Liberals should be happy they won and then shut up

Continuing on this theme that America is a conservative nation, and Democrats only win by, I dunno, accident or something, Michael Gerson writes in today's Washington Post:

Following an electoral victory, Obama is likely to face a massive challenge: The least responsible, least respected, least popular political institution in America -- the Democratic-led Congress -- would also be the most emboldened. Democratic leaders with large majorities would be pushed by conviction and hubris, and pressured by Democratic constituencies, toward divisive measures that punish and alienate businesses, seek backward-looking political vengeance and impose cultural liberalism. This predictable story of overreach, backlash and bitterness easily could destroy Obama's presidency, even before his first achievements -- unless he can suddenly find the ability to shape, tame, even fight, the self-destructive tendencies of his own party.

First, I take issue with his categorization of a Democrat-led Congress as the least popular institution in America. Yes, if you ask Americans what they think of Congress, it is pretty damn negative, down there in Bush-territory. But if you ask them how their Congressman is doing, they give high marks -- indeed, the reason we're looking at a Democrat-led Congress in an Obama administration is that most of the people there will be re-elected (and the ones that aren't are overwhelmingly Republican).

Why is it so hard for Michael Gerson, and anyone else, to believe that people are actually voting for Democrats because they believe that Democrats have good ideas for running the country? It appears that people do want the financial industry to be subject to regulation, an increase in the progressivity of the tax code, enforcement of environmental laws, action on climate change, progressive views on the Supreme Court, etc. etc. Gerson seems to be suggesting that the Democrats should reject everything they've been campaigning on and, I dunno, just try to hold the ball for as long as they can until Republicans take over again? His message is even worse for Obama -- just don't try anything, Congress will overwhelm you.

Two problems with this. First, if anything has been a problem over the past 8 years, it has been that Congress lost its spine and let the executive branch do anything it wanted. So I'm a bit dubious that, all of a sudden, Congress will be calling the shots. Second, implicit in Gerson's argument (and explicit in similar arguments made by others) is the comparison to Clinton's first term, when he too had a Democrat majority upon taking office, but promply blew it, leading to the 1994 GOP takeover. I don't think this is a terribly valid comparison though. Clinton and Obama are vastly different people in terms of temperment and leadership style. Also, many of the Democrats that lost in '94 were from places that we now recognize as not terribly Democratic -- Southern states, rural areas, etc., that were still lagging behind the North/South switch in party ID that had been occurring since Nixon. I think today's Democrat majority is much more solid, both in terms of number and ideology (I'm not saying it is monolithic or imperturbable, but simply moreso than in '94).

Anyway, Obama, when you win, I'd recommend trying to do some of the things you said you'd do...

Is Obama conservative?

This question is something I'm going to start addressing hopefully quite a bit. Part of my desire to answer this question is that it is something the MSM seems pretty intent on arguing, that Obama will only be successful if he governs like this is a "center-right" country, a phrase you hear a lot. Indeed, look at the cover of the new Newsweek. Since this general topic has been on my mind, this article is a great place to start. An excerpt:

Conservatives are increasingly sounding like they're stuck in the 1980s, as they warn against the creeping tide of socialism and denounce Obama's tax plan as "welfare." You almost expect to hear John McCain take the stage to a pulsing Richard Marx tune, then start reciting lines from "Red Dawn." It may have reached its apogee when, in her debate with Joe Biden, Sarah Palin quoted Reagan on the danger that if we're not careful, one day we'll be telling our children and grandchildren about a time when America was free. What was Reagan warning against in that quote? The passage of Medicare, one of the most successful and popular programs in U.S. history, brought to you courtesy of big-government liberals.

When conservatives take stands like these, so far from the American mainstream, the Beltway acolytes of the Church of Centrism never seem to mind. Will a GOP defeat be greeted with columns by Jon Meacham and his ilk instructing Republicans sternly that they need to abandon their ideology and move to the center, lest they permanently alienate themselves from the public?

To give the short answer to my posed question, no, I don't think that Obama will govern as a conservative. Some (Andrew Sullivan, for one) argue that Obama is fundamentally conservative, but I really think that if Reagan, Gingrich, & Bush don't fit into your definition of conservative, then your definition isn't very good.

Real America

A recent talking point from the McCain campaign -- especially the Palin half, but including many surrogates -- has been the emphasis on "real" America. Apparently, you cannot be a real American if you live in a city (did you know that 10% of all Americans live in either the LA or NY Metro region?), and while it haven't heard this directly stated, I'm 99% percent sure that one cannot be a real American if you've spent any amount of time at Harvard (or MIT or Hamilton, but probably not enough real Americans have heard of those places, so they are a poor identification tool). Clearly, I'm out.

I don't want to dissect what a stupid talking point this is from a demographic, governance, or common sense standpoint, but rather, how stupid is this from either a short-term or long-term political perspective? Though never said, "real" America means white America. Everyone knows this, the white people who are hearing it at Palin's rallies, and the non-white people who aren't at Palin's rallies and hear about it in the news. Is the Republican party really going to further alienate "minority" voters? I put minority in quotes because we are not all that far off from having an electorate that is majority-minority. Currently, whites make up 68% of all Americans, and that number continues to go down (Pew predicts that by 2050 whites will be 47% of the country).

