By Kent R. Kroeger (Source: NuQum.com, August 23, 2017)

{ Feel free to send any comments about this essay to: admin@nuqum.com or kentkroeger3@gmail.com}

We often fail to see what we don’t expect to see. This is one of experimental psychology’s most durable research findings and the phenomenon has been given a name: inattentional blindness.

It is one reason patients should always get more than one physician to read their x-ray results. It is hard to find something you aren’t looking for.

This bias is displayed in a recent political essay by Eric Levitz for New York Magazine who concludes, after citing a wide range of political science research, that the “Democrats can abandon the center — because the center doesn’t exist.”

It’s a bold statement — and not without some merit — but it has one serious problem:  It is not supported by any empirical data, including the data he references.

THERE IS A POLITICAL CENTER-OF-GRAVITY, IF YOU LOOK FOR IT

Relying heavily on Dr. Lee Drutman’s analysis of the The Voter Study Group‘s recent 2016 post-election survey (fielded by YouGov.com), Levitz concludes it would be a strategic mistake for the Democrats’ party to move to the center in an attempt to regain the white, working-class voters (“populists”) purportedly responsible for Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the 2016 presidential election.

Levitz’ conclusion receives apparent visual support from one of Drutman’s graphs showing how 2016 voters spatially clustered along two dimensions: economics and social/identity issues:

Graphic Source: Lee Drutman (www.voterstudygroup.org)

In this graph, Clinton voters (in blue) are clumped almost exclusively in the bottom left quadrant (economic and social/identity liberals), while Republicans are divided between economic and social/identity conservatives and populists (economic liberals and social/identify conservatives).

Drutman’s interpretation of the above scatterplot is that the percentage of voters holding “centrist” views — right-of-center views on economic matters and left-of center views on “identity” issues — amounts to only 3.8 percent of the electorate. “Populists” — defined by their left-of-center views on economic matters and right-of-center opinions on “identity” issues — account for about 29 percent of the electorate, according to Drutman.

Though I strongly disagree with Drutman’s two-dimensional method for defining the political ideological groups, even his atheoretical, blunt force categorizations show one-third of the American electorate (in presidential elections, at least) are inadequately represented by the ideological purists from both parties. This hardly supports Levitz’ argument about a non-existent center.

Given his skepticism about the political center, Levitz says the Democrats can afford the risks associated with moving leftward. His prima facia support for this advice derives in part from Drutman’s finding that  45 percent of the electorate are “liberals” (compared to only 23 percent that are “conservatives”). If “liberals’ are both ideologically homogeneous and numerous, by extension, says Levitz, there is little electoral value in appealing to a small (possibly fictional) number of “moderate” swing voters. The Democrats simply need to get their supporters out to vote to win elections, according to Levitz. Furthermore argues Levitz, citing research by political scientists such as Gabriel Lenz, voters are so poorly-informed and inconsistent on policy issues that making intellectual appeals to them based on “centrist” policies will likely fall on deaf ears.

Levitz writes: “If swing voters aren’t actually ideological moderates, but relatively uninformed citizens who switch allegiances on the basis of identity appeals, economic conditions, and/or candidate charisma — while partisans take their policy positions from party leaders — then there’s little reason to believe that Democrats would inevitably lose votes by endorsing Medicare for All instead of the Affordable Care Act; free public college instead of tuition subsidies; or a federal job guarantee instead of infrastructure spending.”

The arrogance displayed in Levitz’ quote helps explain why Democrats continue to lose most elections in this country. When you view half of the voting population as essentially morons, needless to say, you tend not to get their support on election day. Mitt Romney’s writing off of ’47 percent’ of voters in 2012 didn’t work well; it won’t work any better for the Democrats.

Romney’s ’47 percent’ gaffe notwithstanding, Republicans tend to portray partisan Democrats as “hopeless idealists,” “elitists,” or, more recently, “globalists.” Those are attributes some people wear with pride. However, calling voters “uninformed”  (which Democrats use euphemistically for “moron,” idiot,” “inbreed,” or “probably a neo-Nazi racist”) does not make Democrats’ outreach to swing voters any easier.

To Levitz’ credit, he draws in a broad range of political science research to support — and sometimes even challenge — his primary thesis. An example of the latter is his acknowledgement that many voters can be mobilized to vote against candidates they perceive as ideologically extreme. Political writer Dan McGee lists this phenomena as the fifth commandment for elections in the age of hyper-partisanship.

At a minimum, adopting policy stances attractive to the Democratic Party’s activists, such as endorsing Medicare for All, free public college, and federal job guarantees, invites the GOP to frame the election as one between fiscally-conservative Americans versus Democratic extremists. At worst, it can lead to an electoral meltdown for the ‘extremist’ side (think 1964 — LBJ-Goldwater).

Levitz’ confidence that the majority of Americans support the progressive agenda — and that is questionable — assumes the GOP has no degrees of freedom left to respond to the Democrats’ move leftward. If the Drutman scatterplot tell us anything it is that the Republicans attract voters across a broader range of opinions, beliefs and attitudes.

Elections are a complex balancing act, particularly at the presidential level. Ideologically distinctive politicians risk being labeled an ‘extremist” or “out-of-touch” or a “pawn of special interests.” Take your pick. Yet, diving to the center on the important issues is not a proven strategy either. Recent European voter research by Stanford researcher Toni Rodon  shows that the “political middle is less likely to vote when parties do not distinguish themselves ideologically.” Ronald Reagan and his pollster, Richard Wirthlin, realized this relationship in the mid-70s when Reagan gave his famous “bold colors, no pale pastels” speech.

The Democrats can’t build market share by watering down its ideas or mission. Reagan and Wirthlin knew that party-building is akin to brand-building. Distinctive brands that differentiate themselves from the competition on the important dimensions can become strong, growing brands. But the Democrats can’t build a strong brand through excessive narrowcasting either. It may promote loyalty among its strongest partisans, but always risks alienating its marginal supporters. And, contrary to Levitz’ interpretation of the data, there are plenty of marginal Democratic voters.

From a strategic branding point-of-view, the conclusion from Drutman’s work should have been that there is more attitudinal diversity within Republican voters than within Democratic voters. F.H. Buckley has a much better perspective than Levitz on how to read Drutman’s analysis of the Voter Study Group survey.

“Most (Trump) voters, they’re not right-wing crazies…they’re middle of the road types. but solidly patriotic Americans…and that’s the sort of thing that the liberal Democrats simply haven’t gotten,”  Buckley said in a recent interview with the editors of American Greatness. “Unless you sign onto all of their (Democratic) issues, their social agenda, you’re going to be excluded.”

If that is true (and our the 2016 American National Election Study [ANES] analysis supports that conclusion as well), without a major brand re-imaging effort, its the Democrats that may be approaching maximum market share, not the Republicans.

IF AMERICA IS SO LIBERAL-MINDED, WHY DO DEMOCRATS LOSE SO MANY ELECTIONS? BAD BRANDING & STRATEGY

The basic insight from game theory’s Nash Equilibrium is that, in a multi-player game, one single player cannot predict a game’s outcome without taking into account the decision-making calculus of every other player in the game., who must also take into account every other player’s decision calculus.

This game theory result may sound like common sense, but most political analysts (including Levitz and Drutman) don’t seem to understand how to incorporate this maxim into practice. In concrete terms, it means any strategic analysis about what the Democrats should do in 2018 (and beyond) must also consider how the Republicans must move forward and how that decision could, in turn, impact the Democrats’ strategy. The Nash Equilibrium reminds us that strategy-building is iterative (but not endless). At some point, every player can estimate his or her optimal strategy — until some exogenous event (e.g., the economy) changes the conditions of the game.

The rigor Levitz and Drutman apply to determining the best policy strategy for the Democrats moving forward should have also been applied to the question, “If Democrats move farther to the Left, what do the Republicans need to do in response?” That answer most likely changes the Democrats’ original strategy decision.

Any claims of knowing the definitive answer as to what one political player should do to win elections is fanciful dream weaving unless it includes the same attention to the other political player’s strategy. If American electoral history tells us anything, its that one party will never be far outside the reach of the other.

Which makes the Democrats’ current nadir in representation within our nation’s political institutions even more puzzling. What is causing this secular decline?

Is it the (arguably) increasing polarization of American voters? If so, how does moving even farther to left change things in the Democrats’ favor? Increasing polarization could just as easily form the strategic basis for a “move-back-to-the-center” movement (see Pew Research graphic below).

As the Pew Research data shows, even in a polarized electorate (2014), there are plenty of Republicans in the left-tail of its voter distribution (and likewise for the Democrats in the right-tail of their distribution). A minor shift in support from voters in those two tails changes electoral outcomes.

(In the context of corporate brand-building, I highly recommend Jan Hofmeyr and Butch Rice’s book, Commitment-Led Marketing, which combines chaos theory with religious conversion research to help companies build effective branding strategies for market share and customer loyalty growth).

The increasing structural disadvantages the Democrats face must also be considered when building strategy. Incumbency advantages, geographic clustering of Democratic voters, gerrymandering, and voter suppression laws all work against the Democrats from winning elections.

An Associated Press analysis estimates that the Republicans benefit from an efficiency gap of nearly 3 percent in U.S. House races, “allowing them to win three more seats than they would have expected to win given their share of statewide votes.” Its not a large advantage considering NuQum.com currently estimates the GOP will lose around 30 U.S. House seats in 2018 given current Trump approval levels and state of the economy — more than enough for the Democrats to re-take control of the U.S. House.

Structural disadvantages, while real, don’t seem large enough however to fully account for why the number of elected Republicans is at or near historical highs. At some point, Democrats need to consider their ‘brand’ as part of the problem. And not just so we can hear the ‘we need to sell ourselves better’ trope.

It’s not just how Democrats are selling the brand, its what the brand stands for that may inhibiting the party’s success.

To argue that we live in a left-leaning country and progressive policy ideas are better anyway, as Levitz does, fails to address why only about a quarter of Americans are willing to call themselves ‘liberal.’ Even if self-reported ideology is a not a powerful variable in vote prediction models, it does reflect an ongoing reality in this country that the word ‘liberal’ remains a dirty word.

Forgive me, but suggesting the Democrats can address that problem by becoming even more liberal fails the smell test.

Which brings us back to this essay’s original question. Are analytic partisans like Levitz and Drutman deceiving themselves into thinking the political center is a fiction and therefore is of little target value?

The answer, I believe, is an emphatic, yes, and I lay the blame on analyses like Drutman’s on the YouGov-administered survey for the Voter Study Group.

This is not a criticism of YouGov‘s methods*, survey research in general, quasi-experimental designs, cross-sectional samples or of statistical techniques such as principal component analysis. This problem is much deeper, more pervasive, and infinitely harder to address than any of those methodological issues. The problem is rooted in an institutional legacy of bias among researchers (e.g.,  confirmation bias, inattentional blindness, etc.) that has driven the social science research agenda since the 1960s. I would even suggest that Democrats and liberals have a psychological need to believe the world thinks like they do and is therefore safe.

(* A brief discussion at the end of this essay covers some of YouGov’s methodological issues)

That is why research like Drutman’s is so comforting to the Left. It confirms their view of the world. Unfortunately, Drutman’s analysis of  The Voter Study Group (YouGov) survey confuses the statistical artifacts of his analytic choices for the real world. And while it may confirm the progressive Left’s worldview, it encourages biased conclusions and actually trammels their long-term electoral prospects.

It is therefore worth a brief discussion of the serious flaws in Drutman’s work.

DRUTMAN”S RESULTS ARE ARTIFACTS OF HIS METHODOLOGY

(1) Post-election surveys make better mirrors than crystal balls

Post-election surveys typically ask respondents about the issues prevalent in the previous election. It shouldn’t surprise anyone, therefore, when this research finds that American voters are well-differentiated when collectively summarizing their survey responses. Levitz, himself, mentions the research explaining how elections serve as cues to help voters align their party and candidate preferences with their issues stances.

“Most voters develop a preference for one of the major parties — typically, on the basis of the historic allegiances of their family, region, economic class, racial group, or religious community — and then take their ideological cues from their party’s leaders (when they don’t ignore the details of policy altogether), writes Levitz.

Scratch the surface of voters’ increasingly polarized issue positions, such as changing how an issue is framed, and you find their views are far from immutable. Levitz provides excellent examples of how issue framing  can dramatically change apparent policy preferences.

When voters respond to survey’s like The Voter Study Group’s, they are partly reflecting back on how issues and candidates were framed in the most recent election. A new election with new candidates and issues and you may get different responses.

There is no better example of this process than how attitudes on American trade agreements shifted between the 2008 and 2016 presidential elections. In 2009, 57 percent of Republicans thought free trade agreements were a “good thing.” After the 2016 election, only 32 percent had the same opinion. While this is not a direct measure individual-level opinion change, that magnitude of change is too large to be solely the function of different Republican voting populations.

That is not to say voters don’t genuinely hold those beliefs. It is saying those survey-reported attitudes and beliefs are endogenous to the system itself and cannot be understood solely as independent factors in election outcomes. Change the election, candidates, issues, and frames and you can get different attitudes and beliefs.

(2) Political ideology is a multi-dimensional construct

Political scientists eschew respondents’ self-reported political ideology and instead  recommend measuring it based on respondents’ views on specific issues within two dimensions: social and economic. Social issues typically concern attitudes on such things as LGBTQ rights, abortion and the role of government in relieving social problems. The second dimension, economic issues, concerns such things as taxes, economic regulation and the distribution of income and wealth.

The problem with viewing political ideology as a two-dimensional construct, as Drutman’s analysis of the Voter Study Group/ YouGov data does, is that political ideology is a multi-dimensional construct. Drutman himself recognizes this fact.

“We should view politics across multiple issue dimensions,” writes Drutman. “Rather than simply describing political alignments in terms of “left” and “right,” I argue that we should understand that voters are not ideologically coherent (in that they endorse the party line across most issues), but instead have different mixes of left and right views across different issues.”

So why then does Drutman present something that is  multidimensional as a two-dimensional phenomenon? Like most data analysts (myself included), analytic choices are often driven by a need to simplify the graphical presentation of complicated data relationships.

Take a closer look at Drutman’s scatterplot of 2016 voters. It is a two-dimensional plot — which if we added a third dimension (national security issues, perhaps?) the dots would need to move off the page, some more than others. In other words, it is likely that the apparent clumping of Clinton voters in the lower left-hand quadrant might be exaggerated by the two-dimensional plot.

It most certainly is exaggerated.

There is significant opinion diversity within Clinton voters. NuQum.com’s own analysis of the 2016 vote using data from the 2016 American National Election Study (ANES) shows Clinton’s support base draws from three major ideological clusters (Liberals, Center-Left, and Centrists).

A strategic Republican Party, if it still exists, will exploit this opinion diversity within the Democrats. While the emerging, near-permanent Democratic-majority-thesis was always an inappropriate interpretation of the political impact of U.S. demographic trends, it does demonstrate how difficult it will be for the Republicans to win elections with their 2016 electoral coalition. The demographic numbers don’t work for the GOP. Trump’s 2016 coalition will not be enough in 2020. {The Atlantic’s Ronald Brownstein offers an excellent summary of the demographic trends for both parties)

The Republicans will need to expand their base into identify groups they don’t currently perform well in. Upward economic mobility will help (particularly among Hispanics), but if I were a Republican, I would be very, VERY nervous about 2018 and 2020.

But this essay is about helping the Republicans. Its about the Democrats who, I fear, have chanted themselves into a collective stupor that assumes Trump will be forced from office, they will re-take the U.S. House in 2018, and a Democrat (probably Kamala Harris) will be elected president in 2020. The first prediction won’t happen…the second prediction has a better than even chance…and we just don’t have enough information to say anything meaningful about 2020.

Essays like Levitz’s relying heavily on research like Drutman’s don’t help the Democrats. It keeps them over-confident and arrogant.

(3) Absolute versus Relative Measures — You Don’t Have to Choose

There are many ways to transform and manipulate data so that it can be effectively analyzed. Drutman made some important decisions in analyzing the Voter Study Group survey.

“The measures here are’absolute’ measures as opposed to ‘relative,” writes Drutman. “I took the responses to the VOTER Survey questions as given, rather than rescaling the indexes to set the median score at zero.”

Drutman’s “absolutist” choice has clear advantages. For one, It makes his results easier to interpret. When “-1″ means support for a liberal policy and ‘1” means support for a conservative approach (and zero, of course, is neutral or unsure), that is easy for readers to digest. Secondly, it simplifies comparing public opinion over time on specific issues (or issue dimensions) over time.

Unfortunately, his decision also as serious ramifications, as acknowledged by Drutman himself when he states, “While (the relativist) transformation would have made for a more symmetrical presentation, it ignores the fact that Americans may hold left-of-center views on some issues and right-of-center views on other issues.”

Well, actually, he is wrong on that last point. The “relativist” approach doesn’t ignore that Americans can hold both left-of-center and right-of-center opinions. It does the opposite. It forces all issues onto a left-right continuum.

Look one more time at Drutman’s scatterplot above that uses the “absolutist” approach. Without needing Drutman’s original data, it is possible to imagine how the “relativist” approach would have changed this scatterplot. It would have simply centered the dots in the chart.

The “relativist” approach is answering a slightly different question than the “absolutist” approach. Where the “absolutist” asks where American voters fit along a pre-determined scale, the “relativist” asks where American voters fit relative to each other.

In my opinion, the “relativist’ approach is more appropriate for strategy-building because it allows every item to be assessed on a level playing field.

From Drutman’s summary of the Voter Study Group survey, the chart below shows the mean values among Clinton and Trump voters for each of the derived issues dimensions within the survey. Two of the dimensions (“Perception that people like me are in decline” and “Pride in America”) are particularly interesting in that the group means are all above zero — implying both Clinton and Trump voters hold traditionally conservative opinions on these two dimensions.

Graphic Source: Lee Drutman (www.voterstudygroup.org)

Drutman’s interpretation of this data feature is especially telling about his own ideological predispositions:

“Trump supporters tend to have more pride in America than Clinton supporters do, and they are more likely to think that their group is in decline. However, these divides are not as significant as many media narratives portrayed them to be.”

