JS

Let us skip the discussion if debates really matter for a moment and focus instead on who won the debate.

The first point is that, just as regular people, columnists saw the debate through their partisan eyes. In general, Republicans found McCain to be brilliant and Democrats agreed that Obama won the debate handily. Below are a few news headlines [from Real Clear Politics]:

McCain Wins Substantive Debate - David Yepsen, Des Moines Register
Obama Wins Debate On Tactics and Strategies - Joe Klein, Time
The Mac is Back - Roger Simon, The Politco
Tie Goes to Obama - John Dickerson, Slate
McCain Won, But That’s Not Enough - Fred Barnes Weekly Standard

The second and probably more interesting point is that Obama did better among Republicans than McCain did among Democrats.  Polling conducted in California by SurveyUSA shows that of Republicans, 56 percent thought that McCain won, 25 percent said Obama and 19 percent considered it a tie. As for Democrats, 72 percent said that Obama won, 13 percent thought McCain got it and 15 said that it was a tie. In other words, Obama did better than McCain because 1 in 4 of the Republicans answered that Obama won whereas 1 in 8 of the Democrats thought that McCain won.

Finally, also the group of uncommitted voters saw Obama as the winner. CBS asked a nationally representative sample “Who won the debate?” and 39 percent of them said that Obama won while 24 percent said McCain. 37 percent concluded that it was a tie.

written by Jacob \\ tags: McCain, Obama, politics, polls

The political strategists were at hard work before Obama’s speech (from NY Times):

On Thursday afternoon, workers were still making changes to Invesco Field, home to the Denver Broncos, so it would feel more intimate, less like the boisterous rallies that served Mr. Obama so well early in the primaries, but also created the celebrity image that dogs him. They were still testing camera angles to the very end, so Mr. Obama would appear among the giant crowd, not above it.

Was it just me, or didn’t they succeed a little too well? I now know exactly how Obama’s mole looks like. Thank you strategists!

written by Jacob \\ tags: Obama, politics

Cannibalistic food is strange. But what does it mean that a pink(!) elephant is wearing the GOP symbol? It is all very confusing.

[Food that eats itself from Boing Boing]

written by Jacob \\ tags: animals, food, politics

Soon Obama and McCain will pick their running mates. Speculation has been going on for a long time. Here is Huffington Post’s latest take on the subject:

According to the latest speculation, Barack Obama’s VP short list has tightened to two Senators and one governor — Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, and Tim Kaine. But several other figures have been considered, and may still be in the running, including Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Sens. Chris Dodd and Hillary Clinton. Also considered long-shots are GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel, Texas Rep. Chet Edwards, and Sen. Jack Reed.

Obama is leading the race over McCain both according to political gambling sites and the polls. Does this make any difference in who they will pick?

Research on risk perceptions indicates that when issues are framed in a positive light, like when a win is plausible, then people are more risk averse than if issues are framed in terms of losses, like a loss is impending (see for example Tversky and Kahneman’s research). That is, people who are in tight situations go for the long shots whereas those in favorable positions take the safe choice.

If risk research is any guide to the choices of running mates, McCain probably picks a riskier candidate, someone who can change the outcome of the race, while Obama goes for the safer alternative. It is therefore more likely that Obama will pick Biden rather than someone like Mike Bloomberg. (This does of course not mean that McCain will introduce Rush Limbaugh as his running mate since there are limits to these effects.)

written by Jacob \\ tags: McCain, Obama, politics

It is easy to write long rants about the stupidity of American television news. Not now, though. My favorite political reporter died today. In fact, Meet the Press has been the only political news program that I could watch without getting annoyed. Tim Russert’s interviews were incisive and civil. He also had an amazing depth of knowledge and a fantastic ability to tell a story. Time ranked him recently as one of the world’s 100 most influential people.

written by Jacob \\ tags: politics, television

There are signs that Hillary Clinton is dropping her bid for the nomination.

1. She is holding her speech after tomorrow’s primaries in New York rather than in one of the election states. This is unusual.

2. She is inviting long time staffers and donors to New York. There is no reason to do that unless there is something important to announce.

To make this much of so little, as many commentators are doing, is close to reading tea leaves and looking for omens. A spokesperson for Clinton is also denying the rumor. Apparently, it does not take much at this point for someone to jump to the conclusion that she is dropping out.

If she actually quits tomorrow it follows the regular pattern of how candidates drop out. One day they give the impression that they will continue the fight until they are completely defeated. Yet, the next day they concede the fight.

written by Jacob \\ tags: Hillary Clinton, politics, primaries

Facebook has a feature called Lexicon and it can be used for several interesting purposes. Facebook explains:

Lexicon is a tool to follow language trends across Facebook. Specifically, Lexicon looks at the usage of words and phrases on profile, group and event Walls. For example, you can enter “love, hate” (without quotations) to compare the usage of these two words on Facebook Walls. You may enter up to five terms, where each term can be a word or two-word phrase consisting of letters and numbers.

One of their examples is party tonight and hangover. As the graph below shows, party tonight peaks on Friday and Saturday and hangover lags closely behind, peaking on Saturday and Sunday.

I did a search on Obama, Barack, Clinton, Hillary. (Click on the picture below for a bigger graph.) I also point out a few important primaries/caucuses in the graph. And I admit willingly that I do not have a black belt in calligraphy.

