Month: March 2008
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The politics of recession
Via Greg Mankiw, outgoing National Bureau of Economic Research president Martin Feldstein is worried that the United States is in for a nasty recession: The United States is in a recession that could be “substantially more severe” than recent ones, National Bureau of Economic Research President Martin Feldstein said on Friday. “The situation is very
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Ventura’s faux third party threat
I don’t think anyone is clamoring for Jesse Ventura to launch a third party presidential campaign, but he’s apparently using it to try to sell copies of his fourth (!) book Don’t Start the Revolution Without Me!: To hear Jesse Ventura tell it, he’s either out to become president or an expatriate. In the opening
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Primaries aren’t necessarily predictive
Let me join Matthew Yglesias and others in reiterating what I’ve said before — primary election performance is not predictive of general election outcomes. Pundits: Stop doing this! Here’s a good example of why this approach is incorrect from TNR’s Josh Patashnik: John King on CNN just pointed out that Clinton did better in more
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Chris Matthews: Ignorant about policy
Via Bob Somerby, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews demonstrates his staggering ignorance about policy issues: During the March 11 edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, guest Chris Matthews asserted that in order to “get something done in this country,” politicians need to “do the surprising move that grabs the center” and that “if a Democrat were smart, who
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Green/Gerber GOTV book event
Yale’s Donald P. Green and Alan S. Gerber, the co-authors of the voter turnout study (PDF) I mentioned last week, are releasing the second edition of their book Get Out the Vote: How to Increase Voter Turnout. There will be a seminar on the book and its findings at the Brookings Institution next Thursday for
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New Douglas Hibbs forecast for 2008
Via Mark Thoma, Douglas Hibbs has updated the 2008 forecast of his respected “Bread and Peace” model of presidential election outcomes and the news is good for Democrats (IE-only link): Presidential election outcomes are well explained by just two objectively measured fundamental determinants: (1) weighted-average growth of per capita real personal disposable income over the
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Sinbad vs. Hillary Clinton
Via Ezra Klein (among many others), the 1990s comic Sinbad has resurfaced to contradict Hillary Clinton’s claims of foreign policy experience: Finally, the Barack Obama campaign has found a big gun to help shoot down Hillary Rodham Clinton’s self-proclaimed foreign policy experience. And he may be the wackiest gun of all: Sinbad, the actor, who
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The futility of Obama’s negation
Tyler Cowen notes that Barack Obama’s response to Hillary Clinton’s VP talk is unlikely to be effective: Read this, the headline is “Obama: I’m no V.P.”. That’s not just the biased framing of the journalist, it captures Obama’s words. My unsolicited advice is this: if you are a political candidate, proclaiming “I am not X”
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John McCain’s inconsistent voting record
As many people (including me) have pointed out, John McCain’s reputation for “straight talk” is highly exaggerated. Indeed, he’s changed his views so many times it’s hard to know what he thinks. At the same time, however, his voting record is more conservative than his “maverick” reputation suggests. A friend points out that the book
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National Enquirer smears Obama
The current issue of the National Enquirer contains some ugly smears of Barack Obama. The cover prominently features a picture of him along with the headline “Obama’s secrets… His close friendship with terrorist.” Out of context, this headline may reinforce the the myth that Obama is a Muslim, suggesting to casual readers that Obama is