Bush Will Haunt Republicans for Generations !!
- From: Superdave <the.big.rst.kahuna@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 11:11:31 +0800
I said this 5 years ago ! Idiots here chose to defend Bush. Not they
*all* regret it.
5.09.2009
Bush May Haunt Republicans for Generations
by Nate Silver @ 2:49 PM
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/05/bush-may-haunt-republicans-for.html
Gallup has some fascinating data out, based on more than 120,000
interviews they've completed over the past four months, on the way
that partisan identification breaks down by age:
Democrats, somewhat unsurprisingly, have the largest partisan ID
advantage among Gen Y'ers, followed by among Baby Boomers. Republicans
do relatively well (although are still at a net disadvantage) among
Generation X'ers.
What's interesting, though, is what happens when we look at not these
abstract generational categories, but rather at the following
question: who was President when you turned 18? As annotated in the
chart below, the popularity -- or lack thereof -- of the President
when the voter turned 18 would seem to have a lot of explanatory power
for how their politics turned out later on:
Partisan ID Gap, Based on Identity of President When Voter Turned 18
It's become common knowledge that the younger generation is highly
predisposed toward Democrats. (Actually, that's not quite right --
they're more predisposed against Republicans than they are toward
Democrats -- but the net effects on their voting behavior are probably
about the same.) What's more remarkable, though, is how sharp the
increase in the partisan ID gap becomes at about age 25. People aged
26-34 are pretty Democratic, put people aged 18-25 are really
Democratic.
The former group came of age in the Clinton Era. Clinton, in the
public's mind, is usually regarded as an
average-to-slightly-above-average President, and the voters who came
of age during his Presidency are associated with an
average-to-slightly-above degree of Democratic affiliation.
The 18-25 year olds, however, came of age in the George W. Bush Era.
And Bush, at least the vast majority of us think, was not a good
President. In fact, most of us would say, he was a really awful
President. And the people who turned 18 during his tenure are
associated with extremely low levels of Republican identification.
The reason this is a real worry for the Republicans is because you can
still see the echo of past Presidencies on the partisan ID trends
today. Popular presidents are associated with above-average levels of
party support among the generation that came of age during their time
in office, whereas unpopular Presidents are associated with
below-average ones. Moving backward in time:
George H.W. Bush, a roughly average President who was generally quite
popular until roughly the last 12 months of his tenure, is associated
with a slightly above-average amount of Republican support.
Reagan, a highly successful President who was popular throughout most
of his term and may be even more popular today, is associated with a
considerably above-average amount of Republican support.
Carter, a mediocre-to-average President, is associated with slightly
below-average levels of Democratic support.
Ford, a mediocre-to-average President, is associated with average or
slightly below-average levels of Republican support.
Nixon, who was reasonably popular before the Watergate Scandal broke
but who is generally regarded as a very poor President today, is
associated with below-average levels of Republican support.
Johnson, whose complicated time in office is generally regarded today
as having been an above-average Presidency, is associated with
generally above-average levels of Democratic support.
Kennedy, who was very popular throughout his brief tenure in the White
House, is associated with above-average levels of Democratic support.
(You can almost see the spike in popularity among 64- and 65- year
olds, who would have been about 17 when Kennedy took office.)
Eisenhower, an popular and effective Republican president, is
associated with significantly above-average levels of Republican
support.
Finally, we get to Truman and Roosevelt, where things seem to break
down a bit. Truman is regarded quite favorably by historians today but
was unpopular for much of his tenure; he is associated with
average-to-slightly-below levels of Democratic support. The numbers
then bounce around a bit for FDR, perhaps because there aren't all
that many people in their mid-80s and so the sample sizes are small.
In general, however, this points toward the idea that partisan
identification -- while not exactly being "hard-wired" -- can be quite
persistent as the voter moves through her lifecourse. Voters who came
of age during the eight years of the Bush Presidency are roughly eight
points more Democratic than the rest of the country; that advantage
could be worth an extra point or two to Democrats throughout the next
half-century.
....see also bush, demographics, history, party identification, youth
vote
94 comments
DaddyUncle said...
one
May 9, 2009 2:53 PM
Mo said...
Going into the future, if Obama turns out to be an effective and
well-liked president, you can add 8 more years of above average
democratic support, and the GOP will effectively become the Whigs
May 9, 2009 2:55 PM
ikobi said...
Nate, I love your stuff, but I can't see this one from the data.
Can you plot this as a scatter graph (Net Dem Advantage vs.
Presidential Grade).
May 9, 2009 3:06 PM
the old perfesser said...
If your data is generally valid, shouldn't it be adjusted to age
21 for those who began voting before the 18-year-old Amendment took
effect? That would be me.
May 9, 2009 3:22 PM
Ambi Valent said...
The sad part is that Republicans seem to even have forgotten the
difference between "keep your values" and "stay the course". (Now it
is sad, before it was scary)
Most national leaders got into their positions not by "staying the
course" but by either moving to the center (Merkel, Sarkozy) or by
having been the opposition to a weak government (probably soon:
Cameron). Right now, the Republicans are neither.
May 9, 2009 3:34 PM
i-nightblade said...
TOP: Hm. That would shift it over to the left three years up
until...Nixon, I think?
Interestingly enough - I actually AM 25. (Just turned.) 9/11
happened my senior year, and my first voting-eligible year was 2002. I
think that voters who may have been eligible before 9/11 may have
shifted over a bit?
Re: Thread - I'd also be a bit reticent to declare the Republicans
the Whigs right about now. I think, had Bush and the Republicans as a
whole not screwed the pooch after 9/11 (wasn't the 109th Congress
nicknamed the Do-Nothing Congress?), our first lady would be Cindy
McCain, and it may well have been the Republicans with a 60-seat
caucus in the Senate.
I think that, contingent on what Obama does (so far, regardless of
your opinion on the effectiveness of his programs, one can't deny that
his administration has been ambitious), the Millennials may shift or
may hold their partisan ID. I don't think there's been a President
that's been as widely condemned as Bush (save for Nixon, and that was
in the wake of the largest scandal of the late 20th Century - and even
then, Nixon was considered a fairly effective President up until
Watergate) in the past 80 years.
May 9, 2009 3:41 PM
Jaka said...
I've been saying for a long time that GWB and his gang are by far
the biggest reason for the Democrats' popularity today. Now this has
been "scientifically" explained.
May 9, 2009 3:47 PM
woof woof said...
I hope and believe this is correct, but the analysis looks like an
apples to oranges comparison to me. What I'd really like to see is a
graph of party affiliation of 18-25 year olds back when they were
18-25, can we dig up a set of polls going back x years showing party
affiliation of 18-25 year-olds.
Otherwise, it's hard to see how much of the current 18-25 year old
preference is just age, and will go down as they grow older. I would
suspect that democrat affiliation goes down a few points as one ages
from youth to middle age.
May 9, 2009 3:48 PM
Chuck said...
Well, I find the analysis interesting, but I think the
implications are a bit of a stretch. This is a 'period' table of
partisan affiliation by age. You really need a 'cohort' table to make
the claims you make. Sure people in their late-60s identify with
Republicans than the average of other ages, but what did they look
like when THEY were 20? I'm sure affiliation doesn't change that much
over time, but it would be interesting to see how much is life-cycle
driven versus generationally driven. It's also pretty obvious to me
that there is a lot of noise in this graph. Why is the 39 & 40
year-old-gap about 4 points greater than the years immediately before
it and after it?
May 9, 2009 4:01 PM
Adam said...
(23 year-old Texas Democrat. Of the non-secessionist variety.)
Yeah, in order to really distinguish this from the "Young people
are always Democrats" hypothesis, I think one would have to find
previous data (say, at the end of the Clinton years) which suggested a
significantly more modest Dem advantage among 18-25 year olds. One
thing that supports the "Bush has permanently mauled his own party"
theory is the very significant dropoff between Clinton and Bush. I
think the "young people are always Democrats" hypothesis would suggest
a less prominent transition.
On a completely unrelated note, has anyone noticed that the top 6
posts on this blog are about the silly Tea Parties? Do the
libertarians have some massive botnet somewhere that generates hits
whenever "Ron Paul" or "Tea paries" come up?
May 9, 2009 4:09 PM
John said...
Chuck- I would guess that the spike at the end of the Reagan
administration has a lot to do with the Iran-Contra scandal. Remember
the Dems gained 8 seats that year in the Senate.
May 9, 2009 4:14 PM
the old perfesser said...
Some writers above are arguing with exactly what is the point of
the post: People's voting identification throughout their life is
strongly influenced by their identification at the time they first
were entitled to vote in a Presidential election. Similar data has
been provided about people's religious identification (though that
correlation is weakening).
What might prove an even stronger correlation is to test this on
data about regular voters.
May 9, 2009 4:18 PM
Mark Grebner said...
IDENTICAL conclusions - from an entirely independent set of data:
http://www.michiganliberal.com/diary/14245/
May 9, 2009 4:23 PM
DanAtCA said...
I am 39 years old, so when I turned 18 Ronald Reagan was the
president. When I was 18 I considered myself and registered as a
Republican. Then W came along. I am now a stalwart Democrat. The
problem is that the party lost its way. It is totally out of touch
with the American people. I have matured quite a bit and came to
realize how messed up the Republicans had become. They have been
running way to far to the right, leaving no room for moderates. They
used to be the party of personal responsibility and respected
individuals rights. Now they have become the party of NO! No new
ideas, no personal responsibility, no individual rights. Nope, its
their way or the highway. That isn't a party I can be a part of.
May 9, 2009 4:25 PM
codeguyj said...
Nate, a question.
