Posted 8:29 PM by Robert

Asking The Wrong Question?

The Mystery Pollster considers an issue advanced by Arianna Huffington:

Is the extensive use of cell phones, which pollsters do not even attempt to contact, distorting poll results?

The controversy surrounds the role of so-called "wireless only households," at least as framed by Ms. Huffington and the Mystery Pollster. As Ms. Huffington puts it:

[P]ollsters never call cell phones - of which there are now close to 170 million. And even though most cell phone users also have a hard line, a growing number don't - especially young people, an underpolled and hard-to-gauge demographic that could easily turn out to be the margin of difference in this year's race.

With all due respect to these two knowledgeable worthies, the Man Without Qualities believes the problem is much worse than Ms. Huffington suggests, and the Mystery Pollster's response does not even begin to address the full scope of the problem. In short: I suspect that the big problem is not "wireless only households" (although those are a problem, as Ms. Huffington notes and as the Mystery Pollster accepts as the core of the issue). I suspect on the basis of anecdotal evidence that the far bigger problem is households that (1) have cellular service and (2) a land line, but (3) also have "caller ID" on their land line, (4) don't answer the land line unless, possibly, they recognize the caller (sometimes, the land line goes directly into voice mail in all cases) and (5) do answer their cell phones but don't provide their cellular numbers to anyone they don't know well.

The Man Without Qualities knows many people who fit the profile outlined by factors (1) through (5). Moreover, these factors appear to address the practical requirements of many households. My best guess is that such "five-factor households" pose vastly larger problems for pollsters than "wireless only households."

Posted 2:39 PM by Robert

That Old Raisin/Virgin Thing Again

Teresa Heinz Kerry has provided what she calls "a highly effective" remedy for arthritis:

"You get some gin and get some white raisins - and only white raisins - and soak them in the gin for two weeks," she said. "Then eat nine of the raisins a day."

She's all confused, of course. But it's understandable. Her confusion undoubtedly arises from the same ambiguities in Arabic that have led to the misunderstanding of the Koran as promising multiple "virgins" in the afterlife to Islamic martyrs. In fact, the virgins who are supposedly awaiting good Islamic martyrs as their reward in paradise are in reality "white raisins" of crystal clarity rather than fair maidens.

Of course, in suggesting her medical treatment Ms. Heinz-Kerry is making the symmetrically opposite mistake made by the Islamic radicals. A traditional and highly effective middle eastern palliative for arthritis is the following: You get some gin and some virgins - and only virgins - and soak them in the gin for two weeks. Then you consume nine of the now-uninhibited-and-well-lubricated virgins a day in accordance with the sexual orientation and positional preference of your choice. This remedy does not, in fact, lessen joint pain in the least.

But, somehow, you don't care about that part once you really get going.

Posted 10:26 AM by Robert

But John Kerry Is An Honorable Man II: Into The Mainstream?

The story of John Kerry's possibly less-than-honorable discharge from the Navy first broached by the New York Sun is virtually omnipresent in the Blogosphere.

Captain's Quarters has lots of good commentary on the incendiary topic in a post headlined Questions About Kerry's Discharge Make The Mainstream Media. I think it's fine to consider the New York Sun "mainstream," and the Sun article was noted by OpinionJournal with the caveat We're not sure what to make of all this, but have the questions otherwise made it to the mainstream?

The seems to be nothing on the topic in the New York Times, the Washington Post , the Wall Street Journal news pages or the Los Angeles Times. Not even the DRUDGE REPORT has so much as mentioned the Sun questions.

What's going on?

The pattern so far seems a bit like that of the original Swiftee charges: before the first television ad, lots of action in the Blogosphere by even following the first ad, willful neglect by Kerry-Edwards and most of the mainstream media (although Fox News at least mentioned the controversy, if only to dismiss the first ad as "ineffective") until it was clear the ad was, in fact, devastating Kerry-Edwards. But not everything is the similar: DRUDGE was in the first wave of the original Swiftee media assault, but he's is missing in action now.

Media coverage of the original Swiftee charges really hotted up with their first television ad - even the publication of their book was ignored by the mainstream before that ad appeared. Now Sinclair Broadcasting documentary is about to run a controversial documentary "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal." Very little has been disclosed about the content of this documentary, but it is supposed to deal with Senator Kerry's post-Vietnam exploits. The documentary was apparently created before the Sun story ran - but the content of the Sun story has been the subject of serious rumors for months. If that documentary at least touches on the less-than-honorable discharge subject, perhaps its broadcast will turn up the media heat in the closing weeks of the campaign.

Or maybe there's something seriously wrong with this story.

