20"? I'm out here in 60614, and I gotta tell ya: I don't feel it. The fascination with him seems to me to be entirely with the media.

Why are they so nuts about this guy? I think that it comes from their perception that he has been successful in New York City, and their expectation that he could perhaps come to Washington and get things done. Return to the Alter quotation: "a highly successful manager." That is what they think Bloomberg brings to the table. He can manage the federal government and get things done, just as he did the NYC government.

I think this is a naive view. Washington is "not working" not because it lacks strong and effective managers. Washington is "not working" because it was designed not to work when there is an absence of political consensus, which there is right now. Washington "fails to work" more often than not because ours is a diverse nation with many competing interests, and our Founders feared the possibility that one interest might railroad another. They thought that the best way to preserve our republican form of government would be to make political change next-to-impossible without a political consensus.

Mike Bloomberg is not going to "fix" any of this. He would probably make the government less capable of "doing things" because he is not affiliated with either of the country's best chances for consensus building: a political party. Journalists and DC pundits, for as much as they love having stuff get done in Washington, ironically seem to despise the parties - which serve as the centripetal forces in our centrifugal system. If our Constitution disperses power across different branches of government, a major purpose of our parties is to organize and cultivate a caucus of similarly minded people so that coordination across branches might be possible. The parties offer, without question, our best chance at the kind of coherent, responsible government that journalists and pundits claim to love. Their purpose is precisely to build consensus - first among like-minded officials across branches, second among the voters in an electoral campaign, and third among a majority in government. By making a third party candidate president of the United States, you put a temporary end to the possibility of this kind of coherence. After all, everybody in Congress would want President Bloomberg defeated in the next election. Just how much does anybody think he would get done?

This whole Bloomberg fuss honestly does not surprise me. I have long thought that journalists and pundits systematically overemphasize the role of individuals in our system, and systematically underemphasize the role of impersonal forces like our federal structure. If our system is "broken" (which, incidentally, is an ideological point of view), it must be because the men and women currently running it are incapable; thus, we must find a new person to run it. What about all of the impersonal forces that have induced this "brokenness?" Why do we never see journalistic accounts of these?

And, more broadly, have journalists not thought that maybe Bloomberg has been as successful as he has because these forces, which are in plentiful supply on a national level, are not present on a city level? Our national politics is much more diverse than local politics, even the local politics of a diverse metropolis like New York. I know New York is diverse - but only the Congress is a place where a representative from San Fransisco, CA and Provo, UT come to work out their differences! What is more, the objectives of government at the local level are essentially agreed upon. Largely gone are the days when big cities like New York endeavored to be agents of social justice. Now, the goal of most governing officials is to run the city efficiently. On a national level, there are differences of opinion about basic governmental goals, let alone how to achieve them.

Posted by Jay Cost at 11:00 AM | Permalink

Since he's back in the news, I thought I would flag my previous essays on his prospects. Here, here, and here.

Posted by Jay Cost at 11:26 AM | Permalink

In response to today's column, a few people have written to point out:

(a) Bill Clinton's job approval was somewhere between 55% and 60% at the end of his term.
(b) George W. Bush lost the popular vote.

Both of these are true. I was aware of both of them - but did not think that they offered fundamental challenges to my point that the public in 2000 was "tired of President Clinton['s mode of representation]."

I think the real issue is whether - when the law mandates that a new person take the office - the public would prefer somebody who acts differently. The fact that it approved of Clinton is not relevant. It is also not surprising, considering how he so consciously tacked to the median. You can enjoy your vacation, but still feel - when it comes to an end - that you are glad to go home. The fact that the public largely voted for his vice-president is not necessarily relevant, either. It might have been that the vice-president was conscious of the public's feelings about the Clinton Administration, and took steps to inoculate himself. Indeed, Gore did precisely that.

You see, the evidence that I had in mind was the actions of the political elites. George W. Bush made the argument that he did in his convention address only because he perceived that it would resonate with the public. Obviously, this perception was predicated upon knowledge that his campaign derived from polling and focus group testing. Meanwhile, Al Gore made essentially the same argument as Bush! Gore - like Bush - felt the need to argue that we need to do something socially positive with all of this prosperity. He chose to run a "populist" campaign rather than a "let's keep the good times a'rollin'" campaign. He could have said, "I'm Clinton minus the sexual indiscretions." But he chose not to.

A parallel I had in mind was the election of 1960. Kennedy did not win just because Nixon was a relatively poor candidate, though Nixon was. Kennedy won in part because he promised that we would do something. His "New Frontier" was a contrast to Eisenhower as much as it was a contrast to Nixon. Thus, even though people loved Ike - the election of 1960 should be viewed, at least in part, as a rejection of Eisenhower's way of governing (which was, in many respects, to do very little). The public embraced change that year, even though they loved and supported the outgoing President.

Posted by Jay Cost at 11:55 AM | Permalink

I like to think that I have two tasks for this blog. The first is to clarify aspects of our politics that are cloudy. The second - which, I must admit, is nearer and dearer to my heart - is to clarify ways of thinking about our politics that are confused. In other words, I have both substantive and methodological goals for the Horse Race Blog.

