Last week I wrote an essay analyzing the legacy of Karl Rove. My argument was that one of Rove's biggest problems - and indeed a major failure of this White House - was the failure to do all that could be down to control his and his boss' image.

I received more than a few emails in response to the essay. Many of them echoed the thoughts of this emailer:

I'm in direct disagreement with your attempt to present Karl Rove as a normal guy. Rove has a serious lack of ethics. He doesn't have sense of right or wrong as much as some ideas about the limitations of his power. With Rove the end has always justified the means. Ethically he is a mirror image of Richard Nixon. God help us if he is the common denominator of our society. Do you really believe that we have sunk so low? The best adjectives to describe Rove might be capable, vindictive and mean-spirited. He has screamed at people that he would crush them if they failed to do his bidding, he has boasted of spying on other campaigns, and he has run dirty campaigns such as the one which discredited John McCain. And apparently he has been undone by the nature of his character or he wouldn't be leaving in such a quick manner with little or no explanation.

I quote this at length not for its analytical insight. It is pretty much standard anti-Bush boilerplate. Rather, I quote it as a way to contrast this line of thinking with my own methodology here on the blog.

On this blog, I endeavor to adhere to what I call a "good faith assumption." What I mean by that is the following. It is, I think, impossible to draw inferences about a human being's character based upon his public persona, i.e. the set of data points that come to us through the media. We just cannot do it. We only get a tiny glimpse of a human being via the news. And, what is more, there are good reasons to believe that the person we see on TV or read about in the newspapers is quite different from the person who exists when cameras or tape recorders are not in front of him. And so, we cannot draw conclusions about a person's soul from the data that we glean from press reports.

So, where does that leave us? Well, I think it leaves us with the good faith assumption. I'll describe it this way. Most people with whom I am well acquainted are people who act in good faith most of the time. This is true even of the people that I do not like. Those people may have acted wickedly in an instance that has aroused my anger. They may even have some real moral flaws - but that does not mean that they do not generally try to do right by other people. It's the same for all of us. All of us are indeed capable of genuinely evil deeds from time to time. But, most of the time we act in good faith in our dealings with other people. Because I know this about people whom I know personally, it stands to reason that the same is true of people I do not know personally - in this case, political actors. Political actors might be less likely to act in good faith than, say, nurses. I am not sure - though I do know that the public has an unnecessarily skeptical view of politicians and their attendants. However, even if we were to agree that politicians are less likely to act in good faith than the average non-politician, we would still have to admit that most of the time they - just like everybody else - are acting in good faith.

Combining these two facts - limited data plus a priori knowledge of good faith - gives rise to the good faith assumption. Not only do I have good reasons to believe that politicos, just like almost everybody I know, are acting in good faith most of the time, I also lack a reliable dataset that speaks to their intentions. Thus, I should assume that, in whatever actions I observe (via the media) them do, they have acted in good faith. Surely, sometimes they do not. But, because my knowledge of them is strictly mediated, I have no way to differentiate good faith actions from bad faith actions. And I know a priori that most of their actions are in good faith. Thus, I should assume that all observed actions are in good faith unless I have compelling evidence to the contrary.

This is why the argument I quoted above does not do it for me. There is nothing more than whispers and innuendo masquerading as evidence in the emailer's excerpt. This is not enough. The good faith assumption means that people I do not know get the benefit of my doubt. They get this because I know, a priori, that most people are deserving of this doubt. And so, if my goal is to analyze political actors as accurately as I am able, I should assume that people I do not know are similarly deserving unless there is clear and compelling evidence otherwise. A few pseudo-documentaries occasionally run on the Sundace Channel are insufficient evidence in the face of this assumption.

Don't get me wrong, mind you. I am not being pollyannaish. The good faith assumption does not mean that I go into a situation assuming that all and sundry are angels. Not at all! For my analysis of Karl Rove, the good faith assumption means the following. I assume that Karl Rove is a political operative - nothing more and nothing less. Politics is a messy business - one that Americans inherently dislike. Rove is a partisan political operative who was engaging in the timeless tradition of American politicking. If he was a Democrat, Republicans would be screaming bloody murder about him just as Democrats are now. The reason, ultimately, is that Democrats think that only Republicans politick and Republicans think that only Democrats politick. Both sides are half right. Just like many professional Democrats, Karl Rove has been politicking lo these many years - not, I assume, undermining the very institutions of our republican democracy, etc. This is what one side always says when it observes the other side politicking.