Can a particularly unpopular President muddy the results for what
came before him? I ask because I turned 18 when George H.W. was in
office and I became a Republican, but George W. and the others in the
party made me change to independent during his term. So I used to be
right in line with your data, but not anymore. Is that common?
-Jason M. Bryant
May 9, 2009 4:30 PM
mark said...
DanAtCA,
I hope that there are a lot more of people like you. My Dad was
the same as you. Repulican during Reagan, moderate liberal now!
May 9, 2009 4:38 PM
markymark said...
Just a quick thought, and in some ways I can't believe I am
writing this. Is it all really George W Bush's fault? Doesn't Newt
Gingrich take some blame? And the ineffective campaign of John S
McCain, especially the pick of Sarah Palin? And Karl Rove, and the
politics of destruction? And these are just some other factors I could
think of. Seems to me as if its the GOP as a whole that have had a
collective breakdown.
May 9, 2009 4:47 PM
Mark Grebner said...
Assuming an Administration's effect is delivered entirely on
18-year-olds is slightly simplistic. I think the impact is delivered
roughly evenly on everyone in their teenage years. And the cause isn't
so much the competence of the Administration as the Zeitgeist - the
Reagan generation wasn't caused so much by Carter's perceived
fecklessness as by a counter-reaction to the disorders of the late
Sixties and Seventies.
Similarly the New Deal Democratic wave was only partly a response
to Roosevelt's successes; it was more indebted to the experience of
impending national collapse during Hoover's unfortunate term.
But simplifications aside, the thrust is correct and important.
Party orientation, once formed, remains remarkably stable over a
lifetime. And eight years of W has brightened Democratic prospects
well into this century.
May 9, 2009 5:00 PM
Solomon Kleinsmith said...
Does anyone know where I might find some more long term viter ID
polling that goes back at least a few decades?
May 9, 2009 5:20 PM
PeteKent said...
Bush will be viewed in the near term, as something of an avuncular
bumbler who some how kept us safe and lifted the nation to years of
relative prosperity after catastrophe struck during the first year of
his term. The judgment of George Bush must be left to more distant
historians, those who do not suffer from the bias so palpable among
the most numerous influential observers on the scene. Truth is
difficult to discern in the present environment as all those who
report have bias.
I think the fortunes of both parties will be shaped almost
exclusively by the perception of Barack Obama both in terms of the
efficacy of his prescriptions and the assessment of the honesty of his
motives.
Obama is an extraordinary figure, willing to breathlessly pursue a
very left wing agenda that is founded in a bias towards collective
action, those so-called public private partnerships that are meant to
thwart the more ungovernable forces of the invisible hand that seems
far too resilient and adaptive to come much to heel despite unilateral
government intervention. (As a side note his foreign policy will
crumble in Afghanistan and Iraq unless he has great will and ignores
the HuffPo crowd.)
At root Obama is outcomes determinative, believing that the ends
-- the redistribution of wealth -- justifies the anti-capitalist and
anti-democratic means. This is a common and necessary pattern when a
government attempts to impose on society results that are contrary to
those that would otherwise result from the operation of market forces.
In other words Obama?s success depends on the instigation of a
form of totalitarianism, of fascism. Left or Right, the economy must
be made to serve government ends. Fascism and state socialism are
easier to implement than outright collectivist socialism/communism
because they can be achieved through incrementalism and the locking in
of circumstances, as in these public-private partnerships. They do not
require outright revolution.
Because the people have been lulled to sleep by the pleasant
sonorities of Obama's rhetoric and because the media is cravenly among
Obama's boosters, the stunning nature of what Obama seeks to
accomplish is not really apparent to all but the few partisans out
there.
Lucky for Obama that those who are most inclined to oppose him,
among them the Republicans and the moneyed interests are in their most
weakened and dispirited condition in years. The causes for this are
debatable, but the reality of the impact is undeniable: Obama is
getting a free pass in terms of the substance of the debate ? no one
is really discussing the theoretical underpinnings of what he is
trying to do, all we talk about are things like AF One, Rush Limbaugh,
Mrs. Obama?s $500 kicks, ?the lack of ideas among the Republicans?.
From my vantage point Obama?s policies are destined for failure.
At best his will be an anemic and unproductive recovery that will fail
to do much to stimulate growth to the point where the economy can be
called robust. His longer term policies for dealing with ?global
warming? and imposing a ?green? economy, founded on cap and tax
system, along with rationing-dependent health care reform, have really
not received serious debate, except for each side to shout about the
other?s failures. Still, Obama?s is skilled at spin and may just
convince the public that such a ?restrained? economy beats the ?boom
and bust? cycles of the Reagan ? Bush ?Clinton eras. And he is adept
at making a fearful public that has suffered enormous economic
dislocation even more afraid about the punitive costs of healthcare,
especially as they age, along with the whole Hollywood ? media access
stoking the fires of ?global warming?, practically heating up the
earth themselves by their own hot air!
At some point though, the better way becomes apparent and the
state-centered, approach will be rejected in favor of a more
progressive, pro-growth economic and social model that does not depend
on the sharing of scarcity, but on the availability of plenty. The
distinction between the GOP and the Dems can be put thus and if you
ask me, the GOP has the better end of that stick.
Obama has a big ego it seems, but also seems to be possessed of
admirable personal restraint. His success, however, may depend more on
the personal qualities of those around him as well as the fidelity of
those influential observers to start calling a ?spade? a ?spade? and
letting there be serious and focused debate on where Obama wants to
take us before we wake up there and wonder how we got there.
05.09.09
Petekent01 (on twitter ? and much more succinct!)
May 9, 2009 5:38 PM
I Make It Hurt So Good said...
Let's see...in November 2004 I was almost 17 years old. Had I been
able to vote, my choice at the time would have been George W. Bush.
In November of 2008, when I was first able to vote in a
Presidential election, I was almost 21 years old. I voted for Barack
Obama.
My political position shifted rather quickly, but I think this is
where it is going to stay.
Even my sister, a pretty staunch conservative at age 25, voted for
Obama.
May 9, 2009 5:41 PM
PorridgeGun said...
WTF, Gen X? I hated Reality Bites as well, but it wasn't THAT bad.
Maybe it was Higher Learning that did it? That I can understand.
Oh well, seeing as I am one... Generation Y FTW!!! *** the
Boomers!
May 9, 2009 6:02 PM
Chris said...
Looking at the data with a demographer's eye, I would say that the
Truman and FDR numbers may be a bit out of sync due to the large
gender bias in any sample taken of adults over age 75. That there are
likely many more women than men in the sample increases the partisan
advantage for dems beyond where it would be if taken say, 15 years ago
before many of the men in that age group died out.
May 9, 2009 6:03 PM
kelwien said...
I find your analysis to be always interesting and perceptive. This
one is a bit of a stretch because we have a group of people who came
to voting age during the worst presidency in history in the age of
communication. People know more sooner now that any other time in even
recent history. They could watch it go awful on television. And they
also were confronted with the best communicator for the office of
president since Reagan or Roosevelt.
May 9, 2009 6:16 PM
Michael said...
Mark Grebner:
I vividly remember the 1980 election, when I was 15. My strong
impressions of the main reasons why Reagan won were:
(1) The Iran hostage crisis
(2) Inflation and the gas crisis
(3) The popularity of Reagan's proposed tax cuts
I would put Religious Right concerns about "permissiveness"
somewhere down the list from those. Remember that Jimmy Carter was and
is a Born-Again Christian, and was a fairly conservative Democrat,
socially and fiscally. In some ways, Nixon and Ford were more liberal
in their fiscal and social policies, since they funded public housing
more, for example.
Nate:
I don't understand "mediocre-to-average." I consider mediocrity to
represent a midpoint between excellence and execrableness, and
therefore, to be essentially synonymous with average quality.
wv: fundo - the people who voted in large numbers for Carter and
then switched to Reagan in 1980
May 9, 2009 6:27 PM
Phoneranger said...
Coincidentally I was zipping through 5M voters records here in NY
looking at the age distribution of the half dozen parties we have. Net
net. Dems staying even. Independents (the party), nonaffialiated,
Libertarians dominated by younger cohorts. Conservatives and
Republicans dying out. For every year since 1917 the Republican share
of the cohort is shrinking. To your point unless the Republicans can
deliver a successful Presidency they will end up like the Whigs. Which
means another conservative party (but with several major differences)
will replace them. The real battle will be for nonaffiliated. If the
Dems turn in results like our slugs in Albany, a new rightist party
will have no trouble winning a few cycles from now. As long as they
aren't Republicans.
May 9, 2009 6:31 PM
harold said...
Pete Kent -
Thank you for doing your part to destroy much of the remaining
support for Republicans.
Remember, people, Pete Kent represents a fairly typical
contemporary Republican voter.
At root Obama is outcomes determinative, believing that the ends
-- the redistribution of wealth -- justifies the anti-capitalist and
anti-democratic means. This is a common and necessary pattern when a
government attempts to impose on society results that are contrary to
those that would otherwise result from the operation of market
forces.Can we allow the choices of people this dishonest and ignorant
to govern our country?
Of course not.
A democratically elected centrist (mildly conservative, even, by
world standards, on economic matters) is "anti-democratic" and
"anti-capitalist".
But it gets crazier...
In other words Obama?s success depends on the instigation of a
form of totalitarianism, of fascism. Left or Right, the economy must
be made to serve government ends. Fascism and state socialism are
easier to implement than outright collectivist socialism/communism
because they can be achieved through incrementalism and the locking in
of circumstances, as in these public-private partnerships. They do not
require outright revolution.Even putting aside the fact that Pete Kent
supported George W. Bush for years without a word of complaint about
"fascism", this is pure craziness.
