It's amazing what so-called experts are allowed to publish in the country's top publications, as Brad DeLong has noted in two important posts.
First, Joe Klein, a columnist for Time, wrote this about the role of experience in the 2008 election:
[I]t's entirely possible that "experience" may be more of a disadvantage than an advantage in 2008.
There have been six elections in which control of the presidency has switched parties during the television age. In five of those six, starting with John F. Kennedy's victory over Richard Nixon in 1960, the less experienced candidate won. The other four were: Jimmy Carter over Gerald Ford in 1976, Ronald Reagan over Carter in 1980, Bill Clinton over Bush the Elder in 1992, Bush the Younger over Al Gore in 2000. The one exception to the rule was a toss-up: Nixon and Hubert Humphrey had similar levels of experience in 1968. This sort of pattern may have deep significance. It may mean that when Americans want change, they want a powerful fresh gust of it. Or it may mean nothing at all in wartime.
But as Robert J. Waldmann points out (via DeLong), Klein's statement makes no sense:
Joe Klein's result is almost perfectly tautological as incumbency of one's party and experience are almost perfectly correlated (perfectly correlated if one claims that 5 = 8 as he does in the case of Nixon and Humphrey). Thus, since 1960, we have known before election day that a switch of party would logically imply the election of the less experienced candidate. The observation that, surprise surprise, after election day, it became clear that when there was a switch of party the less experienced candidate won adds nothing to our knowledge whatsoever. Joseph Klein has presented an un-falsifiable hypothesis and drawn conclusions from the failure of the data to refute it. He demonstrates only that he does not reason well, but we already knew that didn't we?
How can one of the nation's top political columnists fail to understand incumbency? It's staggering.
In addition, the New York Times continues to allow Ben Stein, who holds an undergraduate degree in economics, to bill himself as an "economist" in the tagline for his silly column, which he uses to publish nonsense like this:
[W]hy is unemployment so low when the economy is supposedly slowing rapidly? If gross domestic product grew at only roughly 1.5 percent in the first quarter of 2007, why is unemployment at barely 4.5 percent?
However, as DeLong notes, Stein's argument also makes no sense:
The confusion between levels and changes is breathtaking. Unemployment is rising whenever GDP growth is slow (or negative). Unemployment is falling when GDP growth is high. But no chain of reasoning known to humanity would produce the expectation that slow GDP growth is associated with a high level of unemployment or that fast GDP growth is associated with a low level of unemployment. None. The fastest GDP growth on record since the Korean War came at the very start of 1983, when the unemployment rate was the highest it has been since the Great Depression.
It's a misconception like... like... like this: "Dear Dr. Gridlock: I took my foot off the accelerator three second ago. Why is the car still going 60? Why doesn't the car instantaneously stop when I take my foot off the accelerator?"
The title of Stein's piece this week is apt, though: "Assorted Mysteries of Economic Life." Given his (lack of) training, it might be an appropriate name for the column.
Stein's comment was stupid. But as far as his economic training is concerned, people should know that he is the son of the great economist Herb Stein, from whom he undoubtedly learned the equivalent of a graduate degree in the field.
Posted by: Bruce Bartlett | May 14, 2007 at 08:53 PM
Joe Klein misses more than the importance of incumbency. The "experienced" candidate he points to is (usually) the sitting VP. If these folks were such great candidates, then they would already be president and not VP.
Posted by: Jason | May 15, 2007 at 04:02 PM