Case in point, Latino voters. They make up a big chunk of New Mexico, a state that McCain has long ago conceeded, and are more and more important in Colorado. When they hear Palin talk about real Americans, do you think they feel like they're part of that conversation?

I have no readily-available facts to back me up on this (although I'm sure that a few people reading will be able to do so), but political party identification seems like something that doesn't change very much over the course of an individual's lifetime. Right now, minority voters of all ethnicities, are flocking to the Democratic party and are quite likely to stay there for a very long time. As their share of the electorate goes up, the situation only bleakens (is that a word?) for the GOP. Now, they could attempt to stem the tide, mitigate their losses, etc., but rather it seems like they're holding a losing hand and going all-in anyway.

Random thought, that I'll do a little research on.... solely from the two criteria I noted above that favor Democrats -- city-dwellers and minorities -- doesn't it seem like Texas could start to turn blue eventually? Yes, I'm 99% dubious of this, and perhaps my characterization of Texas demographics are way off, but I'll look into it anyway...

Can McCain count?

McCain has long given up on Iowa and New Mexico, two Bush states. Add these to the Kerry states and Obama has 264 EVs. But now CNN is reporting that McCain is giving up on Colorado. Colorado is worth 9 EVs... meaning that McCain is giving Obama 273 EVs. Um, you only need 270 to win. No Kerry states look even close -- Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Minnesota -- there is no reason for McCain to think he can pick off one of these states. And let's note that Obama is currently leading in Virginia, Missouri, and North Carolina, and tied in Florida, Ohio, and Nevada.

Let's say that something happens in the final two weeks to tighten up the race and makes any of these calculations worth figuring out (if nothing happens and the polls look like they do today, Obama gets >350 EVs). Okay, now McCain is back in it... except he has abandoned states that he'll need in order to actually win the election. If the election turns, North Carolina, Missouri, etc. will likely fall back in line -- but Colorado, Virginia, etc. don't. This is like a football team, when they are down by 9, insisting on scoring the touchdown first and going for it on fourth and 15 instead of kicking the FG. It doesn't matter how little you lose by, it only matters if you win. He is insane to be pulling out of Colorado, it is a state he absolutely needs.

2008 Red Sox, R.I.P.

One regret from this series is Mike Lowell's absence. Kotsay didn't look horrible filling in, but the results were pretty crappy -- no RBI, 20 men left on base. It is safe to assume that Lowell would have performed better than that (hell, he couldn't have been worse). Troubles for next year include centerfield -- Ellsbury isn't ready to lead-off, and Crisp's ceiling is pretty low; catcher -- Varitek had a great career, but is cooked; shortstop -- Lowrie doesn't have the range to be a plus defensive SS, and who knows what Lugo's deal is; DH -- how hurt is Papi, can it be fixed, etc. On the plus side, the Sox have a solid 1-2-3 starting rotation (assuming Beckett's health problem is relatively minor) and a lights-out closer, so the fundamentals of the pitching staff are sound.

Back to politics...

Liveblog - ALCS Game 7: Rays 3, Sox 1

Three closing thoughts:
1) That called third strike to Kotsay was way outside
2) Should Tampa fans really celebrate when none of them can name more than half the roster?
3) You score 1 run, you deserve to lose. I'll give it 72 hours before we learn what surgery Papi needs.

Obama '08.

PS Apparently blogger.com had some problems, so we kinda jumped from the 5th to the 8th... well, my rants weren't exactly Shakespeare, and I guess you get what you pay for...

Bot 8: Okay, either way this works out, it is not safe for my laptop to be in my lap because it is too convenient a projectile... Postgame commentary (rant) at the end...

Top 8: I guess Garza is out there to get out Cora, who was in there because he can hit fastballs, except for the fact that he can't. Whoa! Big E6! Somewhere, some Cora-fan (somewhere in the universe, that person exists) is claiming that Cora's sense of the game caused him to hit an easy groundball to SS, knowing full-well it'd be booted. C'mon Coco, don't suck... While we wait for the warm up, I'll note that back in the day (say, mid-2005) you'd just start counting how the Sox could get to Papi, because if you could, you'd feel good. Now, not so much... C'mon Cocobean... One problem I have with Coco, it seems to me that on the pitches he fouls off, if he had made 'good' contact, they would have been pop-ups on the infield...hey, a seeing eye single for us!!! Do you walk Pedey to get to Ortiz? ha ha... no, i'm serious... FUCKING POP UP!!! Can Ortiz just at least not GIDP so Youk can hit? C'mon Papi, hit smart! Your wrist is too screwed up for you to hit a homer, you just can't hit a good pitch, you can only hit screw ups. So don't try, else you'll whiff or hit into a DP. Use your frickin' brain boss... Ick, down 0-2 looking at a strike and swinging at a ball... prediction, Papi will look at strike 3 on outside corner... it is so sad to see Papi as a shell of his former self... 2-2 count... weak grounder to second... not sure that was the right play, and Coco was actually safe if he slides to the bag, the moron. Replays further confirm that if Coco had a good slide he's safe... Youk at 3-0 now, green light? swing at ball 4 to fill the count... ball4, bases juiced for Drew (my brain is exploding). Holy shit, this is unbelievable, a hit ties it (shoudln't we pinch run for Papi, since he can't hit anyway?), an out and we likely lose. WHAT< style="font-style: italic;">will Papi do anything? C'mon boss, do something for me here!!! PAPI, TRY TO HIT AN OUTSIDE PITCH TO THE OPPOSITE FIELD!!!! I think Ron Darling is mocking Buck Martinez by also pronouncing his name OR-teez. Jeezus he looks bad up there... Full count now, Garza at 99 pitches... FUCK FUCK FUCK, Papi whiffs on a horrible pitch. Rays 2, Sox 1; FG: 26%; Garza 100