A completely democratically elected moderate socialist who has not
initiated any policies that could be remotely seen to increase
violations of human rights (yes, he has moved to slowly with regard to
those initiated by Bush, but that's not what he has initiated), is a
"fascist".
Pete Kent and others like him do not deserve to be taken remotely
seriously.
There is a party that caters to the bigoted delusions of Kent and
his ilk, and that party needs to be voted entirely out of existence.
It needs to go. We can worry about the (inevitable) emergence of
legitimate opposition later.
May 9, 2009 6:35 PM
azcatz82 said...
or . . .
Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and
any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.
-- Winston Churchill
May 9, 2009 6:40 PM
Todd Dugdale said...
Certainly there are multiple factors that go into self-selection
of Party ID, but we can play the "more data, please" game for
eternity. Nate is working in broad strokes here, not explaining every
human being's voting patterns.
I think one of the largest unaccounted factors in the
self-identification of the more elderly is a generational shift in
"values" that the Republicans have done a very effective job of
capitalising on. When the Right lost the "Culture War", it left a lot
of older people yearning for the "good old days", and the Republicans
positioned themselves as the advocates of a return to the "good old
days".
Now, the "good old days" mean very different things to different
people. For some, it is a time when minorities "knew their place" or
when women stayed home and raised children. Others miss the conformity
of the Fifties, when you "knew where you stood", and questioning
authority meant that you got smacked down hard. There are other
differences, too, but the point is that the Republican Party has
consistently presented a message of society "going to hell in a
hand-basket" since the "good old days" and has promoted an aggressive
"values" campaign to essentially turn back the social clock.
IOW, for those past a certain age, the Culture War was never
really lost; it merely remained under an uneasy cease-fire.
Thus, someone who supported Democrats in their relative youth
could be (and was) peeled off to support Republicans based on "values"
in their old age.
We saw this in the McCain campaign with copious references to the
late Sixties and early Seventies: Weathermen, Huey Newton, Stokely
Carmichael, Vietnam protests, etc.
While these references mostly elicit shrugs or blank looks from
younger voters, for the elderly they are "hot-button" issues that
distinguish Democrats from Republicans.
The Republicans basically re-fought the McGovern/Nixon campaign in
2008. In short, the GOP never even seriously competed for the votes of
those under 35, and seems completely bewildered by the failure of
these voters to associate Obama with the Black Panther Party, for
example.
Until that elderly demographic shuffles off this mortal coil, the
Republicans are anchored to the doomed Culture War, much like marooned
Japanese soldiers who fought on without knowing the conflict was
already over. And they will continue to appear irrelevant and somewhat
comical to younger voters, even if Obama's popularity wanes.
May 9, 2009 6:40 PM
dre7861 said...
Fascinating!
I'm really dating myself here but I turned of age during the
Carter Administration so my first election was Carter-Reagan. I
thought that Carter was a failure at the time but couldn't stand to
vote for Reagan who scared me (Reagan seems so tame now after 8 long
miserable years of GWB) so I voted for the independent Anderson. Since
that election I have pretty much voted straight ticket Democrat even
though I held my nose both times I voted for Clinton. For the first
time since I started voting I voted for a candidate that I was excited
about and 100% behind...and best of all that candidate won.
May 9, 2009 6:47 PM
Nut Butter said...
...(mildly conservative, even, by world standards, on economic
matters)....
NEWS FLASH!!! We don't go by "world standards"; we go by "American
standards," dickbreath!
That's why this country and its people are a bastion of freedom,
wealth, and success and not tyranny, abject poverty, and failure like
90%+ of the rest of the world!
Don't you get it?! Don't you fucking get it?!!
Yes, Obama is slightly to the "right" of "world standards" but he
is to the far, far left of OUR standards!
Chalk harold up as a ringleader of the looney tunes!
Fuckbag!
May 9, 2009 6:49 PM
Todd Dugdale said...
This post has been removed by the author.
May 9, 2009 6:56 PM
Nut Butter said...
It's your choice, America! You are free to pick how you live and
who you want to lead us!
You can most certainly elect and are free to keep a man like
Barack Obama in office, who (as the leftist apologists like to say to
pacify everyone and convince you not to listen to those of us scared
to death and terrified of what his radical agenda might bring to this
once great country) is a "centrist" and "moderate" and is "to the
right" of most people by "world standards." (Please note all of the
quoted words).
Yes, Barack Obama is to the right of most people by world
standards. Let's look at the rest of the world. Would you really
choose anywhere else to live besides the United States of America?
Yeah, I didn't think so. But you elected a man who is determined to
take us in that direction. He is determined that we shall live by
"world standards." You heard harold. That's the measuring stick.
That's the direction we're headed in!
Evidently we'd rather give up our dignity to please the world and
live by their "standards" rather than stand up for the liberty our
forefathers fought for by living our standards.
If they want what we have, let them embrace the freedom that we
have. Otherwise, let them wallow in their own defecation.
May 9, 2009 7:05 PM
Todd Dugdale said...
Pete Kent wrote:
"The judgement of George Bush must be left to more distant
historians, those who do not suffer from the bias so palpable among
the most numerous influential observers on the scene. Truth is
difficult to discern in the present environment as all those who
report have bias".
Way to miss the point, PK.
The point that Nate is making is that those turning 18 now will be
biased against the Republican Party because of the current negative
opinion of the Bush Administration. They aren't going to wait for
"more distant historians" to weigh in before forming an opinion.
"Because the people have been lulled to sleep by the pleasant
sonorities of Obama's rhetoric and because the media is cravenly among
Obama's boosters, the stunning nature of what Obama seeks to
accomplish is not really apparent to all but the few partisans out
there."
The translation: the 25% of the population that remains with the
GOP is outraged not by what Obama has done, but by what he will do in
the future.
If Obama fails to establish a Cuban-style dictatorship (as
virtually every Republican believes he will), then the Republicans
will look pretty stupid, won't they?
Or will the wingnuts merely claim that they thwarted his sinister
schemes by waving tea-bags around, thus scaring Obama away from
pursuing his "radical agenda"?
Face it: either way you'll look stupid and irrelevant. I suggest
you get used to it.
May 9, 2009 7:06 PM
jgbrowning said...
This post has been removed by the author.
May 9, 2009 7:16 PM
jgbrowning said...
Pet Kent wrote:"Bush will be viewed in the near term, as something
of an avuncular bumbler who some how kept us safe and lifted the
nation to years of relative prosperity after catastrophe struck during
the first year of his term"Hahahahaha! Bush lifted the nation to
prosperity!
Thanks for the laugh!
May 9, 2009 7:18 PM
Care said...
I turned 18 in 2002 when Bush was trying to sell the Iraq war.
Five months later, we invaded it. I graduated college six months
before the recession started in 12/07. I wasn't able to find a job
before than and got stuck with a couple of part time jobs that I
disliked. I also had to move back with my parents. Fortunately, I got
into grad school and I can see an end to the crappy jobs I never
really liked, but still have for the time being. All I can say is that
my experience is not unique, and the Republicans have almost certainly
lost people my age, especially when we're so excited about Obama.
May 9, 2009 7:30 PM
kingbeauregard said...
Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and
any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.
-- Winston ChurchillConservatism in Churchill's time meant trying
to prop up an empire that was near to collapse, and good riddance to
the British Empire. Study the history of any country under British
yoke, and find out what happened to the natives under British rule;
the "conservatism" Churchill espoused would be considered abject
tyranny today. Guess who was the first person to recommend gassing the
unruly Kurds? That's right, Churchill, when the British Empire took
control of huge chunks of the Middle East after WWI, and the natives
were none too happy about it. (Saner voices shot down Churchill's
plan.)
And Pete Kent ... ?
"The judgment of George Bush must be left to more distant
historians, those who do not suffer from the bias so palpable among
the most numerous influential observers on the scene."Meanwhile,
you're judging Obama over things he hasn't even done yet.
May 9, 2009 7:34 PM
Sergeiy said...
To follow on Chris' point - there's another bias kicking in among
the oldest generation (the FDR generation especially), and that's a
bias towards the wealthy. The poor die out first, and the rich die out
last, and the rich favor the republicans. So that's my take on why the
figures for FDR "misbehave".
May 9, 2009 7:35 PM
Nut Butter said...
Don't worry, PeteKent! Let them mock us.
People did the same thing to Noah 4500 years ago.
Didn't turn out so well for them, you know, with the unquenching
flood that ended all of humanity but eight people and all.
May 9, 2009 7:43 PM
Todd Dugdale said...
Nut Butter wrote:
"Evidently we'd rather give up our dignity to please the world and
live by their "standards" rather than stand up for the liberty our
forefathers fought for by living our standards."
Evidently you are unaware of the crucial role that the French
played in gaining "the liberty that our forefathers fought for".
It's eminently possible to love your own country while refusing to
demonise other countries.
May 9, 2009 7:46 PM
Mike in Maryland said...
One small fly in the ointment that might help explain some of the
seeming discrepancy of the Nixon years and prior:
Until July 1, 1971, the age of voting was 21, not 18.
Any polls from prior to the 1972 elections will almost assuredly
show voters 21 and up, and totally ignore those under 21 prior to the
date of the election.
Overall, though, it is my belief that, for the most part, the
party of the candidate you vote for first is shaped during the 10 or
so years prior to that first vote, with more influence as you approach
that first election.
Those who changed parties at some time after they first voted are
probably much more likely to revert to their initial party choice.
That is NOT to say that everyone who changes party affiliation, just
that those who do are more likely to revert back at a later point.