I think that this, ultimately, points to why one needs to dislodge oneself of the psychological hold of political partisanship if one wishes to understand how our system actually works. This is not to say that one needs to stop voting, or that one needs to start splitting one's ticket. Both parties offer us reasonably clear and divergent policy alternatives. If one or the other suits you better, go with it. I do. This is also not to say that there is no such thing as right and wrong in politics. Dislodging oneself of the partisan worldview does not necessitate political nihilism.

Rather, it implies the following. Both political parties offer us a ready-made worldview, a lens through which we can look at our political environment and make sense of it. I take these worldviews to be the creations of electorally ambitious political actors whose goals are to acquire half plus one of the votes in the next election. These partisan worldviews are a means to these ends. Thus, they are explicitly crafted to induce us to political action. One way that we can be induced to political action (especially in a system, such as ours, that is usually "rigged" to prevent any single election from producing significant policy results) is if we believe that our political universe contains heroes and, of course, villains. The demonization of Karl Rove (and, for that matter, Hillary Clinton) is therefore part and parcel of a partisan worldview. Like I said, its purpose is to induce a response from us. It makes us mad. It gives us a sense of righteousness. And so on. That makes us more reliable party voters, or more generous party donors.

The problem with these worldviews is that they are morally and philosophically simplistic. Here, I am not talking about liberalism and conservatism - the two great American political philosophies. Rather, I am talking about "Republicanism" and "Democratism." These are philosophies as well. Both boil down to the idea that, in the great march of American history, our side is in the right and their side is in the wrong. Our side grasps the Truth - and the other side is filled with the ignorant who do not understand It, or the evil who deny It. Like I said, morally and philosophically simplistic. Accepting a partisan woldview gives us a ready-made answer to any and all political questions we might think to ask ourselves. However, it does not mean that those answers have much grounding in the complicated reality that is American political life.

If you're a partisan Democrat (i.e. one who embraces what I call "Democratism") - ask yourself if you know anybody in your personal life who is as evil as you think Karl Rove is. Or, ask yourself whether - when you got to know somebody you thought was that evil - you found out that he wasn't that bad after all. Maybe these are signs that people aren't really that evil, and that you have been offered and have accepted a worldview that really does not square with the world as you know it outside the time you spend consuming political information. Republicans can do the same, as I said, with Hillary Clinton. Really, do they make people that evil?

I would suggest that, when we start to embrace what I have been calling the good faith assumption, we start to see politics differently. Rather than an epic struggle of good versus evil (with our side, of course, being the good guys), it starts to look like a conflict between competing interests that is managed by a federated system that is animated by duly constituted elections that are fought over by political actors who do what political actors do: politick.

In other words, the good faith assumption is a step towards appreciating more fully exactly what Mr. Madison was on about when he wrote the following:

The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts...The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.

What we see as the great moral march of just crusaders led by our fearless party leaders against the evil and/or ignorant opposition, Mr. Madison seems to think of as a faction that, if left unchecked, would lead to the demise of true republican government. We should think about that when we get so frothy-mouthed by our partisan worldviews. Mr. Madison imagined us getting frothy-mouthed, and resolved himself to divide political power six ways from Sunday to stop us from ruining our fragile republican experiment amidst our frothy furor. What does that tell us?

The psychological embrace of a partisan worldview is easy and satisfying. Both partisan narratives are easy to understand. Each helps us make judgments about a whole host of things for which we lack direct referents. Each is psychologically satisfying. Few things in life are more pleasurable than righteous anger. However, neither is all that valid on an empirical level. Embracing one might enable us to identify one actor as good and another as evil. It might allow us to feel good about ourselves. But it will not move us any closer to the reality of our politics. In fact, it will move us further from it.

