Ah, I see that Nerdfight has flared up again (be sure to look at comments on the first of those). I'll just mention that I think Nate Silver really overstates his case about the failures of the objective indicator models; I make the case for that here (see points 5-10). My key point? If you look at the three strongest prediction systems from the group that Silver collects, they do quite well indeed. And there's a pretty good argument, in my view, that that's not just cherry-picking the best ones.
At any rate: it's a Friday afternoon, so I'd rather have fun.
Here's what we can take a first-run crack at thanks to the prediction models: who did best beyond the fundamentals? If fundamental-based predictors say one candidate should win by 5 points and he wins by only one, then we can suppose (although many caveats would have to apply) that it's the things beyond the fundamentals -- candidates, campaigns, events that matter but for whatever reason are not in the models -- that hurt that candidate and helped his opponent. I'm not even going to bother spelling out the (necessary!) caveats here; I just want to have a little fun.
So: Silver collected predictor systems from 1992 through 2008. I'm only going to look at three systems, however, and not all of them show up for each election. The ones that have performed well overall are Abromowitz, Wlezien & Erickson, and Hibbs. I'll take a straight average of any of their forecasts that show up, and compare that to the election results, specifically to the incumbent party percentage of the two-party vote (all data from Silver).
1992: Predictors average 47.6; Bush gets 46.6. Clinton does a bit better than expected.
1996: Predictors 55.4; Clinton gets 54.7. This time, Clinton does a bit worse than expected.
2000: Predictors 54.4; Gore gets only 50.3. A big miss; Bush overachieves a lot (I've always thought the big thing was late-breaking economic weakness, some of which showed up only in after-the-election revisions...but that could be totally wrong).
2004: Predictors 52.9; Bush actually comes in at 51.2. I've done this one before: Kerry did better than the fundamentals models predicted (and, for what it's worth, the models I'm looking at here lean far more towards Kerry than the ones I'm not using).
2008: Predictors: 47.3; McCain gets 46.3. Obama does a little better than expected.
Comments::
First of all, the only real miss here is 2000. The predictors are pretty good (remembering, of course, that I picked which ones to look at).
Second: the only one that's way off had Bush beating expectations and Gore failing to reach expectations in 2000.
Third: Bob Dole's losing campaign and John Kerry's losing campaign did a bit better, not worse, than what the predictors thought would happen. Again, that doesn't mean they really had great campaigns after all, but I'd say it's at least a bit of evidence in that direction.
Showing posts with label 2004 cycle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2004 cycle. Show all posts
Friday, June 22, 2012
Friday, May 4, 2012
Swift Boating? Probably a Dud in 2004
"Swift Boating" seems to be in the news this week, so here's my quick contribution:
Swift Boating -- and the George W. Bush campaign in 2004 in general -- was probably a dud. The most important thing to know about the 2004 election, when it comes to electioneering effects, is that Bush underperformed the "fundamentals" models.
Nate Silver has conveniently gathered some of the numbers on this. Of the 15 prediction models he collected, 14 picked Bush as the winner, and of those 13 predicted a larger margin of victory than the 2.4% that Bush won by. The three predictor systems (Hibbs, Abramowitz, Wlekien and Erikson) that have performed best over the years all picked Bush, and by anywhere from 3.4% to 7.5%. I don't really put a whole lot of weight on the other systems, but for whatever it's worth they generally erred even more on the side of a big Bush win.
It's far short of proof, and of course it's certainly possible that one part of the campaign was a success but that another part was an even larger failure. But overall it suggests to me that anyone who believes that the Bush campaign did a better job than the Kerry campaign in general, or that the Swift Boat smear in particular helped Bush in any significant way, must meet an even higher burden of proof than if we didn't have this additional evidence. In particular, it just won't it to say "Bush won" as if it's an argument clincher. What really appears to need explanation is why Bush did worse than he should have, not why he won.
I'm going to get into this in more detail later, but that's the bottom line: there's no good reason to believe that the George W. Bush campaign in 2004 was responsible for his victory.
Swift Boating -- and the George W. Bush campaign in 2004 in general -- was probably a dud. The most important thing to know about the 2004 election, when it comes to electioneering effects, is that Bush underperformed the "fundamentals" models.
Nate Silver has conveniently gathered some of the numbers on this. Of the 15 prediction models he collected, 14 picked Bush as the winner, and of those 13 predicted a larger margin of victory than the 2.4% that Bush won by. The three predictor systems (Hibbs, Abramowitz, Wlekien and Erikson) that have performed best over the years all picked Bush, and by anywhere from 3.4% to 7.5%. I don't really put a whole lot of weight on the other systems, but for whatever it's worth they generally erred even more on the side of a big Bush win.
It's far short of proof, and of course it's certainly possible that one part of the campaign was a success but that another part was an even larger failure. But overall it suggests to me that anyone who believes that the Bush campaign did a better job than the Kerry campaign in general, or that the Swift Boat smear in particular helped Bush in any significant way, must meet an even higher burden of proof than if we didn't have this additional evidence. In particular, it just won't it to say "Bush won" as if it's an argument clincher. What really appears to need explanation is why Bush did worse than he should have, not why he won.
