Brendan Nyhan

Twitter roundup

Brendan Nyhan
BrendanNyhan
"The claim that Obama repeatedly has apologized for the United States is not borne out by the facts" http://j.mp/hRNoOd
Fact Checker
– Obama’s ‘Apology Tour’

GOP presidential candidates say that President Obama keeps apologizing for America and does not value American greatness. But the evidence is slim.
BrendanNyhan
No obvious relationship between union membership and state budget deficits http://j.mp/hNPrSs
UnionsanddeficitsThe Monkey Cage: The Relationship between Union Membership and State Budget Deficits
BrendanNyhan
More evidence elite colleges don’t raise earnings – can’t be said enough, especially to kids who need massive loans to go http://j.mp/dFHo8k
Revisiting the Value of Elite Colleges – NYTimes.com
A large new study looks at whether elite colleges give their graduates an earnings advantage — and finds that, for most students, the answer is no.
BrendanNyhan
The partisan divide in police procedural viewing http://j.mp/eamgZF
YouGov – If you have fired a gun, ride a motorcycle, own power-tools, or watch NCIS you might be a Republican
YouGov is a research and consulting organization,
pioneering the use of the Internet to collect high quality in-depth data for market research,
organizational research and stakeholder …
BrendanNyhan
Attention profs: New issue of CQ Researcher on "Lies and Politics" — would be great for teaching http://j.mp/fmxWi8 (gated PDF)
The CQ Researcher Online
BrendanNyhan
#analogyfail "[A] teacher…declared that people of Confederate heritage ‘have been forced to go to the back of the bus’" http://j.mp/hlyMGH
21davis2_337-395-thumbstandardMarking Davis’s Confederate Inauguration – NYTimes.com
In Montgomery, Ala., this weekend, people marked the 150th anniversary of Jefferson Davis’s inauguration.
resnikoff
Liz Cheney thinks that if Obama had voiced support for the Green Revolution we’d have "a very different Iran today." #greenlanternmagic
BrendanNyhan
RT @sethmnookin: Doonesbury issues a Jenny McCarthy smackdown: http://t.co/kCMQQf4
“You’d expect better from a Playmate”: Doonesbury issues a Jenny McCarthy smackdown
BrendanNyhan
Palin backpedals: "Obviously what I meant in there, death panels was in quotation marks" http://j.mp/hAITat
Live-blogging Palin’s speech – Politico Staff – POLITICO.com
“His spending plan does add to the national debt. … That is the wrong road to be on. That is not what’s going to cure the economic ills in our country.”
BrendanNyhan
More budget spin – Obama claims budget "freezes spending for 5 yrs…not going to spend any more money than…taking in": http://j.mp/fWaSR4
President Obama Continues Claim that “We’re Not Going to Spend Any More Money Than We’re Taking In” – Political Punch
ABC News’ Jake Tapper and Sunlen Miller report: In an interview with ABC News’ Cincinnati affiliate WCPO-TV WednesdayIn an , President Obama said that his “budget freezes spending for five years…
BrendanNyhan
Deserves credit – note difference from Boehner et al. RT @daveweigel Jeff Flake resolutely denounces birtherism. http://slate.me/g949eN
Weigel : Jeff Flake: Barack Obama “Was Born in the United States”
See? This isn’t very hard . Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., now a U.S. Senate candidate, asked about Public Policy Polling’s birther poll by CNN’s Kiran Chetry: CHETRY: You basically have a combined 7…
BrendanNyhan
Good @GlennKesslerWP fact-checking of budget spin by President Obama http://j.mp/f7FE5P and Paul Ryan http://j.mp/ep5RqV
Fact Checker
– Obama’s misleading language on debt reduction in the 2012 budget

President Obama claimed his budget “will not be adding more to the national debt.” That’s only true if you exclude hundreds of billions of dollars in interest expenses.
Fact Checker
– Ryan’s claims of trillions in new spending in the 2012 federal budget

House Republicans claim that Obama is adding $8.7 trillion in new spending in his budget. The Fact Checker examines the data — and finds them wanting.
BrendanNyhan
GW’s Sarah Binder offers a more detailed take on the Obama administration’s judicial nomination problems http://j.mp/dU6QOo
The Monkey Cage: Taking Seats on that Empty Bench
ttagaris
Rep. Michele Bachmann – Lady Gaga? – George Stephanopoulos’ Bottom Line
It’s big day at
jbarro
I think the Times has been re-running the same Bob Herbert column twice weekly since ’97 and nobody has noticed http://econ.st/eTIsdL
Phoning it in: The magic of Bob Herbert | The Economist
BrendanNyhan
Exactly – why he’s still underrated. RT @davidfrum The secret of John Thune’s appeal: he’s the most generic GOP candidate http://j.mp/eJGjEl
Thune: The Generic GOP Candidate | FrumForum
Democrats have done well by nominating personable politicians with scanty records. With John Thune, that trick might work for Republicans too.
BrendanNyhan
.@fivethirtyeight argues GOP field weak relative to ’00-’08 (http://j.mp/hzQEC6), but ’92/’96 show early polls overrated: http://j.mp/gLacBr
Should Republicans Fret Over Their Presidential Field? –
NYTimes.com

The potential Republican presidential candidates have high negative ratings, but that does not mean all hope is lost.
Are the Republican presidential candidates weak? – Brendan Nyhan
I’ve previously downplayed concerns that the GOP field is weak since challengers to an incumbent president usually seem flawed at this point in the election cycle. Yesterday, however, Nate Silve…
BrendanNyhan
@fivethirtyeight Right, we disagree on whether GOP field’s poll #s affect Obama’s chance of winning close race. Other than Palin, I say no.
BrendanNyhan
@fivethirtyeight I think favorability ratings are highly endogenous for most candidates and will be driven to where we expect given economy.
BrendanNyhan
Sure, but relevance of amateurs in Cong. elecs. to pres. is unclear MT @fivethirtyeight Cong. elecs. much more robust data set than pres.
BrendanNyhan
For pros vs. amateurs in Cong. elecs. MT @fivethirtyeight There is reasonably convincing evidence cand. quality matters http://j.mp/hUaiur

http://j.mp/hUaiur
BrendanNyhan
Does candidate quality matter in pres. races? Not clear there’s enough variation to know. Only good pols are nominated + economy dominates.
BrendanNyhan
Also, estimating causal effect of candid
ate quality at any level is tricky since entry decisions are themselves driven by fundamentals.
BrendanNyhan
.@daveweigel: "Poll: Most Republicans Doubt Obama’s Citizenship, As Birtherism Becomes a Screen for Ideology" http://j.mp/gv2rRc
Weigel : Poll: Most Republicans Doubt Obama’s Citizenship, As Birtherism Becomes a Screen for Ideology
The non-partisan-but-usually-hired-by-Democrats firm Public Policy Polling is out with more data on what Republicans — well, 400 “Republican primary voters nationwide” — think about Barack Oba…