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Thursday, November 24, 2011
Something Dumb from the New York Times
What a shock, right? An economics blogger talks about the surprising (to her) result of a poll:
Two of my colleagues have alluded to a recent Pew Research Center report on American exceptionalism, paying particular attention to the fact that Americans are more likely to say their culture is superior to others than are people in Germany, Spain, Britain or France.
Well, sounds like the residents of all five countries are correct. US culture is superior.
One finding of the report that received little attention, however, was about cultural attitudes toward success. Of the five nationalities polled, Americans were least likely to believe that success in life was determined by forces outside our control.
But she points out a flaw in this worldview:
These findings are particularly interesting when juxtaposed with a separate report from the Pew Economic Mobility project. That report, which examined economic and social mobility in 10 Western countries, found that Americans actually appear to have less control over their success in life than their counterparts do.
In particular, the educational attainment of a person’s parents — a factor usually determined before that person’s birth — seems to matter more for mobility in the United States.
No surprise, she looks at it from the standpoint of "the glass is half empty". The other way to look at it is that if you want your kids to be a success, you should go to college. But the big laugh comes at the end:
As Richard Wilkinson suggested in a recent TED Talk, if you want to live the American dream — and have greater control over your own likelihood of success — you should probably move to Denmark, where the poor have a better chance of moving up in the world.
I do have a couple of questions about that:
1. How many poor families have the option of moving to Denmark?
2. How do the Danes feel about taking in the poor?
Monday, November 21, 2011
Brent Budowsky Tries to Puff Up Ron Paul
This is hilarious:
There are now multiple polls that show Ron Paul has gained support and has a legitimate chance to come in first or second in Iowa and New Hampshire. I would now call Ron Paul one of three front-runners in both Iowa and New Hampshire alongside Mitt Romney and a third candidate, currently Newt Gingrich. If Ron Paul wins Iowa, which he might, all bets are off. Also, most analysts miss the fact that many states have open systems where independents, and in some cases Democrats, can vote for a Republican nominee. This could give a further boost to Paul.
It is now time to give Ron Paul the attention he deserves in debates and throughout the political community.
Budowski's a liberal hack, and all he's trying to do here is monkey-wrench the Republicans. Paul gets little respect because his support is the reverse of the Rio Grande: a mile deep and an inch wide. His supporters are undoubtedly committed; most folks would say they should be.
Paul won't win Iowa, and he won't win New Hampshire. Budowski wants him to make a third party run because he sees that as about the only way Hopey McChange can win a second term.
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
The base will not forgive Rick Perry his immigration sins. In fact,
that has hurt him far more than his debate performances, but his debate
performances have hurt him badly. Perry, who came out principled and
fiery with a record others could only envy, has left others with the
impression that he’s a poor man’s version of the village idiot, which in
the SEC we call “Aggies”. Maybe he can turn it around.
Newt Gingrich will not be the nominee because, despite his daughter’s
rebuttals to the horror stories of how Gingrich divorced his first of
three wives, Jackie Gingrich told the Washington Post on
January 3, 1985, “He walked out in the spring of 1980 and I returned to
Georgia. By September, I went into the hospital for my third surgery.
The two girls came to see me, and said Daddy is downstairs and could he
come up? When he got there, he wanted to discuss the terms of the
divorce while I was recovering from the surgery.”
Gingrich went on to cheat on the second wife with the third.
Regardless of the actual facts or even the spin, he won’t win women.
Herman Cain won’t be the nominee because he can’t win women either.
Regardless of what you think of the Politico story, Cain’s handling of
the story has been an epic disaster. He’s down at least 10 points with
women in Iowa. He’s falling even further and doesn’t even realize it.
He’s largely been emboldened by a conservative media that is so used to
standing by its men that too few are telling Herman that he is now at
the point where he must actually sit and answer questions whether he
wants to or not and whether he feels maligned or not and whether I think
he should have to or not. If he loses women by as big as he is
starting to lose the women, he cannot win.
Reasonable points, all. I do think that Gingrich is starting to get a second look, now that the Cain implosion is in full swing, with the steady drip drip drip of harassment allegations.
The obvious conclusion is that Mitt Romney is the last man standing, which Erickson concedes:
So Mitt Romney will be the nominee. Conservatives will not rally
together with the least of the bad alternatives and Romney, like John
McCain before him, will run up the middle to the nomination.
But:
You’d think that given the economy, jobs, and the present angst about
the direction of the country that the GOP would have an easy path to
victory. You would be wrong.
You forget the electoral college. The vote is coming down to a
handful of states and Barack Obama still maintains the advantage of
incumbency and not terribly terrible polling in those swing states.
"Not terribly terrible"? Just moderately terrible? Slightly terrible?
I’ve been reading the 200 pages of single spaced
opposition research from the John McCain campaign on Mitt Romney. There
is no issue I can find on which Mitt Romney has not taken both sides.
He is neither liberal nor conservative. He is simply unprincipled. The
man has no core beliefs other than in himself. You want him to be
tough? He’ll be tough. You want him to be sensitive? He’ll be
sensitive. You want him to be for killing the unborn? He’ll go all in
on abortion rights until he wants to run for an office where it is not
in his advantage.
Most of us read that opposition research in 2008. You know, that year that everybody like Erick thought John McCain was an unacceptable candidate because of "his immigration sins"?
That is precisely why Mitt Romney will not win in 2012. But no worry,
once he loses, Republican establishment types will blame conservatives
for not doing enough for Mitt Romney, never mind that Mitt Romney has
never been able to sell himself to more than 25% of the GOP voters.
It’s not his fault though, it is the 75%’s fault.
Why, how could anybody possibly think that Erick Erickson will not do enough for Mitt Romney? You know how it is, Erick will spend the next 11 months trashing Romney, and then the last month exhorting the troops to vote for him. And if he loses he'll go right back to trashing him.
Look, I'm far from enamored with Mitt Romney, just as I was not a blind-eyed McCain supporter in 2008. But politics is all about getting the best deal you can, given reality. If the "real" conservatives want a better candidate in 2016 or (I hope) in 2020 when Mitt Romney ends his second term, then it's up to them to find him, vet him carefully, be sure he's got the fire in the belly (no repeats of the Fred Thompson fiasco) and push him over the finish line.
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