Posted 1:06 PM by Robert

But John Kerry Is An Honorable Man

The New York Sun today runs a story questioning the status of John Kerry's "honorable" military discharge:

An official Navy document on Senator Kerry's campaign Web site listed as Mr. Kerry's "Honorable Discharge from the Reserves" ... is a form cover letter in the name of the Carter administration's secretary of the Navy, W. Graham Claytor. It describes Mr. Kerry's discharge as being subsequent to the review of "a board of officers." This in itself is unusual. There is nothing about an ordinary honorable discharge action in the Navy that requires a review by a board of officers.

According to the secretary of the Navy's document, the "authority of reference" this board was using in considering Mr. Kerry's record was "Title 10, U.S. Code Section 1162 and 1163. "This section refers to the grounds for involuntary separation from the service. What was being reviewed, then, was Mr. Kerry's involuntary separation from the service. And it couldn't have been an honorable discharge, or there would have been no point in any review at all. The review was likely held to improve Mr. Kerry's status of discharge from a less than honorable discharge to an honorable discharge.

A Kerry campaign spokesman, David Wade, was asked whether Mr. Kerry had ever been a victim of an attempt to deny him an honorable discharge. There has been no response to that inquiry. ....

The "board of officers" review reported in the Claytor document is even more extraordinary because it came about "by direction of the President." No normal honorable discharge requires the direction of the president. The president at that time was James Carter. This adds another twist to the story of Mr. Kerry's hidden military records.

Mr. Carter's first act as president was a general amnesty for draft dodgers and other war protesters. Less than an hour after his inauguration on January 21, 1977, while still in the Capitol building, Mr. Carter signed Executive Order 4483 empowering it. By the time it became a directive from the Defense Department in March 1977 it had been expanded to include other offenders who may have had general, bad conduct, dishonorable discharges, and any other discharge or sentence with negative effect on military records. In those cases the directive outlined a procedure for appeal on a case by case basis before a board of officers. A satisfactory appeal would result in an improvement of discharge status or an honorable discharge.

Mr. Kerry has repeatedly refused to sign Standard Form 180, which would allow the release of all his military records. And some of his various spokesmen have claimed that all his records are already posted on his Web site. But the Washington Post already noted that the Naval Personnel Office admitted that they were still withholding about 100 pages of files.

Read the whole Sun article.

Posted 11:10 AM by Robert

Remaining Deadlocked? Holding Steady? Not Of This Earth.

Reuters today reports that Mr. Zogby tells them that John Kerry and George Bush go into tonight's final debate tied:

President Bush and Democratic Sen. John Kerry remain deadlocked in the White House race going into their final debate, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday. Bush and Kerry held steady at 45 percent each in the latest three-day tracking poll, raising the stakes for Wednesday night's pivotal final debate in Tempe, Arizona.

So as of today, October 13, the candidates "remain deadlocked" and "held steady." That's quite a trick considering that on October 11 Reuters reported:

Democratic challenger John Kerry expanded his slight lead over President Bush to three points in a tight race for the White House, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Monday. The Massachusetts senator held a 47-44 percent lead over Bush in the latest three-day tracking poll, up two points from Sunday. Bush's support dropped one point and Kerry's support rose one point in the new poll.

So Senator Kerry has lost 3 points in the Zogby Poll against Mr. Bush in the two days before the final debate. Yet Reuters and Mr. Zogby say that the candidates "remain deadlocked" and "held steady."

It seems that remainings deadlocks and holdings steadies just don't last the way they used to! The Zogby/Reuters approach here evokes Woody Allen's speculation about the possible existence of alien civilizations more advanced than ours by fifteen minutes - which gave them a big advantage in making appointments on time.

Posted 11:02 AM by Robert

Senator Edwards Speaks Truth To Power!

There's a lot of fuss being raised over Senator John Edwards' claim that "When John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk. Get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."

Senator Edwards should be commended for speaking truth to power.

Of course it's completely absurd to think that John Kerry's election to the Presidency would help anyone in the position of Mr. Reeves to walk again. There is, in fact, a nearly 0% chance of that happening - and Senator Edwards obviously knows that.

But rather than uncharitably construing Senator Edwards' claim as a lie or transparent demagoguery , one should construe his colorful claim as merely expressing his opinion of the chances that John Kerry will be elected president. Yes, John Edwards is simply telling his running mate and the nation that in Senator Edwards' opinion there is, in fact, a nearly 0% chance of that happening, too. Sure, Senator Edwards might have expressed himself differently, and said something like "When pigs fly, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk. Get up out of that wheelchair and walk again." But he had more courage than that.

It's important that John Edwards be able to face up to the power of John Kerry and give him the bad news with the good. And it's also important that we all give Senator Edwards the benefit of the doubt. He should be commended.

