Rich and poor still vote differently in red and
blue states

post from FiveThirtyEight.com: Politics Done Right on 23 February 2009 10:58:00 PM. © FiveThirtyEight.com: Politics Done Right

In Red State, Blue State, we talked about how, in recent years, the Democrats have been winning the rich states, even while richer voters lean Republican.

What happened in 2008? Exit polls were made available immediately--as of election night. The next step is to go to individual-level data, which we recently obtained from the Pew Research Foundation's pre-election polls.

Here's the income and voting pattern at the national level:

Republicans did better among upper-income voters--except possibly for the over-200,000's. (The highest income category from the Pew surveys is "$150,000+", so we can't do a direct comparison at the top.)

Red and blue states

Now let's look at red, blue, and purple states (which we define, following our book, as those states where George W. Bush won by more than 10 points in both his campaigns, those where he lost by more than 10 points both time, and the states in between):

As in previous elections, income predicts Republican vote more strongly in red than in blue states. (For this and following graphs, I'm switching the x-axis from numerical incomes to income categories.)

Or, to put it another way, the red-state/blue-state divide is happening among the rich (actually, the upper middle class, since surveys don't tell us much about the truly rich) more than the poor.

The next step is to look at the states one by one. First, I'll compress each state to a single number, defined as the difference between McCain's vote share among Americans with incomes over $75,000, minus his vote share among those with incomes below $40,000. (I think these represent family incomes, and I choose these particular cutpoints so as to get approximately a third of survey respondents in each category.)

Here are the raw data, for stability restricting ourselves to the 38 states for which the sample size was at least 200 in the Pew surveys:

As before, the difference between rich and poor is largest within poorer, more Republican states. (Patterns from exit polls are similar but not identical; for these purposes, I prefer the Pew polls because they were less of a rush job and had more time to try to get a representative sample.)

Whites and blacks

But . . . is this all simply explained by race? In poor states such as Mississippi, low-income voters are likely to be African-American, and so the rich-poor divide is also a white-black divide. In rich states such as Connecticut, not so much.

We can check easily by restricting ourselves to the 76% of survey respondents who declare themselves white (and not Hispanic):

Individual states have moved--see Misssippi--but the overall pattern remains.

What's the matter with Connecticut?

The dramatic graph that got us started was the "superplot" of voting vs. income in the poorest state (Mississsippi), a middle-income state (Ohio), and the richest state (Connecticut). We can estimate the pattern of income and voting within each of these states using multilevel modeling, and here is the result:

(You don't want to know the effort that went into making this graph. I started by setting up a model for vote given state and income, then I shifted each state to correct for differences between the poll-based estimate and the actual election outcome in each state.)

Summary--so far

I was all prepared to find big changes since 2004--but the detailed analysis of income and voting appears to show that the differences between rich and poor in different states are about the same as before. Obama's victory represented a national partisan swing rather than a redrawing of the electoral map.

Here are the time trends.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/02/rich-and-poor-still-vote-differently-in.ht
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Rich and Poor Still Vote Differently in Red and
Blue States

post from FiveThirtyEight.com: Politics Done Right on 23 February 2009 10:58:00 PM. © FiveThirtyEight.com: Politics Done Right

In Red State, Blue State, we talked about how, in recent years, the Democrats have been winning the rich states, even while richer voters lean Republican.

What happened in 2008? Exit polls were made available immediately--as of election night. The next step is to go to individual-level data, which we recently obtained from the Pew Research Foundation's pre-election polls.

Here's the income and voting pattern at the national level:

Republicans did better among upper-income voters--except possibly for the over-200,000's. (The highest income category from the Pew surveys is "$150,000+", so we can't do a direct comparison at the top.)

Red and blue states

Now let's look at red, blue, and purple states (which we define, following our book, as those states where George W. Bush won by more than 10 points in both his campaigns, those where he lost by more than 10 points both time, and the states in between):

As in previous elections, income predicts Republican vote more strongly in red than in blue states. (For this and following graphs, I'm switching the x-axis from numerical incomes to income categories.)

