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 | IPS fellow parrots the "HCR opponents lost more" claim http://j.mp/bzulKe See http://j.mp/9W311z for why this context-free analysis is wrong | |
 Karen Dolan: Buck up, Progressives -- We WON! Part 1The though the Congressional Progressive Caucus emerged virtually unscathed from yesterday's election, the conservative Blue Dog Democratic Caucus lost more than half its members. Dead weigh... | ||
| Beware context-free election analysis - Brendan Nyhan Since the polls closed on Tuesday night, we've seen a rash of context-free analyses of the election results. Just as some commentators have interpreted the GOP's 60+ seat pickup as purely a back... | ||
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| Interesting - Bush supports redistricting reform http://j.mp/bVO9dl | |
| NationalJournal.com - Under-the-Radar Highlights From Bush's New Memoir - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 National Journal delivers the latest political news and analysis. The tight lid that was kept on former President George W. Bush’s new memoir, Decision Points , fueled enough speculation and h... | ||
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| RT @mattyglesias In WaPo, clothes make the woman: http://ygl.as/cBO6gd // WP Style section & its progeny are a blight: http://j.mp/aD3brj | |
| In the Washington Post, clothes make the woman - Amanda Hess | TBD.com Women, dressed in various items of clothing, do stuff. | ||
| Robin Givhan constructs "Elena Kagan" - Brendan Nyhan As I've written before, the Washington Post Style section helped create the snark-filled, mind-reading style of narrative writing that has infected political journalism. One of its stars is Robi... | ||
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| Hillary's underrated sense of humor - Q: "Are you a collector of chips?" HRC: "I am an eater of chips." http://j.mp/dDau5K (via @ezraklein) | |
| In Australia, Clinton takes it easy | POLITICO 44 POLITICO44 is a new and innovative way to cover the Obama presidency, minute-by-minute. Powered by the largest White House staff around, it will be the go-to place for news and analysis about th... | ||
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| RT @thegoldfarb: great message for 3d party Bloomberg: New Congress full of illiterates who cant find China on a map http://politi.co/djBWvj | |
 Bloomberg: The people we elected to Congress 'can't read' - Maggie Haberman - POLITICO.comVia Katzblog and Kate Lucadamo, Mayor Bloomberg made two interesting comments while doing an interview with the Wall Street Journal from Hong Kong, where he's traveling in his new role as head o... | ||
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| #economymatters RT @daveweigel At this point in 1984/1996 cycles, Reagan was trailing Glenn, Clinton trailing Dole. http://slate.me/bq5dOP | |
| Weigel : Memoirs of the John Glenn Presidency I see that the speculation over which Republican can take out Barack Obama in 2012 has already begun. Here are two pieces of literature to consider before analyzing that. First, Richard J. Catta... | ||
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| Nice article about research by my future Dartmouth colleagues on "Leapfrog Representation and Extremism" in Congress http://j.mp/boUxc9 | |
| Voters in the Middle See Representatives Leapfrog to Edges | Smart Journalism. Real Solutions. Miller-McCune. Researchers discover that politicians in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have more extreme voting records than their median voters in their districts or even their parties. | ||
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 | Excellent phrase, Brooke Gladstone! She wants "reporting that is undistorted by attempts to appear objective." http://jr.ly/5ray (last :45) | |
| On The Media: Transcript of "Journalists as People" (November 5, 2010) | ||
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| Personality-based explanations will not die! RT @mattyglesias Democratic whiners and hand-wringers nailed by @kdrum: http://ygl.as/cweH8O | |
| The Circular Firing Squad | Mother Jones | ||
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| Andrew Gelman: "Exit polls claim deficit a top priority; why that's wrong" http://j.mp/dDuJT8 | |
| The Monkey Cage: Exit polls claim deficit a top priority; why that's wrong | ||
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| RT @normative Can't NYT put C.Blow back on those op-art charts? He was actually sorta good at that. This stuff is painful http://j.mp/bLhsp7 | |
| The New York Times > Log In | ||
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| RT @kdrum Tired of hearing how great Clinton was at talking to regular folks. Makes big difference if ... incomes are rising. | |
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| .@bshor flags new GOP moderates http://j.mp/bub2ys but Adam Bonica estimates new House will be most polarized ever http://j.mp/ap4alI | |
| The New Winning Republican Moderates in the House « Boris Shor, PhD | ||
| Introducing the 112th Congress « Ideological Cartography | ||
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| Politico puts Obama on the couch, suggests that needs "a show of modesty" to be re-elected http://j.mp/9DcWcp Um, how about economic growth? | |
| The ego factor: Can Obama change? - POLITICO.com Print View POLITICO covers political news with a focus on national politics, Congress, Capitol Hill, the 2008 presidential race, lobbying, advocacy, and more. POLITICO's in-depth coverage includes video f... | ||
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| Andrew Gelman's take on what might have happened in the 2010 election http://j.mp/ccSvwN | |
| 2010: What happened? - Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science | ||
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November 09, 2010
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About Me
I am the James O. Freedman Presidential Professor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College. I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at Duke University and have served as a RWJ Scholar in Health Policy Research and a faculty member in the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. I am a co-director of Bright Line Watch. Previously, I contributed to The Upshot at The New York Times, served as a media critic for Columbia Journalism Review, co-edited Spinsanity, a non-partisan watchdog of political spin, and co-authored All the President's Spin. For more, see my Dartmouth website.
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Gelman writes:
Why, in early 2009, seeing the economy sink, did Obama and congressional Democrats not do more?
I would ask the opposite question: Why didn't they do less? I believe most of what they did made the economy worse. E.g.:
1. Giving ownership of bailed-out auto companies to labor unions, rather than senior bond-holders. This political payoff made all investments riskier. An invester now must worry whether the Dems will take a business away from its rightful owners and give it to their friends.
2. Handling of TARP bailouts. Relief was given mostly to those who had contributed to the Dems. Again this showed that political connectedness is now key.
3. Stimulus. Stimulus has historically not worked. Furthermore, this one was handled as a way to give money to Democratic constituencies, not to shovel-ready projects.
4. Deficit spending. People expect that taxes will be raised to pay for the deficit. The likelihood of higher taxes discourages investment and business expansion.
5. Health Reform. There's enormous uncertainly as to how this will operate. The uncertainty discourges businesses from adding employees.
6. Generally anti-business administrators discourage business expansion.
7. Support for trial lawyers makes it likely that tort costs will rise, which discourages business.
8. QE2. I suppose this could work in the short run to goose the economy. However, there's a huge risk that inflation will take off. Inflation would not only destroy peoples' savings, it would discourage business, since they don't know what a future dollar will be worth.
9. Irresponsible failure to enact a budget and failure to decide what to do about the Bush tax cuts. Leaving these vital items hanging causes uncertainty, which discourages investment and business expansion.
Just imagine a world where the government didn't try to grow, balanced its budget, didn't try to raise taxes, kept the dollar strong and stable, and stayed out of the way. That was the situation in the late 1990's. It worked.
Posted by: David in Cal | November 09, 2010 at 07:15 PM