Many times, methodological mistakes lead to substantive mistakes. Methodological mistakes can be subtle, and often times they are the product of over-enthusiasm. That is, analysts and pundits are so eager to offer something of substance that they commit some kind of methodological error that, in turn, leads to an erroneous conclusion.

One such error that I often see is a kind of correlation-as-causation fallacy. To be a little cheeky, we might call it the fallacy of the historical curse. I often read pundits who cite historical trends and then use those trends as an argument for why something will happen. For instance, last year, pundits, in their attempts to analyze the congressional elections, were wont to offer a litany of reasons to expect the Republicans to do poorly. One of those reasons was something to the effect of, "Parties of the President always do poorly in their sixth years." While it is essentially true that the party of the President does poorly in the second midterm, it is not a reason, or a cause. It is a tendency, or a correlation. Thus, it cannot be in one's litany of reasons. You cannot cite a tendency as a reason. Correlation is not causation. When you treat historical data that way, it is as if you are implying that there is some kind of curse - that is, an unexplained causal factor that can be explicated only by reference to the pattern that the factor creates. Of course, pundits are not actually enthusiasts of the occult. I imagine they are as "modern" and "naturalistic" as the rest of us. The effect, I am sure, is accidental.

This mistake can take several forms. In one form, the past reasons for the pattern might not be in effect in the current time period. This would be most likely to occur in an instance where your only reason to expect an event is the historical pattern. For instance, suppose that all identifiable metrics about last campaign cycle - except the "sixth year" tendency - favored the Republican Party. How wise would it have been still to predict GOP disaster? Not very. The historical pattern has a cause; if you cannot identify a cause to suspect disaster this year, you should not use just the pattern to predict a Democratic victory - though the pattern might inspire you to dig more deeply to see if potential factors might indeed be influencing the election.

In another form of this mistake, you overstate your case. If you give five reasons to expect something to happen, but one of the reasons is a historical trend that was caused by another of the reasons, then you really only have four reasons to expect something. In this instance, you have over-argued, which is not to say that we should divide your conclusion by some factor. It is simply to say that you have offered a bloated, and therefore imprecise, argument. It might still be the case that, when your argument is brought back down to its appropriate weight, you can still argue what you wish to argue. However, because of the imprecision - we cannot know until we have brought forth a clear version of your argument.

This latter error was on display yesterday in an otherwise excellent article by Frank Donatelli at Politico.com. Donatelli writes,

It is the worst of times for Republicans. President George W. Bush's approval ratings barely top 30 percent. Democrats have opened up as much as a 15-point lead in party identification, a gap not seen since the Nixon-Ford days of the 1970s. Key issues such as immigration and Iraq are causing major fissures in the Republican coalition. The GOP suffered a top to bottom defeat in the 2006 midterm elections, a leading political indicator that a change in party control of the White House will follow in 2008.

History also tells us that 2008 should be a Democratic year. Third terms for the in-party in power are notoriously difficult to win. The only nonincumbents since the middle of the 19th century who achieved this -- Republicans William Howard Taft in 1908, Herbert Hoover in 1928 and George H.W. Bush in 1988 -- all succeeded enormously popular presidents.

Let me say at the outset that I essentially agree with Donatelli's thesis. This is going to be a very tough election for the Republicans. I am not critiquing his argument so as to promote some kind of GOP bullishness. I am, rather, trying to make a somewhat more subtle point - methodological errors can reduce our substantive precision. Let me also say that his article is otherwise a sound analysis of what the GOP needs to do to make itself as competitive as possible. I am not suggesting we throw the baby out with the bathwater. Nevertheless, Donatelli does indeed commit the second form of the fallacy that I have described above.

It should be clear here that Donatelli offers a trend as a cause. Anytime you read, "History tells us," you can be near certain that this is what is coming next. Indeed, in his litany of GOP woes, he mentions: low job approval, low GOP party identification, issues that cut against the Republicans, previous electoral disaster, and history.

[N.B. His preferred phrase, "History tells us," is one of those non-sequiturs that is like fingernails on a chalkboard to my ears. History, speaking either literally or metaphorically, does not tell us much at all, at least not anything that was not self-evident to begin with. Unlike Newtonian physics, history does not present to us clean, crisp, and clear laws of human behavior. History is a messy subject. Historical insights are almost always matters of interpretation and disputation, conjecture and refutation.]

Mr. Donatelli offers a bloated list of reasons for Republicans to be dour. He should not include the historical pattern that he references. This can be seen more clearly if we unpack this historical trend - an action which, I believe, has some utility that goes beyond offering a response to this article. It can help us understand the importance of historical patterns in understanding this upcoming election, and it can offer us some general guidelines on how we should - and should not - use history in our analysis.

Mr. Donatelli writes, "The only nonincumbents since the middle of the 19th century who achieved this -- Republicans William Howard Taft in 1908, Herbert Hoover in 1928 and George H.W. Bush in 1988 -- all succeeded enormously popular presidents." First of all, another major sign of approaching correlation-as-causation is when you read a historical trend that sports an arbitrary cutoff date, as he offers here. What is so special about the middle of the 19th century? That seems a little "suspicious." Another "suspicious" element is that he does not factor in FDR, who of course won three terms (four, as a matter of fact!). His initial argument is about the perils of a party winning a third term. FDR was, of course, a member of the same party as FDR. So, he would have to be counted as an exception. Similarly, he fails to factor in TR, who won his party a third term in 1904. Taft's term was actually the Republican's fourth consecutive term.