Really? Does Drutman actually demonstrate — statistically — that the “Pride in America” gap is more or less significant than the gaps for the other issue dimensions? It may be true, but you can’t judge Drutman’s assertion based solely on the “absolute” scale values for the two voter groups. It is entirely possible small “absolute” differences can have large effect sizes compared to other items with larger “absolute” differences.

Indeed, it has been well established within the social sciences that effect sizes are not necessarily determined by “absolute” scale differences. They may be correlated — but it is not a deterministic relationship.Sometimes small absolute differences  on survey scales can have dramatic effect sizes on dependent variables (i.e., presidential vote choice).

Drutman’s “Pride in America” dimension is a good example. It is stunning (to me) that almost half of Clinton’s voters are closer to the neutral response than the far right-end of the response scale on items such as: “I would rather be a citizen of America than any other country in the world.” Predictably, Trump voters are more likely to be close to the extreme right position. That is potentially a Pacific Ocean amount of difference between Clinton and Trump voters — even if, on an absolute scale, this difference is much less than the absolute differences on other issue dimensions.

It is very likely that a heavy dose of the social desirability bias is contaminating the “Pride in America” questions, such that, Democrats/Liberals are systematically pulled to the right-end of the survey item scale, irrespective of their true beliefs. That, of course, is merely an assertion on my part; but, my experience on surevy issues like this give me confidence that this survey’s ‘patriotism’ questions are soaked in response bias.

If Drutman’s goal is simply to describe differences in opinions within the 2016 presidential election, “absolute” differences are fine — even preferred — as they are more interpretable for readers. But others, such as Levitz, use this descriptive-level information for strategic assessments and Drutman simply doesn’t provide the kind of evidence needed to make those sorts of judgments.

Drutman’s blanket decision to use the “absolutist” approach  should have been based on the empirical evidence on an issue-by-issue basis. On some issues, the ‘relativist” approach provides no new information and the simpler “absolutist” scale might be preferable. On other issues, such as ‘patriotism,’ it is probably a mistake to use an “absolutist” approach. It potentially buries the true ideological nature of voters’ opinions on such issues.

That is why I often use both ‘relativist’ and ‘absolutist’ approaches when analyzing survey data and make the specific choices (such as in respondent clustering or regression modeling) based on the analytic intent and empirical evidence.

By choosing one exclusively over the other, Drutman has tuned a blind eye to significant ideological diversity within 2016 American presidential voters.

So, with these major reservations about the Levitz and Drutman analyses on the record, what next? If Levitz has, in fact, misinterpreted the Drutman analysis, what should the Democrats do to prepare for the elections in 2018 and 2020? Move to the center? Move to the Left? Don’t move at all? Play it by ear? Make it up as you go along?

We invite you to peruse our analyses of the 2016 ANES data (here, here, and here) which include strategic recommendations for the Democrats. In the meantime, here are two broad stroke ideas the Democrats might want to consider.

THE DEMOCRATS NEED TO THINK THEY ARE PLAYING FROM BEHIND, EVEN IF THEY AREN’T (…THOUGH THEY ACTUALLY ARE)

Long-time White House correspondent Sarah McClendon, who covered Washington politics from Truman to Clinton, was once asked why she thought Republicans were more difficult than Democrats to interview. Her answer then, in 1996, rings even truer today: “They have an inferiority complex.”

She believed Republicans, by doctrine, put less value on government which, in turn, makes them less knowledgeable and defensive when confronted on its complexities. But others have suggested something much deeper in the Republican’s permanent siege mentality that prompts them to believe their party is in a continuous uphill battle to win the hearts and minds of American voters.

“Democrats remain relatively unexposed to (media) messages that encourage ideological self-identification or describe political conflict as reflecting the clash of two incompatible value systems (think Fox News),” political scientists Matt Grossmann and Dave Hopkins write. “Instead, the information environment in which they reside claims to prize objectivity, empiricism, and policy expertise.”

While their chronic insecurity does not work well for them when they are the governing majority (as they are now), it makes Republicans a more formidable foe during elections. Iowa State Senator Jeff Danielson, a centrist Democrat representing a Republican-leaning district, once told me the secret to being a successful political candidate is to always believe you are behind.

In the case of the Democratic collective, it shouldn’t be hard to convince them that they too are behind. But it seems to be. So let me re-share one of our findings from the 2016 ANES. Only 14 percent of the American electorate is consistently “liberal” (“Left” is our label preference) in their policy attitudes. A similar percentage are traditional “conservatives” (or the “Right” as we call them). Overall, the U.S. voting population is evenly split between left-leaning and right-leaning voters.

Graphic Source: NuQum.com

There is nothing in the Drutman/YouGov data that contradicts our findings from the 2016 ANES. In fact, we think our results match up nicely, even though we opted for the “relativist” approach in clustering voters and building the issue dimensions. If our results did differ substantively from Drutman’s, we would be the first to question our analytic decisions.

DATA-FOR-STRATEGY: THE DEMOCRATS NEED BETTER, MORE OBJECTIVE DATA ANALYSIS, NOT MORE DATA

While on the subject of data analysis, the Democrats need to fully assess what went wrong with their 2016 analytics. Democrats, don’t tell us the analytics weren’t part of the problem when your own presidential candidate called them out (Here is a video of Hillary Clinton lashing out at the Democratic National Committee’s data program).

In the information age, data goes hand-in-hand with campaign strategy, operations, and tactics. Though collecting data-for-strategy is hard, the rules guiding such collection are simple. Data-for-strategy need to be reliable, accurate, and systematically related to organizational outcomes.

Effective strategy-building especially requires comprehensive, theory-based data collection. I will forgive anyone who rolls their eyes at the sound of “Balanced Scorecard” or “Lean Six Sigma.” Those are the Harvard MBA-bastardizations of the theoretically well-grounded work of W. Edwards Deming and others. But Democrats need to take Deming’s core lessons to heart. Measure what theory and experiences tells you to measure. Measure it often. Measure it well and in different ways. Determine what you can and cannot control. Act on what you learn. And then repeat the whole process.

It is not surprising, given data-for-strategy‘s business origins, that initially it was the Republicans, under the guidance of Reagan’s pollster Richard Wirthlin, that best exploited data for electoral purposes.

However, since the Bill Clinton presidency, the Democrats are arguably the dominant party in the employment of data analytics. The George W Bush 2004 presidential campaign may have pioneered the use of big data operations, but it was the 2008 and 2012 Obama campaigns that took it to its highest practical levels.

The problem for the Democrats has been that the Trump campaign (through Jared Kushner’s efforts) matched the Democrats in the utilization of big data but didn’t disregard other old school data collection efforts (surveys, focus groups, etc.). Hillary Clinton did (thanks largely to her big data apostle, Robbie Mook) and it contributed significantly to her defeats in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Mook let the expense of a few five-digit-dollar-cost surveys compromise the success of a one-and-half billion dollar campaign.

Another problem with big data analytics (for both parties) is that it relies on kitchen-sink predictive models at the neglect of theory-based model-building. Such models, that include nearly every variable available (web usage and online purchasing databases are flush with variables — not necessarily useful ones, however), are prone to modeling random error and are susceptible to large predictive errors, especially when making predictions over long time horizons.

Good data is critical to strategy-building and diversity in its collection is critical. There are no shortcuts and big data without theory is little better than instinct. It may even be worse. Ask Robbie Mook.

More importantly, analytics like Drutman’s are too blunt and time-specific to provide information close to what is needed for effective strategy-building. It may be that the Democrats can afford to move more decisively in the progressive direction in 2018 and 2020. Levitz’ discussion on the economic rationale of Medicare-for-All, free public college tuition and guaranteed employment is far more useful in that effort than his interpretations of Drutman’s and others’ survey results.

Drutman’s conclusions (and by extension, Levitz’) describe well the 2016 election. Unfortunately, they provide little pertinent information to build the Democrats’ strategic plan for the 2018 or 2020 election.

 

About the author:  Kent Kroeger is a writer and statistical consultant with over 30 -years experience measuring and analyzing public opinion for public and private sector clients. He also spent ten years working for the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and the Defense Intelligence Agency. He holds a B.S. degree in Journalism/Political Science from The University of Iowa, and an M.A. in Quantitative Methods from Columbia University (New York, NY).  He lives in Ewing, New Jersey with his wife and son.

 

A BRIEF NOTE ON YOUGOV’s SURVEY METHODOLOGY

YouGov’s “The View of the Electorate (VOTER) Survey” is an internet-administered survey of 8,000 adults (age 18+) completed between November 29 and December 29, 2016. YouGov uses a non-probability sample frame for drawing samples and excludes U.S. adults without reliable internet access. According to Pew Research, 13 percent of U.S. adults lack internet access as of late 2016.  It was also found that U.S. adults lacking internet access are more likely to be older, less educated and living in rural areas compared to other U.S. adults. It is a fair assumption that they are more likely to be Republican and/or politically conservative.

To mitigate any sampling and nonresponse bias, YouGov employs an elaborate sampling and weighting methodology. A more complete description of the YouGov panel methodology is available here. It should also be noted that the YouGov internet panel has been deemed by Pew Research as more accurate and reliable than other internet-based surveys and last year fivethirtyeight.com gave the YouGov presidential polls a grade of ‘B,’ noting that its polls tended to have a mean-inverted bias of 1.6 percent in favor of Democrats. That is a relatively small bias.

By Kent R. Kroeger (Source: NuQum.com, July 31, 2017)

With the Trump administration’s July 18th announcement that it was ending the CIA program to arm anti-Assad Syrian rebels, an on-going battle within the Democratic Party emerged once again.

In a normal presidency, the Democrats might trumpet the fact that one of their own, Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, was the leading advocate to shut down the CIA program just cancelled by the Trump administration.

These aren’t normal times.

Let us step back a few months for some background on how disoriented the Democratic Party has become since the November 2016 election.

Even in the savage world of D.C. politics, it is unusual for a national party leader to call for the defeat of a fellow party member who is not only popular in her home district but also votes with her party leadership most of the time.

Yet, that is exactly what former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman Howard Dean did last April on MSNBC when he issued a Democratic Party fatwa against congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI). His kooky tirade (which comedian Jimmy Dore beautifully dissects here) was a response to her supposition that the Trump administration’s attack on Syria was based on incomplete evidence (Her discussion of the U.S. retaliation with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer is here).

What was her thought crime that launched the former Vermont governor into a whirling dervish of righteous disgust? In criticizing the Trump administration’s retaliatory strike against Syria for its then alleged use of chemical weapons on April 4, 2017 against civilians in Khan Shaykhun, Gabbard suggested the U.S. should have waited for the United Nations to complete its investigation into the chemical weapons attack before launching its own attack on April 7th.

Princeton political scientist Stephen Cohen points out that prior U.S. military actions — like the one on April 7th — typically followed a U.N. or international community investigation. Without it, the U.S. risked an even more dangerous confrontation with Russia.

“I think this is the most dangerous moment in American-Russian relations, at least since the Cuban missile crisis,” said Cohen during an interview with Democracy Now!‘s Amy Goodman. “And arguably, it’s more dangerous.”

Try to understand how upside down this all is:  Uber-Democrat, Howard Dean, sided with Donald Trump over Tulsi Gabbard over a U.S. cruise missile attack against a Syrian airbase that, even by U.S. military accounts, did only superficial damage and was effective mainly as a message to Assad to stop using chemical weapons against his own people.

Let that ferment in your mind in for a moment. A Democrat attacked a Democrat for criticizing a Republican president — despised my most Democrats — for a potentially unwarranted and possibly illegal military strike against another country.

Never mind that some of the U.S. intelligence community’s (USIC) past assessments on Assad’s use of chemical weapons have not always been entirely accurate, and certainly not in the short number of days they had between the April 4th attack and the U.S. response on April 7th.

Investigative journalist Gareth Porter provides a concise summary of the fluid nature of the USIC’s 2013 assessments of the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons:

“A review of what is known about the June (2013) assessment and the alleged Sarin attacks shows that it was a major intelligence failure on the order of the Iraq WMD error,” writes Porter. “It failed to reflect accurately the evidence the administration said supported the overall conclusion. Finally, the evidence of responsibility for the alleged Sarin attacks did not confirm the accusation that they were carried out by the Syrian government.”

At a minimum, knowing the complex nature of the region and the cross-cutting motivations among its actors more than justified Gabbard’s skepticism about the USIC’s assessment in the days immediately after the Khan Shaykhun.

Furthermore, while Dean was calling Gabbard “disgusting” at her suggestion that the USIC’s April 2017 assessment had not sufficiently ruled out a ‘false flag’ operation, past history in the Syrian conflict demands such caution. Consider also that the majority of physical evidence available to the USIC before the U.S. retaliatory attack came from anti-Assad forces connected to al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra which controlled  Khan Shaykhun at the time.

Writing three weeks after the April 4th attack, Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer and executive director of the Council for the National Interest, tells the story behind the Ghouta “false flag” attack in 2013. Not only did it almost succeed with aid from Turkish intelligence, says Giraldi, but it was “stopped only when Director of National Intelligence James Clapper paid a surprise visit to President Obama in the Oval Office to tell him that the case against Damascus was not a slam dunk.”

It cannot be ignored that the April 2017 attack occurred when anti-Assad forces were in retreat against Syrian government forces (with Russian support) and were making significant territorial gains throughout country. The anti-Assad forces had the motive and opportunity to launch a false-flag attack on April 4th, leaving only the question about whether they had the means to do so.

Gabbard made her statement questioning the Trump administration action on April 7th, three days after the Khan Shaykhun attack. As good as our intelligence agencies are at real-time analysis, ruling out a false-flag attack would require more time than that. By April 7th, U.S. intelligence officials admitted they had not even analyzed much of the signals intelligence (SIGINT) — cell phone conversations, emails, etc. — even as they issued their initial finding that Assad’s forces were the culprit.

I served in the U.S. intelligence community at the same time Gabbard was in her second combat deployment to Iraq. We probably saw the same strategic intelligence regarding Syrian chemical weapons capabilities and Gabbard most likely had access to even more detailed tactical intelligence. I am not naive regarding the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons. But it would have been irresponsible to accept carte blanche the USIC’s near-term assessment of the Khan Shaykhun attack. To rule out the possibility that anti-Assad forces mimicked a Syrian government air-based chemical attack required time — measured in weeks and months, not days.

I concede the open-source evidence available soon after the attack makes it hard NOT to conclude the Assad regime was responsible (go here for one of the best open sources of intelligence on the Syrian attacks).

In her CNN interview, Gabbard never dismissed the possibility that the intelligence would ultimately pin responsibility on the Assad regime; but her military experience and familiarity with the reliability of intelligence on such events demanded a prudent level of skepticism.

Assad was winning the civil war on April 3rd. To risk those gains with a chemical attack on April 4th begs the question: Why would he risk those gains with a chemical attack that would likely bring some form of retaliation by the U.S.? That is what Tulsi Gabbard was saying on April 7th.

So when Howard Dean, who isn’t always powered by reason and rational thought anyway, went on  Chris Mathew’s MSNBC  show for his virulent attack on Gabbard’s Syria statement, he seemed to be acting on a much broader and organized effort to discredit and ultimately neutralize the Hawaii ;congresswoman. It’s just a hunch, but I’m feeling pretty confident about it.

So why would he do that?

Why Does the Democratic Party Leadership Loathe Tulsi Gabbard?

The lazy answer is her support for Bernie Sanders (over Hillary Clinton) and resignation from the DNC in February 2016 over her belief the DNC colluded with the Clinton campaign to ensure her nomination.

However, a simple search shows Democratic elites were attacking Gabbard long before February 2016.  To explain the establishment’s anger with her it is necessary to look prior to the 2016 campaign. Here are the leading explanations

1. “She’s Extremely Ambitious with Flexible Principles”

Howard Dean will tell anyone willing to listen that Tulsi Gabbard is “extremely ambitious with flexible principles.” The irony of that criticism is breath taking. He could have easily been talking about about Hillary Clinton or, frankly, every major politician on the planet earth…including himself.

The most hollow criticism one can make towards a politician is calling them “too political” or “too flexible” in their beliefs. Its like calling a dentist too focused on people’s teeth.

Even worse, with respect to Gabbard, the flexible principles charge often includes references to her familial roots. In particular, her father Mike Gabbard, a well-known Hawaii Democrat who has served as a state senator since 2006.  What is the problem with that? Nothing…had he not been an active Republican from 2000 to 2007. But, even that isn’t the problem. The problem is that Tulsi’s father was an active opponent of gay marriage — and Tulsi, early in her political life, supported that position as well.

There you go, folks. That must be why Tulsi Gabbard is persona non grata with a wide swath of Democratic Party elites to this day.

But wait a second. Didn’t Hillary Clinton stand on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 2004 and declare: “I believe marriage is not just a bond but a sacred bond between a man and a woman”?

She did and most establishment Democrats didn’t blink an eye in 2004 when she said it, and didn’t blink again in 2013 when she had a “change of mind.”

Therein lies a deeper truth. For establishment Democrats, there is a kind of ‘wink wink’ game played among themselves. When Hillary stood on the floor of the U.S Senate to oppose marriage equality, more than a few pundits suggested she was masking her true beliefs in order to further her own political ambitions at the time. There is no mystery here. She wanted to be the next POTUS and she may have determined opposition to gay marriage was the right stance for her in 2004.

At the time of her U.S. Senate speech, 55 percent of U.S. adults opposed gay marriage.

That is not a criticism of Clinton. That is politics. Good politicians change their issue stances when necessary.

So, unless Gabbard’s critics have the power to read her mind, Gabbard’s “change of mind” on marriage equality  cannot be interpreted any differently than Hillary’s reversal.

There must be another other reason for the Democratic leadership’s fear and loathing of Gabbard…and there is…

2. “She is not a loyal Democrat”

The party disloyalty criticism of Gabbard is complex. On the one hand, according to Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), she voted with the party line 80 percent of the time on key U.S. House votes in 2015. While not the highest percentage among House Democrats, it puts her somewhere in the middle. Hardly grounds for suggesting she needs to be expelled from the party, but does reveal an independence that can annoy party leaders.

Nonetheless, on the Democrats’ core issues — abortion, marriage equality, climate change, Obamacare, voting rights — Gabbard’s public positions can only be seen as left-of-center. On health care, Gabbard is particularly well-informed and cogent on the strengths and weaknesses of Obamacare. And her description of a single-payer system, including its considerable costs, suggests she is open to the idea while still cautious over its financing (Here is one of her recent town hall discussions on health care).