Bot 5: Shit, another leadoff hit. Better a double than a walk, though, as the latter score more often... Really, the catcher just got an infield hit?! Hey Rocco, I think your mitochondria are feeling tired... Seeing eye single to take the lead... such shit...Caray just asks how big two out hits are in the postseason, despite there being no outs in this inning... C'mon Lester, two pitches: K, DP...Okay there's the K. Huge leverage situation here, two outs, men on second and third: a hit and you're screwed, with LBJ up to bat. Do not f'ing intentionally walk Upton! NICE! Okay, couldda been much worse... Rays 2, Sox 1; FG 34%; Lester @ 83

Top 5: I'd love for someone to figure out if scoring-after-your-opponent-scores correlates at all with winning (as opposed to scoring an inning after they score or what have you) because if the Red Sox score here, the Talking Heads will love it. Hey, um, we haven't had a base hit since the first... but now we have Alex Cora, Fastball Hitter Extraordinaire, is batting... and looking at fastballs whiz by him... Sox 1, Rays 1; FG 43%; Garza @ 75 (9 pitch inning; wtf?)

Bot 4: Rays get their first hit, and a leadoff one at that. Now El BJ is up... He's really due for a GDP... or a K. A K works too. Ah fuck, Longoria hits it the one place a guy can score from first. Tek may not have optimally set up for that throw... Ok Lester, get out of this while we still have the tie. The ump just blocked Youk getting to that pop-up. Stupid fat ass (the ump). Sox 1, Rays 1; FG 50%; Lester @ 63 pitches.

Top 4: Couldn't find anything definitive on Rocco's broken mightychondria. I found a website for people with this problem, but nothing specific. It seems to be incredibly vague, in that I can think of a lot of ways in which your mitochondria can be f'd up, so the causative genetic abnormality is likely to differ from patient to patient. Garza is dealing too, btw. One total hit though 21 outs... Sox 1, Rays 0; FG: 57%; Garza 66 pitches

Bot 3: There's a guy in an Obama shirt sitting right behind home plate. I would think this is just a coincidence, but the guy is advertising on video games, so you never know. BTW, how many nails can McCain's electoral coffin hold, because Powell on MTP was about another dozen. Does anyone know what Baldelli's mitochondrial disorder actually is? I mean, is the gene known? I'll look into this... Lester cruising Sox 1, Rays 0; FG: 62%

Top 3: TBS crew says that Francona likes to start Cora against pitchers with fastballs. Now, they may have heard someone say that, but I've never heard that before, and I'm pretty sure I know more about the Red Sox, as someone who follows the team day-to-day, than these hosers. Oh, every pitcher throws fastballs, and if Francona thought Lowrie couldn't hit a fastball, I'm pretty sure he'd still be in AAA. But otherwise, great point. Coco goes down again, ofertwo from the leadoff spot. Caray just called Pedroia "little horse" and the wife got angry (apparently she likes Pedroia... and is now noting how similar we look. Beer #3 about to be opened). The little horse got hbp on the bicep, which still almost resulted in a home run, that's how awemvpsome he is (for the record, I don't think Pedroia should win the MVP). The little horse gallops to second, stealing the base. Ortiz whiffs on a bad pitch. I'm a bit worried that his one HR has given him a false sense of confidence. Clearly, he's not right, and the less he tries to hit it over everyone's head and the more he tries to hit it where they ain't -- the entire left side of the infield -- the better off we'll be. Sox 1, Rays 0; FG: 56%; Garza at 54 pitches

Bot 2: Still no word from the announcers why Cora is in there. Can you imagine -- and I guess if you are a Dodgers fan, with Vin Scully, you can -- what it would be like to just have one guy in the booth? How great would that be?! Although, I think Sox fans are spoiled because Don & Remy are really good on NESN. I don't know why they feel the need to bring in 'national' (read: know-nothing) announcers for the playoffs. Why can't we just have the home team announce? Lester has an easy second, he's pitching smoothly. Sox 1, Rays 0; FG: 61%