One reason I can think of this happening is that a candidate of
their 'first party of choice' in a later election may not appeal to
the voter - a person who voted for Democratic Party candidates before
1972 might not have been very enthralled with McGovern, switched
parties to vote for Nixon, and stayed with the GOOPers for quite a
while. Then when Watergate tarnished Nixon, or when Bush 41 came on
the scene, or when the newt started his shenanigans, or when little
shrub totally effed government up, many of the voters who were
originally registered as and voted for Democrats, then became a GOOPer
for some reason, reverted back to their original party, the Democratic
party.
Of course, the opposite might have occurred (but to a much lesser
extent) during the Carter Presidency when many considered him a weak
President, or when Clinton caused all kinds of embarrassment to the
Office of the President, and got impeached as a result.
I think we will see a very large Democratic leaning and
registration advantage for the next several years still, as those who
were pre-18 prior to the 2008 election and will cast their first vote
in the 2010 or the 2012 election were in their teens from Katrina on,
and had a front-row view of the little shrub [mal]administration, and
a large majority of them will almost certainly be influenced by a
probable impressive Obama first administration.
I'm also sure that many are getting a first-hand view of the mess
the GOOPers are in now, and not liking the looks of such an
authoritarian-acting party (teens are stereotyped, and probably
correctly so, as more rebellious against authority of any type than
any other generational group, and seem to be most allergic to any hint
of 'my way or the highway' thinking as seems the current theme of the
GOOPers). This might help explain some of the 'youthful' look of the
backers of Ron Paul - somewhat conservative, but rebellious, and not
likely to join the GOOPers in their current incarnation.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is
http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
May 9, 2009 7:54 PM
Nut Butter said...
Evidently you are unaware of the crucial role that the French
played in gaining "the liberty that our forefathers fought for".
I'm well aware of France's role in our independence. But I'm under
no obligation to stand by the "French model" because of anything that
country ever did for us, past or present.
Besides, France's values in 2009 are in stark contrast to where
they were in 1776. If you demonize Republicans today and say they in
no way resemble Republicans of the 1950s and 60s, or especially as far
back as the 1860s (Party of Lincoln?), then I can turn the tables just
as easily.
It's eminently possible to love your own country while refusing to
demonise other countries.
I agree. And I hardly "demonized" anyone. Re-read what I said. I
merely pointed out the United States glows with freedom and success
and the rest of the world (think world standards - using harold's own
words to measure Obama) lives with fewer liberties and ubiquitous
abject poverty.
Harold was measuring Obama by "world standards." I simply pointed
out the fallacy in that kind of metric based on where the "world"
stands.
I eat facts and *** a diarrhea of truth all over you. Get over
it.
May 9, 2009 7:57 PM
Pragmatus said...
Nut-***... Can we count on you to stay with this ID? It seems as
if you were using this ID yesterday to voice your concern troll
remarks, while allowing your other sockpuppets to rant, but since you
were outed so masterfully yesterday, not much need for the fig leaves
anymore, eh? I suppose that's why the reasonable, rational Nut Butter
reverted so quickly to the screeching dickbreath/fuckbag lexicon.
I think another huge factor in the very recent most decline of
interest in the GOP can be laid right at Sarah Palin's door. Many
conservatives, who would have otherwise voted for McCain, blanched at
the thought of Sarah Pail with her hand on the nuclear button and
stayed home on Election Day.
May 9, 2009 8:11 PM
Mike in Maryland said...
Todd Dugdale said...
the crucial role that the French played in gaining "the liberty
that our forefathers fought for".
How true.
I think it's funny how the most gullible GOOPers are constantly
denigrating the French. It's obvious that they have no concept of
history, since without French assistance, the Founding Fathers and the
other colonists wouldn't have been able to win the American
Revolution, something the Founding Fathers and most other Americans of
the time fully realized.
It was the French who convinced General Washington to move his
army from the north to the Virginia area to face Cornwallis at
Yorktown.
It was the French who had the cannons with which to bombard the
English under Cornwallis at Yorktown.
It was the French fleet that held the English fleet at bay so that
the English troops under Cornwallis at Yorktown could not be
resupplied and reinforced.
Earlier, it was the French who contributed massive funds to
bankroll the American Revolution.
It was the French who harassed the English in various parts of the
world during the entirety of the American Revolution.
So yes, we owe a great amount of gratitude to the French. And it
was that opinion that almost assuredly caused Colonel Charles Stanton,
in 1917, to state "Lafayette, we are here" (per General John Pershing
in his autobiography) when the first American troops landed in France
during WW I.
Maybe some of our less-enlightened, KoolAid swilling,
French-bashing GOOPers might benefit from studying a bit of history.
Maybe they could start here:
http://people.csail.mit.edu/sfelshin/saintonge/frhist.html to
start to get some perspective? Then again, if they don't have Lush
Rimbaugh's permission, I suppose they won't even look at the
information, let alone read it.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is
http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
May 9, 2009 8:26 PM
WCG said...
Very interesting. If you can stand an anecdote from an old-timer,
my Dad was born in 1919 (he's been dead for 10 years) and was a
Democrat until the 1960's, when he became a far, far-right Republican.
I know he voted for Kennedy, but he became extremely right-wing after
that. I suspect that it was losing the Vietnam War that did it, but it
could have been the whole 60's thing. (He wasn't particularly
religious, so it wasn't that.)
What I'm wondering is if certain events can throw off this
analysis of yours. Are some things traumatic enough to permanently
change a significant percentage of voters? FDR was very popular among
my Dad's generation, but the oldest Americans tend to be more
Republican than most, these days.
The past eight years - ending in the worst economic crash since
the Great Depression - might be one of those traumatic events that
could peel off Reagan Republicans, especially if Barack Obama's
administration is successful. It might not be just the kids.
For what it's worth, I turned 18 in 1969 and I'm as liberal as my
Dad was conservative. I guess that fits your graph pretty well. (But I
think it was the Vietnam War, not the president, that turned me into a
liberal Democrat.)
May 9, 2009 8:27 PM
Nut Butter said...
I think it's funny how the most gullible GOOPers are constantly
denigrating the French. It's obvious that they have no concept of
history, since without French assistance, the Founding Fathers and the
other colonists wouldn't have been able to win the American
Revolution, something the Founding Fathers and most other Americans of
the time fully realized....
I'll repeat my point above because evidently a cum-guzzling doofus
like Mike in MD can't seem to get it - France of 2009 IS AS MUCH OR
MORE DIFFERENT from the France of the late 1700s as the Republican
Party of 2009 is from the Republican Part of the 1860s.
Now, if you want to go point-for-point about all of those great
things the French did in the 1770s as reasons we shouldn't "denigrate"
the French or go around "French-bashing" today and be taken seriously,
then let me give you some things the Republican party stood for in
1860 as reasons you shouldn't bash and denigrate them today.
May 9, 2009 8:36 PM
Todd Dugdale said...
Pragmatus wrote:
"I think another huge factor in the very recent most decline of
interest in the GOP can be laid right at Sarah Palin's door."
Yes, she was the crowning blunder of a campaign built on blunders.
Apparently the Republicans looked at HRC and made a calculation that
women would vote en masse for another woman regardless of their
politics...because it worked with Ferraro, right? Meanwhile, McCain
was saddled with all of the negative associations with the
evangelicals, even though he was nominated to put daylight between the
Party and the fundies. To top it off, rational voters across the
spectrum were frightened away by her (as you point out).
What did they gain? The fringe, who would largely have voted for
McCain anyway.
The Party was left seriously claiming that Palin was the most
experienced candidate on the ticket by virtue of her "executive
experience" as Governor.
They've never moved back into the real world since that decision
was made. Ever since then, every call that the Party has made has been
grounded in the delusional belief that the fringe that Palin brought
to the table are the majority of Americans.
And as long as they keep on making that assertion, the majority
will continue to snicker at them...no matter what happens with Obama.
This isn't the "death" of the Party; just the marginalisation of
it. They can remain 'viable' for several more years with their "base",
but mostly in "red" states.
May 9, 2009 8:54 PM
azogdude said...
Can you spot the 1958, 1981 and 1990 recessions?
You can definitely see the Great Society and I think you can see
Nixon's popularity in the absence of a Bush-like numbers.
If you're brave FDR's numbers look like the breaking of America
First with Pearl Harbor.
May 9, 2009 9:08 PM
Todd Dugdale said...
A witless cluck wrote:
"Now, if you want to go point-for-point about all of those great
things the French did in the 1770s as reasons we shouldn't "denigrate"
the French or go around "French-bashing" today and be taken
seriously,"
The point that I was making is that "we" (as in "America") didn't
get where we are alone. We needed help. We asked for it. We got it.
That seems to be lost in your jingoistic "analysis", but you
attempt to make up for it with witless insults and invective.
You're waving a big red, white, and blue foam finger around. We
get it. Number One. Numero Uno. Top of the heap. We rule, the rest of
the world drools.
And that's why the Republicans will win (???).
Yeah.
May 9, 2009 9:12 PM
Nut Butter said...
Nope, Todd, my boy, you missed the point I was trying to make by
using what harold said above.
Proves you are a novice and a rube.
Sorry, thanks for playing.
May 9, 2009 9:21 PM
Nut Butter said...
From my vantage point, there were two different discussions that
evolved. There was the main one, which was my rebuttal to harold, and
the one that sprouted forth about the French...
Stay with me now.
Harold measured Obama by "world standards," arguing that he's an
okay guy because he's still a little "to the right" by those same
standards, thus making him a "centrist" and "moderate."
I made the point that I don't want a president with "centrist" or
"moderate" credentials by the rest of the world's standards, I want
them by American standards.