Or, to put it another way, the red-state/blue-state divide is happening among the rich (actually, the upper middle class, since surveys don't tell us much about the truly rich) more than the poor.

The next step is to look at the states one by one. First, I'll compress each state to a single number, defined as the difference between McCain's vote share among Americans with incomes over $75,000, minus his vote share among those with incomes below $40,000. (I think these represent family incomes, and I choose these particular cutpoints so as to get approximately a third of survey respondents in each category.)

Here are the raw data, for stability restricting ourselves to the 38 states for which the sample size was at least 200 in the Pew surveys:

As before, the difference between rich and poor is largest within poorer, more Republican states. (Patterns from exit polls are similar but not identical; for these purposes, I prefer the Pew polls because they were less of a rush job and had more time to try to get a representative sample.)

Whites and blacks

But . . . is this all simply explained by race? In poor states such as Mississippi, low-income voters are likely to be African-American, and so the rich-poor divide is also a white-black divide. In rich states such as Connecticut, not so much.

We can check easily by restricting ourselves to the 76% of survey respondents who declare themselves white (and not Hispanic):

Individual states have moved--see Misssippi--but the overall pattern remains.

What's the matter with Connecticut?

The dramatic graph that got us started was the "superplot" of voting vs. income in the poorest state (Mississsippi), a middle-income state (Ohio), and the richest state (Connecticut). We can estimate the pattern of income and voting within each of these states using multilevel modeling, and here is the result:

(You don't want to know the effort that went into making this graph. I started by setting up a model for vote given state and income, then I shifted each state to correct for differences between the poll-based estimate and the actual election outcome in each state.)

Summary--so far

I was all prepared to find big changes since 2004--but the detailed analysis of income and voting appears to show that the differences between rich and poor in different states are about the same as before. Obama's victory represented a national partisan swing rather than a redrawing of the electoral map.

Here are the time trends.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/02/rich-and-poor-still-vote-differently-in.ht
ml

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Bully Pulpit Performance

post from TaylorMarsh.com on 23 February 2009 10:56:00 PM. © TaylorMarsh.com

I doubt anyone has ever seen anything like it.

President Obama beginning by calling on his former adversary John McCain, asking him and the rest of his audience what they had to say about the “financial responsibility summit.” One by one they stood as Obama fielded their questions and comments, his political glibness on parade as he commanded the room, the subject, as well as illustrating his tour de force powers of political adeptness. This is how you work the bully pulpit.

Dana Milbank, the reporter who got banned from Keith’s show after criticizing Obama before he was elected, doesn’t quite know what to make of it all as he chronicles the performance. The banter complete with one liners and laughter.

“Your helicopter is now going to cost as much as Air Force One,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) chided.

“The helicopter I have now seems perfectly adequate to me,” Obama answered, to laughter. “Of course, I’ve never had a helicopter before.”

Insert chuckles here.

In essence, the executive in the big White House handled the legislative branch, every one of them. They didn’t have a chance, though they were given their turn.

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas): ?I want to commend the Obama administration for starting this process.? … ?It is important to do these programs. It is easy to ignore us. It is easy to go past us and then deal with Senate. If you are looking for an open and fair process in both bodies the Republicans in the House will participate if we are included form the beginning.? … If the proposal is ?market-based and not government dominated, you will get a lot of Republican support.?

McCain campaign’s former economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin: ?This is a very important day. I think the most important issue is to identify your problems correctly.?

Ron Pollack, Families USA: ?I want to express my gratitude both for this wonderful summit and the downpayments you already made.?

The pool report of the break out sessions are stunning to read. It was the Obama show. What will critics do? Today Chris Matthews tried to make news on “Hardball” by talking about Obama’s negatives rising; from around 12 points to 20 something, while his positives are off the chart. His heart wasn’t in it.