Top 2: The albino physicist hawking Sharp products is just damn weird. They're replaying the home plate ump getting hurt last night -- why don't NFL officials get hurt, like, on every play? They're mostly all old men (with day jobs as lawyers) and they are surrounded by giant men, in pads, trying to kill each other. Garza has removed the ear plugs. Sox going quickly here in the second... Buck Martinez thinks that catchers and shortstops don't ever need to hit to contribute, and doesn't really follow up on that. Buck Martinez is a bit dumb. Garza averages just under 3 walks per 9, so walks will have to come after multiple foul balls. A buddy and I once wondered if fouling balls off is a specific skill -- i.e. can you try to fould balls off, or at you just making contact when other batters would whiff? I write this as Tek is battling nicely into a full count... and Ks looking. Sox 1, Rays 0; FG: 55%

Bot 1: A bit surprised to see Cora in there at short. Lowrie hasn't done crap at the plate, but Cora is no great shakes either. Can we just walk Upton? At least from the first two batters, this is the good Lester tonight, in that he's hitting Varitek's glove. Upton gives it a ride, but because the pitch was away, he couldn't get it out. Ron Darling thinks Lester looks good so far. Nice first inning, three up, three down. 1-0 Sox; 60% chance of winning from Fangraphs

Top 1: Auspicious sign for Garza, wearing earplugs for a home game. The wife just had an excellent question -- where's the ump who got hurt yesterday? Dunno.... and GONE FOR PEDROIA! I wonder if Garza can hear the crack of the bat through his ear plugs... Garza had to work in first, that's good, throwing 20 pitches. 1 - 0 Sox after a half.

Okay, can the Sox pull this off? They have the right guy on the mound in Lester. Garza throws heat, but doesn't particularly scare me. The strength of the Rays staff is their bullpen, and they've been quite uneven for the past two games. Not sure how much gas is left in the Sox pen either, though, but remember, Lester is going with extra rest, so if he's on, he can go for awhile. Let's go Sox!

ALCS Game 6: Sox 4, Rays 2

Well there is no doubt that Josh Beckett is hurting from something -- his fastball never touched 95, and he can usual dial it up to 97 -- his location was pretty sharp and he only gave up four hits (two solo HRs, though). The Sox offense continued to show signs of life, led by, I kid you not, Coco Crisp, doing his job in the leadoff spot. Yes, they left a good number of men on base, but at least they had men on base.

One of the most interesting developments in this postseason, and something that Francona signaled in Game 1 of the ALDS, is the reliance on Justin Masterson as the 8th inning guy. Okijima pitched two innings last night, so he could only go for an inning tonight, and Masterson threw a lot of pitches in his one inning, so I doubt he'd be used for more than an inning, but Papelbon had a quick 9th, so I wouldn't be surprised if he's used for 1+ in game 7.

In elimination games, Francona is 9-1. Wow. (4-0 against the Yankees in '04, 0-1 against the ChiSox in '05, 3-0 against the Indians in '07, 2-0 against the Rays in '08).

Small change

I noticed that Obama has been running ads that have the legally necessary "I'm Barack Obama and I approve this message" at the beginning of the ad instead of at the end. I think this is particularly effective, especially in ads about your opponent. It makes the attack seem less politically motivated and more factual. Subtle, to be sure, but watch this ad and tell me if you think it would be less effective if, instead of fading to black after McCain says that he voted with Bush 90% of the time, instead you had Obama saying the legally necessary line. To be sure, these things don't win elections, but paying attention to details certainly doesn't hurt.

Gotcha journalism

Sarah Palin is scheduled to appear on SNL (not host the whole show, just appear for a skit or two). Wouldn't it be great if Brian Williams also made a guest appearance and just started asking her questions? I mean, most of Tina Fey's material has been directly repeating Palin's ramblings during interviews.

I'm sure Palin will be great, in that she'll make me laugh. But she's got a lot of practice at making me laugh, usually without trying.

Schrodinger is observing you

Marc Ambinder, a great source of general political information and analysis from The Atlantic runs a blog that is particularly noteworthy for almost never taking a point of view. He calls it a 'reported blog on politics' and that is quite accurate. While I personally think he's an Obama guy, I think he writes in a non-partisan enough way that McCain people might also think he's a pro-McCain guy.

Anyway, his recent post regarding some McCain surrogates' comments about real and, I guess, "unreal" America caused this post. If you're a fan of physics, you'll probably like it.

George Will beats a tourist with his hickory walking stick

In a recent column, George Will reviews a new visitor center built at Gettysburg. At the end, he laments how stupid some of his fellow site visitors were, by relating the story of a visitor who:

said it is amazing that so many great battles, such as Antietam and Chickamauga and Shiloh, occurred on Park Service land; and another visitor who doubted that the fighting here really was fierce because there are no bullet marks on the monuments.

Living in a town containing quite a few historical landmarks, I too have hear such moronic utterances. My favorite was a couple wondering why they decided to put Granary cemetery next to all these tall buildings.

Game 5 ALCS: Did you see it?

Yes or no, did you see one of the greatest comebacks ever, or had you gone to bed?