The reason being that much of the rest of the world lives in
ubiquitous poverty and often under oppressive, tyrannical governments
and factions. Thus, I don't want OUR PRESIDENT compared to WORLD
STANDARDS. Are you following me?!
Anyway, somewhere in there, a discussion emerged about the French
and their contribution to American society because of all the great
things they've done for us in the past.
I took that and made another point...that the Republicans have
done plenty of great things for this country in the past.
I never put on the "we're number 1" red/white/blue foam finger and
spewed "jingoism" as you suggest.
I simply said that if you say it's unfair to go "French-bashing"
today because of them helping us during the Revolutionary War or
whatever, then by all means let's not bash Republicans today because
Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation or [insert generic
contribution to society from Republicans from 100+ years ago].
Get my drift, dumbass? I'm acknowleding the Republicans are a
vastly different party now than they were then. Just like the French
are a different country now than they were then. Get the blinders off,
you fucking mook.
May 9, 2009 9:32 PM
Nut Butter said...
Sorry I had to bludgeon you with reason and facts and a cogent
point. I get that way when I'm talking to dullards and imbeciles.
Unless you can come up with a rational response and reason as to
why we should give the French a pass on what they do now, in 2009,
because of what they did in, say, 1776 while we should not give
Republicans a pass on what they say or do now in 2009 because of some
things they may have done in, say, 1863, then I suggest you keep your
fucking mouth closed.
Similarly, if you can't give a good and compelling reason why
Barack Obama should be compared, in the context of leftist,
centrist/moderate, and right, by world standards instead of American
standards, when much of the world lives under oppression, lawlessness,
and poverty whereas we live under freedoms, justice, and success, then
I further urge you to shut your fucking mouth.
Got that, Todd?!
May 9, 2009 9:50 PM
Alex S. said...
This data confirms my suspicion that there has been a generational
back-and-forth of party preferences. Right now, the Republicans not
only have the disadvantage of George W. Bush, but they have also lost
one of their generations, the Greatest Generation of the
Eisenhower-era, because of natural causes. So now the Reagan/Bush Sr.
generation is sandwiched between the Democratic Baby Boomers and the
Democratic "Generation Y". Just 10 years ago, the old
Eisenhower/Dewey-Republicans (strong on national security,
anti-communism, strict law enforcement) and the
Reagan/Bush-Republicans (evangelicals, small-government Republicans)
surrounded the Democratic Boomers (who somehow lost their advantage on
foreign policy and didn't have an answer to the evangelical
enthusiasm).
It remains to be seen if the current administration creates a
backlash that enables a new Republican generation. But this will not
happen quickly anyway. It will be happening over decades, which is one
more proof for the realigning character of the 2008 election.
May 9, 2009 9:55 PM
E-Dub said...
Nut Butter:
Most people come to this site to read insightful analysis and
sometimes post relevant comments. What do you come to 538 for? To
bitch? Nobody here cares what you think, I promise. If you really
think you have something people want to hear, start your own site and
spread the love. Or just get a job. And I hope I always miss "the
point [you are] trying to make," because I feel less intelligent for
having read your comments.
May 9, 2009 10:08 PM
janna said...
Dan at CA,
me too. Though I switched to Democrat from Republican at the
nomination of GWB. Because I couldn't believe that they had good
people to choose from, and chose him.
May 9, 2009 10:13 PM
Nut Butter said...
No sweat of my nuts, E-Dub. It's your loss, frankly.
So fucking beat it, asswipe.
May 9, 2009 10:23 PM
Brian said...
Good lord, Nate, how do you keep finding unimagined topics that
are so damned interesting? From a stat perspective, I'd have never
dreamed to look at it from this angle.
Excellent work as always. It's not pure science, but it's
perspective, and that's what those of us who are addicted to the news
need... notice I didn't say opinion. There's no shortage of that. Keep
it up, man. Seriously, you have to. :o
May 9, 2009 10:33 PM
Arachnae said...
Wow, if anyone needs any evidence of the demise of (if you pardon
the oxymoron) 'conservative thought', they have only to look first at
Pete Kent's comedy turn - avuncular bumbler! good god! - and then at
***-nutter's suave persuasions.
May 9, 2009 10:34 PM
Doug said...
Does similar data exist going backwards? If I had to guess, I
would say that the 18-25 demographic tends to skew democratic. It
would be interesting to watch this data change over time, and possibly
draw lines through a particular birth year to see how much change you
tend to get over time. That would give us a much better sense of how
significant this polling result really is.
If I'm wrong, and a specific birth year tends to keep its party ID
(maybe with a +/- 5%) this is really significant. Otherwise, this is
just a youth effect.
May 9, 2009 10:40 PM
Cugel said...
If you ignore the peaks and valleys and look only at the slope of
a line drawn through the data, you see MUCH more clearly.
In addition to the variation depending on how popular the
president is, you see there's a stable curve that reflects the New
Deal Coalition, then the opposing Nixon-Reagan coalition that has now
evaporated.
When you look at the trend of FDR, who was wildly popular to
Truman, who was equally UN-popular, so much so that he couldn't even
run for re-election in 1952, yet Democrats maintain a significant
advantage.
Then the popular Eisenhower era (combined with the Red-scare
anti-communism) and Republicans make a come-back.
Kennedy and Johnson together form a uniform high.
This is basically stable. The era of the New Deal Coalition. Then,
notice the downward spike in 1965: which corresponds to the Civil
Rights struggle ("Freedom Summer").
At this point Southern Whites start to drop out of the Democratic
coalition over racist opposition to civil rights.
Notice that the graph shows a straight line plunge from 1968-1988
from around a Dem +16 to around Dem +2 by the end of the Reagan era.
This is the era of the "Southern Strategy," white flight to the
suburbs, and blue collar anger over the counter-culture, the anti-war
movement, hippies, "welfare Queens," and minorities getting too much
"government hand-outs."
Then starting with G.H.W. Bush the graph starts moving in the
OPPOSITE direction.
GW Bush starts at Dems +2 and ends with Dems +8. Notice that
Clinton is basically a flat line; Dems +8 at the beginning, Dems +10
at the end.
Bush II added +6 to the Democratic column, taking it from Dem +10
at the beginning to Dem +16 at the end (although there were spikes of
Dem +18 in the middle).
This corresponds to the Iraq war, Katrina, Social-Security
privatization, Republican scandals, etc.
Demographically, this corresponds to increased voting by
minorities and young who are much more Democratic.
It's obvious looking at the chart that trends are LONG-TERM and
quite long-lasting beneath all the noise of the ups and downs and
divide into three periods:
1. 1933-1968 New Deal Coalition.
2. 1968-1988 Nixion-Reagan Coalition.
3. 1988-Present - Clinton + anti-Bush coalition.
Obama has yet to make this coalition HIS the way that FDR did, but
he's still in his first year. If he's re-elected we'll be talking
about the "Obama coalition" for generations.
May 9, 2009 11:50 PM
Cugel said...
BTW: You'll notice that it's perfectly possible for a President to
get elected during an era when his party is swimming against the tide:
1. Eisenhower during a period of Democratic dominance.
2. Carter and Clinton during the Nixon-Reagan era.
3. Bush II during the recent Democratic resurgence.
BUT, these electoral wins do NOT change the underlying demographic
dynamic (Southern Whites or Urban Minorities) that give advantage to
one party or another.
Thus, we are in a LONG-TERM era of Democratic advantage and that
will be true for at least a generation, whether Republicans win the
White House in 2012 or 2016 or not.
May 9, 2009 11:57 PM
Boing said...
There seems to me to be a weakness in the argument of this post -
all you clever bastards can explain to me why I'm wrong.
That is, the popularity of each President under discussion isn't
measured by polls or election results or anything - it's just stated.
So W's was a terrible presidency, Clinton's a decent one, Reagan's a
very good one.
But the consensus about a particular leader or administration is
constantly changing. For instance, in my lifetime I've seen the
general public sentiment about Margaret Thatcher oscillate between
qualified scorn and sanctification.
Admittedly it's hard to see future generations regarding the last
US administration as anything other than abysmal, but who knows what
the consensus about Clinton and Reagan will be in thirty years? Maybe
it will be possible to look at the same graph and use it to justify
the argument that bad Presidents increase party identification for
their side!
May 10, 2009 12:38 AM
Todd Dugdale said...
Boing wrote:
"There seems to me to be a weakness in the argument of this post -
all you clever bastards can explain to me why I'm wrong."
Sure. Nate is talking about the opinion of a particular
Administration at the time a voter "came of age". Since elections are
held at the end of a term, I would conclude he is referring to the
consensus view as the Administration left office.
The idea is that this consensus shapes voters' self-selection of
Party ID for their lifetime, but other factors are obviously involved.
Think in terms of a "propensity" toward a Party, not something written
in stone.
"but who knows what the consensus about Clinton and Reagan will be
in thirty years?"
I guess nobody knows, but it's a moot point wrt the post. We saw
during the campaign that there is a certain chronic "undecided"
percentage of voters that has a very flexible PID, or perhaps more
correctly, none at all.
So, how "history" judges an Administration is not relevant to
Nate's thesis. It's doubtful that a lifelong Democrat would switch PID
because, given 30 years of retrospective, Reagan turned out to be
considered a good President, for example. Possible, but doubtful.
I would also consider it doubtful that many 18 year-olds were
heavily influenced to vote for or against Obama based on the consensus
opinion or historians' judgement of the Carter Administration.
May 10, 2009 1:22 AM
Todd Dugdale said...
