Brendan Nyhan

John McCain has occasionally denounced the various smears and rumors about Barack Obama’s patriotism and allegiance to this country, but his new ad will only serve to reinforce them:

NARRATOR: Barack Obama never held a single Senate hearing on Afghanistan. He hasn’t been to Iraq in years, he voted against funding our troops — positions that helped him win his nomination. Now Obama is changing to help himself become president. John McCain has always supported our troops and the surge that’s working. McCain: Country first.”

MCCAIN: I’m John McCain, and I approved this message.

Note the implication that Obama, unlike McCain, has not “always supported our troops” and that McCain is somehow different than his opponent in putting “[c]ountry first.” Stay classy!

PS How long until McCain does an appearance at a flag factory like George H.W. Bush in 1988?

Isn’t the New York Times really stretching it by attributing an email message to John McCain today?

“I returned to the Senate with greater influence than before I ran, and I used that influence to work with senators on both sides of the aisle,” Mr. McCain said in an e-mail message. “I don’t believe in hoarding political capital just for the sake of possessing it.”

Remember this is John “It’s a Google” McCain, who has admitted that aides “go on [the Internet] for me. I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself.” It’s generally implausible that any email from a politician to a reporter isn’t at least vetted by a press staffer, but in McCain’s case there’s almost no question that he did not write the email.

Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias, respectively, have nice posts on two wildly popular misconceptions about politics:

1. Your ideological opponents are vastly better organized than your side.

2. Your side is losing/has lost because the media is biased against you.

#2 in particular is part of a more general phenomenon in which people search for and then latch on to visible explanations of political events. For instance, George H.W. Bush’s win in 1988 can be seen as a convergence toward the political fundamentals, but if you don’t study presidential elections, that’s an abstract concept that doesn’t lend itself to media-friendly narratives. So instead the media made up stories about Michael Dukakis losing because of Willie Horton, etc. In the same way, when people have a hard time understanding what’s going on in politics, they tend to blame the media, which often reflects the prevailing political climate of the time. The most recent example is the way the media was faulted for being soft on President Bush in the post-9/11 period, which was almost surely the consequence of the political circumstances rather than the cause of them.

(None of this is to say that the media can’t have a causal effect on political outcomes; only that it’s easy to reach exaggerated conclusions about its effects by assuming correlation=causation.)

Update 7/20 7:46 PM: You can also think of #1 as reflecting people’s search for explanations of causal events. It’s more comforting to blame a failure of tactics or nerve or the other side’s overwhelming dominance than to concede that your side was rejected by the public. (See, for example, the Wall Street Journal’s implausible attempt to blame the GOP’s 2006 losses on the Republicans not being conservative enough.)

Via TNR’s Michael Crowley, the New York Times reporters Adam Nagourney and Patrick Healy take out their crystal ball and pretend to read Evan Bayh’s mind:

For all the lengths Senators Barack Obama and John McCain have gone to in keeping their hunt for a vice president under wraps, their deliberations are in some ways being conducted in plain sight.

There was Mr. McCain appearing yet again with Mitt Romney, his former rival for the Republican nomination and a frequently mentioned possibility for the No. 2 spot, in Detroit on Friday. In Indiana last week, Mr. Obama appeared with two of the more speculated-about names on Democratic lists, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana and former Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia…

This is not, aides to both Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama were quick to say, the kind of vice-presidential Off Broadway run-throughs that some past candidates — think Walter F. Mondale in 1984 — have forced potential running mates to endure.

But it is indeed calculated and does provide a chance for the candidates and their aides to assess how they and their prospective running mates look as a ticket, in the newspaper photographs and television images these events are producing. That is no small thing, as could arguably be seen in Mr. Bayh’s eyes last week as he cast a vice-presidential gaze at Mr. Obama.

If they’re going to pretend to know what’s going on in people’s heads, why not just add thought bubbles to all the news photographs? They don’t have a comics section anyway. It would be fun for the whole family!

