What the Election Means to my students

Last night was an historic election to be sure. Rather than give my thoughts about what happened, I thought it best to ask my students to reflect carefully on what November 4th, 2008 meant to them. I asked them to watch both Barack Obama's victory speech in Grant Park, and John McCain's concession in Phoenix, and then carefully reflect upon the last 20 months of campaigning. Attached to this, in comment form, are their thoughts. After they have their say, I'll try to add some of my own reactions.

Now, without further ado, the students who were part of that 18 percent.

Who's the maverick?

Obama says he will bring change and a new nonpartisanship to Washington. McCain says he's the original maverick, and has the experience to prove it. Biden says McCain voted with President Bush 95% of the time; he's no maverick. The Republicans say Barack has no record of acting bipartisan in Washington.

Who's right?

The problem with cherry-picking data is it feeds into the old adage that students so often like to cite: "You can make statistics say anything."

Biden's statistics are correct: in 2007, John McCain supported President Bush 95% when the president announced a stand on a Senate roll call vote. This is according to the presidential support scores calculated by Congressional Quarterly annually, and used by political scientists who study both institutions. Unfortunately, this does not necessary answer the question of whether McCain is a maverick or not. Some media accounts report that there were a lot of immigration votes that year. It just so happened that Bush and McCain agreed on immigration: the problem was, the rest of the party left them hanging dry. Presidential support scores are problematic because they take a small subset of Senate roll call votes and don't give a good sense of whether someone is willing to buck the party.

Instead, I recommend looking at the party unity score--also calculated by Congressional Quarterly. This score is defined as the percentage of the time the member of Congress voted with their party when 50 percent of the party voted one way and 50 percent of the other party voted the other way (or vice versa).

For example, a party unity vote has to have at least half the Republicans voting nay on an issue and half the Democrats voting yea to be considered in the analysis. This eliminates procedural votes and commemorative legislation that often passes with overwhelming partisan majorities. This gives us a better look at who is willing to buck the party on a number of issues, whether the president takes a stand or not.

Here's a chart of McCain's Party Unity Averages by Congressional session, beginning with the 100th Senate and ending with the 109th. Next to McCain's score, you'll see the Republican Senate average for that session:

Congress McCain GOP Average
100 88 77
101 84 78
102 88 83
103 91 84
104 91 91
105 84 87
106 87 90
107 71 86
108 84 92
109 81 89

Like many members of Congress, McCain voted more often with the party early his career began to become more independent the longer he served. Indeed, we begin to see this drift during the 105th Congress (1997-1998). Three times, McCain's party unity average is almost a full standard deviation below the Republican mean: in the 107th, 108th, and 109th Congresses.

McCain is no Ralph Hall (who exhibited party unity scores in the 20s and 30s as a Democratic Representative from Texas in the House. He later switched parties and became a Republican). But he's clearly NOT the party unity poster boy Biden's comments make him out to be.

Now, what about Obama? Well, I only have data from the 109th Congress available to me. The Democratic party unity average in that session was 89 percent. Senator Obama's average was 96 percent. This suggests there is some truth to McCain's claim that he has the record of a maverick and Obama does not. Even Obama's running mate rated a 90 percent in the 109th Congress.

Now whether you knew McCain was a maverick from last night's speech, that's a different story.

Next time, I hope to do an analysis of pre-VP nomination experience to evaluate the claim that Palin has precious little experience compared to other past nominees.

Hoosiers for Hillary

As a social scientist, I spend a lot of time immersed in the "science" of politics. Every so often, however, I am reminded that I became a political scientist first and foremost because of my love of politics. I grew up in New Hampshire surrounded by the quadrennial election pageantry, and even spent a year and a half working on campaigns after graduating college.

This presidential election year is one of those moments that reminds me of how much I love politics and the American political system generally.

In May, I'll be moving to Bozeman to start my new position at Montana State. But right now I live in South Bend, IN. And Indiana is now, for the first time in a long time (some say 1968, but I say 1976) that Indiana has received this much attention in a presidential campaign from the major contenders. I've been telling my students to take advantage of this opportunity: go see the candidates, ask them questions, shake their hands. Although I have a number of projects I'd like to get finished sooner rather than later, I remembered that it was an opportunity that I--as a frequent commentator on elections and campaigns--should also not miss. It's one thing to watch the news, read the newspaper, and then form an opinion. It's quite another to take part in the political process personally, front and center.