Despite the party elders, Gabbard is one of the party’s rising stars. In fact, few have her polished presentation skills. She reminds me of Bill Clinton when I first heard him speak in Cedar Rapids, Iowa during the 1992 general election. He could go ex cathedra on a wide range of issues and good deep when necessary. No pregnant pauses.

She is that good. She has the presence of a military officer with a strong attention to policy detail, and — oh yes — just happens to be very telegenic. When Gabbard appears on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson show, the easy-on-the-eyes meter increases to weapon-grade plutonium levels.

Which brings us to another reason Gabbard’s critics question her loyalty to the Democratic cause: She is a frequent guest on Fox News. And unlike Democrats such as former Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich, who often appears on Fox News as the predictable and non-threatening foil to a reliably conservative Fox News host, Gabbard is treated on Fox News with the type of respect reserved for mainstream Republicans like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, John Kasich…or Donald Trump, for that matter.

Of course,  critics cannot forget Gabbard’s visit to Trump Tower on November 21, 2016 to discuss ending the U.S. program to train and equip Syria’s “moderate” rebel forces. To Dean and other establishment Democrats, the Trump Tower visit was a betrayal on two levels. She visited the man that arguably stole the presidential election, and if that were not enough, discussed reversing a U.S. policy championed by Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and President Obama, among many other prominent Democrats.

Even the recent cancellation of the misguided CIA program to arm “moderates” in Syria, confirming much of what Gabbard had been saying about the program, failed to assuage resentments against her.

Yet, in my opinion, there is an even bigger reason fueling the Never-Gabbarders.

3. “She’s a threat to the exiting order”

Similar to Donald Trump’s ascendancy, Gabbard’s appeal operates outside the traditional left-right ideological rubric. She casts an ideological image that reminds me of the late U.S. Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, who took a hard line against the Soviet Union, but also supported the liberal social agenda of the time.

Gabbard occupies a piece of the political realm that is almost devoid of competition from other politicians. Senator Rand Paul shares some of the space (non-interventionist, anti-neocon). Her support of an active government role in the organization of the economy, particularly with respect to income inequality, aligns her with Sen. Sanders.

But, Gabbard separates from progressive Democrats in her straight talk on the realities of today’s world conflicts. She is not a strict non-interventionist (as with Rand) even as she shares Rand’s distaste for executive-centered actions that lead to unilateral, open-ended military engagements abroad.

Like most Americans, she simply doesn’t fit well into a simplistic left-right continuum. According to Lee Drutman’s analysis of a 2016 voter survey, “Voters are not ideologically coherent, but instead have different mixes of left and right views across different issues.”

Some have used the mixed ideological nature of the American voter argues for the Democrats’ need to “move to the center” in order to maximize their vote; still others, like Drutman and The New Yorker’s Eric Levitz, contend that the “center” doesn’t exist and that the Democrats needs a clear, progressive (read: Left) agenda.

Both arguments contain important truths but misinterpret their data and come up with the wrong strategic advice for the Democrats.

The “Centrist” argument is wrong, not because this country has a predisposition for liberal positions (they don’t), but because “Centrist” candidates run a strong risk of appearing bland and lacking clarity in their stated issue positions.  Their tendency to parse language so as to incorporate elements from all perspectives makes them unattractive to many if not most voters. Hillary Clinton is a textbook example of this problem.

As recent research on European voting by political scientist Toni Rodon  shows, “centrist” voters (his term) are not inclined to vote for centrist candidates. They are more attracted to candidates that are ideologically distinct, that is, have a strong opinion on issues important to that voter. That is not actually a new observation. Far from it. Ronald Reagan’s senior strategist, Richard Wirthlin, observed this phenomenon in the 1970s as he helped shaped Reagan’s message going into the 1980 presidential election.

Reagan’s “No Pale Pastels” speech, which was informed by Wirthlin’s research, called for the GOP to avoid trying to broaden its base by appealing to moderates and to instead make its policy stances clear (and conservative).

So wouldn’t Reagan’s example support the Drutman and Levitz advice to the Democrats to take strong, progressive positions? Unfortunately, no.

While Drutman analyzes public opinion on dozens of issues and shows their frequent alignment with liberal positions, he undercuts his own “America is Liberal” thesis when he also concludes that most voters are not ideologically coherent. He can’t have it both ways.

NuQum.com’s recent analysis of the over 3,642 voters in the 2016 presidential (summarized in the chart below) finds that the vote was driven by party identification and opinions on social spending (primarily health care), ‘conservative groups,’ immigration and defense spending. The Democrats have a strong advantage on social spending (health care) and a slight advantage on party identification. The other significant issues broke in favor of Trump.

The failure of Hillary Clinton’s lackluster “Centrist” strategy in the 2008 nomination race and in the 2016 campaign would seem to argue against the strategy’s utility in 2018 or 2020. But many would say Clinton didn’t run a “Centrist” campaign in 2016 (or 2008, for that matter) as much as she ran a “I’m Not Him” campaign.

More certain is that the 2020 Democratic nomination is going to be fought again along the establishment versus anti-establishment divide within the Democratic Party (Drutman has a nice illustration of this in the 2016 election).

‘The main divide within the Democratic Party electorate is about attitudes toward the establishment and the existing order than it is about specific issue positions (with the exception of trade policy),” Drutman concludes.

If so, Gabbard is clearly on the ‘anti-establishment’ side, but does not come at it from the Left (or Right).

Gabbard does not work in “pale pastels”

She’s a hybrid politician with echoes of Pat Buchanan’s strategic realism combined with the economic populism of Sanders. Moreover, she also stands out from establishment Democrats (and even from Sanders) in her ability to re-direct conversations from hot-button culture war battles back to more inclusive, economic topics.

I recommend you listen to how she answers a question about her support of the LGBTQ community (Listen at the 1:06:20 point in the video).

She’s a woman of mixed heritage that refuses to grind on identity politics to gain support. That’s a good formula for not being embraced by the Democratic Party leadership.

After listening to dozens of Gabbard’s political speeches and TV appearances, if someone didn’t know her party identification, they might think they she’s a moderate Republican circa 1976, along the lines of my home state’s (Iowa) former governor Robert Ray or U.S. congressman Jim Leach. A type of Republican that no longer exists at the national level.

Take the example of Gabbard’s use of the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism.” While considered a heretical act within the Democratic Party, Gabbard refuses to play semantic games when they detract from our basic understanding of the the terrorist threat.

“It is important that you identify your enemy,” Gabbard told Wolf Blitzer. “You need to understand the ideology that is driving them.” This is not a controversial issue with most Americans. Only within the cocoon of the Democrat’s leadership class does it elicit gasps and outrage.

Perhaps its her military training? I don’t know. What I do know is her use of the term isn’t accidental and it casts her farther outside Democratic Party norms.

Where is the Democratic Party going in 2018 and 2020?

Even as the Democratic Party keeps its establishment leaders intact (Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Tom Perez, Hillary Clinton) and is promoting its new (or old?) Better Deal economic message, it continues to move leftward. The Democrats’ much maligned identity politics strategy also seems to be alive and well — and with Trump’s new transgender ban in the military (which will likely never become policy) the Democrats have taken the bait and ensure the culture war will be part of the 2018 elections, despite the party’s stated intention to focus on the economy.

As Bill Scher wrote in POLITICO, “In all likelihood, Democrats will have to figure out how to sell the Better Deal while simultaneously defending their commitment to multiculturalism.” The fear among some Democrats is that this approach will once again win the battle (defeat the transgender ban) but still lose the war (2018 midterms).

In attempting to stem the party’s reflexive lurch to the left, Gabbard stands almost alone — both figuratively and literally (see the photo below). There are other congressional Democrats trying to pull the party back into the elusive mainstream — Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, for one — but their numbers remain insufficient to change the direction of the congressional party as of now.

For her part, Gabbard continues to promote a message of economic progressivism balanced by our nation’s fiscal realities, eschewing the Republican-laid culture war traps, all while she confronts our national security establishment’s “addiction to regime change.”

In my opinion, that is a winning platform for any Democrat almost anywhere in this country.

Gabbard is the most credible and persuasive Democratic voice in the fight to stem the escalation of war in Syria. And while the next Democratic establishment-approved star, California Senator Kamala Harris, prefers to focus on U.S. policy regarding Syrian refugees, demonstrated by her visit to a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan this past April, she shows no inclination or aptitude in critiquing the nation’s military strategy in the region.

Ironically, it is Gabbard, not Harris, trying to pull off the political balancing act that Hillary Clinton tried to master: Being a pragmatist that still appeals to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party without alienating the many disenchanted Republicans and Independents who can no longer live with the GOP’s hate-tolerant center-of-gravity.

Clinton’s failure to pull it off was in part a function of voters’ perceptions that she was a creature of the Washington establishment (…well, she was such a creature, which didn’t help her cause). Obama didn’t have that problem in 2008. After all, he earned his outsider credentials when he beat the Washington establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton.

Harris’ barrier to the White House will be similar to Hillary’s — if she runs in 2020, she will immediately be labeled the ‘establishment candidate,’ and for good reason — she is the establishment’s preferred candidate right now. Being the star attraction at multi-million dollar fundraisers in the Hamptons will give you that reputation.

Forget the current lists of Democrats likely to run. All contain some or most of these names: Warren, Booker, Kaine, Biden, Cuomo, Klobuchar, and Gillibrand. All are good Democrats with absolutely no chance of being the next President of the United States.

Along with Hillary Clinton and Sanders, Harris is the only other Democrat producing any meaningful buzz among the activists. Lets take Clinton at her word that she isn’t planning to run again and assume that, at 75-years-old, Sanders just won’t be capable of doing it with the energy he had in 2016.

That leaves Harris.

History, however, should give sober Democrats some pause before jumping on the Harris bandwagon. The last three Democrats to win the presidency ran their first presidential races as outsiders to the political establishment (Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama).

Drutman’s analysis of 2016 voter survey cited earlier also shows that, within the Democratic Party in particular, the establishment label was the primary driver of support between Sanders and Clinton supporters.

Even if the Trump administration melts down into a holy mess of indicted human slop, the exigency of the ‘outsider’ characteristic is not likely to go away in future presidential elections.

As of today, the Democrats have three nationally known members that fit that description: Bernie Sanders, Tim Ryan and Tulsi Gabbard.

Can the Democratic Establishment and Gabbard Come Together?

For me, the photo below neatly summarizes the Democratic Party’s feelings about Gabbard. In a tribute to the women’s suffrage movement in the early 20th century, and in a quiet protest of the Trump presidency, many congressional Democratic women decided to wear white to Trump’s first state of the union address.

It is probably not a coincidence that Gabbard is at the farthest end of the group photo. Combine this with her uncharacteristic driver’s licence smile and you get a strong sense she is not really part of THAT club. Even her lavender white jacket suggests Gabbard herself may be OK with that fact (…I guess I was wrong about her avoid pale pastels).

Besides being outside the Democratic establishment, if Gabbard intends to be a significant national political figure, she has some other barriers.

She is still a young U.S. House member (36 years old). If she has presidential ambitions, she will only be 38 years old at the start of the 2020 campaign. However, there does not appear to be a short-term path for her into the Hawaii governorship or one of the two U.S. Senate seats. All three of the current occupants are relatively young and unlikely to retire before their next re-election campaign.

That leaves few options for Gabbard in the next 10 years other than at the presidential level. However, we all know that no modern elected president came directly from a U.S. House seat. And while Trump proves that there are no unbreakable rules in presidential politics, I don’t believe any young congresswoman from either party can win the presidency. That is a bridge too far.

But here is my final brainstorm idea on Gabbard’s political future.

A Harris/Gabbard ticket. It brings the establishment together with the anti-establishment. Two women. Two mixed heritage candidates. If only one of them were gay we’d have the major Democratic identity groups covered.

A crazy idea? It will never work, you say?

Take a look at what is going on in the current White House. Crazy ideas are in.

 

About the author:  Kent Kroeger is a writer and statistical consultant with over 30 -years experience measuring and analyzing public opinion for public and private sector clients. He also spent ten years working for the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and the Defense Intelligence Agency. He holds a B.S. degree in Journalism/Political Science from The University of Iowa, and an M.A. in Quantitative Methods from Columbia University (New York, NY).  He lives in Ewing, New Jersey with his wife and son.

By Kent R. Kroeger (Source: NuQum.com, July 26, 2017)

Through a spokeswoman, Iowa Senator Joni Ernst reacted swiftly to President Trump’s ban on transgender Americans serving in the military:

“(Sen. Ernst) has served with people from all different backgrounds and that gender is not a vital indicator of someone’s military prowess. She believes what is most important is making sure service members can meet the physical training standards, and the willingness to defend our freedoms and way of life. Americans who are qualified and can meet the standards to serve in the military should be afforded that opportunity.”

This is from a Republican senator that was seriously considered for the Vice Presidency by the Trump team. Add to the mix that Joni Ernst is a military veteran and is respected in the U.S. Senate for her deep knowledge of U.S. military personnel issues and her strong rebuke of Trump’s new ban becomes a politically significant moment.

Perhaps the most dramatic reaction to Trump’s latest policy-by-Tweet moment came from Utah Senator Orrin Hatch: “I don’t think we should be discriminating against anyone. Transgender people are people.”

That simple but profound comment comes from an 83-year-old man representing the very conservative state of Utah.

The speed with which Republican legislators denounced Trump’s transgender ban tells you everything you need to know about the political ramifications of this sudden policy change — a policy that caught even the Dept. of Defense’s public affairs office by surprise. There is no constituency for this new ban and Trump will find no comfort from his staunchest supporters in the military. They didn’t ask for this ban and they know how destructive this unexpected shift will have on thousands of U.S. military service people who currently serve and have done nothing to warrant this latest presidential fiat.

The Associated Press estimates there are between 2,500 and 7,000 transgender troops currently serving in the military with another 1,500 to 4,000 in the reserves.

Trump is misreading his own base on this one. As this blog presented recently, the transgender bathroom law controversy strongly divides Americans and this division correlates with partisanship and ideology. That should be no surprise.

Over 90 percent of the most conservative (“Right”) voters believe people should use the bathroom based on their birth gender, according the 2016 American National Election Study. In contrast, 95 percent of the most liberal (“Left”) voters think bathroom selection should be based on the gender with which a person identifies.

However, if Trump thinks attitudes on bathroom laws are isomorphic to attitudes on banning transgender people from the military, he will be disappointed.

In opinion research, one of the first things survey professionals learn is that ‘issue framing’ can dramatically alter how people respond to survey questions. The transgender bathroom law issue has been framed in the conservative media as not just a potential privacy invasion, but a palpable threat to the security of young children.

“Do you want a male sex offender using the same bathroom as your young daughter?” asked Joseph Backholm from the Family Policy Institute of Washington.

You can challenge the validity of Backholm’s inference (and I most adamantly do), but you can’t deny its potential power to mold the opinions of average Americans regarding transgender bathroom laws.

The politics around transgender individuals serving in the military has long been presented in a different frame — including within the conservative media that historically has opposed (until recently) U.S. military personnel policy protecting the rights of lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals to openly serve. Past opposition to their openly serving was most often framed around the construct of ‘troop morale and cohesion.’

Allowing lesbian,  gay and bisexual individuals to openly serve has been in place for six years now with no evidence of declines in troop morale, cohesion or readiness.

On Sept. 20, 2011, when the DoD policy of “Don’t Tell, Don’t Ask” (DADT) was lifted, the issue had in many ways already been decided by America’s evolving cultural attitudes and norms that were growing ever more accepting of the LGBTQ community in all aspects of American life.

For transgender individuals, however, the politics around their acceptance has taken longer and remains, as evidenced by Trump’s behavior, somewhat unsettled. The ban on transgender persons from serving was not lifted until June 30, 2016 and, like the ending of DADT,  has had no impact on the readiness of our armed forces.

And that is where framing becomes important to current attitudes on transgender Americans serving in the military. Even Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, who supports the new Trump ban due to its potential “costs” to the U.S. government stemming from possible transition surgeries — which is trivial compared to DoD’s $600 billion total budget — frames the issue around one of economics, not the security of our families.

That framing difference — our family’s security versus economics (and/or troop readiness) – will affect how Americans react to Trump’s new ban. My prediction is that a strong majority of Americans (let’s say, over 60 percent) will oppose Trump’s unilateral action against the transgender service members.

As of now, all we have are the swift and unequivocal comments of a significant number of congressional Republicans who are saying to President Trump: Your ban on transgender Americans serving in our military is unacceptable.

###

The 2016 ANES dataset, data dictionary, and computer codes (SAS JMP) used in this article are available upon email request to: kkroeger@nuqum.com

About the author:  Kent Kroeger is a writer and statistical consultant with over 30 -years experience measuring and analyzing public opinion for public and private sector clients. He also spent ten years working for the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and the Defense Intelligence Agency. He holds a B.S. degree in Journalism/Political Science from The University of Iowa, and an M.A. in Quantitative Methods from Columbia University (New York, NY).  He lives in Ewing, New Jersey with his wife and son.

By Kent R. Kroeger (Source: NuQum.com, July 23, 2017)

No matter how many times Democratic strategist Steve Phillips repeats his prediction about the Democratic Party’s ascendancy, it doesn’t make it so.

His latest evidence-based analytic train wreck was published by the New York Times and concludes that the mistake the Democrats (i.e., Robbie Mook, John Podesta, Hillary Clinton, et al.) made in 2016 was that they spent too much time and money worrying about working-class, white males and not enough directed towards getting ‘brown’ (his word) Americans to turnout for Clinton.

“The country is under conservative assault because Democrats mistakenly sought support from conservative white working-class voters susceptible to racially charged appeals,” intones Phillips. “Replicating that strategy would be another catastrophic blunder.”

Phillips apparently does not recognize the existence of moderate white working-class voters — many of whom voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 but decided to take their chances with Trump in 2016. Phillips lumps these voters in with conservative white working-class voters and then dismisses them as latent racists not needed for the Democrats to win elections in the future.

The Phillips message to the Democrats is simple: Brown (again, his word) people are your constituency; stop trying to appeal everyone.