Posted by Jay Cost at 12:00 AM | Permalink

I receive emails every so often from readers who ask me which polls I think are suspicious. Readers like these are near and dear to my heart, for theirs is a way of looking at politics that is similar to mine. Inherent to the question is the recognition that - with so much polling data out there, some of it is probably not good. We cannot just blithely use as evidence every bit of data we can get our hands on. Not all data is evidence.

My answer to the readers' question is usually, "few of them, and too many of them." My intuition is that few if any of the major polls make use of invalid methodology. Certainly, some skew in one direction, and some skew in the other direction. This problem can be ameliorated by averaging them, which is precisely what we do here at RealClearPolitics. At the same time, too many polls are over-interpreted by either the pollster who has created the poll, or the analyst who is using the data to make an argument.

What do I mean by "over-interpret?" This is what happens when you fall prey to the fallacy that all respondents in a poll know as much about politics as you do. If you are reading this essay, you are likely what I call an "informational elite," which means that there are major differences between you and the average poll respondent. It is not simply the case that he knows fewer facts about politics than you do, though this is most likely true; I'd wager that you could name at least half of the Supreme Court, while the average respondent will be lucky to get two. It is also that he does not think about politics in the same way that you do. He knows so much less than you that he must organize his political information in a way that, to you, would seem strange and inefficient.

For instance, we like to think of ourselves as an ideologically polarized nation. 33% of America is liberal, 33% conservative, 34% moderate. Not exactly! I would agree that these might be the percentages of people who identify themselves by way of these terms (when they are asked to). However, the percentage of people who make good and full use of the political ideologies we call "conservative" and "liberal" is much, much lower. I am not up-to-date on the latest research, but I have never seen a figure higher than 30%. That is, 30% of the whole public makes at least effective use of these ideologies to organize their political information (so, 30% ideological vs. 70% non-ideological).

This is what political ideologies do. They do many things, of course, but one thing they do is organize the information that we receive. Conservatives who are not experts on education policy "know" not to listen to Ted Kennedy when he argues for whatever education policy he favors. How do they, as non-experts, know that? Their ideology sets up for them a framework for looking at the political environment, and helps them make their way through uncertain situations. So, even if they are not experts in education policy, they know (a) their general philosophical position on the role of the government in something like education, (b) Ted Kennedy's philosophical position, (c) that Ted Kennedy's and their positions diverge. Thus, they can "filter" whatever Ted Kennedy is saying. Liberals can do the same with somebody like George W. Bush. Ideologies are not just a set of normative beliefs, they are also a way to structure and organize the political world.

The implication here is that because a large portion of the public is "innocent" of ideology, it therefore organizes the political world in a different manner. There are a multitude of organizational schema that you, as an informational elite, use that an average poll respondent - who has much less information than you do - cannot make use of. Ideology is one example of such a schema, but it is not the only one.

Thus, when you, as an informational elite, over-interpret a poll, you are falsely applying your organizational schema to the respondent. You interpret a question as you interpret it, and then you assume that every other person who was asked the question interprets it similarly. The consequence of over-interpreting a poll is that you improperly infer the implications of the poll's answer.

One such instance is Hillary Clinton's high negative ratings. This is once again in the news, thanks to Mason-Dixon. It recently found that 52% of respondents would not vote for Clinton. This is an instance where informational elites often fall prey to over-reading polling results.

What does this number mean for Clinton? I would agree that it means something. Obviously, she would be better off if her negatives were not as high. However, I think it is far too easy to over-read these results, i.e. to infer that this implies that she is not electable. If you inferred this from that poll, you were probably over-reading it. I counted at least four different ways to over-read the poll.

First, an informational elite knows all about the other candidates in the race. So, when asked if he would not vote for somebody, he can run a quick mental comparison between that candidate and the rest of the candidates in the race - and offer what approaches a definitive answer. The average respondent, on the other hand, is not capable of that kind of estimation. He generally lacks information about the other candidates in the race. A general election in this country is a choice between two individuals. An average respondent might be willing to say that he is not going to support Clinton, but he might not know enough about the other candidates right now to be able to warrant that his opinion will not change when given a choice between her and somebody else. Maybe he would in fact vote for Clinton if a candidate that he really does not like gets the Republican nomination.