Nut Butter wrote:
"That's why this country and its people are a bastion of freedom,
wealth, and success and not tyranny, abject poverty, and failure like
90%+ of the rest of the world!
Don't you get it?! Don't you fucking get it?!!"
"Let's look at the rest of the world. Would you really choose
anywhere else to live besides the United States of America? Yeah, I
didn't think so."
"If they want what we have, let them embrace the freedom that we
have. Otherwise, let them wallow in their own defecation."
"when much of the world lives under oppression, lawlessness, and
poverty whereas we live under freedoms, justice, and success"
"I merely pointed out the United States glows with freedom and
success and the rest of the world lives with fewer liberties and
ubiquitous abject poverty."
Yes, I admit to being completely mystified how I ever arrived at
the conclusion that you were indulging in "jingoism", or waving a red,
white, and blue foam finger while yelling "We're Number One!".
"Get my drift, dumbass?"
"Proves you are a novice and a rube."
"I eat facts and *** a diarrhea of truth all over you. Get over
it."
"dickbreath!"
"Fuckbag!"
"I further urge you to shut your fucking mouth."
Yeah, see, I don't get your motive for even engaging people here.
You aren't persuading anyone with your grade-school epithets. I
don't want to speak for others, but I really haven't seen that
approach to be effective in this forum. Mostly people dismiss the
opinions of those who take the course you seem to revel in.
Is it some attempt to bully contrary opinions into silence? If so,
it certainly betrays a lack of confidence in your own views.
Or are you merely standing up for your "side"? Is that why you
have a penchant for sock puppetry? You come here of your own free
will, yet you continually find yourself cornered and snarling with
bared teeth, calling everyone else names and complaining that they are
too stupid to grasp your brilliance.
Frankly, it's a mystery I choose not to plumb further.
May 10, 2009 1:51 AM
slasher14 said...
Nut Butter: By any reasonable measure the people of Western Europe
have social systems which are FAR to the left of what Obama has
proposed and their working people are paid higher wages than Americans
are, have better health care for less cost, longer paid vacations and
better social
safety nets, and yet manage to live every bit as free from
government intrusion as we do.
Even Costa Rica has a lower infant mortality rate than we do, and
a life expectancy which is almost exactly the same. And they have a
thriving multi-party democracy along with free health care and
education.
I am, as you surely are, one of the more fortunate Americans -- I
am in the upper middle class and, as a result, I live better than the
average Western European or Costa Rican. The AVERAGE American,
however, doesn't live anywhere nearly as well as I do, and his Western
European counterpart lives better -- far better.
Untrammeled capitalism works for about 10% of the population. For
everyone else, tight "left wing" regulation by the government is a
very, very good thing.
And when unregulated capitalism fucks up, as it inevitably does,
the other 90% of the population realizes this, and votes people who
think as you do out of office for a generation or two, and gets things
put on a more equitable basis. We are now at the beginning of such a
period of American history.
Deal with it.
May 10, 2009 1:56 AM
slasher14 said...
Winston Churchill didn't say the famous "any man under 40 who
isn't a socialist has no heart, any man over 40 who is has no head."
The original saying -- somewhat different but similar in intent --
was by a Frenchman named Guisot, who said it in the context of the
1848 revolutions. It was later repeated by Georges Clemenceau, who was
President of France during WWI. Nobody has been able to find that
Churchill actually said it at any time. I have to admit that as an
urban legend it has worked rather well. I always heard that Churchill
said it, but scholarly research says he didn't.
May 10, 2009 2:06 AM
Mike in Maryland said...
Boing,
One reason you're looking at this data differently than Americans
might be that the British system (in fact, all parliamentary systems)
is based on party popularity (control of the House of Commons) to
determine the leader of the government (the Prime Minister). In the
British system, if the Conservatives, led by Thatcher, had not won
control of the Commons in 1979, Thatcher would not have been the Prime
Minister until (if she were still the leader of the Conservatives) the
Conservatives won a working majority in Parliament.
In the US, the President is a completely separate office, the
winning of which is not at all dependent on which party is in control
of the House of Representatives. The Democrats controlled the House
(US equivalent to the House of Commons in Britain) from the 1954
elections continuously through the 1992 elections. During that time,
Eisenhower won the 1956 election; Nixon won the 1968 and 1972
elections; Reagan won the 1980 and 1984 elections; and Bush 41 won the
1988 election. If the US system were similar to the British system,
either Democrats would have held the Presidency from 1954 until 1994,
or party control of the House would have changed at various times.
In 1994, the GOOPers won control of the House and kept control
until the 2006 election, but in 1996, Clinton won the Presidency. In a
Parliamentary system, the GOOPers would have held the executive post
(the Presidency).
If the US were using the British system:
1. The only time the party occupying the White House would change
would be when the party in control of the House changed; AND
2. Elections would be held when the President (PM equivalent)
called them, or when the statute controlling limits on the maximum
time between elections calls for them (I believe it is five years in
Britain), thus there could not be a time when party control of
Congress changed hands without a corresponding change in the party of
the executive, or vice versa.
I presume for many living under a parliamentary system, the US
system is at least somewhat difficult to understand. The same is
probable with those in the US, trying to understand a parliamentary
system. I am not saying that the above is true for you, but it may
subconsciously be affecting your view on the subject.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is
http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
May 10, 2009 2:09 AM
Todd Dugdale said...
slasher14 wrote:
"Even Costa Rica has a lower infant mortality rate than we do, and
a life expectancy which is almost exactly the same. And they have a
thriving multi-party democracy along with free health care and
education."
...and no military at all, btw.
May 10, 2009 2:10 AM
Eli Blake said...
Nate,
Please don't refer to people under 30 as 'Gen Y.' Those that have
talked to me about it hate that term (no generation wants to be
defined in terms of its predecessor.)
They refer to themselves as 'the hip hop generation,' a term I've
also seen in the media, so perhaps you should adopt it.
May 10, 2009 2:21 AM
Mike in Maryland said...
Eli Blake,
Want some cheese to go with that whine?
In other words, get over it. All you are doing is solidifying your
generation's stereotype as whiners of the first order.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is
http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
May 10, 2009 5:16 AM
Cugel said...
Nate's article is picking up the little ups and downs that
accompany a popular versus an unpopular president.
However, notice the long-term trends. These are INDEPENDENT of
whether Reagan is (insanely) considered a "good president."
BTW: Reagan was quite UN-popular at the end of his administration
(Iran-Contra Scandal, etc.). That has no bearing on the underlying
politics of his era.
Republicans had all the advantage of a largely CONSERVATIVE
electorate between 1968 and 1988.
At that point it slowly starts to erode and that erosion continues
during the Bush I administration, carries on right through Clinton and
accelerates wildly during the Bush II administration until now we see
articles in Time Magazine about the "death spiral" of the GOP.
It's all based on DEMOGRAPHICS people! Democrats are going to have
an advantage for at least a generation because of the rise in minority
percentage of the voting population and women and youth voting more
democratic.
A Republican may well win election in these LIBERAL times, but
he'll have to present himself as a "New Republican" to do it, much as
Carter and Clinton had to posture as "New Democrats."
From the rantings of the hard-core right-wingers on this site,
they are stubbornly refusing to learn this lesson.
It will take ONE MORE election defeat before they figure it out.
It took Democrats 16 years and 4 election defeats, until after Walter
Mondale in 1984, to realize "maybe we need a way to appeal to
conservative Dems and moderates to win."
Compare the lifeless Technocrat Michael Dukakis who tried
desperately to run as a centrist, versus Mondale who was a traditional
liberal.
Notice that the ONLY Successful Dems in this era were SOUTHERN
GOVERNORS who ran explicitly AWAY from their traditional liberal base,
while the only successful Republican between 1932 and 1968 --
Eisenhower ran as a centrist moderate, NOT a conservative warrior like
Barry Goldwater or Robert Taft!
May 10, 2009 8:31 AM
cityguy60640 said...
Interesting premise... I grew up during the Reagan years. My
parents were veterans and had grown up during Roosevelt. They both
worshiped Roosevelt yet they loved Reagan. They often complained about
democrats going too far on some issues. I liked Reagan and identified
with the conservatives but found myself disaffected as the religious
right started asserting itself more and more on social issues.
I think our country's politics tend to go back and forth like a
pendulum. Each party tends to build on the economic ideas and social
attitudes perceived as successful until they get too extreme and
things start to shift back. The longer a party stays in power the more
entrenched they become in their own ideology.
For example, LBJ and his "Great Society" was an extension of
Roosevelt's "New Deal". Both big government programs but as the
programs grew so did the deficit.
On the other side Reagan comes along and starts us down the
deregulation smaller government path. As the economy flourished so did
those ideas. Even the democrats moved in that direction. But as the
economy fell apart so did the support for deregulation and now we have
Obama.
As time goes on the parties can change as much as the electorate.
Think about this... The republican party was started by northern
abolitionists. It was the party that freed the slaves. The democratic
party was the home of the segregationists...now it's the party of the
first black president! Isn't that historical irony?
May 10, 2009 9:14 AM
AmericanWay62 said...
President Clinton "average to above average"???
This was written by Gallup, right?
They of all people should remember that Bill maintained a 60%
approval rating THROUGHOUT his 2 terms, despite being incessantly
raked over the coals by the media and the special persecutor who went
from one witch hunt to another, never finding anything but an alleged
BJ in the White House.
To hear the so-called liberal media tell it in the 90s, Clinton
was wildly unpopular. To read his actual poll numbers, he was always
popular with more than 60% of the electorate, despite that negative
media cloak.
May 10, 2009 10:06 AM
markymark said...