Talk about judging someone by the color of their skin. Phillips and his many acolytes use skin tone as a direct proxy measure of someone’s attitudes, beliefs and behavior. Holy shit! Why is that not considered racism?! [Because its being done by a highly educated, well-meaning, New York Times-approved Democrat, you fool. By definition, liberal Democrats can’t be racist.]

Setting aside Phillips’ condescending reliance on racial determinism, the Phillips critique simply ignores the profound variation in attitudes and opinions among America’s minority voters.

As this blog has argued here and here, most African-American and Hispanic voters are qualitatively different from liberal Democrats. On average, these voters are consistently ‘centrists’ on issues such as national security, abortion and LGBTQ rights; and, frankly, don’t share the same values and experiences as the liberal elites Phillips envisions controlling U.S. politics for the foreseeable future. In many areas, African-American and Hispanic voter attitudes have more in common with the Republicans than with the Democrats.

For a deeper dive into the data, please check our earlier post (here), but two charts give evidence of the disconnect between liberals and minority voters.

After identifying ideological voter clusters from the 2016 American National Election Study (ANES), we find six types of voters: Left, Center-Left, Centrists, Libertarians, Center-Right, and Right.  All are comparable in size, each ranging from 14 to 21 percent of the voting population. When we look at the ethnic/racial composition of these six voter clusters, we see some interesting variation (see Figure 1 below).

Figure 1: Racial/Ethnic Composition of Voter Clusters

A plurality of African-American and Hispanic voters are Centrists — they are not ideologically on the Left. This has significant implications on the attitudes, beliefs, policy preferences, and voting patterns of many minority voters. Figure 2 shows the percentage of African-American and Hispanic Centrist and Left voters that supported Trump in the 2016 presidential race.

Figure 2: Trump Support by Race/Ethnicity (Centrists & Left)

Nine percent of Centrist Black (non-Hispanic) voters chose Trump as did 23 percent of Centrist Hispanics. There were very few Trump voters within these racial/ethnic groups on the Left — in fact, less than 0.5 percent. While 9 and 23 percent might not seem like large percentages, the Democrats must ask themselves, could those numbers go up for the Republicans in future elections, particularly if the Republicans can leverage issues where Centrists are more aligned with the GOP than the Democrats?

What are those issues?  Figures 3 to 6 are just a few examples:

Figure 3: Percent saying abortion should never be allowed (by race/ethnicity and ideological cluster)

Figure 4: Percent supporting marriage equality (by race/ethnicity and ideological cluster)

Figure 5: Percent feeling strongly that Transgender Americans should choose bathroom based on the gender they were born with (by race/ethnicity and ideological cluster)

Figure 6: Percent agreeing “a great deal” to allow Syrian Refugees in the U.S. (by race/ethnicity and ideological cluster)

I can summarize these last four charts in one sentence: Centrists, which are a majority-minority segment of the American voting population, hold many different attitudes and beliefs from the ideological (mostly white) Left.

Minority-group Centrists are much more conservative on issues such as abortion, LGBTQ rights, and immigration from the Middle East. As yet, they are still very loyal to the Democratic Party in the voting booth. But can the Democrats assume this will be the case going forward?

I wouldn’t make that assumption.

It is important to remind ourselves about the depth of the problem the Democrats created for themselves. The litany of electoral losses detailing the Democratic Party’s decline have been repeated many times in the past eight months. Along with control of the U.S. Congress and presidency, the Republicans control both chambers of the state legislature and governorships in 24 states — compared to only five for the Democrats. But this is just one point in time. The Democrats’ decline in the state legislatures is a long-term phenomenon (see Figure 7 below).

Figure 7: Number of state legislators by party since 1936

To blame Nancy Pelosi or Barack Obama’s leadership of the Democratic Party is unfair and myopic. With the exception of two temporary spikes in their favor (1974, 2006), the Democrats have been losing state legislators since 1978.

Why the decline? Political observers propose many reasons. The New Yorker’s Noah Rothman suggests the Democrats suffer from a self-imposed radicalism that keeps the base happy but alienates the majority of voters. The Atlantic’s David Graham argues structural disadvantages hold the Democrats down (e.g., gerrymandering, campaign finance laws). The decline of unions and their voter mobilization efforts is another possible reason.

All are probable contributors to the Democrats’ decline,  but there is another possible reason: Long-term American economic prosperity has put more and more voters into an income bracket that may lead to their favoring lower taxes and less government — the bedrock positions of the Republican Party’s agenda.

As seen in Figure 1, the Democrats’  long-term decline in the state legislatures starts in 1978. In the prior 1976 presidential election, Ronald Reagan had challenged a sitting Republican president (Ford) for the party’s nomination. Though he failed, Reagan’s intra-party revolt led to the party’s explicit re-branding, usurping the dominance of the moderate Rockefeller wing of the party and replacing it with an ideologically conservative agenda focused on less government, more freedom, and a strong national defense.

The Republicans under Reagan didn’t move to the “center” — which is what many of the Beltway pundits suggested they needed to do — instead, they made a sharp turn to the right.

Reagan’s re-branding of the Republicans holds to this day, frayed by time and success, but nonetheless largely intact. Consistency is important in politics. While some Republican candidates are better than others, voters know what they are getting when they vote for a Republican candidate. The Republicans give all of their candidates a factory-setting of “lower taxes, fewer regulations, and the strongest military in the world.”

Like it or not, that message works. But does this suggest the Democrats need to act analogously and resist calls to move to the “center”? Instead, should the Democrats make a clear shift to the left and endorse progressive policies similar to those promoted by Bernie Sanders in his 2016 presidential campaign?

If the new Democratic slogan announced this week by New York Senator Chuck Schumer is an indication — A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Wages, Better Future  — they are still struggling to find that message. While standing against corporate mergers, lowering prescription drug prices, and funding apprentice and continuing education programs are admirable policy goals, they lack the digestible theoretical foundation of the Republicans’ free market message strategy.

It is interesting that the new Democratic slogan ignores civil liberties, suggesting that this battle continues within the party’s leadership ranks.

Does that mean the Democrats need to become more ‘centrist’ if they want to compete more effectively with the Republicans? Hell yes! If their goal is to win elections on a more consistent basis, that is.

The now classic Saturday Night Live skit with Tom Hanks as a contestant (‘Doug’) on ‘Black Jeopardy’ was funny because of that well-known reality. And if Democrats want to find the next durable political coalition in this country, they are better off listening to Keeley, Shanice and Doug than anything coming from Phillips’ data analyses or Tom Perez’ Democratic National Committee.

If Rand Paul and his libertarian, non-interventionist cohorts could find a way to accept the legitimacy of government interventions to ensure equal access for all Americans to the ‘American Dream’ and concomitant protections from its vagaries, we might see the rise of a profound and enduring political majority.

But Steve Phillips doesn’t want THAT Democratic majority coalition because it would require real compromise, particularly on the economic and social issues that have been hard-coded into the Democrat’s liberal core as being the essential elements of political enlightenment.

The liberal brain trust with whom Phillips associates, clustered in our coastal metropolis’ and living in socially-approved, class-based segregated communities, think they know enough about working-class whites to know they don’t want them in their ruling coalition.

This arrogant assumption of ideological unity within the broad ranks of the Democratic party addles the Democratic Party’s current leadership — and this arrogance has real consequences.

The Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) underwhelming recent fundraising numbers are additional  evidence that the Resistance is better at scaring Americans away from supporting the Democratic Party than it is at ending the Trump presidency. The DNC’s fundraising is down, while the Republican National Committee is raking in record sums of cash.

It didn’t help the DNC’s finances by recklessly pouring $22 million into a Georgia U.S. House race. Tom Perez’s obscenity-laced tirades against Trump have failed not only to energize the Democratic base, it has turned off donors to the party. Just watch this video of Tom Perez “energizing” the base. The painful look on the faces of those kids standing behind him, forced to listen to his meandering screamfest of a speech, says it all.

Where should the Democrats go from here?

Phillips and other “Turn Lefties” promoting the letting go of white, working-class voters from the Democratic coalition think they doing the equivalent of Reagan’s ideological revolt in the mid-1970s. They are not.

Reagan’s conservative agenda moved TOWARDS the majority of Americans, not away. Reagan had a coherent, empirically-supported organizing theory (‘free markets’) behind his candidacy. Apart from assuming all white, working-class voters are ‘racists,’ the “Turn Lefties” have no guiding principles. For them, it all comes down to assigning voters into ethnic and race categories and adding up the numbers.

The problem is that this strategy works for the Democrats when they run a charismatic, centrist presidential candidate (Bill Clinton, Barack Obama), but fail spectacularly when they run Left-leaning or uncharismatic candidates (Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton).

By keeping their wallets closed (for now), the Democrats’ big donors are sending a message to the DNC. The endless deluge of Tom Perez and Keith Ellison emails begging them to “save the Resistance and our democracy from the treasonous Donald Trump.

Everyday, like the big Democratic donors, rank-and-file Democrats are rejecting the breathless hype of their compatriots on the Left. American companies are as profitable as ever, American air and waterways have never been cleaner, ISIS is almost defeated and the slightly warmer weather means more available weekends at the nearest beach or park. But despite these good news items, there is still a lot of problems in this country (income inequality, access to health care, deteriorating infrastructure, college costs, etc.) that are often exacerbated by Republican policies.

Running against Trump will work in 2018. The Democrats will, short of an act from God or the Kremlin, regain control of the U.S. House and make inroads in the U.S. Senate. But running against Trump won’t reverse the long-term trend working against the Democrats.

The Democrats need a new message, a new brand strategy, and new leaders (Other than that, they are in good shape!). But writing off white, working-class voters is not a step in the right direction, even if this group’s numbers are in relative decline. By ignoring these voters, the Democrats may also push out core Democratic voters from other race and ethnic categories — and the Democrats can’t afford to do that.

 

The 2016 ANES dataset, data dictionary, and computer codes (SAS JMP) used in this article are available upon email request to: kkroeger@nuqum.com

About the author:  Kent Kroeger is a writer and statistical consultant with over 30 -years experience measuring and analyzing public opinion for public and private sector clients. He also spent ten years working for the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and the Defense Intelligence Agency. He holds a B.S. degree in Journalism/Political Science from The University of Iowa, and an M.A. in Quantitative Methods from Columbia University (New York, NY).  He lives in Ewing, New Jersey with his wife and son.

By Kent R. Kroeger (Source: NuQum.com, July 17, 2017)

The TV at the bar is tuned to CNN whose scroll is announcing that President Trump has hit a new approval rating low.

The people around the bar with me start launching anti-Trump quips.

“He can’t do the job,” the waitress says. “I could do it as well as he can.”

The same news scroll continues with other findings from the newest Bloomberg Poll. Health care is considered the most important problem by 35 percent of U.S. adults.

That’s good news for the Democrats, I say to myself. My blogsite, NuQum.com, recently published an analysis of the 2016 American National Election Survey showing that health care is one of the few issues where the Democrats have a strategic advantage over the Republicans (…the other Democrat-favorable issues are climate change and government spending on social programs such as Social Security).

The scroll continues…

Besides health care, unemployment (13%), terrorism (11%) and immigration (10%) also remain high on people’s list of concerns, while U.S.-Russian relations is mentioned by only 6 percent of respondents.

That is bad news for the Democrats. Eight months of 24-7 Trump-Russia coverage and very few people seem to care. Are people burned out from the whole thing?

“I don’t care about the Russia-Donald Trump junior thing,” says Sam, a 29-year-old landscaping contractor from Ewing, New Jersey, who calls himself politically independent but admits he almost always votes Democrat. “Its not good if Trump was getting help from Putin to beat Clinton, but that stuff happens in politics.”

“He’s a con artist,” says Cathy, a 32-year-old waitress and a ‘proud feminist and Democrat.’ “But the election is over. We need to worry about what he’s going to do to health care, not whether or not his son and son-in-law got cozy with the Russians.”

Health care really seems to get people talking, in a way other political issues don’t, except for perhaps war and terrorism.

“I didn’t vote for the guy,” says Ben, a 45-year-old real estate broker – the only registered Republican in my impromptu focus group around the bar at Houlihan’s in Lawrence Township, New Jersey. “But I’m sick of all the negative stuff coming from both parties. I just think our politics is broken and the media feeds off it. I don’t watch the news anymore.”

While there is no evidence (yet) that the cable news networks are seeing a ratings drop, the one constant from the Houlihan’s lunchtime patrons is that ‘Russia’ is a more of a distraction than a major concern to people.

Tim, a retired municipal worker and Marine Corps veteran, may fit some pundits’ perceptions of the classic ‘angry white male’ that put Trump in office. He did, admittedly, vote for Trump largely due to his stands on immigration and terrorism and admits he is ‘pissed off’ at the politicians in Washington, D.C. and Trenton. But he insists he’s not angry.

“He (Trump) says things that typical politicians are scared to say,” says Tim. “Radical Islamic terrorists would love to take away our freedoms and you can’t fight terrorists with nice words and hope.”

Tim voted for Obama twice.

What should worry the Democrats, however, is what Tim says about the next presidential election.

“I think Trump has brought in millionaires and billionaires that don’t know what they’re doing. He may be the worst president ever,” says Tim as he starts his second beer of the afternoon. “But you know what? If I had to choose between Trump and Clinton today, I’d vote for Trump again.”

Tim’s declaration attracts a mix of approving nods and rude rebuttals from the other Houlihan’s patrons.

Donald Trump may be the first truly ‘teflon’ politician — a term typically associated with Ronald Reagan, who weathered years of media attacks and still remained popular among the majority of Americans. In Trump’s case, the term may be even more appropriate. I am talking to people that don’t like him, that think he’s unprepared and unqualified to be president, and are still open to voting for this guy in 2020. That, to my way of thinking, is a ‘teflon’ candidate.

“What if it were Obama versus Trump?” I ask.

“Obama. No question,” Tim replies.

“I’d vote for the good-looking Obama daughter,” yells someone from one of the booths lining the bar.

“Malia versus Ivanka,” someone else chimes in from another corner of the bar. “That’s the election I want to see.”

Sasha Obama is very good-looking young woman as well, but that point is not going to penetrate this crowd at this moment.

“Kid Rock versus The Rock! That would be awesome.”

No, it really wouldn’t.

The informal focus group deteriorates into a bad open-mike night and I ask the bartender for my check.

“Trump versus Wonder Woman,” a waitress says quietly as she walks by.

Yeah, I’d like to see that one. Trump says something rude to her during a debate about ‘jiggly thighs’ and she promptly gives him a vicious leg swipe. Now THAT would be awesome.

I pay my bill and leave the restaurant.

As I drive back to the home office, I wonder, is the lunchtime crowd at an over-priced chain restaurant representative of voting Americans? I suspect not…but, I’m just as certain these opinions are not uncommon either.

Not here in a Democrat-dominated, western New Jersey suburb.

Trump’s polling numbers look grim, but we are more than a year removed from the 2018 midterm elections. More than enough time for the Democrats to screw up. More than enough time to make the 2018 election just as inhospitable to their candidates as the last couple of national elections.

Diana Prince. If you are reading this, please give Tom Perez at the Democratic National Committee a call at your earliest convenience.

About the author:  Kent Kroeger is a writer and statistical consultant with over 30 -years experience measuring and analyzing public opinion for public and private sector clients. He also spent ten years working for the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and the Defense Intelligence Agency. He holds a B.S. degree in Journalism/Political Science from The University of Iowa, and an M.A. in Quantitative Methods from Columbia University (New York, NY).  He lives in Ewing, New Jersey with his wife and son.

By Kent R. Kroeger (Source: NuQum.com, July 13, 2017)

The late (great) comedian Sam Kinison was famous for a bit he did about African hunger where he suggested — in primal scream tones — the starving people should just “MOVE TO WHERE THE FOOD IS!!!”

Kinison was often crass and his African hunger bit wouldn’t survive the filtering and obligatory over-analysis of today’s 24-7 media, but its core logic would nonetheless survive: If things aren’t working for you, maybe its time to change what you are doing.

That piece of common sense is what I took away from Mark Penn and Andrew Stein’s July 6th New York Times op-ed piece: Back to the Center, Democrats. And their sentiment is hardly new or controversial. But, judging from the reaction on social media, you would of thought they had just endorsed Ivanka Trump for President in 2020.

Here is a just a sampling from Twitter:

Beyond the name-calling and careless misrepresentations of the Penn and Stein piece (Keith, do you really think Hillary could have run as the “Change” candidate in 2008? Seriously?), there is an intellectual dishonesty on display among these Democrats that I fear presages what could become the greatest ‘missed opportunity’ in U.S. political history. If the Democrats do not regain control of the U.S. House in 2018, they can look back at how they reacted to advice like that offered by Penn and Stein (and pollster Doug Schoen and many others, frankly).

I have some issues with the Penn-Stein thesis, but the Stephen Pimpare complaint that they lack sources, reference and data is a weapons-grade level of wrong. If anything, Penn and Stein are too gentle in urging the Democratic Party to take their foot off the progressive-agenda pedal. In suggesting the Democratic Party needs to re-engage with the nation’s political center — where most voters reside — Penn and Stein have the data overwhelmingly on their side.

THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS LIVE IN THE POLITICAL CENTER

First, as documented by this blog (here), it is those calling for the Democrats to move more definitively towards the progressive Left that are ignoring or misreading the data.

The two common mistakes made by political writers (such as  Wired’s Issie Lapowsky and The Atlantic’s Peter Beinart) are: (1) cherry-picking the polling data to highlight those issues where the progressive Left is aligned with the majority opinion (gun control, abortion rights, civil rights, increasing the minimum wage), and (2) relying too much on demographic determinism to forecast future electoral outcomes (e.g., Hispanics vote overwhelming for Democrats, as Hispanics increase as a percentage of the voting population, Democrats will be the primary benefactor).

The “Emerging Democratic Majority“-thesis is an example of this second error as it ignores significant opinion diversity within the identity groups most often associated with the Democratic voting base (African-Americans, Hispanics, LGBTQ community, Millennials). More importantly, these analyses under appreciate the opinion dynamics that often accompanies changes in people’s life-stage, income, and age. As we detail below, recent opinion data from African-American and Hispanic voters reveals significant distance between these voters and the ideological Left on a number of Democratic-core issues (Abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, immigration, Syrian refugees).