Ross Douthat captures my feelings perfectly about the very talented Matthew Yglesias moving to Center for American Progress:

I respect his desire to be in the arena, TR-style, rather than on the sidelines, and there’s no doubt a touch of concern-trolling involved whenever I fret about how the new progressive ecosystem seems hell-bent on imitating a lot of the things I find unpleasant about my own side of the partisan divide these days – the team-player mentality, the tendency toward cocooning, the obsession with policing orthodoxy, etc. Certainly, I have no doubt that Matt will remain Matt – independent-minded, acerbic, not suffering fools gladly – even under the umbrella of an explicitly partisan organization. But I also think that American politics benefits from having smart writers of both political persuasions who have one foot in movement politics and one foot outside it, and given that Matt is one of the smartest liberal writers in my generational cohort, I’m sad to see him giving up on this balancing act. He’ll do well, and better than well, wherever he goes – but part of me suspects that over the long run he could do more, both for himself and for progressivism, if he were ever-so-slightly outside the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy rather working for it directly.

As Douthat notes, CAP is at the vanguard of the new breed of liberal groups who are explicitly adopting many of the worst aspects of movement conservatism, including a penchant for mass-producing dishonest spin. Even if Yglesias remains an independent thinker, as I’m sure he will, the structural incentives of working for a movement organization and appealing to a more movement-centric audience are not helpful.

Paul Krugman discusses the implications of a likely post-housing bubble hangover for Barack Obama:

If the current slump follows the typical modern pattern, the economy will stay depressed well into 2010, if not beyond — plenty of time for the public to start blaming the new incumbent, and punish him in the midterm elections.

To avoid that fate, Mr. Obama — if he is indeed the next president — will have to move quickly and forcefully to address America’s economic discontent. That means another stimulus plan, bigger, better, and more sustained than the one Congress passed earlier this year. It also means passing longer-term measures to reduce economic anxiety — above all, universal health care.

There are two ways to look at the problem for Obama (assuming he wins). On the one hand, Princeton’s Larry Bartels has found that Democratic presidents tend to produce big economic gains early in their terms but weak election year growth, while Republicans tend toward the converse. Given voters’ bias toward short-term performance, the result has been that Republicans have overperformed in presidential elections relative to their overall economic achievements. The housing slump makes it likely that Obama will avoid this pattern simply because the economy is unlikely to quickly bounce back.

On the other hand, however, it’s quite plausible that the economy will remain stalled through 2012 or later, making it difficult to carry out a “Morning in America”-style re-election campaign. Once you take into account the various booby traps that President Bush has left for his successor (Iraq, expiring tax cuts, etc.), it’s clear that Obama (or McCain) could have a very difficult first term in office.

After almost a decade of dissembling by George W. Bush about tax and budget matters, will John McCain get away with the same approach?

McCain’s misleading claims about Barack Obama raising taxes on small business continue to be repeated by the press:

Washingtonpost.com’s The Trail blog, CNN, and CBSNews.com each repeated Sen. John McCain’s false claim that “[i]f you are one of the 23 million small business owners in America who files as an individual rate payer, Senator [Barack] Obama is going to raise your tax rates.” In fact, Obama has proposed rolling back President Bush’s tax cuts only on “people who are making 250,000 dollars a year or more”; according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, only 481,000 small businesses fall into the tax brackets that would be affected by those increases.

On the upside, however, The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder debunked the con:

The Republicans and John McCain in particular are trotting out a tiresome and thoroughly debunkable claim about Barack Obama’s tax plans — namely, that could hit as many as 23 million small businesses. The McCain campaign credulously cites the obviously self-interested Chamber of Commerce, which counts as a small business any entity or individual who reports any income under Schedule C of the federal income tax return or anyone who organizes a Subchapter S corporation. Hence: 23 million. As Factcheck.org says, that’s misleading — generously put. The real pool of small businesses with employees is around six million, and an estimate of the number of proprietorship paying into the top two income brackets is less than 700,000 — a lot, but about 2.5% of 23 million.