Indeed, if we go through the whole history of the Republic, we can appreciate just what a limited pattern this is.

Between 1800 and 1824, the Democratic Republicans won seven consecutive presidential elections.

Between 1828 and 1836, the Democrats won three consecutive presidential elections.

Between 1860 and 1880, the Republicans won six consecutive presidential elections.

Between 1896 and 1908, the Republicans won four consecutive presidential elections.

Between 1920 and 1928, the Republicans won three consecutive presidential elections.

Between 1932 and 1948, the Democrats won five consecutive presidential elections.

Between 1980 and 1988, the Republicans won three consecutive presidential elections.

This would be seven successful attempts to win at least a third consecutive term. How many times has one party or the other failed to win a third consecutive term after having won two? Six: 1860, 1920, 1960, 1968, 1976, 2000. It is interesting to note that in three of these five failed attempts - 1960, 1968, and 2000 - only a fraction of the vote separated the two parties.

Take a closer look at those failed attempts. Three of the five came within 20 years of each other - and they all occurred during a turbulent time in American political life. Many have argued that this period was one of a dealignment that was due to the parties' inability to deal with recurring problems of national scope: race, crime, Vietnam, economic stagnation, Communism, and so on. In other words, it was the presence of tough issues that the party in power had failed to resolve that ultimately damaged their capacity to retain office. Interestingly, issues were the Democrats' problem in 1860, when they had failed to resolve the burgeoning sectional crisis; and 1920, when the nation had grown tired of their idea of America's role in the postwar world.

The historical pattern now makes intuitive sense, which is to say that we have now identified a reason for its existence. Why should we expect a party to lose in its quest for the third term? Our system is very hard to govern over a sustained period of time. We can generally expect that a governing coalition might be worn out by the time the opportunity for a third term presents itself. It has already acted on many of the issues that favor it. So, the issues that linger tend to be issues that hurt it and help the other party. A change seems called for - certain issues need to be addressed and the country no longer trusts the ruling party to address them. So, what happens? The party is saddled with declining partisan identification, declining presidential job approval, and a loss in the next election. This is why parties so often lose elections in attempts for their third go-arounds. Issues induce the pattern.

So, we should be able to see clearly now that Donatelli is "double-dipping." By mentioning issues, he has already accounted for what creates the pattern that he mentions. The pattern itself is thus not another reason to be added to the list. It is not an independent reason - it is, rather, a tendency that one of the reasons explains.

Again, let me stress that my point here is not to engage in Republican boosterism. As you should be able to tell by now, I am in general argument with Mr. Donatelli - 2008 looks to be trouble for the Republicans. I actually might be more bearish about Republican prospects than he because I think there is only a very narrow band of opportunities for the GOP to take up his third recommendation - namely, to separate itself from President Bush. What is more, my intention here is not to single out Mr. Donatelli as being the sole perpetrator of this argumentative fallacy. All in all, I thought his article was well written and well argued. And, anyway, I have seen many analysts make this kind of mistake generally - and I have seen a good number make this particular mistake about third terms.

My point here is simply two-fold: (a) on a methodological level, we should be mindful of committing the fallacy of the historical curse; (b) on a substantive level, the historical fact that parties have recently had trouble acquiring a third term is not, in itself, a reason to be bearish about Republican prospects. The reason to be bearish is the cause that induces the pattern seems to be present in this cycle for the GOP.

Posted by Jay Cost at 12:01 AM | Permalink

It is probably the case that, at least at this point, a Bloomberg candidacy in itself does not deserve the attention I have been giving it. However, I have found my time thinking about it worthwhile because it elucidates some key features of our two party system, many of which are rarely noted because they are constants. It is not hard to notice something when it disappears and comes back again. But if something is always there, you can find yourself taking it for granted. And when you take something for granted, it is easy to misunderstand it.

When it comes to the two parties, its permanence makes it easy for us to fail to appreciate its deep roots in the American system, and we might start deluding ourselves that a little focus, effort, good faith, and - of course - cold, hard cash could break through it. We might call this the billionaire's dementia. Ross Perot developed it 15 years ago, and Michael Bloomberg looks like he's about to catch it, too.

Late last month, he appeared on CNN and made some sly statements about whether he would run for President. Reported The Politico's David Kuhn:

Michael Bloomberg's appearance on CNN Tuesday was ostensibly to detail his announcement that all 13,000 New York City taxis will be hybrids in five years.

When the topic - inevitably - shifted to his possible third-party candidacy for the White House, Bloomberg waved off the idea.

But then he added: "There's nothing magical about two," referring to the typical number of nominees in the general election.

There's nothing magical about two?

Yes there is!

Continue reading "The Billionaire's Dementia" »

Posted by Jay Cost at 12:03 AM | Permalink