In the past year, NuQum.com has looked across hundreds of opinion surveys and forecast models related to political attitudes, beliefs and voting behavior in the U.S., and there is one clear conclusion: The average American voter doesn’t fit well into either the liberal or conservative ideological camps.

Yet, they are not apolitical either. They care about politics (when they need to), even if they don’t adhere to any strict ideological rules like those followed by activists from the left or right. While our elected leaders are more partisan than ever in their voting patterns, it is debatable as to whether the American voting population has grown more partisan. Pew Research cites polling data that suggests voters today are, in fact, more partisan. But other academic studies point out the extraordinary consistency over time on the centrist-leanings of American voters.

Our recent analysis of The University of Michigan and Stanford University’s 2016 American National Election Study (ANES) provides more current data on what Americans believe and how it relates to their political choices.

It is not good news for ideologues of the political Left or Right. But for the current discussion, we will concentrate on what the data suggest for the Left.

THE METHODOLOGY

First, It is helpful to understand the analytic approach we employed with the 2016 ANES data. As noted above, cherry-picking issues for analysis is one of the most common errors committed by political pundits and researchers. While we recognize that some issues are more important than others, in our analysis we chose to summarize voters’ opinions on over 100 equally-weighted issues measured in the 2016 ANES. Our goal was to group voters into relatively homogeneous ideological clusters based on their survey responses on a wide range of social and political issues. We, therefore, did not rely on respondents’ self-reported location on a binary ideological scale (liberal versus conservative).

We do recognize that in choosing some issues and not others in their survey questionnaire, the 2016 ANES researchers engaged in another type of analytic ‘cherry-picking.’ Our response is, ‘You have to work with what you are given.’

For clustering voters, we employed a K-means clustering method using SAS’s JMP 13.1.0 statistical software. For clustering variables, we employed JMP’s Cluster Variable procedure. (Our 2016 ANES dataset and analytic algorithms are available by sending a request to: kkroeger@nuqum.com )

 THE RESULTS

After clustering the 3,649 respondents to the 2016 ANES, we found that only 14 percent of respondents could be classified as consistently “Left” in their opinions (see Figure 1 below). If we include respondents with mostly Liberal/Leftist opinions, 35 percent of American voters can be considered part of the ideological Left in this country.

In contrast, the ideological Right accounts for 15 percent of the voting population, and 33 percent if you include people that are mostly Conservative/Rightist in their opinions. That leaves the remaining third of voters in the ideological center.

Figure 1: The Six Voter Clusters

(Source: 2016 ANES; 3,649 respondents; max. MoE = +/- 4.3%; analytics by NuQum.com)

 

The clusters, by construction, are distinct in their opinions. It is no surprise therefore that the Left is most supportive of civil rights issues (LGBTQ, abortion), immigration, increased government spending on social programs and climate change. In contrast, the Right is less supportive of government spending on social programs and climate change, and more supportive of government action on security, terrorism and stopping illegal immigration.

Table 1 below provides the descriptive highlights of the opinion orientations for each cluster:

Table 1: Opinions of Voter Clusters

	Opinion Mix
LEFT	Pro-choice, pro-amnesty, support LGBTQ rights, support increased gov't spending on social programs, support gov't role in climate change.
CENTER-LEFT	Similar to LEFT, except they are more concerned about security issues (crime, illegal immigration).
CENTER	Similar to LEFT, except much less supportive of LGBTQ rights, abortion rights, and allowing more Syrian refugees into U.S..
LIBERTARIAN	Similar to RIGHT, except are generally opposed to foreign military interventions, are much more supportive of civil rights issues (LGBTQ, immigrants) and are concerned that fighting terrorism will compromise civil liberties
CENTER-RIGHT	Similar to RIGHT, except they see a stronger role for the government in addressing poverty and income inequality and are more concerned about climate change than either the Right or Libertarian clusters. This cluster contains is the populist wing of the Republican Party.
RIGHT	Support strong military, support increased intervention in Syria/Middle East to fight terrorism, oppose amnesty, oppose abortion, oppose increased social spending, favor less government, favor lower taxes, oppose gov't role in climate change

 

When we look at the demographics and voting patterns of these six clusters, America’s political factions are recognizable. The Left, Libertarian, Center-Right and Right are each over 70 percent white (see Figure 2 below). Centrists, conversely, are a majority-minority cluster. In fact, a plurality of African-Americans and Hispanics are Centrists. If that doesn’t shake the foundations of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), nothing will. This is a remarkable conclusion, though hardly the first time this feature of African-American and Hispanic public opinion has been observed. The 2008 passage of California’s Proposition 8, a law that — had it not been struck down by the federal court — would have made it illegal for same-sex couples to marry, occurred in part due to strong support within the African-American and Hispanic communities.

This disconnect on some social issues between the DNC platform and minority voters does not suggest the Republicans have a chance to win a majority of African-American and Hispanic votes anytime soon. They do not. However, the vote turnout among these groups can change election outcomes in many localities and that is where the DNC should be concerned.

Figure 2: Voter Clusters by Race/Ethnicity

(Source: 2016 ANES; 3,649 respondents; max. margin of error = +/- 4.3%)

 

In terms of education, the Left is by far the most educated voter cluster with just over 30 percent of its members having  an advanced college degree (see Figure 3 below). Centrists are the least educated; however, this a partly a function of this cluster being one of the youngest of the six voter clusters (see Figure 4 below). The Center-Right cluster is similar to Centrists in education with less than 20 percent having a 4-year college degree. The Right has the oldest members and are more likely to be married (see Figure 5 below). Centrists are the least likely to be married.

Figure 3: Voter Clusters by Highest Level of Education

(Source: 2016 ANES; 3,649 respondents; max. margin of error = +/- 4.3%)

 

Figure 4: Voter Clusters by Age Group

(Source: 2016 ANES; 3,649 respondents; max. margin of error = +/- 4.3%)

 

Figure 5: Voter Clusters by Marital Status

(Source: 2016 ANES; 3,649 respondents; max. margin of error = +/- 4.3%)

 

Figure 6 (below) shows the partisan makeup of the voter clusters and provides some validation to the clustering segmentation itself. Over 75 percent of the Left are registered Democrats and over 20 percent are independents. Almost 30 percent of the Center-Right are registered Democrats. Along with the Center-Left cluster, this the segment where we find many of the infamous white, working-class Trump voters. But, based on their self-reported attitudes, it shouldn’t surprise us that these voters would lean toward Trump. They are conservative.

Over 80 percent of the Right are registered Republicans. Not surprisingly, a plurality of independents are in the Libertarian cluster, however four of the six segments are comprised of 20 percent or more independents. Centrists are the second most likely to be registered as Democrats. Obama did much better than Clinton in poaching Center-Right and Libertarian voters from the Republican candidate and he defended his core (Left, Center-Left and Centrist) much better as well.

Figure 6: Voter Clusters by Party Registration

(Source: 2016 ANES; 3,649 respondents; max. margin of error = +/- 4.3%)

 

Figure 7 (below) further validates our segmentation and shows why Trump did as well as he did. Almost 20 percent of Centrists voted for Trump – a critical inroad for him given the closeness of the election — even though Clinton did even better among Libertarians than Trump did with Centrists. This was a close election and small marginal shifts affected its outcome.

When you look at these same clusters and how they voted in 2012, you see why Obama won in 2012 and Clinton lost in 2016 (see Figure 8 below). Obama held the center together much better than Clinton.

Figure 7: Voter Clusters by Presidential Vote (2016)

(Source: 2016 ANES; 3,649 respondents; max. margin of error = +/- 4.3%)

 

Figure 8: Voter Clusters by Presidential Vote (2012)

(Source: 2016 ANES; 3,649 respondents; max. margin of error = +/- 4.3%)

 

 WHY DEMOCRATS MAY LOSE EVEN MORE CENTRISTS IN FUTURE ELECTIONS

Four issues addressed in the 2016 ANES highlight the significant risk facing the Democrats in future elections:  Transgender bathroom law, abortion, marriage equality and immigration.

At risk is the support of Centrists, the majority of whom are African-American or Hispanic. No, they are not going to vote majority Republican. But their enthusiasm, which drives their voter turnout probabilities, is crucial to future Democratic victories. This fact cannot be over-emphasized: African-American and Hispanic voters are not liberals on social issues – they are centrists. In the aggregate, they hold too many opinions outside the acceptable parameters of the activist Left.

Figures 9 through 12 (below) give support to this conclusion. On the issues of transgender rights, abortion, marriage equality and Syrian refugees, Centrists have more in common with the Center-Right populists than they do with the Left. And its not close.

On the issue of transgender bathroom laws (Figure 9), 50 percent of centrists strongly support laws that say people should use the bathroom of the gender they were born with. That is comparable to the Center-Right (58%) opinion. Libertarians, in contrast, are closer to the Center-Left‘s opinion on the issue.

Figure 9: Voter Clusters by Attitudes Regarding Transgender Bathroom Issue

(Source: 2016 ANES; 3,649 respondents; max. margin of error = +/- 4.3%)

 

On marriage equality (Figure 10), a similar pattern emerges. Roughly 35 percent of Centrists say there should be no legal recognition of gay or lesbian marriages. That is similar to the Center-Right (27%) and Right (38%). And, again, Libertarians show more congruence with the Center-Left and Left  on this issue.

Figure 10: Voter Clusters by Attitudes Regarding Marriage Equality

(Source: 2016 ANES; 3,649 respondents; max. margin of error = +/- 4.3%)

 

Abortion is an issue that some have argued has reached a consensus in this country. Americans, if they personally don’t approve of abortion, are not inclined to outlaw the practice. On the contrary, American’s generally support safe and affordable access to the procedure in most cases. Yet, there is a clear disconnect between the Left and Center-Left with Centrists where 25 percent say abortion should never be permitted. That level is closer to the Right‘s position (30% oppose abortion in all cases) than it is to even Center-Right position (15% oppose in all cases).

Are Hispanic Catholics going to split from the Democratic Party over this issue? We don’t think so. But given the party’s recent treatment one of Omaha’s Democratic mayoral candidates, Heath Mello, who had a mixed record on abortion rights, it also appears the party doesn’t tolerate diversity of opinion within its own ranks.

Figure 11: Voter Clusters by Attitudes Regarding Abortion

(Source: 2016 ANES; 3,649 respondents; max. margin of error = +/- 4.3%)

 

No issue demonstrates how disconnected the Left is from the rest of America as does the willingness to accept more Syrian refugees into the U.S.  Eighty-percent of the Left supports allowing more Syrian refugees into the U.S. (see Figure 12). Only 32 percent of Center-Left voters and 12 percent of Centrists share that opinion. And I’ll let you guess where the Center-Right and Right come down on this issue.

Understand. I am not making an argument that the U.S. should stop accepting more Syrian refugees. This author absolutely is willing to stand against the majority opinion on this issue. Sometimes, right is right. George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton (among others) created that mess and, in my opinion, it is our moral obligation to take on its consequences. That opinion, however, is not the opinion of most Americans. Its not even close.

The exercise presented here is to objectively assess the degree to which the ideological wing of the Democratic Party is in aligned with its own partisans and the American people in general. Since persuasion has become a lost art within both parties, assessing the party’s alignment with its core constituencies is critical to its future electoral success.

Figure 12: Voter Clusters by Attitudes Regarding Allowing More Syrian Refugees into U.S.

 

 IS THE LEFT REALLY DISCONNECTED FROM MAINSTREAM OPINION?

Should the Democrats move to the Center? To answer this question, so far, we’ve grouped people with similar opinions on a wide range of issues and looked at their demographics, their voting behavior, and their opinions on a selection of issues.

But the Penn-Stein thesis requires more rigorous testing. First, does a two-dimensional ideology construct (Left-Right) represent the real world? That is, does it even make sense to talk about ‘moving to the center’?

Second, if the two-dimensional construct does offer some value, is the distance between the Left and the other voter segments large enough to suggest the Left needs to move closer to the center. Figures 13 to 17 are a preliminary attempt to address these two questions.

Third, do voters really choose candidates based on issues, or are other factors such as trust and likeability more important in their vote calculus? On this question, we will rely on previous research but NuQum.com’s own analysis of the 2016 ANES shows trust was the most powerful predictor of vote choice in the 2016 presidential race — though factors such as a voter’s party identification, presidential approval, economic assessments, and attitudes regarding Syrian refugees and transgender bathroom laws were also significant predictors.

 MAPPING THE VOTER CLUSTERS BY MAJOR CAMPAIGN ISSUES

As mentioned earlier regarding our methodology, we clustered not only the voters in the 2016 ANES (6 clusters), we also clustered the issues into 18 sub-clusters that we further combined into five major issue clusters:

• Role of Government (social spending, deficits, role of gov’t in health care)
• Security (national defense, terrorism, crime, spending on police)
• Immigration (building a border wall, amnesty, importance of English)
• Civil Rights (marriage equality, gender equality, race relations)
• Climate change (belief in global warming, fracking, regulation)

If the Left-Right ideology spectrum is meaningful, we would expect the six voter clusters to fall predictably within the issue indexes, particularly the most ideologically consistent voter clusters (Left and Right).  And that is what we find in the graphs below — though,  with respect to Libertarians and Centrists, there was more variability in their mapping locations. On some issues (Role of Government), the Libertarians are more aligned with the Right. On other issues (Civil Rights), they are more aligned with the Left. 

The Libertarian example suggests it takes more than two-dimensions to summarize public opinion. Nonetheless, if we look at Figure 13 as an example, two-dimensions still work pretty well. On immigration (the y-axis), the Left is far removed from the next closest cluster (Center-Left) on this issue. In this case, high scores on the y-axis indicate strong support for immigration policies that give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship and allow for more open immigration policies in general. The same is true for the security issue (x-axis), except now the Libertarians are closest to the Left, which is still far removed from the other five voter clusters.

Notice that the Right and Center-Right are very close to each other on both immigration and security, and both are far removed from the Libertarians, Centrists, and Center-Left. For the Republicans to gain a consensus on either issue, they will need significant support from Libertarians (and maybe even Centrists). The Left, on the other hand, has a tougher road ahead in building a consensus position on immigration and security.

Figure 13: Voter Clusters by Immigration and Security Dimensions

(Source: 2016 ANES; 3,649 respondents; analytics by NuQum.com)

 

Figure 14 is similar to Figure 13, only the Security Index has been replaced with the Civil Rights Index. It shows that the Right and Center-Right are still in alignment on civil rights issues and immigration and the Left is far removed from even the Center-Left on both indexes. The correlation of the voter clusters plotted by the Immigration and Civil Rights Indexes is 0.94, indicating support for the utility of the two-dimensional ideology construct.

Figure 14: Voter Clusters by Immigration and Civil Rights Dimensions

(Source: 2016 ANES; 3,649 respondents; analytics by NuQum.com)

 

Figure 15 looks at the relationship between the Role of Government and Civil Rights Indexes. Though the correlation remains high (0.76), there is a bit more scatter and the Libertarians are closer to the Right on the Role of Government Index. In contrast, the Center-Right, Centrists, and Center-Left are closer to the Left than they are to the Right.

This is good news for the Democrats.

Figure 15: Voter Clusters by Civil Rights and Role of Government Dimensions

(Source: 2016 ANES; 3,649 respondents; analytics by NuQum.com)

 

Figure 16 may be the most intriguing of these bi-plot graphs as it shows the potential contradictions between security issues and the role of government.  For many voters, it requires some intellectual gymnastics and perhaps a little temporary amnesia to rationalize support for big government with respect to security but dismiss its relevance on most other issues. Its certainly not impossible to believe the government is good at national defense, but not much else. But Figure 16 implies that rigid ideological arguments breakdown somewhat with respect to the guns versus butter debate.

Figure 16: Voter Clusters by Role of Government and Security Dimensions

(Source: 2016 ANES; 3,649 respondents; analytics by NuQum.com)

 

Finally, ideological consistency returns in Figure 17 which plots the voter clusters by the Role of Government and Climate Change Indexes. The good news for Democrats here — and it really is good news — is that the Right is the most distant cluster from mainstream opinion on climate change. Now, if only the Democrats can make climate change policy an important factor in how people vote.

 

Figure 17: Voter Clusters by Role of Government and Climate Change Dimensions

(Source: 2016 ANES; 3,649 respondents; analytics by NuQum.com)

Though we haven’t addressed the relative importance of the various issues on how people vote, The Gallup Company provides a nice summary over time on that question. You can access their data here.

Generally, economic issues (jobs, economic growth) and national defense tend to emerge near the top of voters’ lists of most important issues. But those lists do vary by election year and the value of predicting what those “most important” issues will be cannot be underestimated. Ironically, with the current strong economy and significant progress in fighting ISIS, the 2018 midterms may see post-materialist issues like civil rights and climate change rise up on voters’ agenda, potentially benefiting the Democrats in addition to the likely importance of the ongoing Trump-Russia investigation and the effects of the health care debacle the Republican Congress is about to unleash on the American public.

 WHAT ARE THE RISKS IN CENTRISM?

The Penn and Stein thesis carries a large assumption about the relationship between candidate’s issue positions and voters. This is called the ‘representative democracy’ model of voting. In making their vote decision, do voters line up the candidates’ issue positions with their own and choose the candidate closest to them on the most important issues?

It appears the answer is ‘yes’ — for most voters.

Political scientist Jon Krosnick, a leading expert on American voting behavior, says the political psychology research on American voters offers an optimistic conclusion about the American democracy. “Most Americans vote according to the principles of representative democracy,” says Krosnick. “but guardianship democracy and performance appraisal are (voting) approaches alive and well, too.”

A guardianship democracy is where voters vote for the most competent or intelligent candidate. In this case, trustworthiness and experience are drivers of vote decisions and, for some voters, their policy preferences may not be well-aligned with their preferred candidate. Performance appraisal voting is similar in that voters keep incumbents in office when things are going well (e.g., the economy) and vote for challengers when things aren’t going well.

So, can we conclude that Penn and Stein’s advice to the Democrats is built on the valid assumption that voters seek candidates they agree with on the most important issues?

Not so fast.

Recent research by Stanford’s Toni Rodon (here) offers evidence from European voting data that centrist voters are less likely  to vote when the parties don’t show clear ideological differences. If the parties aren’t different enough, why vote? Though Rodon presents his conclusion as debunking conventional wisdom, Ronald Reagan’s pollster, Richard Wirthlin, discovered something similar over 40 years ago when  Reagan was preparing to run against President Gerald Ford, a moderate Republican.