With performances like these President Obama doesn’t have to do anything but offer even more face time. He’s killing everyone with kindness and charm. Tomorrow he’s invited the “Morning Joe” crew to the White House. He’s playing everyone and having fun doing it. If this keeps up will anyone be able to touch him, even if he decides to take on Social Security? Obama will simply make it sound like a responsible move in these dire times and everyone will nod and go along. Of course, no one is saying that’s what is going to happen, but I’d feel a lot better if Robert Gibbs would make a declarative statement about it. No one in the Administration has yet. Yet.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.taylormarsh.com/2009/02/23/bully-pulpit-performance/

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"Dear President Obama": The President Reads 10
Letters a Day from ... (Stephen Splane/Political Punch)

post from memeorandum on 23 February 2009 10:55:06 PM. © memeorandum

Stephen Splane / Political Punch:
“Dear President Obama”: The President Reads 10 Letters a Day from the Public, With Policy Ramifications — The letter to President Obama came from a woman in Arizona whose husband lost his job. He was able to find work, but the new gig came with one-third the pay; the family is struggling to make their mortgage payments.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.memeorandum.com/090223/p138#a090223p138

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Race and Patriotism.

post from Verbal Paintball on 23 February 2009 10:52:22 PM. © Verbal Paintball

When I was in 6th grade it was 1976 - year of the Bicentennial.Like many elementary schools at the time, mine had a pageant. Every class was assigned a different creative performance project to celebrate the event, all of which were to be enacted throughout the school for our parent’s pleasure. My teachers planned to [...]

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http://www.verbalpaintball.com/2009/02/24/race-and-patriotism/

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Poll: Most Americans Back Obama on Stimulus,
Mortgage Plans (Washington Post)

post from memeorandum on 23 February 2009 10:45:00 PM. © memeorandum

Washington Post:
Poll: Most Americans Back Obama on Stimulus, Mortgage Plans — Bipartisan Support Drops Significantly as More Republicans Disapprove of How President Is Handling Job — As President Obama prepares to address a joint session of Congress tomorrow night, he receives strong grades …

Read The Full Article:
http://www.memeorandum.com/090223/p132#a090223p132

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Dangerous Brew

post from Talking Points Memo on 23 February 2009 10:41:00 PM. © Talking Points Memo

That's what happens when you mix poll numbers from Rasmussen and whackadoodle editorializing from The Politico. If you go to the front page right now you'll see this splash headline for an article which argues that Obama has his work cut out for him[...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Talking-Points-Memo/~3/bXlm4cDpbBw/dangerous_brew.
php

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Iraq TV Mon: Stepping Away From Trouble

After charges were made against MP Mohammed al-Daini for involvement in kidnappings, killings, and even the 2007 parliament bombing, everyone seems to want to stay clear of any association with him, even those in his own party.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/7242

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Franken-Coleman Update, 02/23/09: A Few Loose
Ends

While the Coleman contest trial winds down to the nitty-gritty, and Coleman's chances get ever slimmer even as the universe of rejected absentee ballots to be counted shows signs of tipping in Franken's favor[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/02/23/franken-coleman-update-022309-a-fe
w-loose-ends/

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British New Labour is on life support

post from AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth on 23 February 2009 10:29:00 PM. © AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth

Who would have guessed that it's a Labour Party minister scaring the postal union into accepting full privatization or else they lose everything? From the conservatives, of course, but from the left? Peter Mandelson is the minister who lost his temper because the Starbucks CEO properly recognized that Europe is in trouble and the UK is the worst off of the bunch. Privatization of trains and the subway in the UK has been a failure - unless you like high prices and shoddy service - so it's a mystery why anyone wants to promote even more of it. It's also interesting to see that banks are going in the opposite direction under New Labour.

Now more than ever, why are so many on the left running from being considered a leftist? The right wing ideology is failing on a grand scale, so if anything, it's the right that ought to be running.

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Americablog/~3/3z-OhC1f0Tg/british-new-labour-is-o
n-life-support.html