Fangraphs is a great site that calculates the probability of a team winning as the game progresses. Going into the bottom of the 7th, the Sox has a 0.6% chance of winning the game:

Litmus test

Schieffer brought up, very directly, the issue of abortion, Roe v. Wade, and the Supreme Court. McCain answered first:

SCHIEFFER: All right. Let's stop there and go to another question. And this one goes to Senator McCain. Senator McCain, you believe Roe v. Wade should be overturned. Senator Obama, you believe it shouldn't. Could either of you ever nominate someone to the Supreme Court who disagrees with you on this issue? Senator McCain?
MCCAIN: I would never and have never in all the years I've been there imposed a litmus test on any nominee to the court. That's not appropriate to do.
SCHIEFFER: But you don't want Roe v. Wade to be overturned?
MCCAIN: I thought it was a bad decision. I think there were a lot of decisions that were bad. I think that decisions should rest in the hands of the states. I'm a federalist. And I believe strongly that we should have nominees to the United States Supreme Court based on their qualifications rather than any litmus test.

Now, I am sure that if Obama were asked the question first, he too would have made this weird distinction between a litmus test and qualifications. Wtf is the difference? This topic comes up every time there's a new nominee to the court, and everyone agrees that we shouldn't have litmus tests and is on the lookout for people who are hiding their litmus-testing intentions.

As far as I can tell, a "litmus test" means "someone's thoughts on a specific court case, either in the past or potentially pending." "Qualifications" means "someone's judgement on..." well, it is not clear on what basis their judgement should be judged on, since judging them on judicial cases would be too litmusy. Perhaps he vetting administration should ask them logic questions? Time them on Sodoku?

Was this inevitable?

A while back, in the immediate post-RNC environment when the race was essentially dead-even, I debated (here and here) whether or not Obama should be doing better. I want to return to his question, but from the other side. Should McCain be doing better, or perhaps better said, could McCain have made wiser choices during his campaign that would have left him in better position to pull off the upset? The answer to that, in my mind, is a resounding yes.

First and foremost was his pick of Sarah Palin. In the very short term it seems to have helped him, but now she is an anchor. In the most recent CBS/NYT poll, she had a 32/41 Fav/Unfav rating, and other polls taken around the same times showed generally similar results; Biden, by contrast, scored 42/21 in that same poll. I think it is pretty obvious that the Gibson interview set them up and the Couric interview knocked them down in terms of turning swing voters away from Palin -- her inane answers dominated political discourse for about two weeks. Further, her obvious idiocy (not her obvious inexperience) is what prevented the McCain campaign from continuing its theme that Obama is not ready. The contrast became brains, not resume, and that is something Obama could readily win. There is also the lost opportunity of putting Palin on the ticket, when he could have chosen someone like Romney. Now, I can't stand Romney (and neither can McCain, apparently) but a McCain-Romney ticket would be much more formidable during a discussion of economics in the eyes of swing voters. Let's say that Obama has a 7 point lead right now -- swap in Romney for Palin, and there is no way Obama's lead is larger and it is quite likely that McCain would be within 3 points.

Let's also examine what McCain has decided to make his signature policy issues. Uh, hmmm... what is McCain's signature policy issue? Perhaps porkbarrelearmarkspending? Drill baby drill? I don't really know, and I know for sure that swing voters don't know. However, you ask me to name one of Obama's signature issues, and I can recall four times (the 3 debates, the DNC), on national TV, that he has looked into the camera and said, "Let me be clear, I want to cut taxes for 95% of Americans. If you make under 250,000 a year, you won't see your taxes go up one dime." [I didn't really look that up, but I betcha that my quote is pretty doggone close] I would not be surprised if far more swing voters can identify that policy with Obama more than any policy associated with McCain.

Another strike against McCain is that he has performed poorly in the debates. He has been cranky, he stumbles over his words, he makes jarring transitions from topic to topic (I swear, last night he started off a sentence talking about William Ayres and ended it with something about strengthening our economy). All polls of undecideds, after all three debates, have shown that Obama won [grain of salt -- I have no idea how good or accurate these polls are, but since Obama's national numbers from reputable tracking polls kept going up, I guess we can conclude that they are not totally off].

I think you add up those three things -- the VP pick, message discipline, and debate performance -- and you could plausibly argue that in an alternate universe, McCain could be close or even ahead. Whether or not that is a knock on Obama (i.e. McCain is losing this race, Obama is not winning it) is debateable I suppose, but the concepts are certainly not mutally exclusive.

Debate III: Quick thoughts

First, Schieffer was by far the best moderator. His questions were direct, and the format that allowed the candidates to talk to each like (i.e. debate) made for some good exchanges and contrasts.

McCain seemed particularly angry, and someone should explain to him that Downs Syndrome is not the same as autism.

Obama was his usual cool self. He also spent far more time looking into the camera.

This race was over before the debate. It is still over.

By the way, there is nothing funnier than watching the networks interview undecided voters in these focus groups immediately post-debate. Or terrifying. Actually, it is terrifying.

Debate III: How crazy will This One get?

No live-blogging tonight, as dinner at JP's Ten Tables awaits. I may just watch the debate on 3x speed when I get home, and unless I see images of Obama using a dead puppy to molest a choir boy, I'll assume that nothing has changed.

Perhaps I'll live-blog the end of the Red Sox season tomorrow night. It probably won't matter, but I really don't know what Maddon is thinking by switching his rotation to start Kazmir at Fenway; then again, he's been right about pretty much everything else.