In his 1975 speech to Young Americans for Freedom, Reagan urged Republicans to “raise a banner, not of pale pastels, but bold colors.” His prescient observation rose from Wirthlin’s research showing many undecided voters, all else equal, are more attracted to candidates with a clear policy agendas.

If this voting dynamic is prevalent with a significant number of voters (and we think it is), it would argue against running centrist candidates and support the conclusion that the Democrats need to be the clear progressive alternative to the Republican Party.

This is a seductive argument and may help explain why “moderate” Democratic presidential candidates (Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, Hillary Clinton) failed to capture the imagination of enough American voters.

 

That is the challenge the Democrats will face if they choose to follow Penn and Stein’s advice. To make that move poorly could make the Democratic Party and its candidates appear indecisive and triangulating. That is not an attractive position to be in. Ask Hillary Clinton or John Kerry.

However, talented communicators like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have proven the centrist strategy can work for Democrats. Americans will vote for candidates they disagree with on some important issues if that candidate presents a clear vision of where they want to lead this country.

But we have not seen any data that supports the conclusion that a political party can be too far outside mainstream opinion and consistently win elections at all levels of government. Unfortunately, that is where we think the Democrats stand today. They are out-of-sync, not just with independents, but with some of their core constituencies (African-Americans, Hispanics, and the working-class). On some issues, such as national security, abortion, and LGBTQ rights, these core constituencies are closer to the Republicans in their attitudes and policy preferences.

Should the Republicans ever learn how to exploit this fact, even the advantage the Democrats have going into the 2018 midterms could be in jeopardy. The good news for Democrats is that the Republicans have shown no ability or commitment to make this adjustment. If anything, the Trump presidency has set the Republican Party back in this regard.

Regrettably, too many Democrats are showing a similar disinterest in appealing to the moderate predispositions of a large proportion of their core supporters. It makes me think…somewhere…in some other dimension…Sam Kinison is screaming at the Democrats, MOVE TO THE VOTERS!

 

The 2016 ANES dataset, data dictionary, and computer codes (SAS JMP) used in this article are available upon email request to: kkroeger@nuqum.com

About the author:  Kent Kroeger is a writer and statistical consultant with over 30 -years experience measuring and analyzing public opinion for public and private sector clients. He also spent ten years working for the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and the Defense Intelligence Agency. He holds a B.S. degree in Journalism/Political Science from The University of Iowa, and an M.A. in Quantitative Methods from Columbia University (New York, NY).  He lives in Ewing, New Jersey with his wife and son.

By Kent R. Kroeger (Source: NuQum.com, June 21, 2017)

If you are reading this post, you probably have read more than a few analyses of the lessons learned from Georgia’s 6th Congressional District special election where Karen Handel (R) won over Jon Ossoff (D) by a 52 percent to 48 percent margin. But let me add three more lessons that you probably haven’t heard.

(1) First, the Congressional Leadership Fund ran the most brilliant political ad I’ve seen in a long time.  If you don’t believe me, watch the ad here.

The TV ad simply links Ossoff to Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). It’s funny (even to Democrats I know) and makes a very relevant point: Ossoff raised the majority of his money from California. How do Democrats still not realize that most of America does not align itself with the politics of San Francisco, California?

The Civil Rights-Climate Change-Abortion party is not an attractive product. In fact, if the Democrats were a commercial product, it would have been discontinued soon after the 2010 election debacle. The product doesn’t sell.

And I am not just hating on the Democrats. I am the only political analyst who does not think Bernie Sanders is an unrealistic, out-of-touch socialist. He is not. He is actually trying to pull the Democrats into a policy space where the Democrats can dominate the Republicans across a broad swath of the American public.

The establishment Democrats (Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Tom Perez, Kamala Harris) try to convince the Democrat base that post-materialist issues define the party’s future (civil rights, climate change, abortion) and that Bernie Sanders is an out-of-touch socialist who can’t win on a national level. However, the truth lies elsewhere.

Bernie Sanders and the  progressives refuse to accept the strictures of the Democratic establishment and instead recognize the strategic advantages the Democrats possess relative to the Republicans when they emphasize old-time, materialist issues (employment and wage growth, fair trade agreements, health care access, student debt, education investment, non-interventionist, U.S. interest-focused military policies, etc.).

The Georgia special election reminded me again, as information consumers, we cannot accept the CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, FOX News, and MSNBC definitions of the political left and right. These news outlets are dominated by post-materialists who have little understanding or interest in the real world where most voters reside.

(2) The second lesson I gleaned from the Georgia election is…NEVER RELY ON ONE DATA SOURCE OR ANALYTIC METHOD.

Nate Silver and 538.com are not a bunch of geniuses who know something everyone doesn’t know. I’m a statistician by training and I believe decision-making must always include the best available data.

Yet, the problem is one of humility and most statisticians, including Nate Silver and his cohorts at 538.com, possess very little of that trait. Instead, they have developed one of the great cons of our time and a con that our media outlets systematically ignore.

This most recent Georgia election has put this con directly in the spotlight. Nate Silver and 538.com have learned that when making predictions, predict all possible outcomes, thereby making yourself appear to be the Nostradamus of your time. Its the political analog to climate change. Assert that all outcomes prove the validity of your model and you can’t go wrong.

They are modern-day versions of witch doctors.

If you don’t believe me, I invite you to read Nate Silver’s multiple predictions on the Georgia special election here.

It’s not that Nate Silver and 538.com are frauds. They are not. They earnestly employ sophisticated modeling techniques on a wide range of data sources (opinion surveys, econometric data, past voting behavior, etc.) to make predictions. One of Silver’s innovations is that he understands that electoral outcomes at the local and state levels are correlated with outcomes nationwide. Without modeling that fact, predictions will be biased.

No, the problem is not that Nate Silver and 538.com are frauds.  They are not.

The problem is that they (and myself at times) fail to appreciate how unpredictable attitudes and behaviors can be within the American population. The data we collect on all Americans (past purchase behavior, current life stage,  past voting behavior, public opinion polling, credit history, online behavior, etc.) is not enough information to reliably predict political behavior (i.e., how people will vote). It just isn’t.

We need only look at the hubris of the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and its over-reliance on big data models for tactical decision-making to realize decisions based solely on data are susceptible to unacceptable amounts of error.

Clinton lost in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania because the data models said she was safe in those states. The data failed.

Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election, not because of the Russians, but because she allowed the data nerds to make tactical decisions that did not properly value real-time, survey-based opinion data — which is expensive to collect and analyze, but remains an irreplaceable element of today’s election campaigns.

Kellyanne Conway understood this fact. That is why the Trump campaign was well-positioned to exploit Clinton’s tactical errors.

Yes, this last conclusion is a little self-serving, but nonetheless true. Big data relies on easily available data sources. The data are not selected because of their theoretical relevance to the empirical question (How will people vote on election day?). It is selected because it is readily available and correlates with election outcomes.

But as we all learned in our first-year college statistics class, correlation is not causation. To assume it is, is not good  data modeling practice.

(3) Finally, my third takeaway from the Georgia special election is that media-selected experts are not expert enough to be truly called experts. I don’t need to pick on any specific media analyst because they all, near universally, failed to provide any specific insights into the Georgia special election.

Laura Ingraham and Michael Moore are two exceptions. They seem to understand people at the DNA-level, even if they come from different ideological viewpoints.

We live in the age of faux expertise. In fact, it does appear to the naked eye, that the more someone fails in the American political circus, the more often they are relied upon for expert analysis on our news networks. Robby Mook and Jennifer Palmieri should be selling corn dogs on the Atlantic City, New Jersey boardwalk after what they did to the arguably “most qualified presidential candidate” in our nation’s history. Van Jones from CNN got it right when he assessed the competence of Clinton’s campaign operatives : They set fire to over $1 Billion and called it a campaign.

But, no, I am forced to regularly listen to the expertise of these former Clinton campaign operatives on CNN and MSNBC instead.

That’s what I learned from Georgia’s 6th Congressional District special election.

About the author:  Kent Kroeger is a writer and statistical consultant with over 30 -years experience measuring and analyzing public opinion for public and private sector clients. He also spent ten years working for the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and the Defense Intelligence Agency. He holds a B.S. degree in Journalism/Political Science from The University of Iowa, and an M.A. in Quantitative Methods from Columbia University (New York, NY).  He lives in Ewing, New Jersey with his wife and son.

By Kent R. Kroeger (Source: NuQum.com, June 2, 2017)

Three certainties remain after the Trump administration’s decision to leave the Paris Agreement. First, climate change science will become even more politicized. Second, coal is not coming back.

The third certainty is that the Paris Agreement on climate change, with or without the U.S. in it, will not change the facts on the ground. The planet will continue to warm even as the developed economies will continue to rapidly convert from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources.

Nonetheless, the Trump administration’s decision to leave and potentially renegotiate the agreement has been met by near unanimous criticism from the media, the Democrats, and the international community.

Yet, much of the criticism rings hollow given that many of these voices decrying Trump today were also denouncing the agreement nearly two years ago when it was signed in Paris. The central feature of the agreement most criticized at the time was its nonbinding nature and lack of enforcement mechanisms.

Writing for The New Yorker, John Cassidy summarized in a 2015 article the inherent weakness of the Paris Agreement:

“The only way to ensure the participation of the United States and China was to make the agreement nonbinding. The Obama Administration insisted on it, well aware that the U.S. Senate wouldn’t ratify a formal treaty…If a country fails to live up to what it promised in Paris, there is no obvious recourse beyond naming and shaming.”

Perhaps the most damning indictment of the Paris Agreement came from the very scientists the Democrats today use as cudgels to shame “climate deniers” and other critics of the Paris Agreement.

Former NASA scientist James Hansen, one of the first scientists to document how greenhouse gases are putting the planet’s climate at risk, said of the Paris Agreement, “It’s a fraud really, a fake. It is just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2-degree Celsius warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned.”

“The emissions cuts promised by countries (in the Paris Agreement) are still wholly insufficient,” said Corinne Le Quere of the University of East Anglia, who studies global emissions, about the agreement when it was signed in December, 2015.

“The deal in Paris may well have been the best deal possible,” wrote New Scientist writer Michael Le Page. “But the protesters outside the summit are right when they say it will not save the planet.”

Nothing has changed in the Paris Agreement since Dr. Hansen and Dr. Le Quere made those comments in 2015. So what justifies the hysterics we now hear about the Trump administration’s decision to leave the agreement? The nonbinding nature of the Paris Agreement that was once declared as the agreement’s fatal flaw, is now portrayed as part of its strength. Critics of the Trump action further suggest the U.S. will cede its leadership position in the world by leaving the agreement.

“Its a shameful moment for the United States,” says former Secretary of State John Kerry, who helped negotiate the agreement.

“This was a crushing blow,” says Alice Hill. who helped negotiate the agreement for the Obama administration. ”

“A profound abdication of world leadership,” says former U.S. Senator Max Baucus. “This is a huge opportunity for China.”

Its not clear how China becomes a world leader on climate policy, given their own reluctance to adhere to binding and enforceable CO2 emissions cuts, but we are asked to accept this inevitable shift in power without examination.

What seems more likely from the Trump move is that climate change science will become even more politicized which doesn’t serve anyone’s interest.

The distress over the Trump decision is motivated by more by the politics than the science.

That’s not a criticism of Trump’s critics. Of course, politics is a big part of this debate. We are potentially talking trillions of dollars in costs and wealth transfers as the impact of global warming becomes increasingly evident over time. When money on that scale is involved, we can’t let scientists unilaterally make the substantive policy decisions that address global warming. Scientists are not elected representatives and they won’t suffer the consequences the way politicians will should the transition to a renewable energy economy cause significant economic dislocation.

Furthermore, since the Paris Agreement is voluntary and nonbinding, the most likely impact of the U.S. withdrawal will be in perceptions. Where the Obama administration portrayed itself as a leader on the issue (it wasn’t), the Trump decision has left a perceived power vacuum likely to be filled by the Europeans in the near-term and potentially by China in the long-term.

But the truth is even more complicated. China and other rapidly developing economies can’t afford energy prices to rise too fast — which will happen if the conversion to renewable energy sources occurs too rapidly. Its a balancing act that determined the shape of the Paris Agreement and ultimately limits its impact on global temperatures.

The claim that China will assume leadership in the new technologies behind renewable energy because of the Trump action is a baseless canard. China and Europe were catching up in those technologies (if not already surpassing us) while the U.S. was part of the Paris Agreement. Trump’s action doesn’t change that — and nothing prevents this country from keeping its leadership in these technologies. Economic demand will drive technology development, independent of the Paris Agreement.

The Trump decision is predicated on a political calculus that presupposes millions of fossil fuel-based jobs will be jeopardized if we adopt the Paris Agreement targets. You can argue they are wrong, but its hard to deny why they would be concerned about these potential job losses.

“Paris represents an international agreement that puts the U.S. at a disadvantage and does little to change global warming,” says U.S. EPA chief, Scott Pruitt. “The U.S. has made significant advancements in CO2 emissions. We have nothing to apologize for.”

Its hard to ignore the irony in Pruitt’s statement. It is because of the active efforts of the Obama administration that allows him to highlight this country’s achievements in reducing CO2 emissions. That the Trump administration is already rolling back regulations that could reverse these gains is left unaddressed by Pruitt.

But Trump’s critics ignore the realities of climate change as well. The science says the Paris Agreement will be insufficient in stopping the planet’s 2 degree Celsius temperature rise from the pre-industrial baseline.

So what are we left with?  Not much. Global temperatures will continue to rise. The Europeans, China and the U.S. are likely to continue unabated in their  efforts to convert from fossil fuel-based to renewable energy-based economies. And those efforts may not occur soon enough to avoid the significant costs of global warming.

But that is where this has always been heading and no politician, country or political movement is positioned to change that fact.

You contact the author at: kentkroeger3@gmail.com

About the author:  Kent Kroeger is a writer and statistical consultant with over 30 -years experience measuring and analyzing public opinion for public and private sector clients. He also spent ten years working for the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and the Defense Intelligence Agency. He holds a B.S. degree in Journalism/Political Science from The University of Iowa, and an M.A. in Quantitative Methods from Columbia University (New York, NY).  He lives in Ewing, New Jersey with his wife and son.

 

By Kent R. Kroeger (Source: NuQum.com, May 28, 2017)

It is always prudent not to jump to conclusions when a news story first breaks, particularly when it relates to U.S. intelligence.  Case in point is the latest twist in the Trump-Russia connection coming from Washington Post writers Ellen Nakashima, Adam Entous, and Greg Miller.

The  entire May 26th story can be read here.

Their story reports about a meeting between President Trump’s senior adviser Jared Kushner and Russian U.S. Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in which it is claimed that they discussed creating a secure communications channel between Trump’s transition team and the Kremlin.

The first two paragraphs of the story are most important:

From The Washington Post:

Jared Kushner and Russia’s ambassador to Washington discussed the possibility of setting up a secret and secure communications channel between Trump’s transition team and the Kremlin, using Russian diplomatic facilities in an apparent move to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring, according to U.S. officials briefed on intelligence reports.

Ambassador Sergey Kislyak reported to his superiors in Moscow that Kushner, son-in-law and confidant to then-President-elect Trump, made the proposal during a meeting on Dec. 1 or 2 at Trump Tower, according to intercepts of Russian communications that were reviewed by U.S. officials. Kislyak said Kushner suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities in the United States for the communications.

One of the most important elements of intelligence tradecraft is the art of deception. There is no country better at it than Russia. And as the Washington Post story makes clear, the information behind the May 26th story came, not from direct collection on the Kushner-Kislyak meeting, but from an intercept of the Kislyak’s reporting about the meeting back to the Kremlin.

We are told in the story that no intelligence collection was done on the original Kushner-Kislyak meeting on Dec. 1 or 2 at Trump Tower. If so, the only knowledge the U.S. intelligence community has on the meeting comes from the Kislyak’s conversation with the Kremlin.

That fact should give you pause regarding assumptions about the nature and content of the Kushner-Kislyak meeting at Trump Tower. It is entirely possible — maybe even likely — that Kislyak misrepresented the content of the meeting knowing that U.S. intelligence would hear it.

If the intent of the Russian interference in the U.S. 2016 elections was to sow discord and distrust within the U.S. government, it would make perfect sense for Kislyak to feed false information to the U.S. intelligence community regarding the meeting with Kushner.

I am not saying this is what happened. I could not possibly know. The problem is, I don’t think even the U.S. intelligence community knows for sure.

About the author:  Kent Kroeger is a writer and statistical consultant with over 30 -years experience measuring and analyzing public opinion for public and private sector clients. He also spent ten years working for the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and the Defense Intelligence Agency. He holds a B.S. degree in Journalism/Political Science from The University of Iowa, and an M.A. in Quantitative Methods from Columbia University (New York, NY).  He lives in Ewing, New Jersey with his wife and son.

By Kent R. Kroeger (Source: NuQum.com, May 5, 2017)

Heading into Mother’s Day weekend, I intended to write about my 86-year-old mother, a retired Iowa public school teacher and a great lady.

But…it will need to wait, as I’ve been thinking a lot about my father recently…and Donald Trump.

President Trump’s recent SiriusXM Radio interview triggered my latest reflection. This is the interview where President Trump wondered out loud, “Why was there a Civil War?” According to Trump, President Andrew Jackson would have found a way to avoid the Civil War if he had been around near its start. I’m being charitable in my interpretation of the Trump’s comments.

Link: Trump Speaks About Andrew Jackson and the Civil War on SIRUSXM Radio

I don’t know how I made it  a week before hearing the SiriusXM Radio interview. But, I did — until a former colleague sent it to me.

“This is your president,” she wrote. “Enjoy.”

Full disclosure. I am a Obama-Trump voter (and I caucused for O’Malley). The New York Times, among others, have concluded that the shift of people like me from Obama (in 2012) to Trump (in 2016) explains much of why Clinton lost what was considered a very winnable race for her.

Click here to read Global Strategy Group’s Matt Canter give a more substantial understanding of this shift from Obama to Trump.

Suffice it to say, I had my reasons (such as her aggressive support of a reckless, neocon-inspired foreign policies) and nothing has changed to make me regret my vote. I share actor James Woods’ sentiments on the 2016 election ==> here:

But the Trump interview on SiriusXM was unsettling, nonetheless. He mangled history in a way that would have made my father cringe. It should stagger anyone that values rational thought.