PK wrote
The judgment of George Bush must be left to more distant
historians, those who do not suffer from the bias so palpable among
the most numerous influential observers on the scene. Truth is
difficult to discern in the present environment as all those who
report have bias.
----------------------------
Okay, first of all, we are perfectly well entitled to make a
judgement about George W Bush's presidency. It may be true, though
personally I think it is unlikely, that future Historians may view
Dubya very differently from his contemporaries. However this is very
unlikely. People like to quote the example of Truman, who left office
with very low popularity but who historians tend to be kind to, but I
don't think that this necessarily applies. Bush's unpopularity relies
on firstly an event that noone is going to turn around and say that he
did well in hindsight during, in Hurricane Katrina, and secondly, if
Iraq pans out ok, then it will be in part because of his volte face
over the surge, which he was in part presured into by his own
congressional delegation.
Bush is more likely in legacy to resemble Carter or perhaps
Johnson in my view. In other words whatever good they managed to do
will be dwarfed by their failings. Vietnam, Afghanistan+ Iran and Iraq
are all issues that history will struggle to forgive those three men
on. [However fair or unfair that might be.]
Also Historians have as much bias as reporters do [speaking as a
historian], so the biasses of current reporters are likely to be
fairly well mirrored in the history of the Bush years. More left wing
historians will be harsh, right wing historians more forgiving.
Historical consensus does not generally fall far from the journalistic
consensus of a subject.
May 10, 2009 10:47 AM
Superdestroyer said...
The real question is what will the U.S. be like as a one party
state. Demographic changes were going to make the Republican Party
irrelevant. The incompetence of the Bush Administration just sped up
the process by 20 years.
May 10, 2009 11:15 AM
Todd Dugdale said...
markymark wrote:
"Bush's unpopularity relies on firstly an event that no one is
going to turn around and say that he did well in hindsight during, in
Hurricane Katrina,"
Spot on.
The Republicans have never really grasped how Katrina blew apart
the "benefit of a doubt" that the electorate had granted Bush up until
2005.
The Republicans never regained the credibility they lost in 2005
with Katrina. Everything they did after that was critically examined
by the electorate, whereas prior to that it was considered
"unpatriotic" to scrutinise Administration policies and actions.
Once that trust was gone, Bush's continually-upbeat statements on
Iraq just seemed empty.
And as a whole, the Party still seems to believe that they can
make sweeping assertions and that the electorate will believe every
word, simply because they say it is so.
That's why the Party has become a punchline; not because they say
crazy things, but because they really think that people will believe
the crazy things they say.
May 10, 2009 11:39 AM
ConnectingTheDots said...
Gallup?s poll is missing an important part of the equation:
Generation Jones, born 1954-1965, between the Boomers and Generation
X. Google Generation Jones, and you?ll see it?s gotten a lot of media
attention, and many top commentators from many top publications and
networks (Washington Post, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.)
now specifically use this term.
Unlike pollsters who are up with current generational trends,
Gallup is still using old school generational delineations. By lumping
part of GenJones with Boomers, and part with GenX, Gallup?s
generational data is seriously flawed. Several top
pollsters---including Mason-Dixon and Rasmussen--- have shown that
GenJones? political behavior and voting patterns are clearly distinct
from its surrounding generations.
It is important to distinguish between the post-WWII demographic
boom in births vs. the cultural generations born during that era.
Generations are a function of the common formative experiences of its
members, not the fertility rates of its parents. Many experts now
believe it breaks down this way:
DEMOGRAPHIC boom in babies: 1946-1964
Baby Boom GENERATION: 1942-1953
Generation Jones: 1954-1965
Generation X: 1966-1978
Here is a relatively recent op-ed in USA TODAY about GenJones as
the new generation of leadership:
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20090127/column27_st.art.htm
May 10, 2009 11:40 AM
PeteKent said...
Wow! Welcome Nut Butter what an excellent voice you have and what
a positive, optimistic vision of America you have
It remains to be seen what Obama will wrought -- in terms of
impact, but he has made known the broad outline of his philosophy and
it is ideologically based and way to the left. It is based in wanting
to see a flattening in terms of the range of economic outcomes,
decreasing the wealth of one segment to transfer it to another. One
way or the other he sees that as a social good.
He is also stubbornly convinced that Global Warming is manmade and
seems unconcerned with the very negative cost-benefit analysis
involved in implementing his policy positions, but especially its
centerpiece: Cap and Trade, a scheme that is universally panned for
destroying America's last remaining foot hold in manufacturing --
export competitiveness. That will be lost against speculative gains
that almost certainly will have a non-existent impact on the
environment without similar cooperation from China, India and the rest
of the developing world, Brazil, Indonesia, Africa, Vietnam, Asia in
general.
Only the already non-competitive Europeans will cheerlead for this
nonsense because they want to kill our exports and increase their
already lagging exports. By imposing European style energy taxes,
Obama will drag us down to Europe's level of non-competitiveness
resulting in a balance of trade more favorable to Europe.
This is the sort of thing we in the opposition fear. The
demonstrably negative consequences of Obama's policies suggest his
motives are to be questioned.
Obama is taking away our liberty by limiting and restricting, by
directing, the marketplace, which is after all the collective
expression of the people's choices. His sense of confidence in the
rightness of his judgment over that of the people is as misplaced as
it is breathtaking in its arrogance!
The whole, ?I have a gift, Harry? belief in himself inspires not
confidence in those who are dubious of the underling understanding he
has of matters (which are not always easily intuited without
tutelage), but genuine fear. The messianic meme flows as much from
Obama as it does his adoring fans. That should give us all pause an
make us wary of manipulation.
Keep it up Nut Butter. America is God's answer to the veniality of
man when left to the blandishments of a charming demagogue. The Devil
is very seductive.
God bless America. Never forget your proud history and how even in
dereliction are able to deal with it and rise from it better and
improved.
Our Nation?s vectors have always been up, our eyes lifted
heavenward. Let it ever be thus, an expression of the will of ALL of
US -- THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES!!!
05.10.09
Petekent01 (on twitter)
May 10, 2009 11:40 AM
PeteKent said...
Nut Butter -- you are really good at hurling epithets as
punctuations of your trenchant and truthful points. Think twice about
changing your style.
petekent01 (on twitter)
May 10, 2009 11:43 AM
Juris said...
@Mark Grebner: Thanks for the link to the MI data. I've been
looking at related data to see when, in the aggregate, we see a break
toward Dem ID over time. You may know that last year Charles Franklin
published interested data on trends in Party ID in Wisconsin on
Pollster.com. He didn't do an age breakdown, and his data only covered
2000 to 2008, but this shows a sharp break in 2006. MI seems to be
similar to WI in that respect.
It's also well to keep in mind that when you look at other
political attitudes -- not just party ID -- you see sharp breaks by
age, in which younger folks (under ca. age 35-40) are more open to
diversity (read: tolerant on gay rights, civil rights generally). So
there is a generational or cohort phenomenon going on as well as some
kind of secular trend that favors the Democrats and opposes extreme
conservative ideology.
I think another point that Nate's analysis could have highlighted
is that it isn't just a GWB legacy but also the GOP in general
(including Congress and the Tom Delays of the world) did a pretty damn
good job of sullying their political image.
And that's why the GOP is in such trouble today -- losing
substantial support among independents and moderates and reducing
themselves down to a core of true believers.
May 10, 2009 12:27 PM
dr2chase said...
The real question is what will the U.S. be like as a one party
state.You can look at Massachusetts if you want. It's a mish-mash; our
tax code is not nearly as liberal as it should be (what part of
liberal landslide did these idiots not get? They're talking about
reducing the budget shortfall with a SALES tax.) On the other hand, we
have way too much in the way of sloppy patronage, which has actually
be shrinking lately, but not enough -- we have flat-out duplication of
function, bureaucracies in charge (separately) of "roads" and
"turnpikes".
The heavy-handed regulation that people complain about, is caused
more by an excessive love of "local control", rather than liberal
principles. So, there are state rules, and local rules, and every
local rule is different. Full employment for people who keep track of
this nonsense. Also leads to nonsense like intersection where four
(straight-through) lanes enter and three leave -- change in
jurisdiction, change in road striping. That's localism, not
liberalism.
Also, because New England is so old, we have some really crazy
laws, and those are generally used to obstruct development. But, last
I heard, "rule of law" was a really good thing, so a law's a law. If I
couldn't buy hand tools or alcoholic beverages on Sunday back before
that law was repealed(? or was it struck down on establishment of
religion grounds?), then I think it is totally ok for a developer to
get tangled in crazy old laws, too.
On the good side, we historically have spent well on schools, and
generally gotten good results (demographics has a lot to do with
this). We have the lowest divorce rate in the nation (demographics has
a lot to do with this). We manage to provide health care to people who
need it -- a former colleague from a job in CA, independently moved to
MA, and while jobless, discovered that he had cancer. The heartless
bureaucrats we have here pointed him in the right direction, he got
his cancer fixed, at no cost to him, except a peculiar scar (which is
how I learned of this). He's now healthy, happy, employed, paying
taxes, and helping to analyze genes.
I think the one thing you need with one party rule is constant
vigilance against corruption. Neither party has a monopoly on that,
but given that there are corrupt people in this world who are looking
for ways to line their pockets, they're going to go where the
money/power is.
And as far as I can tell, that is the one and only thing that the
current Republican Party might be good for. Their policies are
idiotic, but if they detect even a whiff of Democratic corruption, I
am confident they will point it out. Unfortunately, the current batch
is such a bunch of crazies that their signal-to-noise ratio is pretty
bad, so they may not even be good for that.
May 10, 2009 12:29 PM
Cugel said...
