Uncategorized
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Greg Mankiw: Supply-side claims wrong
President Bush’s former Council of Economic Advisers chair Greg Mankiw restates what so many Bush economists have said — contrary to the claims of the President and most of the GOP presidential contenders, tax cuts don’t raise revenue: Republican candidates are fond of saying we should cut tax rates because doing so would incentivize more
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Hillary drops “BHO” reference
This blog gets results! On Tuesday, I pointed out that a rapid response blog post by Hillary Clinton’s campaign referred in a transcript to Barack Obama as “BHO,” an unusual reference that implicitly highlights Obama’s middle name of Hussein. Someone must have noticed because, as commenter Jinchi noted last night, the post has been changed
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The Zogby primary
After a long history of questionable practices (PDF), including distorting his own poll and hyping bogus Internet polling, pollster John Zogby missed California by about 15 points. Can we stop taking him seriously as a legitimate pollster now? Update 2/7 9:29 AM: Via Sullivan, Zogby downplays the error: About California: Some of you may have
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The coming superdelegate backlash?
With Hillary currently leading the delegate tally on the strength of her margin among superdelegates, a backlash seems inevitable. Discuss… Update 2/6 3:38 PM: The prospects of superdelegates deciding the nomination makes the backlash even more likely, particularly if Democratic incumbents bail out Hillary. See Ezra Klein for early criticism.
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The primary->general extrapolation problem
Memo to pundits and campaigns: can we please stop extrapolating from primary election results to the general election? Here are three inferential problems that are already plaguing discussion of the Super Tuesday results: 1. Winning primaries in states dominated by the other party doesn’t mean you will be competitive there in November. Ezra Klein flags
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Hillary campaign references “Hussein”
In a rapid response blog post this morning, Hillary’s campaign refers to Barack Obama, whose middle name is Hussein, as “BHO” in a transcript of an Obama appearance on CNN that is rendered as follows: ROBERTS: Senator, she suggests that you’re falling short here by mandating coverage for children but not mandating it for their
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Obama music: An overlooked gem
Everyone is talking about the “Yes We Can” music video supporting Barack Obama, but we shouldn’t forget an early classic of the genre — Jin’s “Open Letter 2 Obama”. As I said back in June, I bet you’ve never heard “higher fuel-efficiency standards” in a rap song before… Update 2/5 1:07 PM: Via my brother-in-law,
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Strange Mitt Romney banter
I don’t trust stories from the campaign bus/plane, but this anecdote about Mitt Romney trying to make small talk with a Star Wars reference is bizarre: Mr. Romney has been making more of an effort to cultivate the news media as part of his refashioned candidacy. When he sauntered back onto a flight on Saturday,
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Projecting the 2008 election
In the New York Times today, Edmund Andrews mentions that the firm Global Insight is predicting the GOP will only get 46 percent of the presidential vote: “From a political point of view, the job market is not going to provide a lot of comfort at election time, especially for Republicans,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief
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Luntz exaggerates SOTU tax cut “average”
Oh, the echo chamber. During the State of the Union, President Bush offered one of his trademark misleading “average” tax cut statistics: Unless Congress acts, most of the tax relief we’ve delivered over the past seven years will be taken away. Some in Washington argue that letting tax relief expire is not a tax increase.