Life and Art, or, Something About Truth and Fiction

Who: Gail Collins
What: "Day of the Armadillo", The New York Times
When: November 2, 2011

First, the obvious: Regardless of whether or not one likes Gail Collins—and she seems likable, to judge by a scant few television appearances I've witnessed—it is very easy to make fun of her.

Second, though—

Also in the frozen armadillo category: Anything about Herman Cain. Does he want to feed illegal immigrants to alligators or electrocute them? Did he sexually harass women when he was chief of the National Restaurant Association? Did he ever notice that being chief of the National Restaurant Association was just a highfalutin way of saying "lobbyist?"

The one thing we've learned for sure is that Herman Cain's staff has no idea what Herman Cain has been up to. Really, by now they're probably so numb, you could come up to them and say: "Is it true your candidate was once a pirate?" and they'd just promise to look into it.

—that is perhaps the strangest pile of sentences you're going to read this week.

The article also contains the sentence, "Brian Tillerson, a manager at the Taco Bell/KFC restaurant, told The San Antonio Express-News that the man was angry the Beefy Crunch Burrito had gone from 99 cents to $1.49 each."

And there is any number of points one might try to make from there.

Cold Tea

Who: David E. Campbell and Robert D. Putnam
What: "Crashing the Tea Party", The New York Times
When: August 16, 2011

Beginning in 2006 we interviewed a representative sample of 3,000 Americans as part of our continuing research into national political attitudes, and we returned to interview many of the same people again this summer. As a result, we can look at what people told us, long before there was a Tea Party, to predict who would become a Tea Party supporter five years later. We can also account for multiple influences simultaneously — isolating the impact of one factor while holding others constant.

Our analysis casts doubt on the Tea Party's "origin story." Early on, Tea Partiers were often described as nonpartisan political neophytes. Actually, the Tea Party's supporters today were highly partisan Republicans long before the Tea Party was born, and were more likely than others to have contacted government officials. In fact, past Republican affiliation is the single strongest predictor of Tea Party support today.

What's more, contrary to some accounts, the Tea Party is not a creature of the Great Recession. Many Americans have suffered in the last four years, but they are no more likely than anyone else to support the Tea Party. And while the public image of the Tea Party focuses on a desire to shrink government, concern over big government is hardly the only or even the most important predictor of Tea Party support among voters.

So what do Tea Partiers have in common? They are overwhelmingly white, but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do.

More important, they were disproportionately social conservatives in 2006 — opposing abortion, for example — and still are today. Next to being a Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics. And Tea Partiers continue to hold these views: they seek "deeply religious" elected officials, approve of religious leaders' engaging in politics and want religion brought into political debates. The Tea Party's generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government.

This inclination among the Tea Party faithful to mix religion and politics explains their support for Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. Their appeal to Tea Partiers lies less in what they say about the budget or taxes, and more in their overt use of religious language and imagery, including Mrs. Bachmann's lengthy prayers at campaign stops and Mr. Perry's prayer rally in Houston.

Yet it is precisely this infusion of religion into politics that most Americans increasingly oppose. While over the last five years Americans have become slightly more conservative economically, they have swung even further in opposition to mingling religion and politics. It thus makes sense that the Tea Party ranks alongside the Christian Right in unpopularity.

Campbell and Putnam actually open with a consideration of numbers; the Tea Party tide is waning right now, with approval numbers over the last fourteen months holding more or less steady, and opposition to the movement more than doubling.

The paragraphs quoted above are their answer to a proposition: "... the trends would seem to favor the Tea Party. So why are its negatives so high? To find out, we need to examine what kinds of people actually support it."

And they may have a point.

(Photo by Pargon.)

The Long, Long Trail A-Windin'

Who: Nate Silver
What: "G.O.P. House Majority at Risk", FiveThirtyEight
When: August 12, 2011

There has been various circumstantial evidence that the public's dissatisfaction with the performance of Congress, particularly during the debt ceiling debate, could threaten the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. Disapproval ratings for the Congress are at record highs, as are disapproval ratings for the Republican Party. Other polls show record numbers of Americans saying that their representative should not be re-elected, that most members of Congress should not be re-elected, or both.

What we haven't had, however, are polls comparing Democrats against Republicans in a direct way. That's why the poll that Gallup published Friday ought to concern Republicans. It shows a 7-point Democratic advantage on the generic Congressional ballot — meaning simply that more Americans told Gallup they plan to vote for a Democrat for Congress next year. Although the generic ballot is a crude measure, it is probably the best macro-level indicator of the direction that the House is headed in.