Why vote

The equation-heavy writer specifically asked me to respond to the math, so I will, at least to start. I have no problem with the equations (hell, I'd be lying if I said that bothered to go through them and see if they are true) but I have some problems with the assumptions. For example, in the 1,000,000 people voting example in an exactly 50-50 election, the chance of your vote making a difference is ~one in a thousand. These odds are then waved away by noting that once the odds move away from exactly 50-50, the chances of your vote making the difference drop precipitously. But how are you to know in advance if the election is 50-50 or not? Certainly polls can be a guide (i.e. we know that New York will not be close in this presidential election) but surprises about turn-out, likely voter models, etc. happen all the time. Second, the odds of your vote mattering increase greatly the fewer number of voters there are -- in other words, exactly what occurs in most local races. Hell, most congressman have fewer than 1,000,000 people in their district, not to mention things like state legislatures, town council, etc. So to say that one's vote doesn't matter seems to dismiss the importance of local politics on the overall state of the country and direct effect on your life.

But really, my quibble is not with the math at all, but with the implicit cognitive dissonance. Voting takes, what, 20 minutes? This represents 0.0038% of the all the minutes in a year. Unless the same rational calculations are applied to the other 525,580 minutes, it seems a bit bizarre to insist that voting reach some mathematical likelihood of significance threshold when clearly many other daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly activities do not. Indeed, I imagine that it took longer for the emailer to bang out all those equations than it would have to vote!

I think the key reason for why most people vote was hit on in the other email I posted:

Basically, people feel good about themselves when they vote, in the Ben Barber "participatory democracy" sense (even if the election is a huge blowout, there are important individual and group benefits to having people push the lever).

There is a undeniable biological drive for humans to want to be part of a larger group, whether that be a church, allegiance to a local sports team, whatever. Certainly it made survival sense in our evolutionary past, and the psychological benefits of it are still with us, and voting is just one more way of engaging in society. At the very least, while probably not as good as random-guy-with-baby, random-guy-voting is probably not a bad way to meet women.

Of course, why most people vote is no argument either for or against the rationality of voting, it is simply my guess at an explanation. But I would submit that rational vs. irrational behavior only makes sense in the context of an end goal. For example, if you have $1000 sitting around and have decided that your goal is to attempt to increase that dollar amount, there are rational decisions that could be made -- paying off your mortgage, putting it in a savings account, investing it in the stock market -- which will all have pros and cons which could be rationally determined. There are also, of course, irrational ways of attempting to grow your money -- giving it to me to bet in Saratoga, for example.

But if we eliminate the goal, or at least define so fuzzily as 'the happiness in your life', the concept of rational and irrational goes out the window. If you have $1000 and are deciding between the goal of investing and the goal of pleasing your wife by getting her a really nice birthday present, there's really not a rational vs. irrational decision to be made, but rather a weighing of priorities. I would argue that voting is much more a 'weighing of the priorities of my free time' than a 'rational calculation of if my vote will matter.'

More on voting

Another friend writes in:

My god, more trees have been killed by political scientists trying to figure out how voting could possibly be rational. It boils down to four points.
1) The straight math --- and you don't need any equations to get there --- says it isn't rational, unless the costs are incredibly low. And having to spend 10 minutes walking to a polling place probably destroys the incredibly low argument for any mass election.
2) Nevertheless, people vote. Meaning they are either irrational or we are missing something in our equations. We've already ruled out the possibility that the costs are so low that the longshot possibility of breaking a tie is worth it. An related argument is that the massive individual effect of breaking a tie if it happened would justify the occasional trivial costs. This argument is probably weak. Alternative hypotheses, however, are not in short supply
3) Most of the alternative hypotheses reduce to an argument that particularized benefits exist for voting, we just don't see them clearly the way we do with large campaign donations. (One might wonder if it rational to donate small amounts to a campaign; the particularized benefit clearly appears for huge donations, but what about $100 donors?) The most commonly reference benefit is the psychological benefit of civic virtue. Basically, people feel good about themselves when they vote, in the Ben Barber "participatory democracy" sense (even if the election is a huge blowout, there are important individual and group benefits to having people push the lever). Another particularized benefit is the feeling of belonging or partisan attachment, in the "I voted for Obama so I'm part of his democratic coalition that is going to change america" or "I stopped the evil fascist-socialist-neo-neoconservaitve-radical-conservative GOP" sense.
4) A second group of hypotheses assert that voting is perfectly rational and, in fact, in equilibrium: if everyone believes that everyone else will act individually rationally, they must assume that no one is going to show up at the polls. But if no one shows up at the polls, then any individual vote becomes extremely powerful, so it becomes rational to vote. But this cannot be universalized, since we'd be back at square one. Therefore, individuals use a mixed strategy of voting or not voting.

Fuzzy Math

Not surprisingly, my argument for voting for Obama -- or perhaps, simply voting -- has prompted some replies. Here's one that specifically goes over the math for why it is essentially idiotic to ever vote:

I'll walk you through the calculations below. Let me apologize in advance for not breaking down each step in detail, but typing equations on a computer is a bitch. I assure you that I have not cheated and that my calculations are accurate, but if you really don't believe me, I can send you a pdf with more detail.