McCain is also still making false claims about the effects of tax cuts and tax increases on revenue as well (via Ezra Klein):

“You can’t get over the fact that historically when you raise people’s taxes, revenue goes down,” he said. “Every time we cut capital gains taxes, there has been an increase in revenues.”

While these claims (which he has made repeatedly) get far too little attention, the New York Times did take him to task in an article last week:

And when Mr. McCain first outlined his tax cut proposals shortly before the South Carolina primary in January, he highlighted his new enthusiasm for supply-side economics. “Don’t listen to this siren song about cutting taxes,” Mr. McCain said then. “Every time in history we have raised taxes it has cut revenues.” Of course, history is full of tax increases that raised revenues, just as planned, and many economists deride the notion that broad-based tax cuts will spur enough economic growth to raise tax revenues over all.

For more on why capital gains tax cuts don’t increase revenue overall, see the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Also, see Brad DeLong on how McCain’s budget doesn’t add up.

The press has no excuse for giving McCain a pass this time around. He’s using the same playbook as Bush.

Enough with all the fact-checking and analysis, you say. What’s hot? What’s sexy? I don’t know, but the insiders at Marie Claire emailed to share some items from their “Sexy 101” list. Apparently Corey Booker is “looking fine” while cleaning up Newark. Also, we should “get this party started” in Cuba:

Sexiest Cause: Micro[cr]edit. Fusty term belies genius concept – small loans to poor, largely female entrepreneurs in the third world

Sexiest Party: Democratic National Convention. Donkeys storm Denver, August 25-28

Sexiest Republican: Virginia Senator John Warner. An unapologetic party-line crosser, he’s pro-choice, pro-gun control, pro-green energy – and one of Liz Taylor’s exes

Sexiest Democrat: Newark Mayor Cory Booker. Cleaning up one of the nation’s most violent cities, and looking fine doing it.

Sexiest Nation: Cuba. Fidel’s out, cell phones and home ownership are in. Let’s get this party started!

Sexiest Head of State: Argentine Prez Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner

My favorite is John Warner as the sexiest Republican, though:

I’m sure he was a good-looking guy when he was younger but, uh, that’s pretty counterintuitive. (Maybe someone’s looking to move over to The New Republic…)

On Sunday, I noted that Sean Hannity was falsely claiming that Barack Obama would raise taxes on everyone by letting all of President Bush’s tax cuts expire. (Actually, Obama will raise taxes on high-income Americans but reduce inome taxes on people making less than $75,000.)

Then, driving home today, I heard him make the exact same claim. How often does he say this? I went and searched his TV transcripts in Nexis. Here are more examples from “Hannity & Colmes” and his Sunday show “Hannity’s America” (I’m sure there are many more examples from his radio show, which is not archived):

June 12: “No. 1 radical liberal in the Senate. Wants $1 trillion of new spending. You know, raise taxes everywhere.”

June 23: “[Obama] would let the Bush tax cuts expire.”

July 13: “[Obama is] going to let the Bush tax cuts expire.” “On taxes – he wants to raise all our taxes.”

During these programs, people are telling Hannity that Obama would actually cut taxes for middle-income Americans. But he’s just ignoring them and repeating the same misinformation. Even by his exceptionally low standards, it’s pretty awful stuff.

Shorter New York Times: Barack Obama hasn’t magically healed racial divide in the US. He’s been the Democratic nominee for more than a month. What is he waiting for?

Update 7/16 2:54 PM: Brad DeLong objects to the sample sizes used in the Times poll:

I must admit that my breath is stopped by the idea of saying anything about Black-white opinion differences based on a poll with only 300 Blacks in it. That is bizarre statistical malpractice of a high order.

It’s certainly true that the margin of sampling error for the black respondents is relatively high (six percentage points). But “statistical malpractice” seems really strong. Given the often enormous gulf between black and white opinion on many issues and the power of random sampling, we can still say with great confidence that blacks and whites have different opinions on every specific question cited in the article. (By my calculations, the margin of sampling error for the difference between black and white opinion is approximately 6.4 percentage points.)