Posted 10:14 AM by Robert

What Me Worry Economists Win The Nobel Prize

Herr Doktorprofessor Paul Von Krugman didn't win the Nobel Prize again this year. Instead, it went to Edward Prescott and Finn Kydland, the first of whom immediately opined in a most politically incorrect manner:

President George W. Bush's tax rate cuts were "pretty small" and should have been bigger.

"What Bush has done has been not very big, it's pretty small," Prescott told CNBC financial news television.

"Tax rates were not cut enough," he said. Lower tax rates provided an incentive to work, Prescott said. .... The American analyst ... said a large tax cut in 1986 had lowered rates while collecting the same revenue. But "in the early '90s the economy was depressed by the tax increase in '93 by about four percent, and it's right at that level now," Prescott said.

Of course, that's not what prior economic Nobelist George Akerlof thinks, as Herr Doktorprofessor noted after he didn't win the Nobel Prize last year:

"What we have here is a form of looting." So says George Akerlof, a Nobel laureate in economics, of the Bush administration's budget policies — and he's right. With startling speed, we've blown right through the usual concerns about budget deficits — about their effects on interest rates and economic growth — and into a range where the very solvency of the federal government is at stake. ... Yet the administration insists that there's no problem, that economic growth will solve everything painlessly. And that puts those who want to stop the looting — which should include anyone who wants this country to avoid a Latin-American-style fiscal crisis, somewhere down the road — in a difficult position. Faced with a what-me-worry president, how do you avoid sounding like a dour party pooper?One answer is to explain that the administration's tax cuts are, in a fundamental sense, phony, because the government is simply borrowing to make up for the loss of revenue.

So there you have it from Herr Doktorprofessor's lips to God's ear. It's not enough for Herr Doktorprofessor that Messrs. Akerlof and Prescott merely disagree. By Herr Doktorprofessor's lights Edward Prescott must be a what-me-worry Nobelist who advocates yet more "phony" tax cuts and is an enemy of "fiscal sanity." As far as Herr Doktorprofessor is concerned, the Nobel Prize Committee might as well have honored Alfred E. Newman. And, presumably, in view of today's column, we might expect Herr Doktorprofessor to deem Mr. Prescott a lying sack of fertilizer just for good measure.

Gee, what will Herr Doktorprofessor write when President Bush holds the inevitable White House Rose Garden fete for Mr. Prescott?

UPDATE: Don Luskin provides a terrific detailed debunking of Herr Doktorprofessor's latest column. With Luskin's fisking out there, Senator Kerry uses Herr Doktorprofessor's arguments in tonight's debate at very much the Senator's own peril.

Posted 7:19 PM by Robert

The Other 97.5% III: Learning From Australians

On October 8, the New York Times understood that Australia's Iraq involvement was a substantial issue in that country's imminent elections:

[Incumbent Prime Minister] Howard is also in a tight race nationally against the Labor Party, led by Mark Latham. ... The latest polls give the Liberals a slight lead, but in many respects it is surprising that the race is close at all. .... On Iraq, the differences are stark. Mr. Howard has defended his decision to go to war and has said the 800 Australian troops in the Persian Gulf region will stay there as long as needed. Mr. Latham has said that he will have the troops home by Christmas. Opponents of the Iraq war got a lift in August when 43 retired senior military commanders and senior diplomats issued a public statement saying that Australia went to war "on the basis of false assumptions and the deception of the Australian people." The signers included a former chief of the navy, a former chief of the air force and a former secretary of defense. Australia's "unquestioning support for the Bush administration" has harmed Australia, they wrote. "Terrorist activity, instead of being contained, has increased."

Then the Australians voted, Mr. Howard won big, and by October 10 the Times understood that Iraq hadn't been an issue of any real significance:

Prime Minister John Howard of Australia .. was decisively re-elected Saturday, according to official returns. ... Iraq loomed in the background during the campaign, but Australian political analysts cautioned that the voting was not a referendum on the war. The main issue was the economy, and that is booming.

Similarly, back here in the United States, the mainstream media, including this Associate Press item, is suggesting that it's time to disregard economic models in favor of peering into the chicken entrails of opinion polls and overt partisan speculation:

The Iraq war has deeply torn the nation. National polls show a neck-and-neck race. Yet economy-based projections still show a decisive Bush victory on Nov. 2. What gives? Political scientists and many economists say this may be the year to throw the economic models out the window. Forecasters are flummoxed about the impact of Iraq, uncertain about the true state of the economy, and less sure about their projections than in any recent election.

Opinion polls are largely inconsistent with each other - so this is hardly a campaign that pits the economic models against the polls. On the other hands, the well documented problems in polling methodology, including "party norming," seem to explain a lot of the polling inconsistency - and further undermine reliance on those polls in lieu of the economic models.