Anyway, in order for a single person's vote to "count" in an election (i.e. influence the outcome), that person's vote must break an exact tie. The probability of an exact tie can be calculated using the binomial distribution formula:

Probability of exactly n = x = [N! / ((n!)(N-n)!)] * [(p^n)(1-p)^(N-n)]

where N = the total number of people voting
n = the number people voting for a candidate Joe Blow
p = the probability of a someone voting for a candidate Joe Blow

In the case of an tied election, N = 2n and N - n = n

In which case the formula simplifies to:

x = [(2n)! / (n!)(n!)] * [((p)^n )(1-p)^n )]

Since factorials for large n cannot be calculated numerically by any normal calculator, use the Stirling's approximation for n!:

n! ~ ((2*pi*n)^.5) * (n/e)^n , which is extremely accurate for large n.

Plugging that in yields:

x = [(4(p - p^2))^n] / [(pi*n)^.5] (Eq. 1)

Now if the probability of someone voting for Joe Blow is exactly p = .5, then the formula simplifies to:

x = 1 / [(pi*n)^.5] (Eq. 2)

So let's say that you live in a relatively small state in which 1,000,000 people vote and the probability of someone voting for Joe Blow is exactly p = .5. In that case, the probability of an exact tie is about 1/1,253.

That seems like a pretty decent chance, right? Yes, but unfortunately it only holds true if p is exactly .5. If p varies even slightly, the probability of a tie drops dramatically. For example, if p = .51, the probability of a tie is about 1x10^(-90). (Note: I calculated that number by taking the log of both sides of Eq.1 before plugging in the numbers, which takes advantage of the fact that log (a^b) = b * log (a), and avoids the problem of trying to calculate something to the 500,000th power.)

The situation is even worse if you live in a large state like NY (number of voters ~ 7,500,000) in which the population strongly favors one candidate (I'll be conservative and say p = .55). In that case, the probability of a tie is about 1x10^(-16371), or in layman's terms, a decimal followed by 16371 zeros!

And the above calculations have not even taken into account (a) the probability of a particular state's electoral votes being decisive or (b) the probability, in the event of a very close election, of vote recounters or the Supreme Court screwing with the numbers and rendering your decisive vote not so decisive.

My reply, and a further expansion of this topic, later today...

ALCS Game 4: I'm going to bed before it ends, this is hell

Through 5 innings, the Sox had two hits, no walks, and Sonnanstine had thrown 58 pitches. Now with the Rays batting in the 6th, they have scored 9 (and counting) runs, while having scored 9 runs in each of the past two games. If you can't pitch and can't hit, you can't win. On the bright side, I want to give credit to the restraint of the Fenway Faithful, for as far as I can tell, no one has tried to murder Craig Sager (not that he doesn't deserve it).

She would have wanted me to be used this way

Regarding the use of children as attention-getting props, my dad notes:

You were also a bit of a chick magnet at that age. When we lived on the East Side of Providence, I'd wander down to Thayer Street with you in tow and got much the same reaction. I think I crossed the line (jumped the shark?) when I tried selling the line that your mother was tragically lost at Three Mile Island.

Bonus points!

Today is the last day for Early Decision I of the election prediction contest (link on the left sidebar). Will Obama's lead in pretty much all swing states hold up?

My Closing Argument for Obama

On September 11, 2001, a Tuesday, I had a date planned with Powerpoint and my laptop, as I was scheduled to give group meeting the coming Friday. I had my radio tuned to WEEI, the local sports-talk station, and in the background I heard John Dennis mention something about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. The way he announced it made it seem like a small puddle-jumper making a mistake, tragic to be sure, but nothing outside the ordinary. A few minutes later, I answered a phone call from the girlfriend of one of my apartment-mates, asking if we were "watching this." Going to the living room and turning on the TV, we then saw replays of the second plane hitting the towers. The next few hours were a blur, with phone calls, and even worse, attempted phone calls that didn't get through, to friends and family that either worked in NYC or worked in tall buildings anywhere -- at the time, we didn't know, right? There were vague, then confirmed, reports of an attack on the Pentagon, and reports of another plane that had fallen off the screen. One moment I remember most clearly was when I was on the phone with my dad when the first tower fell. It is hard to say if it was the sorrow in my dad's voice -- I had to narrate what was happening to him, as his office had no TV, the 'oh my god' as I told him that the tower was collapsing on itself-- or just the visual itself that has glued that memory into my brain as the epitome of that tragic day. I spent the night at a very dear friends' house, because it wasn't the sort of day that, if at all possible, should close with solitude.

Over the next few years, I would hear people's stories about Where They Were on the day of 9/11. Perhaps the most telling was a night in Queens, over a bottle of Sambuca, with some guys, much older than me, who had been New Yorkers all their lives. As much as I had to say about that day -- about friends who worked right there, about my uncle whose daily commute on the PATH train took him beneath the WTC, about everyone I could think of who just may have been there that day -- the people who lived in NYC had 10x the number of who-they-knews, and had 100x the it-couldda-been-me.