I'm going to get into this in more detail later, but that's the bottom line: there's no good reason to believe that the George W. Bush campaign in 2004 was responsible for his victory.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Sunday Question for Liberals
OK, time to fess up: how many of you were absolutely convinced that the Bush administration had bin Laden captured or killed and ready to trot out before the cameras in October 2002, 2004, 2006, and/or 2008? My impression was that an awful lot of liberals believed that an October Surprise was coming in most of those years, especially 2004 (I think it had pretty much faded by 2008, although I do think I still heard it then). Did you? Did people you spoke with? I'd be very interested in hearing your October Surprise paranoia stories -- feel free to attribute it to a "friend" if you want!
Friday, July 23, 2010
Governed By 2004
Just a quick point on Charles Krauthammer's column about the supposed impending unfairness of duly elected Democratic Members of Congress passing things in a lame duck session later this year. Everyone already has jumped on the point that none of what Krauthammer fears is actually likely to happen (Democrats for better or worse haven't failed to pass things like card check and cap-and-trade because they're afraid it will hurt them in November; they haven't passed them because they don't have the votes. End of story. (See Yglesias, Drum, Chait for more).
As long as we're going to get worked up about shame and mandates and such, let me just toss this one on the heap. It's true that Democrats have wailed and whined about the filibuster, and how unfair it is that longstanding rules prevented them from doing whatever they wanted with the presidency, a solid majority in the House, and 59% of the Senate. And a few sophisticated Dems have even done the math and argued that it's even more unfair than that because currently Democratic Senators represent a somewhat larger share of the population than that 59%.
But you know what Democrats haven't really complained about, and by Krauthammer's logic they actually have a much stronger case? 2004. Because that's the difference between passing quite a bit of the Democratic agenda this year, and passing pretty much all of it. 2004? That's when 34 of the current Senators (or their same-party predecessors who resigned or died) were elected. Of those, 18 are Republicans; only 16 are Democrats. That includes Republican Senators from North Carolina, New Hampshire, Florida, Iowa, and Ohio all solid Obama states where the Democrats won the most recent Senate race.
Eliminate the class of 2004, and the Democrats have a stunning 43 to 23 edge in the Senate (that's 65%). Or, just keep everyone in place but convert the five Obama states to solid Democratic delegations, and again you're at 64 of 100. Even flip two of those five and the legislative output of the 111th Congress would have been significantly more liberal.
Now, should Republicans have been ashamed of their total electoral humiliation in 2006 and 2008 and sat back meekly while Democrats passed everything they had 50 votes for? No, I don't think so, and I don't think Krauthammer thinks so, either. I think the Republican extreme rejectionism may well have been counterproductive, and it certainly stretched the rules and customs of the Senate to their limit -- but they were well within their rights to do so. As Democrats would be, if they choose to pass whatever they can (which as Drum and the others point out won't be anything that can't get by Olympia Snowe, same as now).
As far as the democratic value of being ruled by 2004 -- I'm fine with it, as regular readers might suspect. The country didn't suddenly turn liberal n 2006, just as it didn't suddenly turn conservative in 1994 or 1980. Putting a little weight on the scales for the status quo doesn't both me. But make no mistake: if you're 20 years old now and voted for the first time in 2008 and supported Obama, part of the reason you're not getting your way on some things is because your grandparents who died five years ago have had as much of a say over the United States Senate as you have.
As long as we're going to get worked up about shame and mandates and such, let me just toss this one on the heap. It's true that Democrats have wailed and whined about the filibuster, and how unfair it is that longstanding rules prevented them from doing whatever they wanted with the presidency, a solid majority in the House, and 59% of the Senate. And a few sophisticated Dems have even done the math and argued that it's even more unfair than that because currently Democratic Senators represent a somewhat larger share of the population than that 59%.
But you know what Democrats haven't really complained about, and by Krauthammer's logic they actually have a much stronger case? 2004. Because that's the difference between passing quite a bit of the Democratic agenda this year, and passing pretty much all of it. 2004? That's when 34 of the current Senators (or their same-party predecessors who resigned or died) were elected. Of those, 18 are Republicans; only 16 are Democrats. That includes Republican Senators from North Carolina, New Hampshire, Florida, Iowa, and Ohio all solid Obama states where the Democrats won the most recent Senate race.
Eliminate the class of 2004, and the Democrats have a stunning 43 to 23 edge in the Senate (that's 65%). Or, just keep everyone in place but convert the five Obama states to solid Democratic delegations, and again you're at 64 of 100. Even flip two of those five and the legislative output of the 111th Congress would have been significantly more liberal.