A few results:

• Barack Obama is discussed more than Hillary Clinton.
• Big jump for Obama after his surprising win in Iowa.
• People refer to Barack Obama as Obama and Hillary Clinton as Hillary. Perhaps because there are many Clintons, perhaps because she is a woman. I do not know.

That Obama is a more popular discussion topic than Hillary Clinton is perhaps not surprising since the average Facebook user is young and often well-educated.

But note also that publicity is not always good. The graph below is for Knicks, Celtics, the two basketball teams from New York and Boston, respectively. Knicks played poorly this year, as they have done many years now. Celtics, on the other hand, improved their game dramatically compared to last season. The jump during the spring for Celtics reflects the beginning of the playoffs.

The spike for Knicks reflects a spectacular loss against the Celtics in November 29, 2007. They lost by about 10,000 points and it was shown on prime time television.

So just because people talk about you does not mean they praise you. However, I think it is a safe bet that the spikes for Obama reflect mostly positive comments as polls repeatedly show his popularity among young people.

written by Jacob \\ tags: facebook, Hillary Clinton, Obama, politics, sports

With gas prices “soaring“, Americans are considering their options. A $4 per gallon is already a reality in some places. New York is not there just yet, but it is close. What can be done?

Chrysler has one solution in their Let’s refuel America-campaign. Chrysler offers buyers a 3-year cap of $2.99 per gallon of gas if they buy a new vehicle (read SUV).

Another solution is the gas tax holiday, an idea promoted by McCain and Hillary Clinton. The proposal aims to reduce prices temporarily over the summer by removing the 18.4 cents per gallon federal gasoline tax. Obama is not the only one to call this election-year pandering.

Now, reality check: A $4 per gallon translates into a little over $1 per liter. Compare this with Europe. With current exchange rates, most Europeans pay around $2 per liter - twice the American price! From the American perspective it is probably easier to think in gallons. For instance, the British pay above $8 per gallon and the Dutch pay almost $9 per gallon of gas. (1 US gallon = 3.785 liter, 1 liter = 0.264 US gallons.)

Although prices have increased lately in Europe as well, the increases are small. Previously European gas prices were three or four times higher. Now Europeans only pay twice as much as people in the United States.

I wonder what effects European type gas prices would have on the United States. How much would change? We are already seeing that a lot more people are using mass transit compared to last year (NY Times). Keep in mind that this increase is taking place even though gas is cheap (from a European perspective).

written by Jacob \\ tags: Europe, gas, politics, USA

NY Times writes about how Democrats prefer certain types of food and Republicans have other preferences:

Although gender, religion and other basic personal data are much more valuable for pollsters, information about eating — along with travel and hobbies — are in the second tier of data used to predict how someone might vote.

This brings back the old correlation or causation question. Do people who like a certain type of dinner become Republican? Probably not. Do people who identify as Democrats start going to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods? Perhaps, but probably not. Hence, correlation. Something else is causing both.

So what is driving both? Personality is one candidate. We know that people who are more open to trying new things tend to vote more liberal. Consequently, it is Democrats who first turn their attention to peanut butter filled pretzels, odd tea flavors and imported Indian food. Although not super-adventurous, it is not the plain cup of black coffee either.

written by Jacob \\ tags: food, politics

Obama has taken some heat for his remarks that people in small towns are paying too much attention to social issues, such as gun control and abortion, rather than focusing on the big problem, i.e. their own economy. Hillary Clinton, McCain and many others have been quick to criticize Obama for his “elitist” remarks.

I think it is interesting that there is a What’s the Matter with Kansas-moment in the debate, but the key point seems to have gotten lost: Is Obama right? (With Obama now backtracking from some of his remarks, this question is getting even more obscured.)

The argument by Thomas Frank in What’s the Matter with Kansas is essentially that the Republicans have tricked working-class Americans to be concerned with social issues rather than to worry about real problems. By reducing class-based voting, Republicans have thus gained power in the central areas of the United States. New Yorker write about the book (I copied from Amazon’s site):

Kansas, once home to farmers who marched against “money power,” is now solidly Republican. In Frank’s scathing and high-spirited polemic, this fact is not just “the mystery of Kansas” but “the mystery of America.” Dismissing much of the received punditry about the red-blue divide, Frank argues that the problem is the “systematic erasure of the economic” from discussions of class and its replacement with a notion of “authenticity,” whereby “there is no bad economic turn a conservative cannot do unto his buddy in the working class, as long as cultural solidarity has been cemented over a beer.” The leaders of this backlash, by focussing on cultural issues in which victory is probably impossible (abortion, “filth” on TV), feed their base’s sense of grievance, abetted, Frank believes, by a “criminally stupid” Democratic strategy of triangulation. Liberals do not need to know more about nascar; they need to talk more about money and class.

The problem for Democrats is that relatively unsophisticated people usually do not vote by their pocketbook. Research shows that it requires a degree of political sophistication to see the connection between elite politics and your own pocketbook. Consequently, it is only sophisticated voters that engage in this type of behavior. Politically unsophisticated citizens usually vote by how the national economy is doing (Gomez and Wilson 2001).

Since the national economy is doing pretty poorly right now, Democrats should do fine also among unsophisticated voters. However, the argument is that if only people in Kansas (i.e. working-class Americans in general) could see how their own economy is being hurt by Republicans, this would help Democrats.

written by Jacob \\ tags: elitism, Obama, politics