Historical events and figures can have varying interpretations depending on the historian. However, there are socially accepted boundaries that generally limit where insightful historical analyses can tread. This engenders an intellectual elitism found with most academic historians —  but for that modest cost — we, as a society, gain a common understanding of our culture, our nation and ourselves.

Donald Trump wandered into an uncommon place — and it was built from his own synaptic impulses that don’t always serve him well. In the SirusXM interview he offered a nonsensical description of an interesting American political figure (Andrew Jackson) and clumsily tried to pivot into an understanding of the Civil War.

It sounded like something Steve Bannon dreamed up and Trump tried to regurgitate, as best he could, close to its original form.

The attempt failed.

And after hearing the SiriusXM interview, that’s when I thought of my father, Glenn Kroeger.

Though trained as a physicist and engineer, he was an historian at heart. He loved history more than the profession that helped him build a home, raise a family and comfortably retire before his death in 2001.

Growing up in the Great Depression, history books were his escape from the soul-grinding realities of eastern Colorado in the early 1930s.  And unlike our current president, my father cared about how historical knowledge was conveyed. Verbal Incoherence suggests laziness and insults the listener.

My father was trained in math and science. H expressed history as would a mathematician who put a premium on causal ordering and trends. His dinner table dissertations on history didn’t just retell stories, but were interlaced with causal explanations.

His over-arching causal model was a simple one. While often riddled with ignorance, suffering and death, my father saw history as the near monotonic march of progress. The arc of human achievement was an upward trending line with occasional perturbations followed by a regression back to the mean and a return to the onward march of progress.

His optimism mirrored the views at the time of Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, who coined the term “creative destruction” when describing capitalism’s role in advancing society. For someone growing up in deep poverty in the rural plains in the 1930s, my father’s attraction to such a deterministic perspective was understandable. It became part of his political DNA, even as his immediate views on contemporary political issues were often shifting and malleable.

In sharing his love of history with me, my father would often return to what I call his origin stories. These were the historical figures and events from which his personal life philosophy arose.

He talked so often of Genghis Khan, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Otto von Bismarck, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and General George Marshall, I thought they were blood relations. (They weren’t.)

He talked  with awe about the rise of Genghis Khan and how his Mongolian horse archers conquered nearly all of continental Asia, the Middle East and parts of eastern Europe. His descriptions of how Genghis Khan’s army vanquished great cities were so vivid, I thought perhaps he lived through it. (He didn’t.)

My father’s paperback copies of Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” and “The Age of Reason” were so greasy and feathered, I always intended to buy him new, hard bound copies before he died. (I didn’t.)

You knew not to say the name, John D. Rockefeller Jr., in my father’s presence. Growing up poor in Sterling, Colorado in the 1930s meant you knew chapter and verse how Rockefeller, the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, and their hired goons brutally ended a miners strike in the town of Ludlow.  To end the strike, two dozen people died on April 20, 1914, including some women and children. It was one of my father’s origin stories even though neither he, nor anyone from our family, was directly involved.

There were other dinner table stories I will always remember.

He never forgave Captain Smith for the arrogance that precipitated his driving the Titanic into a rogue iceberg in the north Atlantic. When he would describe in detail how the ‘steerage class’ were prevented from reaching the lifeboats, I can be forgiven if I once believed he was one of the Titanic‘s few third class passengers to make it to the Carpathia.

My father loathed inherited wealth and he used the Titanic story as an exemplar tale. When the richest man in America at the time, John Jacob Astor IV, was found dead in the water by one of the returning lifeboats, my father’s regret was that he didn’t sink to the bottom of the icy Atlantic.

My father’s opinions often lacked gentility. They were sometimes as dry and harsh as the tumbleweed that would sweep through eastern Colorado in the dust bowl years. He would often punctuate political discussions with the question, “Who benefits and who loses?” Years later, in college, I would read Howard Zinn’s, “The People’s History of the United States,” and think, this sounds familiar.

Would you be the savior of the broken, the beaten and the damned? is a line from one of my favorite bands is also a nice summary of my father’s philosophy.

But my father wasn’t a socialist, but close. He was a Democrat, and though he opposed his party on some of its biggest issues (Equal Rights Amendment, busing, taxes, affirmative action, Middle East policy), he despised the Republicans too much to ever consider changing his party registration. He was a disgruntled Democrat to his end.

He joined the U.S. Army near the end of World War II when he was 16-years-old, doctoring his birth certificate to make it look like he was 17. And while he lamented the war ended before he could really participate, I always thought it seemed like the perfect time to join.

He would express to me his admiration for what he called the “Big Three” U.S. Army Generals:  Marshall, Bradley, and Eisenhower. Due to his older brother’s immense suffering in the war’s Pacific theater, he despised  Generals MacArthur and LeMay.

But his deepest animus was towards Harry “ass” Truman, often talking about his approving the needless dropping of the atomic bombs on Japanese civilians in World War II and suggesting he along with LeMay should have been included in the war crime trials after the war.

At the same time, he thought the Western allies should have pushed Stalin out of eastern Europe. While some liberals at the time were expressing admiration for the Russian dictator, my father saw just another example of power elites taking advantage of the common people.

Until his death, my father also blamed Truman for starting the fire that today keeps the U.S. in a near-permanent state of war in the Middle East. At the end of World War II, he didn’t understand why Truman didn’t allow more Jewish refugees into this country. When Truman championed the creation of Israel, my father lamented his callousness in turning a blind eye to the Palestinian people when they were driven from their homes and cities during Israel’s creation.

Over his views on the Palestinians and Israel, some of my father’s friends from the Unitarian Church that we attended would call him an ‘anti-Semite’ behind his back. From that experience I learned the treacherous ease with which liberals like to label others as’racist.’

My father was many things — not all of them admirable.  But he was not a racist. Far from it. Rather, everything he read and experienced passed through historical lenses more sensitized to class and economics than to issues of race and ethnicity. When identify politics took over the Democratic Party in the 1960s and 70s, he knew his party had left him for good. All too familiar under present circumstances.

But my father didn’t hate all politicians. He loved FDR and Ike and cried like a grieving brother when JFK died. {But, Dad, didn’t you often call the Kennedy family a ‘bunch of bootleggers and smugglers’ that can’t be trusted? I would learn years later about how some people are good at compartmentalizing their opinions.}

However, his thoughts towards LBJ and Nixon were consistent and mostly negative.

As for Reagan, my father saw him as a puppet to Republican elites; though, when Reagan took down the PATCO union, my father would say it was about time someone stood up to the powerful unions. This coming from a man that would almost cry relating the story of the Ludlow massacre. This disconnect did not go unnoticed, even by my father, who admitted to me that 20 years in the white collar world as an engineer had changed his views on a lot of things. This is why I laugh when political analysts tell us that the Millennials will  put and keep the Democrats in power for a long time. Yeah, right. Lets see how that turns out.

As he aged, my father became particularly sensitive to politicians’ honesty. He was convinced they would conspire to steal his Social Security and retirement nest egg. He was especially distrustful of  Bill Clinton — and Clinton didn’t disappoint. Regarding the ‘the kid from Hope, Arkansas,’ he would say, “he tells lies even when the truth would sound better.”

He despised Bill, but admired his wife.

Yes, it is hard for me to fit my father’s politics or general philosophy to any coherent governing framework. It covered a lot of ideological territory.

My father’s egalitarianism was non-doctrinaire and elastic, for while history taught him that concentrated wealth hindered the general prosperity of a nation, he also recognized some people are endowed with great ideas and should be encouraged to enjoy the fruits of those inspirations. Hence, even though he admired FDR and the New Deal, by the 1970s he thought the U.S. government had evolved into a tool for laggards, the envious and the over-educated to take away other people’s hard work.

My father was a textbook Reagan Democrat except that, as I mentioned, he despised the Republicans – and, yet, still voted for Ike twice,  and Nixon and Ford once each.

The lesson here? If you assume someone will vote one way because of their identify or past voting history,  you do so at the risk of being wrong…very wrong.

Today, I still find myself drawing chestnuts of wisdom from one of my father’s political rants. He was driven by his childhood traumas and adult insecurities more than from a tight political ideology. That’s OK. Cognitive dissonance never bothered him. He swam in it. As we all do. As Donald Trump seems to do with relish.

By writing about my father here, perhaps I now see Trump in a more understanding light?

Uh….no.

Donald Trump talks about history like someone who had no time for it  when he was still a student. His historical musings are devoid of substance, depth, and utility. Its a nutrition-free gruel of superficial knowledge held together with stunted syntax and sudden pauses, all meant to convey to the listener that its chef is a really, really, really smart guy. Of course, it does the exact the opposite — and I think he knows it.

I see the embarrassment in his face sometimes as it turns increasingly red the more he talks. In those moments he is showing the physiological attributes of chronic embarrassment – not dementia or narcissistic personality disorder as many want to believe. Donald Trump is painfully aware of his severe knowledge deficit.

I genuinely believe Donald Trump sits up at night kicking himself for all the stupid things he said during the day.  By 3 a.m., that regret and embarrassment turns into anger — and then we get the tweets.  Loads of tweets.

To be fair, my father also had some quirky interpretations of history (such as, ‘the Germans nearly won World War II’). But even when my father was wrong, it was rooted in a common reality that anyone could at least understand, if not share agreement.

My father said history mirrored the massive rivers that cut through the plains he grew up on. From a surface view, the North Platte River often meanders in inexplicable directions, snaking across the prairie like a rattlesnake. But from a much higher perspective, the river churns through our nation’s midsection with the clear purpose of finding the nearest ocean.

But where rivers seek the geographic low point, my father saw human history as driven by a different but equally deterministic dynamic. In the immediate, it is full of strange cul-de-sacs that defy explanation — but over the long arc of time it reveals its larger mission. Collectively, we humans always seek the next highest point. And from there, the next, and then the next. We can’t help ourselves.

That was how my father came to understand history. His views are never far from my thoughts.

[Mom, I will write about you on Father’s Day, I promise]

The author can be reached at: kentkroeger3@gmail.com

About the author:  Kent Kroeger is a writer and statistical consultant with over 30 -years experience measuring and analyzing public opinion for public and private sector clients. He holds a B.S. degree in Journalism/Political Science from The University of Iowa, and an M.A. in Quantitative Methods from Columbia University (New York, NY).  He lives in Ewing, New Jersey with his wife and son.

By Kent R. Kroeger (Source: NuQum.com, May 2, 2017)

Motivational speaker Zig Ziglar once said, “If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost.”

He must have had Hillary Clinton in mind because after watching Clinton’s CNN interview today with Christiane Amanpour, it is clear — Hillary Clinton has learned nothing from her defeat last November.

While some have suggested she accepted her culpability in November’s defeat, the opposite was on display in the CNN interview.

I understand her need to blame others. We all do this, consciously or unconsciously. And, frankly, she is correct in saying Putin had it in for her and Comey didn’t do her any favors.

But this is exactly why the Democrats need to hold her accountable for last November’s election debacle. She was damaged goods going into the election and she lost to the most unprepared candidate in U.S. presidential history.

Why did she lose? For the very reasons she cites for her own exoneration. She made Comey and Putin powerful enough to influence a U.S. presidential election. Hillary Clinton lost because of her own inherent flaws.

She had been in the public spotlight too long, made too many powerful enemies, was overly paranoid (with cause) and was so protective of her privacy that she demanded her State Department work emails be stored on servers she could control with absolute certainty.

The personal email server was Clinton’s creation. Whether the press pursued this story too long is debatable. We know from the State Department’s Inspector General report that this server setup was not to be questioned by the State Department’s IT staff – who did not sanction the setup.

Given that unmarked classified documents were found on Clinton’s home server suggests — at a minimum — a reckless disregard for the security requirements of classified intelligence.  At worst, it suggests criminal behavior was involved, such as removing classified markings from intelligence documents. It would have been a dereliction of duty had the press not pursued the Clinton email story to the extent they did.

Saying the press wouldn’t have pursued the email story if the candidate was a man is overwhelmed by contrary evidence. The Clinton email story had too many angles for the press to ignore:  the potential exposure of state secrets to foreign adversaries, destruction of emails subpoenaed by Congress, and evidence from investigation-obtained emails showing Clinton conducting Clinton Foundation business while serving as Secretary of State. The latter point she had promised in writing to President Obama she would not do. She did anyway.

That’s not Comey’s or Putin’s fault. It’s Hillary’s fault.

As for Putin, it is no surprise the Russian’s were mucking around in our election. I would be surprised if they hadn’t. What does bother me is the extent and sophistication of the Russian information operation to influence the election. It is not an act of war, as some have suggested, but it is a provocation that will negatively impact U.S.-Russian relations for a long, long time.

Yet, to claim the Russians, through Wikileaks, changed the outcome of the election is an academic question on which we will never get a definitive answer. In fact, a persuasive argument could be made suggesting the Russian hacking was so well-known by mid-October that many voters could have turned to Clinton over Trump out of sympathy or a sense of patriotic duty. By Election Day, I had been lectured multiple times about why voting for Trump would be a vote for Putin.

That many voters didn’t care and still voted for Trump is, to my mind, more evidence that Clinton was the problem, not Putin.

We are seven months removed from the election and Hillary Clinton remains unwilling to help her own party come to grips with their defeat. Her supporters even suggest looking for blame distracts the party from the more critical task of opposing President Trump.

But Journalist Glenn Greenwald disagrees: “Trying to understand why the Democrats have so spectacularly failed isn’t a distraction from battling Trump — its the key prerequisite for doing so.” Unfortunately, Greenwald will be disappointed by any attempt to explain the 2016 elections.

Hillary Clinton isn’t the distal cause of anything, including her own defeat.  She was done in by forces outside her own volition.

Political leaders like Clinton are more passengers than drivers of history. They navigate waters they didn’t create and which drive them to their unique moment in history. Only Nixon could go to China. Only Reagan could bring down the Iron Curtain. And only Hillary could lose to Donald Trump.

 

The author can be reached at: kentkroeger3@gmail.com

About the author:  Kent Kroeger is a writer and statistical consultant with over 30 -years experience measuring and analyzing public opinion for public and private sector clients. He holds a B.S. degree in Journalism/Political Science from The University of Iowa, and an M.A. in Quantitative Methods from Columbia University (New York, NY).  He lives in Ewing, New Jersey with his wife and son.

 

 

By Kent R. Kroeger (Source: NuQum.com, April 18, 2017)

I admire Ruy Teixeira’s optimism.  He is Voltaire’s Dr. Pangloss minus the syphilis.  Reality fails to deter him.

The co-author of “The Emerging Democratic Majority” (with John Judis) and the intellectual architect of the Democratic Party’s current electoral strategy to win elections mainly through mobilizing its base (at the expense of voter persuasion efforts) has given the Democrats even more reasons to be confident about their future.

Seven reasons to be exact.  However, towards the end of his Vox.com article, when he says that “Trump can’t solve people’s problems (but) the left can,” he unwittingly highlights exactly why the Democrats remain disconnected from political reality and will likely fail to capitalize on any future public dissatisfaction with the Trump administration and the Republican Congress.

According to Teixeira, we just need to spend more money in the appropriate areas. Trump’s building a wall, renegotiating trade agreements, and lowering taxes are political bait-n-switches doomed to fail.  It is the Democrats, says Teixeira, that have the”feasible” ideas that will produce sustainable growth.

“The Democratic Party is more or less united around a programmatic approach to the economy that could actually produce such growth,” says Teixeira.  “This includes universal pre-K, free access to two years and some four-year colleges, paid family leave, subsidized child care, higher minimum wages, a commitment to full employment, and robust investments in infrastructure and scientific research, especially around clean energy.”

All defensible policy ideas that — according to my back-of-the-envelope estimate — would add to our nation’s annual budget about 500 billion dollars in new spending, plus an additional $1 trillion spread out over  5 to 10 years to cover just the new infrastructure spending.  Some of this spending could be pushed to the state-level, but apart from states like South and North Dakota, few states have the capacity to take on new spending on that scale.

But think of all that additional economic growth it will create to pay for these programs, you ask?  I’m thinking about it and the only firm conclusion I can muster is that there is no problem the Democrats aren’t willing to spend your money to try and solve.

This is 2017, not 1932.  The United States has one of the highest debt-to-GDP ratios in the developed world — fifth out of the 36 OECD countries, according to the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

And, while we are not broke in the near-term (not even close), it does represent a financial ceiling, of sorts, that makes the likelihood of creating more big-ticket government programs very unlikely.

Obamacare is “sticky” and repealing is now unlikely.  But it also stands as a deterrent to passing other broad government programs.  As a nation, we lack the political consensus (much less the money) to add more spending on such a large scale — unless we are talking about defense spending (but that’s for another article on another day).

By suggesting these large policy initiatives represent the Democrats’ advantage over the Republicans in ideas, Teixeira only highlights how the Democrats lack any new ideas and remain deeply out-of-touch with political and economic reality.

Teixeira could have used the opportunity to describe the growing Do-It-Yourself (DIY) and maker-community phenomenon and how this intellectual revolution could be directed towards solving society’s biggest problems in a more cost-effective manner.  Where many government programs lack the ability or funding to create solutions tailored to each program recipient, the DIY ethos of focusing at the individual-level creates a level of efficiency a government program could never approach.

Far from being wishful forecasting on my part, DIY-inspired curricula are already working their way into our schools to where many teenagers have stopped buying pre-built computers, but are instead building their own to meet their often massive computing requirements – at a fraction of the cost. Home security, artificial intelligence-controlled home energy consumption, local food production, among other daily tasks, are already being impacted by DIY solutions.

The DIY ethos is capable of changing the world for the better without relying on public spending for its advance.  Quite the opposite, it could kill off large swaths of what today we assume to  be the exclusive domain of our local, state and federal governments.

But this social revolution hasn’t penetrated the political elite class yet, if Teixeira is any indication. Instead, he just proposes a handful of big, new government programs, as if all we need to do is get an FDR-like Democrat in office, along with a Democratic congressional majority, and away we go…

I give Teixeira credit. Though humbled by the 2016 election, he hasn’t let one titan-class prediction failure stop him from making more predictions. And while doing so, slips in his tragic and flawed ’emerging Democratic majority’ thesis to argue that the Democrats’ likely success in the 2018 midterm elections will begin to validate his original predictions.