Now, should Republicans have been ashamed of their total electoral humiliation in 2006 and 2008 and sat back meekly while Democrats passed everything they had 50 votes for? No, I don't think so, and I don't think Krauthammer thinks so, either. I think the Republican extreme rejectionism may well have been counterproductive, and it certainly stretched the rules and customs of the Senate to their limit -- but they were well within their rights to do so. As Democrats would be, if they choose to pass whatever they can (which as Drum and the others point out won't be anything that can't get by Olympia Snowe, same as now).
As far as the democratic value of being ruled by 2004 -- I'm fine with it, as regular readers might suspect. The country didn't suddenly turn liberal n 2006, just as it didn't suddenly turn conservative in 1994 or 1980. Putting a little weight on the scales for the status quo doesn't both me. But make no mistake: if you're 20 years old now and voted for the first time in 2008 and supported Obama, part of the reason you're not getting your way on some things is because your grandparents who died five years ago have had as much of a say over the United States Senate as you have.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Worst Field Ever?
I don't really share Neil Sinhababu's utter contempt for Dick Gephardt. But still, the last reporting on the former House Dem leader's lobbying career (here's Frank Rich and, via Neil, a Nation piece) is hard to square with the idea of Gephardt as a great liberal leader. Which leads me to:
Was the field of candidates for the 2004 Democratic nomination for president the worst ever? Do they all look worse than they did then?
John Kerry, I think, is the exception. Whatever his merits as the nominee, he took his loss well and has returned to business in the Senate. He isn't an all-star Senator, but he's done nothing I can think of to disgrace himself since 2004.
The rest of the field? Well, there's Gephardt, who has hired himself out to any interest group who will pay his tab. There's John Edwards...yeah. There's Joe Lieberman, already moving to the right by then, but still more or less a mainstream Democrat. I can't imagine that there are very many Democratic primary voters who, seeing what these three have done over the last five years, think that they should have been anywhere near the leadership of the party.
I think the same goes for Gen. Wesley Clark. I don't think his reputation has been exactly harmed in the intervening years, but it certainly hasn't been enhanced, either. The idea of General Clark was always more appealing to some Democrats than the actual person, and I don't know of anything Clark did in 2004 or since to build on that. The next candidate, Dennis Kucinich, retains the same reputation now that he had then, and while I think Democrats would disagree about whether Kucinich's style of liberalism is a good thing or a bad thing, it's pretty clear that almost no one thinks that the guy should be president.
That leaves Howard Dean. Like Clark, I think the idea of Dean wore better on Democrats than the actual person; unlike Clark, and unlike the rest of the pack other than Kerry, Dean has actually done things that might enhance his reputation over the last five years. I don't think that those who supported Dean in 2004 are embarrassed about it at all, and I suspect that some Edwards and even some Kerry supporters from then might have foggy memories that allow them to recall support for the Vermont doctor. Do they think he'd make a good president? I don't know, but other than Kerry I would say he's the only one of the bunch where most Democrats would consider it a close call.
Of course, this is exactly what one would expect when the incumbent president is very popular just at the time when candidates are starting to gear up for the next election. But, to me at least, it's interesting to see the reputations of the group deteriorate over time -- it looked like a weak field then, but it looks much worse now.
Was the field of candidates for the 2004 Democratic nomination for president the worst ever? Do they all look worse than they did then?
John Kerry, I think, is the exception. Whatever his merits as the nominee, he took his loss well and has returned to business in the Senate. He isn't an all-star Senator, but he's done nothing I can think of to disgrace himself since 2004.
The rest of the field? Well, there's Gephardt, who has hired himself out to any interest group who will pay his tab. There's John Edwards...yeah. There's Joe Lieberman, already moving to the right by then, but still more or less a mainstream Democrat. I can't imagine that there are very many Democratic primary voters who, seeing what these three have done over the last five years, think that they should have been anywhere near the leadership of the party.
I think the same goes for Gen. Wesley Clark. I don't think his reputation has been exactly harmed in the intervening years, but it certainly hasn't been enhanced, either. The idea of General Clark was always more appealing to some Democrats than the actual person, and I don't know of anything Clark did in 2004 or since to build on that. The next candidate, Dennis Kucinich, retains the same reputation now that he had then, and while I think Democrats would disagree about whether Kucinich's style of liberalism is a good thing or a bad thing, it's pretty clear that almost no one thinks that the guy should be president.
That leaves Howard Dean. Like Clark, I think the idea of Dean wore better on Democrats than the actual person; unlike Clark, and unlike the rest of the pack other than Kerry, Dean has actually done things that might enhance his reputation over the last five years. I don't think that those who supported Dean in 2004 are embarrassed about it at all, and I suspect that some Edwards and even some Kerry supporters from then might have foggy memories that allow them to recall support for the Vermont doctor. Do they think he'd make a good president? I don't know, but other than Kerry I would say he's the only one of the bunch where most Democrats would consider it a close call.
Of course, this is exactly what one would expect when the incumbent president is very popular just at the time when candidates are starting to gear up for the next election. But, to me at least, it's interesting to see the reputations of the group deteriorate over time -- it looked like a weak field then, but it looks much worse now.
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