For me, 9/11 too quickly became a symbol for everything that it shouldn't have. I mean, jeez, George Bush won in 2004 running on 9/11, when the 9/11 widows endorsed Kerry! (why he never played that up is reason #1196 why Bob Shrum is a moron). On Election Day 2000, I was following along with Tim Russert on the wipeboard -- hell, Ayres or Zhung, if you're still out there, I may have whipped out the wipeboard before he did -- I was into it, but more in the way one follows a sporting event -- yeah, "life or death" at the time, but really, win lose or draw, tomorrow doesn't change much. Of course, had I known then what I know now about the disastrous foreign and domestic policy that Bush would lead us into, well, I can't say I would have cared more, because trust me, I've hated the state of New Hampshire ever since that day (if their 4 EVs had gone for Gore, Florida would not have mattered). Perhaps I would have been more despondent? In the year following 9/11, I felt particularly American, but that is of course wide-open to interpretation, so here is what I mean:

I grew up in an American household, and I don't mean American in the "my country, right or wrong" sense, because that is idiotic. I mean American in that I grew up learning what it meant to be American, to question tradition and authority -- exhibit A: the topper on our Christmas tree? Not an angel, not a star, not Santa, but Thomas Jefferson (as for my own little American Revolution, John Adams sits atop my proto-family's evergreen in December). America isn't about family name opening doors for you, it is about your actions determining your fate -- so screw you George Bush, having your way paved for you even though you never had to work for anything, and as Molly Ivins put it best, a guy who "woke up on third base thinking he had hit a triple." And you too, John McCain, who slacked your way into the Naval Academy on the name of your father and managed to finish fifth from the bottom. America was founded by Ben Franklin -- a guy who showed up with no money in his pocket and got by on his brains alone; by Alexander Hamilton -- someone so smart that even on a dinky island in the Caribbean, his talent was so noticeable that he found a patron to send him to America for an education; by George Washington -- a wealthy landowner who had everything to lose and nothing to gain from joining the rebel cause, and upon his retirement from the head of army at the end of the Revolution, King George III said "if he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world." America was a country founded not by gods but by humanity that, under the watchful eye of posterity, demanded the best of itself.

Now I look at the current election, an election still in the shadow of 9/11 even if it is not the topic of the day of the commentariat. I think, what if Obama were president on that day? What would he have asked of us, as Americans? What would the son of a single mother -- a man who has fought for, and earned, everything he has ever achieved -- what would he have asked us to do on that day? There is no doubt that we are -- as we always are, whether we recognize it or not -- at the precipice of crisis. Don't we want a leader who has always demanded the best of himself? Don't we want someone who is not taken to ideology, whether it be in the realm of economics, or warfare, or religion, and rather someone who sees pragmatism as the surest way to achieve broadly-appreciated ends?

There are those who won't vote for Obama because they think he's a Muslim, but even more distressing, there are those who won't for Obama because they think one of the following: a) my vote doesn't count, and I perceive myself as too mathematically literate for you to convince me otherwise; b) Obama is just another [insert liberal politician] and I won't vote for that. To both the former and the latter, I say you're cowards. There have always been people like you, and you have sat on the sidelines as America decided between Tories and Minutemen, slave and free, Union and Confederacy, democracy and fascism, civil rights and Jim Crow, the expedience of industry and the very health of our planet Earth. If you don't see a difference, if you don't look at the past 8 years and think that your vote can make a difference, then you're not the smart one, you're not the iconoclast you fashion yourself to be, you're simply too chicken shit to choose a side and believe in something.

ALCS Game 3: Rays 9, Sox 1

I guess the good news is that the Finger of Blame cannot be pointed in any one particular direction. Outside of that, well, not much silver lining. Things that are good:
1) Francona had the brains enough to realize this game was out of reach and didn't burn out the bullpen protecting a 4 run deficit. In related news, the Byrd family will be happy to know that Paul is not dead.
2) Ellsbury, he of the current 0-for-20 streak, is majorly due and I'm sure these dividends will be paid in games 4 through 6.
3) The Red Sox didn't win Game 3 in the ALCS of '04 or '07 either.
4) Big Papi is, um, crap, I can't rationalize this...
5) In 2004, I said -- outloud and repeatedly -- that I would trade a Red Sox win for a Democrat win, and remind you, this was the still-Bambino'd Sox and John "Jean" Kerry -- so yeah, I would defintitely trade Obama for the Sox (and hell, you can have Tom Brady's A&M CL)

Major Major Major Major

My 17-month-old nephew was in town this weekend. He thought the New England Aquarium, filled with fish and sea mammals from all over the world, was kinda cool -- city buses, however, were wide-eyed, jaw-droppingly cool. He also took a serious interest in organizing our spice rack according to an algorithm known only to him -- I have not yet determined if, by taking the first letter of the spice and correlating it to a number via a simple substitution cryptogram, my brilliant nephew has deduced the first 20 digits of pi, but I wouldn't be surprised.

The little guy was, not surprisingly, a total babe magnet. Of course, he's only in my life because I am married. I guess, from the perspective of a single woman, random-guy-with-a-baby (or, to a lesser extent, random-guy-with-a-dog) is probably a better bet than random-guy-at-a-bar, but I'd still have to think that the 'random guy' side of the equation still usually wins (well, loses) out, pretty much regardless of what random guy is doing.