Last year, Republicans won the popular vote for the U.S. House — essentially what the generic ballot is trying to measure — by 7 percentage points. So a poll showing Democrats 7 points ahead instead is a pretty significant swing.

But does it mean that Democrats are now favorites to take over the Congress next year?

No, not exactly. Instead, it points toward control of the House being more or less a toss-up. There are three structural issues that Democrats will have to contend with that take a little bit of the sheen off this poll ....

While it is true that the polls savaged Congress, and battered Republicans far worse than Democrats, the question of whether or not a generic ballot poll over a year before the election really tells us anything is a dubious inquiry. Largely, the problem is that American voters are notoriously fickle, and, furthermore, the way scandals break, spread, and reshuffle public opinion is dangerously unpredictable.

Michele Bachmann Stimulates Minnesota

Who: Steve Benen
What: "How about a Bachmann-inspired stimulus?", Washington Monthly
When: August 10, 2011

Nothing to see here, folks. Go on about your business.

In public, Republican presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann spends much of her time railing against government spending. In private, Bachmann spends quite a bit of time requesting government spending.

A Freedom of Information Act request filed by The Huffington Post with three separate federal agencies reveals that on at least 16 separate occasions, Bachmann petitioned the federal government for direct financial help or aid. A large chunk of those requests were for funds set aside through President Obama's stimulus program, which Bachmann once labeled "fantasy economics." Bachmann made two more of those requests to the Environmental Protection Agency, an institution that she has suggested she would eliminate if she were in the White House. Taken as a whole, the letters underscore what Bachmann's critics describe as a glaring distance between her campaign oratory and her actual conduct as a lawmaker. Combined with previous revelations that Bachmann personally relied on a federally subsidized home loan while her husband's business benefited from Medicaid payments, it appears that one of the Tea Party's most cherished members has demonstrated that the government does, in fact, play a constructive role — at least in her life and district ....

.... What's more, the phenomenon certainly isn't limited to Bachmann — all kinds of right-wing lawmakers who swear public investments are fundamentally evil, including plenty of this year's radical freshman class, have spent a fair amount of time pleading for more public investment in their states and districts, insisting the spending would be good for the economy ....

Something About Today

Who: Gail Collins
What: "Sacred Cows, Angry Birds", The New York Times
When: February 19, 2011

The House of Representatives has been cutting like crazy! Down with Planned Parenthood and PBS! We can't afford to worry about mercury contamination! Safety nets are too expensive!

But keep your hands off the Defense Department's budget to sponsor Nascar racers.

"It's a great public/private partnership," said Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen, a New Jersey Republican.

The Defense Department claims racecar sponsorships are an important recruiting tool for the Army. The House agreed — although this might be news to the Navy and Marines, which decided a while back that a Nascar presence wasn't worth the money.

"What makes U.S. Army's motorsports initiatives successful?" Ryan Newman, driver of No. 39 U.S. Army Chevrolet asked his Facebook readers as he urged a show of support for the program. "In a 2009 study among fans nationwide, 37% feel more positive about the Army due to its involvement in motorsports."

I know. I know ... I know, I know, I know, IknowIknow ... I know!

Just ... let it go. Look, it's easy to pick on Gail Collins, but just ask yourself this:

A Fundamental Question: What, exactly, are we doing?

Who: Paul Krugman
What: "Eat the Future", The New York Times
When: February 14, 2011

Republican leaders like to claim that the midterms gave them a mandate for sharp cuts in government spending. Some of us believe that the elections were less about spending than they were about persistent high unemployment, but whatever. The key point to understand is that while many voters say that they want lower spending, press the issue a bit further and it turns out that they only want to cut spending on other people.

That's the lesson from a new survey by the Pew Research Center, in which Americans were asked whether they favored higher or lower spending in a variety of areas. It turns out that they want more, not less, spending on most things, including education and Medicare. They're evenly divided about spending on aid to the unemployed and—surprise—defense.

The only thing they clearly want to cut is foreign aid, which most Americans believe, wrongly, accounts for a large share of the federal budget.

Pew also asked people how they would like to see states close their budget deficits. Do they favor cuts in either education or health care, the main expenses states face? No. Do they favor tax increases? No. The only deficit-reduction measure with significant support was cuts in public-employee pensions—and even there the public was evenly divided.

The moral is clear. Republicans don't have a mandate to cut spending; they have a mandate to repeal the laws of arithmetic.

Strange times.