This week, Bill Clinton attended Dyngus Day events at the Westside Democratic Club in South Bend. And today, Hillary Clinton spoke at Mishawaka High School. I attended both events as an observer of the political process to see if I could glean anything interesting about this election year.

I learned lots of things specific to Bill and Hillary Clinton. But perhaps more importantly, I learned something very special about this election year and the character of our American republic (notice future 206 students that I did not say our American democracy).

During Hillary's speech, she noted that roughly 20 percent of poll respondents indicated they wanted her to drop out of the race, 20 percent wanted Obama to drop from the race, but 60 percent wanted to let the nomination process to play out and to allow voters in other states to have their say. This line drew a positive roar from the crowd, which clearly was pleased to have a voice in deciding this year's election.

Some commentators have indicated that prolonging the nomination process will do harm to the eventual Democratic nominee and benefit McCain's campaign (for example, see Chuck Todd's piece here). Others have cited the Gallup poll that indicates roughly a quarter of Obama and Clinton's support will go to McCain should the other candidate win the Democratic nomination.

I'm not convinced that ending this nomination battle is the best thing for the country or, for that matter, the Democratic Party.

First, I was amazed at the turnout for the Mishawaka event. The location wasn't announced until late in the afternoon on Thursday (after the South Bend school district turned the Clinton campaign's request to visit Washington High School--check out the controversy this has generated here), and yet there were roughly 4,000 folks in the middle of a weekday in attendance. Granted, 1,800 were students, staff, and faculty, but this was impressive. One of the cardinal rules about voting is that people are more likely to vote when they feel their vote counts. Close races create excitement, they generate additional news coverage, and they provide the opportunity for additional political learning. As psychologists term it, close elections decrease the cognitive costs of political participation. How could this be bad for the democratic process?

Second, the focus on the Democratic nomination process has essentially removed McCain from the news cycle. As they say in public relations, all news is good news. A constant discussion and debate about the merits of Obama versus Clinton is not necessarily bad given that the candidates agree on so many of the issues. With Democratic issues and priorities dominating the political discourse, it might be difficult for McCain to shove his agenda onto the table come late summer. And I suspect that Democrats will rally around their nominee in the end, notwithstanding the Gallup poll results.

Third, the interest in politics that this campaign has been nothing short of tremendous. Many of my students have expressed cynical attitudes concerning politics and politicians. One thing I've learned is that a good cure for cynicism is actually visiting and meeting with politicians. Going to hear them give a speech at a rally and getting the opportunity to ask a question humanizes politics and political leaders for people. One of the things I talk about in my Congress class is Fenno's Paradox: the tendency for people to hate Congress but to love their Congressman or Congresswoman. There are many reasons why this is the case, but the obvious reason is people tend to know their individual member of Congress. Politicians are bad and corrupt and they populate Congress, but MY Congressman is a good guy. I know him, I voted for him, he works for us, and comes back to the district all the time.

The more exposure people get to our national leaders, I suspect the less cynical they will become about their leaders and politics more generally. For the first time in a long time, states that were "fly over country" on the way to fundraisers are seeing presidential candidates up close and personal. And this alone has to make them feel like the candidates are their own and not like the other politicians in Washington. The potential to rebuild trust and a personal bond with the next president is a precious and rare gift that can give our next president an incredible leadership opportunity. Nothing should stand in its way.

Let the campaign continue, say I! Enjoy it while you can. Soon, Montana will have its chance. I'm looking forward to seeing Montana matter, much as Indiana matters now.

The Obama Response to 3 AM

The wonders of instant media.

Here is the Obama campaign's response ad to the Clinton camp's 3 AM piece:




What is experience without proper judgement? I think this is an effective response. And I think it will be part of the assault against McCain in the fall (should Obama be the nominee).

Which, by the way, points to a fundamental flaw in HRC's experience line for the fall campaign. McCain can say, "Hey, you supported this war, now you say you're against it, you were against the surge, and yet it has worked". Again, McCain can trump her with more experience AND make the argument that he has better judgement.

It's Experience, Stupid

Hillary Clinton has a new ad out that is clearly aimed at the Soccer Moms, stressing that she has the experience to meet global crises and not (by implication) Barack Obama.

Check it out:



The problem with this ad, I think, is if you really want experience, then John McCain is your man. I just don't find it effective.

Furthermore, given that this ad appears to be geared to mothers, that suggests bigger problems for Hillary. It indicates to this political observer that she's worried about her base. And if she's worried about her base, it will be a long day next Tuesday.

I'll post again soon on the question of experience and the presidency.