Yet, predicting the Democrats will do well in the 2018 midterm elections (and beyond) might be acceptable for Capt. Obvious, Teixeira and other political analysts must esteem to answer the tougher question: To what extent will the Democrats’ likely gains  in 2018 be due to the electorate’s fundamental alignment with the Democrats’ agenda versus a predictable reaction to the real and perceived failings of the Trump administration.

Its on this more germane question that Teixeira’s assertion of the Democrats’ unstoppable ascendancy may come up up short, again.

There is much in Teixeira’s newest argument that is prescient and will work in the Democrats favor going forward.  Most notably, he correctly points out that the Democrats’ policy gains from FDR to Obama will be hard to reverse.  He calls them “sticky” gains and the recent failure of the U.S. Congress to replace and repeal Obamacare gives us vivid evidence of this stickiness.  He also cites Social Security and Medicare, two social safety net programs launched when the Democrats were the ‘party of ideas’ and the dominant governing party.  That those two programs not only remain intact but have grown (a lot!) since their creation is a testament to the power of growing tax revenues and its ability to seduce politicians into increasing the pervasiveness of the government in our everyday lives.

My wife likes to tell me, especially when I’m on a rant about the size of government, that I would miss the government if it went away.  Would I?  I guess we’ll find out because that is a big part of the Trump experiment going on right now. We may soon find out how much we will miss many of our State Department’s functions, or the EPA, or the National Endowment for the Arts, etc.

Teixeira also highlights the strategic advantage the Democrats possesses on issues like technological change and the growth of “office jobs” (who can’t get excited about that?!), globalization as a force for good (particularly for people that aren’t Americans), and the clean energy revolution.

Right. Right.  And right.  He is probably not wrong on any of these fronts. All are happening as we walk and breathe today and, perhaps, the Democrats have an inherent advantage to capitalize on these social trends.

He could have cited recent polling data from the 2016-17 American National Election Study (ANES) showing a remarkable shift in the American electorate along the “free trade/globalization” vector.  Where once Republican partisans were the dominant free-trade advocates, the Democrats now lead. The passive-aggressive neglect of working-class union voters by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign was not an accident.  It was a calculated message to the former bedrock of the Democratic base to ‘find some new friends.’

The Clinton campaign’s hubris was informed and emboldened in large part by Teixeira’s prediction in 2004 of the Democrats’ political dominance by 2016.  But while I could beat the drum all day about why the emerging dominance theory was (and is) wrong, I invite you to read an analysis by Slate’s Yascha Mounk that details why the ’emerging democratic majority’ thesis has been slow to materialize.

With laser-guided precision, Mounk’s truth-bombs porpoise down to their targets to lay waste to one of the biggest flaws in the Teixeira/Judis thesis.  “There is evidence that Latinos and black Americans don’t actually see themselves as particularly liberal,” writes Mounk, who adroitly points out that a few decades ago Irish Americans voted monolithically for Democrats while today they mostly vote Republican.   “Projecting the future voting behavior of Latinos and black Americans is impossible.”

Amen.

Economists like to share the story about a government economist who was asked why he makes economic predictions for policymakers even when he knows he’s not really good at it:  “I predict the future, not because I can, but because they ask me to.”

I can’t fault Teixeira and Judis for attempting to describe the future — I understand the incentive to do so — but I chafe at how frequently these attempts fail. And the Democrats, in particular, have been harmed by the arrogance that often accompanies these predictions. We all want to believe we are working within a bigger, causal framework that in the end leads us to a better place.

Towards the end of Voltaire’s Candide, the title character reminisces with Dr. Pangloss about their many and often difficult life experiences.  About which Dr. Pangloss concludes, by necessity, all has worked out for the best. Candide, however, dismisses Pangloss’ undeterred optimism and eschews all philosophies, replacing them with the simple, individual task of working on his own garden.

The Democrats will not be the ‘party of ideas’ until they relinquish their own unfounded assumptions about how the world works. This is not 1932. There will be no more big government programs coming out of Washington, D.C. anytime soon.  The political and financial capital they require has been spent (and then some).

But, even as I disagree with Teixeira’s unstoppable contention that the Democrats will be primary benefactor of our nation’s social and demographic changes, I respect his intent. And, to be honest, someday he may well be proven correct.

Rather, if I were a partisan Democrat, I would keep at arm’s length these grand assumptions and their optimistic forecasts about the future and focus, instead, on tending your garden in the here and now.

The author can be reached at: kentkroeger3@gmail.com

About the author:  Kent Kroeger is a writer and statistical consultant with over 30 -years experience measuring and analyzing public opinion for public and private sector clients. He holds a B.S. degree in Journalism/Political Science from The University of Iowa, and an M.A. in Quantitative Methods from Columbia University (New York, NY).  He lives in Ewing, New Jersey with his wife and son.

By Kent R. Kroeger (Source: NuQum.com, April 17, 2017)

The mainstream opinion factories continue to kick out articles about how the 2016 elections failed to represent the true nature of public opinion in the U.S.

“We live in a country where the majority agree with the “liberal” position,”  according to filmmaker Michael Moore.  “We just lack the liberal leadership to make that happen.”

Given that the man pretty much called this last presidential election long before anybody else ever did, its hard not to take his opinion seriously.

And Moore isn’t alone in this opinion.  After cherry-picking issues and statistics,  Wired’s Issie Lapowsky and The Atlantic’s Peter Beinart, also concluded this country has been transforming into a Center-Left country for a long time now because we increasingly support gender pay equity, marriage equality, abortion rights, and stronger gun control legislation.  All true, by the way.

But none of these astigmatic expositions come close to the hyper-partisan rage of the Daily Kos‘ Fred Bur and his February 18th article, “The “center-right country” myth and smoldering dog sh*t.”

After dismissing the distinguished career of pollster Douglas Schoen because he hadn’t heard of him before, Bur went on to list why anyone that thinks this is a Center-Right country is peddling “smoldering shit from the dog the size of Neptune.”  A great line. Unfortunately, it was buried in its own pile of pooh posing as a serious argument meant to convince readers that we, in fact, live in a Center-Left country.

Here is a short summary of his argument:  Those people that say we are a Center-Right country are selecting biased polling data that fits their narrative; now here is  my biased selection of polling and election data that proves we are a Center-Left country.

Bur left me unconvinced. I require a more structured, systematic look at the data.  And, luckily, the 2016 American National Election Study fielded jointly by Stanford University and the University of Michigan provides that.

You can get more detail about the ANES methodology  here.  The most important thing to know about this study is that it has been fielded for every election cycle since 1948, had a sample size around 3,600 people in 2016, and is representative of vote-eligible Americans. In other words, they don’t interview children, prisoners and illegal aliens.  Everyone else was potentially on their contact list.

And what does the 2016 ANES tell us?  It tells us how the Democratic Party could nominate the most qualified presidential nominee in modern U.S. electoral history, face the most unprepared opponent imaginable, at a time when the U.S. economy was growing, and still lose the presidency, the U.S. House, and most state legislative and gubernatorial races.

More broadly, the 2016 ANES reveals the most lucent feature of America’s vote-eligible population:  Most Americans are neither Left or Right in terms of their issue positions — though, on average, they lean slightly to the Right on the issues that matter most at election time.

On his point that the Democrats are more than competitive in U.S. elections, Bur is correct. It will not require a monumental sea change in public opinion for the Democrats to win most elections once again.

But, right now, when looking over a broad selection of issues, the Democrats are not in alignment with the majority of Americans, particularly those issues that drive election outcomes.  The Democrats are a Center-Left party in Center-Right country.

Remember, the Democrats didn’t just lose the presidency.  They lost every level of elected government we have in this country. Is that not the best indication of our nation’s right-of-center partisan bias? It our nation’s factory-setting.

Even if we allow that Clinton was more popular than Trump as measured by the popular vote (though we didn’t hold a popular vote presidential election in 2016), we have U.S. congressional and thousands of state-level races to explain.

And the 2016 ANES does that.

Using a simple statistical technique, I clustered the 3,649 ANES respondents as either Left, Middle or Center based on their responses to a wide range of issues (the data and computer algorithms can be provided upon email request to: info@olsonkroeger.com).  It should be noted that the 2016 ANES was conducted in two pre- and post-election waves.  Most of the issues cited below were asked in the post-election wave.

Overall, I categorize 51 percent of Americans as in the Middle of the ideological spectrum, while only 22 percent are on the Left and 27 percent on the Right.  Politicians and opinion journalists may be polarized.  The people that spend an inordinate amount of time on Twitter promoting the #MAGA or #ImStillWithHer hashtags may be polarized.  But not average Americans.

This is good news if you want future U.S. elections to be competitive between the two major parties.  Its bad news if you think Donald Trump’s victory was a stolen one and will be rectified over the next two election cycles.

When viewing U.S. public opinion over many decades, the 2016 ANES results are unsurprising.  The American Voter, authored in 1960 by Angus Campbell, Philip Converse, Warren Miller, and Donald Stokes, found a similar American electorate.  In their study, most Americans were in the ideological center, often holding contradictory opinions when compared to more ideologically consistent partisans.  The American Voter’s oft-cited finding that politics is just not that important to Americans still holds up today and helps explain why ideological purity matters more to political partisans and journalists than it does to average Americans.

In 2014, writing in response to a Pew Research Center report on the polarization of the American electorate, Stanford political scientist Morris Fiorina concluded, “The country as a whole is no more polarized than it was a generation ago.”  Citing the General Social Survey among other data sources, Fiorina argued that, “with occasional small exceptions, moderate remains the modal category today just as it was in the days of Jimmy Carter.”

Fiorina’s conclusion shouldn’t change given the 2016 ANES results.

To avoid analytical cherry-picking, Figure 1 below shows a large selection of issues used to cluster the 2016 ANES respondents.  For comparability across the ideological groups, all responses are normalized where a negative value indicates the group’s average response is below the mean (Disagree/Oppose) and a positive value indicates the group’s average response is above the mean (Agree/Favor).

Figure 1:  OPINIONS OF VOTE-ELIGIBLE AMERICANS BY IDEOLOGICAL GROUP
(Source:  2016 American National Election Survey)

CLICK TO ENLARGE

On most issues, centrist Americans are equidistant from the two ideological extremes.  For example, take the question of whether the federal government should be doing “more, not less” (the 6^th item from the top in Figure 1).  Right-leaning Americans are almost one standard deviation below the average response.  In other words, they disagree by a lot (!) that the federal government should be doing more.  Conversely, Left-leaning Americans are much more likely to agree with that statement and “Middle-of-the-Road” Americans, as their label suggests, are at the average.  Not surprising.

Partisans, by definition, are polarized on most issues.  Lacking any creativity, I call these issues — “polarizing issues” — as they are the topics that also tend to dominate our news media’s conflict-focused discourse:  the role of government, Syrian refugees, Black Lives Matter, border walls, immigration, climate change.

Conversely, we also see those issues where the ideological extremes don’t distinguish themselves.  Examples include free trade agreements, Social Security spending, limits on campaign spending, and gender pay equity.

But Figure 1 really gains its value when it identifies those issues where the Middle is not equidistant from the Left or the Right.  These are the tactical issues the parties should emphasize in their effort to win elections.

In Figure 1, we see the issues where, at present, each party possesses a tactical advantage over the other party.  For the Democrats (Left), they are aligned with most Americans (Middle) when they:

• Advocate for higher taxes on millionaires (and, more generally, aim to reduce economic inequality)
• Promise to protect Social Security
• Acknowledge that global warming is real
• Promote policies to protect the environment

For the Republicans (Right), they are with most Americans when they:

• Defend the interests of the private sector
• Promote policies that support law enforcement and reduce crime
• Defend the federal government’s anti-terrorism efforts (such as domestic wiretapping)
• Advocate for the defense of traditional values
• Work to protect American jobs from illegal immigration
• Express concern over perceived declines in American culture

The implications of the 2016 ANES data are not subtle.  Going forward, it is to the Democrats’ electoral advantage to convince the Middle that issues, such as the environment, are among the most important issues facing Americans.  Conversely, the Republicans are in a superior position electorally when the Middle perceives the promotion of free enterprise, security, and traditional values as the most important issues facing this country.

Unfortunately, the 2016 ANES has yet to release the data on what issues were most important to Americans in 2016.  However, we have other sources, such as Pew Research and the Gallup Organization, that found issues such as jobs, the economy, terrorism, national security, crime, and immigration were among the most important issues to Americans going into the 2016 elections.  Concerns about the environment simply did not drive most voters’ choices last November.

In general, the Republicans have the tactical advantage on the most important electoral issues – the economy and national security.  However, despite recent losses, there is reason for optimism among Democrats, and not because of any expectation that the FBI will prove collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians or that this country will slide into chaos during the current administration.  Those expectations rest more on hope than the facts, as of now.

No, the better source of buoyancy for Democrats’ hopes is that the post-materialist issues, such as the environment, social justice and civil rights, may someday attain a level of importance with voters that issues like the economy and national security do today.  Which is not to say the Democrats can’t also be competitive on the materialist issues.  But the Democrats’ wheelhouse remains civil rights and social justice issues.  And that’s not going to change any time soon.  Just as it is unlikely the Republicans can quickly pivot into a neo-Green party.

How ironic would it be if, over the next four years, the American economy prospered and the ISIS threat diminished so much that Americans turned their political attention more to the environment, economic equality and social justice.  Ask Winston Churchill about such irony.  He led the British through the darkest days of World War II to an impending victory only to be rewarded with an electoral defeat in 1945 to Clement Attlee’s Labour Party.

Voters are funny that way.

CURRENT AND FUTURE POLITICAL BATTLES

Where we sit today, we do not have a polarized electorate – even if our elected leaders are more polarized than ever.  The Left and Right are both competitive and the Middle still determines electoral outcomes.

But to acknowledge that most Americans are centrists does not mean there aren’t polarizing issues in this country.  There are and Figures 2 through 6 below show most of them, as well as issues where Americans have reached a social consensus and the issues where people are still sorting themselves out.

This key shows how we defined these issue categories and how we assigned each issue to them:

Figures 2 through 6, show the percentage of vote-eligible Americans in each agreement category for a selection of issue-items in the 2016 ANES.  For example, 77 percent of vote-eligible Americans agree that it is important to reduce government deficits; only 7 percent disagree with that statement and 19 percent are unsure.  This issue, therefore, is a prime example of a “consensus” issue.

 

     THE CONSENSUS ISSUES:

One of the more interesting findings from the 2016 ANES is that on many issues Americans have achieved an apparent consensus:  reducing deficits, favoring higher taxes on the top income brackets, increasing investments in crime prevention, support for marriage equality, support for the 2^nd Amendment, equal pay for men and women. the reality of global warming and the belief that we can protect the environment without jeopardizing jobs.

Abortion, while not a consensus issue, it is close to being one with 45 percent of Americans supporting few if any restrictions on abortions and 41 percent supporting abortion rights but with strict restrictions.  Only 14 percent of Americans are against it under all circumstances.

While all these consensus issues were visible in the 2016 presidential election, none of them could be considered the dominate issues in that race.

     THE POLARIZING ISSUES:

Polarizing issues are a different matter altogether.  Few should be surprised that whether to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border divides Americans.  Thirty-three percent of Americans support it, 46 percent do not, and 21 percent are still unsure.  But it is not the most polarizing issue in America.

According to our analysis, gun control, as in “making it more difficult to buy a gun in this country” is the most polarizing issue we face.  Fifty-four percent of Americans think it should be more difficult, but 40 percent oppose such restrictions.  Only 6 percent of Americans are still unsure.

Other divisive issues in this country are the transgender (bathroom bill) controversy, and whether to move towards a government-based health care system.

Notice that the polarizing issues were all prominent in the 2016 presidential election.

     THE GROUND BATTLE ISSUES:

Finally, the 2016 ANES shows us the many issues we, as a country, are still sorting through.  These are issues where most Americans’ preferences remain undecided or tentative.  These issues include whether government wiretapping has gone too far in the name of security, whether American businesses should face more regulation, whether the U.S. should pursue more free trade agreements, whether recent global warming is mostly anthropogenic in nature, and whether fracking is an acceptable way to extract natural gas for our nation’s energy needs.

The strong partisans portray these issues as settled.  Among Americans, they are not.  Subsequently, these issues will be ripe for exploitation by either party depending on which direction American public opinion ultimately breaks.

CLINTON WAS A CENTER-LEFT CANDIDATE IN A CENTER-RIGHT COUNTRY

The empirical evidence says, despite the many contentious, undecided issues we face, we are not a divided nation.  In general, Americans are moderates with an ideological hue towards the right of center, particularly on the issues that matter most at election time – namely, the support of free enterprise, limited government, a strong national defense posture, controlled immigration, and the defense of traditional family values.  These are not winning issues for the Democrats.

That is why Clinton lost to Donald Trump.

Unless the Democrats move to the right or convince the American people that civil rights, expanding the social safety net, reversing climate change, and economic equity are the most important issues facing this country, they will continue to face a strong headwind on election day.  To become a durable governing majority, the Democrats must acknowledge their current weakness is not just a process or organizational problem.  The Democrats are losing to the Republicans on the level of ideas.

Until the Democrats come to grips with that problem, the Republicans will continue to disproportionately benefit from the distribution of opinions currently observed within the American public.

But, Democrats, do not despair.  There is a stubborn level of unanimity in the U.S. and that all but guarantees, in the long-run, both parties can go from widespread electoral defeats in one election to convincing victories in the next election.

Yes, our political and media elites are more divided than ever, but it is overlaying a polity that does not mirror this division and, by many indications, would prefer to see it end and be replaced with a political system capable of solving today’s biggest problems in a civil and productive manner without all the drama.

In that opinion, I hope we can all agree.

About the author:  Kent Kroeger is a writer and statistician with over 30 -years experience measuring and analyzing public opinion.  He presently manages a public opinion polling firm, The Olson Kroeger Company, with offices in Des Moines, Iowa and Ewing, New Jersey. He holds a B.S. degree in Journalism/Political Science from The University of Iowa, and an M.A. in Quantitative Methods from Columbia University (New York, NY).

He can be contacted at:  kentkroeger3@gmail.com