Category Archives: Politics: US

Help remind your Democratic Senator that Lieberman should go (or at least pay a very serious price) for his election-season behavior.

Clicking above will take you to a tool that will ask you for your phone number. When you submit, it calls you, plays a recording with suggestions as to you how to frame your conversation, then connects you with your senator's office. No actual phone dialing is required.

UPDATE: Not sure if this is worth the trouble in light of this news from the HuffPo: Obama Wants Lieberman To Remain In Democratic Caucus.

There is some daylight between “remain in caucus” and “remain unpunished” so I suppose it's not yet an unmitigated disaster, but it will soon be.

I think this shows two things. First, that Obama will tack heavily to the right on many, most issues outside those few liberal issues he directly campaigned on. Rahm Emanuel may be only the beginning.

Second, I think it shows that the Obama people haven't learned as much from the Clinton admin as they should — or are the Clinton admin!

Recall that President Clinton's first controversy was over 'don't ask, don't tell'. He'd said he was going to do something to increase gay rights in the military. Senior brass objected. Clinton backed down. The lesson learned by the Hill was that Clinton had no backbone as he could be buffaloed even by people who had to salute him. And the costs were soon seen as Clinton's health care and other parts of his legislative package plan went down in flames (although there were substantive reasons for the health care plan to run into trouble, the political reality was that Clinton looked weak).

There's a similar danger to Obama if the lesson learned from the Lieberman episode on the Hill is that there's no cost to trashing Obama.

Eschaton is one of the first to speculate about all the GOP talking points that are about to be subjected to major forgetting.

To his “Up or down vote” I'd add all the stuff about respecting the commander in chief.

[Lest I be misunderstood, I'd like to note that

(1) I don't think filibusters are inherently wrong, even when they block things I like;

(2) I do think a great deal of the 'respect for the CIC' talk was wrong-headed, an attempt to shut down meaningful debates that should have taken place; but,

(3) I have a very low tolerance for hypocrisy.]

According to a very polite email I got six weeks ago, a research team from the Psychology Department at New York University, headed by Professor Yaacov Trope and supported by the National Science Foundation, is investigating the cognitive causes of voting behavior, political preferences, and candidate evaluations throughout the course of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election.

They're doing a study and in the hope of getting politically aware respondents are asking bloggers to pass on their request to fill out their survey. The study will, they hope, “shed light on the information people use to inform evaluations during the last few weeks before the election”. They “seek respondents of all political leanings from all over the country (and from the rest of the world)” to complete a 15-minute questionnaire, the responses to which they promise will be completely anonymous.

It looks legit.

One interesting aspect of the request is that I turn off comments on this item: “a necessary precaution we have to take in order to avoid the bias that is likely to result when new respondents see comments about the survey before taking it.” That sounds sensible, so I've complied with the request.

Another is that they want time series data:

… we would like to have respondents complete the survey throughout the days leading up to the Election. To this end, if would be ideal if you were willing to have the link appear (i.e., repost it) four times, in equally spaced out intervals (about every two weeks), with the first running asap and the last running several days prior to Election Day. Of course, if you would be willing to post it even once, it would already be a great help to us.

So, what the heck, I've queued it up for science. Excuse the repeats.

No, I'm not talking about Sarah Palin.

Well, actually, in a way I am: but I mean handicapping in the horse race sense.

Time to stop obsessing about this election and think, for a moment, about the next…

Let's suppose that McCain fails to win on Nov. 4. Who will become the likely nominees for '12?

– Palin will have a big advantage with the remnants of the 'base', but many others will blame her for the loss and her negatives are high. Presumably Palin will start reading foreign news sources, like the New York Times, and learn to mouth seemingly relevant platitudes instead of irrelevant ones. I don't think it will work.

– Huckabee will contest Palin for the evangelical vote, and his folksy ways will help with other groups too. I think it will work.

– Florida's own Charlie Crist will be a bigger possibility than Jeb! as the Bush brand will remain tarnished nationally, and Jeb!'s association with the financial meltdown will finish the job. His marriage will help.

– Tancredo will run again, but get as little traction.

– Romney will run again, he's got the money, but the same set of obstacles.

– Gulliani, Paul, and Thompson are not going to be factors (although Paul might try the third party thing, conceivably, as might Barr).

– Newt Gingrich is looking for a comeback.

I'd say the early leaders will be Crist and Huckabee, but handicapping Republicans is not obviously my strong suit. Who have I left out?

According to a very polite email I got four weeks ago, a research team from the Psychology Department at New York University, headed by Professor Yaacov Trope and supported by the National Science Foundation, is investigating the cognitive causes of voting behavior, political preferences, and candidate evaluations throughout the course of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election.

They're doing a study and in the hope of getting politically aware respondents are asking bloggers to pass on their request to fill out their survey. The study will, they hope, “shed light on the information people use to inform evaluations during the last few weeks before the election”. They “seek respondents of all political leanings from all over the country (and from the rest of the world)” to complete a 15-minute questionnaire, the responses to which they promise will be completely anonymous.

It looks legit.

One interesting aspect of the request is that I turn off comments on this item: “a necessary precaution we have to take in order to avoid the bias that is likely to result when new respondents see comments about the survey before taking it.” That sounds sensible, so I've complied with the request.

Another is that they want time series data:

… we would like to have respondents complete the survey throughout the days leading up to the Election. To this end, if would be ideal if you were willing to have the link appear (i.e., repost it) four times, in equally spaced out intervals (about every two weeks), with the first running asap and the last running several days prior to Election Day. Of course, if you would be willing to post it even once, it would already be a great help to us.

So, what the heck, I've queued it up for science. Excuse the repeats.

According to a very polite email I got two weeks ago, a research team from the Psychology Department at New York University, headed by Professor Yaacov Trope and supported by the National Science Foundation, is investigating the cognitive causes of voting behavior, political preferences, and candidate evaluations throughout the course of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election.

They're doing a study and in the hope of getting politically aware respondents are asking bloggers to pass on their request to fill out their survey. The study will, they hope, “shed light on the information people use to inform evaluations during the last few weeks before the election”. They “seek respondents of all political leanings from all over the country (and from the rest of the world)” to complete a 15-minute questionnaire, the responses to which they promise will be completely anonymous.

It looks legit.

One interesting aspect of the request is that I turn off comments on this item: “a necessary precaution we have to take in order to avoid the bias that is likely to result when new respondents see comments about the survey before taking it.” That sounds sensible, so I've complied with the request.

Another is that they want time series data:

… we would like to have respondents complete the survey throughout the days leading up to the Election. To this end, if would be ideal if you were willing to have the link appear (i.e., repost it) four times, in equally spaced out intervals (about every two weeks), with the first running asap and the last running several days prior to Election Day. Of course, if you would be willing to post it even once, it would already be a great help to us.

So, what the heck, I've queued it up for science. Excuse the repeats.