"Superdestroyer said...
The real question is what will the U.S. be like as a one party
state. Demographic changes were going to make the Republican Party
irrelevant. The incompetence of the Bush Administration just sped up
the process by 20 years."Here's seemingly the only person in this
entire thread who gets it. DEMOGRAPHY RULES!
What was the REASON for the shift from a New Deal Coalition from
1932 to 1968 to the Nixon - Reagan Coalition of 1968 to 1988?
If it was a reaction against the "excesses of Johnson" it wouldn't
have lasted 20 years.
Southern Whites shifted from being Democrats to Republicans as a
result of opposition to the Civil Rights Movement. Northern working
class whites reacted against the counter-culture, the anti-war
movement, the environmental movement, the women's rights movement, and
against urban integration (busing).
In 1960, Kennedy won Texas, LA, Ark., MO, Ala, GA, SC, NC and W.
VA as well as MN, MI, NY & PA. His strength was in the DEEP SOUTH!
In 1968 Democrats lost every Southern state but Texas and the
election.
This trend continued till 1988. By 2000 you see a re-alignment
with REPUBLICANS winning the South and mid-West, while Democrats sweep
the Northeast and Upper Mid-West and Far-West.
All that happened in 2008 is that minorities, women and the youth
vote finally swamped the working-class "angry Whites" of the Reagan
"backlash."
Note that the Obama Coalition is largely the same as the McGovern
Coalition. The same demographic Groups that in 1972 had made up only
37.5% of the electorate in 2008 represented 53% in 2008!
Thesis: It takes something MAJOR to shake up these coalitions. In
the case of the Democratic coalition, a losing war and divisive racial
politics. In the case of the Republican coalition, the alienation of
minorities and middle-class women and urban dwellers.
Today's Republican party is still largely a RURAL, church-going,
White party, hostile to "big-government." But the nation as a whole
has been moving AWAY from that demographic for a long time.
The trends Nate analyzes here are important because who was
President when you reach 18 has some impact. My politics were defined
by opposition to the Vietnam War.
But, underlying this and more fundamental is DEMOGRAPHICS!
May 10, 2009 1:13 PM
Todd Dugdale said...
Cugel wrote:
"Here's seemingly the only person in this entire thread who gets
it. DEMOGRAPHY RULES!"
I think that I put forth at least some of the points you just made
in my previous comment. So I would like to think that I "get it".
"Note that the Obama Coalition is largely the same as the McGovern
Coalition. The same demographic Groups that in 1972 had made up only
37.5% of the electorate in 2008 represented 53% in 2008!"
This is pretty much what I meant when I said that the Republicans
just re-fought McGovern/Nixon in 2008.
The Republican "resurgence" was based on the Culture War and the
(attempted) disenfranchisement of minorities. Young people since
Clinton have naturally failed to identify with the losing side of the
Culture War, and minorities have failed to identify with the losing
side of the segregation struggle since Nixon.
Reagan wanted to abolish the Voting Rights Act, after all. His
only message to minorities is that "a rising tide lifts all boats".
The GOP, under the guise of fighting "voter fraud", has tried very
hard to keep blacks from voting for decades. And we all saw how
Republicans were praying for racism to be the determining factor in a
McCain victory ("Bradley Effect").
This is what Steele is (putatively) fighting, but it is a hopeless
battle.
Likewise, trying to sell a "back to the Fifties" social order to
young people is a losing proposition.
The Republicans are praying for Obama to be a disaster, but they
have no means to appeal to the young or minorities if such a disaster
comes to pass.
May 10, 2009 1:50 PM
Foregone Conclusion said...
Of course, the president that most shaped your youth might not be
the one that was in power when you turned 18. I'd imagine that FDR and
Kennedy dominated these people's consciousnesses more than Truman and
Johnson.
May 10, 2009 2:32 PM
Juris said...
You're right, Todd. The Republican "plan" is outmoded, perhaps
atavistic is the word. Still trying to win like Reagan. Counting on
vote suppression of minorities and new voters -- putting their fingers
in the dike to prevent the younger and less white population from full
participation. Conjuring up images of secession if they can't control
the country's destiny.
While I agree with Cugel that the shifting demography is
definitely against the GOP (Nate has made that point in several posts,
including his analysis of Prop 8 votes in California, and his article
about how the urbanization of America meant that the GOP "rural"
message in 2008 was out of tune with changing demographic reality),
let's not sound too deterministic about this. It's the message, the
messengers, and the target audience that are all producing a
"permanent Republican minority."
I put that last concept in quote marks because nothing is
permanent in politics, and yet unknown events can shift the political
map a lot.
May 10, 2009 2:32 PM
harold said...
Nutbutter -
NEWS FLASH!!! We don't go by "world standards"; we go by "American
standards," dickbreath! You chose a good name for yourself.
Nobody but Americans voted in the 2008 presidential election.
We're all as American as you.
You lost, and you're going to keep on losing.
Your right wing lunatic standards are not "American standards".
People like you are most obviously not what makes the United
States either prosperous or free.
The United States is part of the world, and only a FOOL would
advocate ignoring what goes on in the rest of the world.
Pete Kent -
Wow! Welcome Nut Butter what an excellent voice you have and what
a positive, optimistic vision of America you haveYou really are too
good to be true. I'm almost wondering if someone hijacked the Pete
Kent name and is posting parody stuff.
May 10, 2009 3:47 PM
Mike in Maryland said...
ConnectingTheDots said...
Gallup?s poll is missing an important part of the equation:
Generation Jones, born 1954-1965, between the Boomers and Generation X
FYI - Most reputable demographers call all those born between 1946
and 1964 the Baby Boom generation. The so-called "generation Jones"
was a part of the Baby Boomer generation, not a separate generation.
Most reputable demographers consider the generation that followed the
Baby Boomer generation to be Generation X.
The peak years for the Baby Boom, in number of babies born, was
the period between 1957 and 1961, when between 4.2 and 4.3 million
were born each year. The post-WW II birth rate per 1000 population
peaked in 1957 at 25.3, and then started to drop dramatically, to a
rate of 14 per 1000 population today.
So if the Baby Boomer generation is called that because of a boom
in births (but you state that it lasted until 1954), but the highest
number of babies AND the highest post-WW II birth rate was in 1957,
why would the babies born in that year not be called part of the Baby
Boomer generation?
It's like saying there are X number of Irish. Some have black
hair. Some have red hair. By your Baby Boomer generation followed by a
completely separate 'Generation Jones' scenario, you would only count
the ones with black hair as Irish, not the ones with red hair, as they
are different.
WRONG
The red hair Irish are Irish, just a subset of the total Irish
population.
Since you clearly don't know anything about demographics in
relation to the Baby Boom generation, I didn't even try to read the
rest of your post.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is
http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
May 10, 2009 4:08 PM
Mike in Maryland said...
Todd Dugdale said...
And as a whole, the Party still seems to believe that they can
make sweeping assertions and that the electorate will believe every
word, simply because they say it is so.
Along those lines, the RNC will be holding a meeting on May 20 to
plan how to come back from the wilderness. Part of the problem with
the RNC is that they still don't get it.
According to an article in today's Baltimore Sun, the RNC intends
to vote on a series of resolutions intended to move the party forward.
Among the most provocative: one that would formally label the
opposition as the "Democrat Socialist Party."
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/politics/bal-te.steele10may10,0,6397573.story?page=2
Gee, I wonder how the GOOPers would like it if the Democratic
Party members started to call the GOOPers members of the "Repuke
Fascist Party"?
The Republican Party was severely rebuked by the electorate in
2006 and in 2008. I wonder how many more times the electorate will
need to rebuke them before they start to wise up that if they don't
mend their ways, they are headed in the same direction as the
Federalists, the Whigs, the Know-nothings, the Free Soilers, and all
the other (at one time) at least somewhat influential political
parties that are now as extinct as the Dodo bird?
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is
http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
May 10, 2009 4:22 PM
ronebofh said...
"mediocre-to-average"? Mediocre and average mean the same thing.
May 10, 2009 5:15 PM
Mike in Maryland said...
ronebofh said...
"mediocre-to-average"? Mediocre and average mean the same thing.
According to Dictionary.com:
Mediocre:
1. of only ordinary or moderate quality; neither good nor bad;
barely adequate.
2. rather poor or inferior.
Average:
1. a quantity, rating, or the like that represents or approximates
an arithmetic mean
2. a typical amount, rate, degree, etc.; norm.
Subtle, but very significant differences, in the definitions of
the two words.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is
http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
May 10, 2009 5:53 PM
Matt said...
@cityguy60640:
Reagan stood for a smaller government? But...didn't the size of
government increase during his presidency?
Me, I especially loved his invasion of Grenada. It takes a big,
tough man to take on a country of that size! (This was reprised by
Bush 41's invasion of Panama.)
Aside to Pete Kent: "wrought" is not a present-tense verb form.
It's the past tense of "wright."
wv: parfi: it's like a sundi, but it's tall and French.
May 10, 2009 8:02 PM
Matt said...
@dr2chase:
Massachusetts' tax code isn't "liberal" because its electorate has
defeated initiatives to institute a progressive income tax.
The Mass. constitution bans a progressive tax, and attempts to
change the constitution by referendum have failed miserably (and, if
IIRC, repeatedly).
Doesn't matter which party's in power. If the people don't want
it, it ain't gonna happen.
May 10, 2009 9:27 PM
Kevin said...
The Left/Right continuum is beginning to break down. The internet
age will foster powerful third and fourth parties as the decadence of
the Republicans and Democrats becomes obvious to everyone.
May 10, 2009 10:21 PM
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