Second, the answer given by an informational elite is probably not conditions-based. In other words, an informational elite usually has a very well-defined political ideology, and therefore has a party preference regardless of what is going on in the country. If the country is at war, a liberal wants a Democrat. If it is at peace, he wants a Democrat. If the economy is strong, Democrat. Weak, Democrat. And so on. The average respondent (at least the one who swings presidential elections) tends to lack this kind of ideological grounding, and so he might change his mind depending upon the conditions in the nation. There might be situations in which a voter who is innocent of ideology could feel that Clinton is the best choice, even if today he claims that he would never think that.

Third, an informational elite might understand the question differently than an average respondent. An informational elite hears that question, and he probably envisions a mental picture akin to the voting booth - in which he is looking at Clinton's name against any other Republican name, and asks what he would do. The average respondent might not see it in those terms. What terms might he see it in? I don't know - but consider the sharp definitions to the mental image that this question creates in the mind of the informational elite. In the mind of the average voter, the question might not evoke such clear boundaries to the mental picture, and thus the answer might not be as precise.

Fourth, an informational elite probably has a fully formed opinion about Hillary Clinton, whereas the average respondent probably does not. This means that it does not matter how much Clinton spends, she is not going to change the mind of an informational elite who does not like her. What about the average voter? Is he susceptible to a change of heart on Clinton? I would wager that the answer is yes - at least for enough of them. Granted, an average respondent knows a lot more about Clinton than he does any other candidate - so obviously, some elements of his opinion are fixed. However, his opinion of her is probably susceptible to some pro-Clinton alterations. After all, he still does not know all that much about her. He might be persuadable - especially by the hundred million or so Clinton would spend on the election. And so, his opinion now - before that hundred mil is deployed - is not nearly as fixed as the informational elite's opinion.

To fail to take these considerations to heart is to fall prey to a false analogy between you and the average respondent. This makes it much more likely that you will over-read the poll - that you will take the answer of the average respondent to be as fully-formed and clearly-defined as your own answer. Accordingly, you will be inclined to overrate the danger that these numbers pose to Clinton.

Obviously, this poll is not great news for her. It means she has some hurdles to jump. She has to change people's minds - and, as the Republican Party will be working very hard to keep minds as they currently are, she might not be successful. However, it is easy to read too much into this, to infer that this polling data is anywhere near decisive evidence against the viability of her candidacy.

Posted by Jay Cost at 12:00 AM | Permalink

Yesterday, I began my critique of John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira's "Back to the Future: The Reemergence of the Emerging Democratic Majority." I indicated that Judis and Teixeira made at least four inferential errors in their article, and I outlined two of them. First, they fail to give a compelling reason to accept - in lieu of subsequent election returns - why 2006 should be understood as a realignment. Second, they engage in special pleading to explain previous elections that are inconsistent with their thesis.

Today, I shall complete my critique by outlining the third and fourth errors I see in their work.

Continue reading "An Incipient Realignment? A Response to Judis and Teixeira, Part 2" »

Posted by Jay Cost at 12:00 AM | Permalink

This essay is a response to a fascinating article by John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira entitled "Back to the Future: The Re-emergence of the Emerging Democratic Majority." Judis and Teixeira argue that the 2006 election signals a realignment that favors the Democratic Party. I think their theory is underdetermined, and in this essay I shall offer my justification for that position.

First, let me make clear that what follows is a non-partisan critique. I am not going to try to convince you that the facts point toward the opposite of what Judis and Teixeira argue. I'm not going to try to convince you that the GOP is on the rise, and that 2006 was an aberration. I am, rather, going to argue that the epistemological foundation of their entire project is unstable, and - as a consequence - Judis and Teixeira fail to support their hypothesis. Simply stated, this kind of argument is very tricky, and Judis and Teixeira fail to make it.

I shall spread my response over today and tomorrow.

Continue reading "An Incipient Realignment? A Response to Judis and Teixeira, Part 1" »

Posted by Jay Cost at 12:01 AM | Permalink