But in the recent Australian experience economics won out nicely over the polls and everything else.

I'm betting on the economics here in the United States, too.

Posted 7:11 PM by Robert

It's Cul-de-sac All Over Again II: The Substance of Style

Following the first presidential debate a prior post reviewed the Man Without Qualities's take on what I believe to be the most significant aspects of the styles of the two candidates:

Senator Kerry has a style that can impress up front, leaving the viewer (that is, the voter) only later to realize that the performance was not what it seemed to be. ... I think the problem for Senator Kerry is deeper than his gaffes. His problem is that the same style he employs to make much of so little works much better in the short run than it does in the medium or long run - as those terms might be meaningfully defined under the hot glare of this Presidential race. Worse, once the short-term effects start to dissipate, his style leave a sense of distrust ... of having been misled. ... Mr. Bush, on the other hand, has a style that can be less shark-like and impressive up front, but over time leaves one feeling that he - for all of what can seem to be his comparative inarticulateness - really understands the essentials better than the flashier Senator Kerry. In an odd way, it is Mr. Bush who leaves one more with the sense that he understands the "nuances." Further, I think that particular stylistic difference resonates more with women - and I also think that the enlarged image Senator Kerry presented on the "split screen" (of which too much has been made) will also resonate relatively poorly among women after the first flashes have subsided. In short, I don't think that Senator Kerry did much to shore up his "base" among women in the medium to long run of this campaign. I also think that Senator Kerry had to add some definition to his positions that he has kept carefully ambiguous to date on account of his split base. That should not, over time, work to his benefit. ... The bigger problem for the Republicans is that Mr. Bush's performance, while not really bad, showed Mr. Bush without direct, simple answers to entirely predictable and predicted questions and issues. ... A more disturbing error on the part of the Bush team is the undeniable fact that he looked and acted tired compared to John Kerry. ... But Mr. Bush won't commit that mistake again.

It appears to me that the ensuing performance of the candidates in the polls has been quite consistent with the above observations. The second debate has now come and gone, and Mr. Bush did not repeat his prior mistakes. But more importantly, Senator Kerry's slippage in the polls appears to have been well under way before the second debate, as the Rasmussen Report today notes:

Sunday October 10, 2004--The latest Rasmussen Reports Presidential Tracking Poll shows President George W. Bush with 50% of the vote and Senator John Kerry with 46%. Voters have declared the second Presidential debate a tie with fans of each candidate thinking that their man won. ...[J]ust over one-third of the interviews for today's update were completed after the conclusion of Friday night's Presidential debate. There was not a noticeable jump in the post-debate interviews, but it will take a few more days to fully measure the impact of the debate.

Recent Rasmussen Poll results seem to track a public that was for a few days pulled towards the Senator by his first debate performance, but then chose another direction despite Senator Kerry having "won" the post-debate "spin" cycle:

Date..Bush...Kerry
Oct10.49.5...45.5
Oct9..49.6...45.9
Oct8..48.4...46.1
Oct7..47.8...46.7
Oct6..47.2...46.9
Oct5..47.9...47.0
Oct4..48.6...46.1
Oct3..49.0...45.4
Oct2..48.6...45.6
Oct1..48.7...45.3

If I am correct that Senator Kerry's style leaves a substantial bitter after taste beginning, say, a week after his presentation, then the bitter after taste should be all the more intense following the second debate, since Mr. Bush did not repeat the mistakes he made in the first one. But one would not expect to see the negative polling consequences for the Democratic ticket to show up for more several days. That trajectory is, so far, all consistent with Rasmussen's observation there was not a noticeable jump in the post-debate interviews.

The consistency of my theory with the second half of Rasmussen's observation, that it will take a few more days to fully measure the impact of the debate is a little more complicated. Yes, the debate's effects will be fully incorporated into the tracking poll and voters' minds in a few days. But, if I am right, the tendency of voters to recoil from whatever favorable effects Senator Kerry had on those voters in the second debate, will lag by several more days.

That seems to be what happened after the first debate.

UPDATE: Bill Safire's take on the second debate gets almost everything right, beginning with:

When pro-Kerry commentators solemnly pronounce Debate Round 2 to have been "a draw" - you know George Bush won that round.

The big sea-change in American political coverage is that now when someone like Mr. safire alludes to pro-Kerry commentators much of the public immediately know he is referring to essentially everyone at the news divisions at the three "old" networks, CNN and the usual print media suspects. Yes, those media outlets and their agents deny, deny, deny. But, what is true for Senator Kerry is also true for them: "It's clear for everybody to see. And as I said, you can run, but you can't hide."