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‘The Road to Freedom’ quote of the day #7

By Henrik Temp

May 21, 2012, 10:58 am

From The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise by AEI President Arthur Brooks, which was published earlier this month:

People who avail themselves of welfare and bailouts are not bad or stupid. They are just human. No one is eager to sacrifice all that much. I bet that many entrepreneurs who say they now cherish their sacrifices would (at the time) have welcomed faster, easier success. But if people are given a way out of every crisis and challenge, they are both less likely to succeed in the long term and less likely to enjoy any success that they acquire because it’s unearned. Bailouts that do more than provide a minimum standard of living—whether mortgage relief or a billion-dollar bank bailout—teach the wrong lessons and lead people to learned helplessness.

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5 electoral college predictions for 2012

By Henrik Temp

May 21, 2012, 9:12 am

Let the 2012 electoral predictions commence! Below are four separate electoral college predictions from some of the best analysts in the business: The Cook Report, RealClearPolitics, The Washington Post’s The Fix blog, and John Ellis’s Ellisblog. I’ll follow those up with my own prediction.

Let’s look at the maps.

RealClearPolitics

RealClearPolitics gives Obama 243 likely + leaning electoral votes (hereafter referred to as “e.v.’s”) and Romney only 170. RCP is the only one of the four maps here to rate Nevada as leaning Democratic rather than a tossup. I’m not sure I see the logic here: Nevada’s unemployment rate is one of the highest in the country (12% as of March ’12) and it has a sizeable Mormon population. I’d say it should at least be ranked a tossup, if not leaning Republican, but we’ll see.

RCP is also the only map to list Missouri as a tossup. The others all put in the leaning or likely Republican column. Considering that Missouri went Republican during the Democrats’ perfect storm in 2008, I’m inclined to agree with the other analysts on this one.

The last thing to note on this map: RCP rates Arizona as a tossup. So does John Ellis, but Cook Political and The Fix both put it in their “leaning Republican” columns. There’s been a lot of debate over whether Arizona’s crackdown on illegal immigration will provide the Democrats with an opportunity in the state. Personally, I don’t think it’ll go blue as the Democrats will rely heavily on a huge Hispanic vote, which I find unlikely to materialize for reasons I list here.

The Cook Report

The Cook Report didn’t have their data in map format, so I made my own on the handy 270towin.com website (where you can fiddle around with the maps yourself), using Cook’s data. Thus, for this map, likely and leaning states have been combined into either straight Republican or Democrat states.

As you can see, likely and leaning Obama states total 227 e.v.’s while Romney states total 210. Cook is the only one to rate New Hampshire “Lean Republican” (the others all rank it a tossup). I think Cook is right on this one: Romney essentially has a home field advantage in NH given its proximity to Massachusetts and his high level of support during the GOP primary earlier this year. Cook also rates North Carolina as “Leaning Republican,” in contrast to The Fix and RealClearPolitics, which rate it as a tossup. I agree with Cook’s assessment; Obama won NC in 2008 by an extremely thin margin and his recent “evolution” on gay marriage likely won’t sit well with a population that voted overwhelmingly to ban gay marriage.

Other states of interest: Cook rates Wisconsin as “Leaning Democratic” (all others as tossup) and he agrees with John Ellis on Pennsylvania being a tossup. Personally, I think that Scott Walker’s recent surge in the polls presages a Republican revival in Wisconsin and that the state should be “Leaning Republican” or a tossup. As for PA, I think it goes blue again as Romney hasn’t performed well among the white working class which he’ll need to overcome the Democrats’ traditional advantage. I think Pennsylvania could go Republican in 2012, just not with Romney at the top of the ticket.

Washington Post’s The Fix

The Fix gives Obama 237 total e.v.’s to Romney’s 191. Frankly, I think this map looks the most accurate of the bunch, except for North Carolina and New Hampshire being a tossups (I think they should be in the “Lean R” column).

Ellisblog

Ellis is the only analyst to rank Michigan as a tossup (others “Lean D”) and to put Colorado in the “Lean R” column. Personally, I don’t think either of these is justified. While Romney does have some legacy appeal in Michigan left over from his father’s time as governor, his stance on the auto bailout is unpopular and he performed somewhat below expectations there during the primary. As for Colorado, I think that state is just too close to call; a true tossup.

And now the moment I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for: my own prediction!

My Map

I keep most of the same tossup states as the other analysts. However, I give North Carolina to Romney based on the recent gay marriage vote and Obama’s razor-thin margin of victory in ’08. I also give New Hampshire to Romney based on his strong past performance there. I put Wisconsin in the tossup column because of Walker’s strength there. I give Pennsylvania to Obama because I don’t think Romney can gin up enough support among the white working class there to overcome the Democrats’ traditional advantage in the state. Arizona stays red as the expected Hispanic surge once again fails to materialize.

So there you have it! Five different predictions. Which do you think is most accurate?

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‘The Road to Freedom’ quote of the day #6

By Henrik Temp

May 18, 2012, 11:49 am

From The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise by AEI President Arthur Brooks, which was published earlier this month:

“People who avail themselves of welfare and bailouts are not bad or stupid. They are just human. No one is eager to sacrifice all that much. I bet that many entrepreneurs who say they now cherish their sacrifices would (at the time) have welcomed faster, easier success. But if people are given a way out of every crisis and challenge, they are both less likely to succeed in the long term and less likely to enjoy any success that they acquire because it’s unearned. Bailouts that do more than provide a minimum standard of living—whether mortgage relief or a billion-dollar bank bailout—teach the wrong lessons and lead people to learned helplessness.”

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‘The Road to Freedom’ quote of the day #5

By Henrik Temp

May 17, 2012, 10:34 am

From The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise by AEI President Arthur Brooks, which was published earlier this month:

People need to work. Philosopher Erich Fromm wrote that “only in being productively active can man make sense of his life.” This is partly correct; unproductivity is obviously terrible, which is one of the reasons unemployed people have such high depression rates. But being “productively active” is not enough. Slaves are productively active. To earn their success, people have to be more than just productive; they must also choose their own paths and have a chance at finding the work that matches their passions with their talents. That match is what Albert Camus called the “soul” in work. “Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.” I came to understand this—and to appreciate the system that offered a chance to find the soul in my work—through firsthand experience.

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The gender gap in religion and what it means for 2012

By Henrik Temp

May 16, 2012, 2:33 pm

The chart below, from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, reveals that there is a significant gender gap on religious issues, with women more likely to hold a more religious opinion on a wide variety of measures. A few standout results: A 12 point gap on absolute belief in God or a universal spirit, a massive 17 point gap on praying at least daily, and a 14 point gap on saying religion is very important in their lives.

You can see the full results here.

These findings suggest that the Obama campaign may have made a very serious mistake by pushing to force religious institutions to cover contraceptive services which they find morally reprehensible. Although the Democrats and the media (assisted by Rush Limbaugh’s “slut” comment about Sandra Fluke) have largely been successful at painting this as a women’s health issue, the findings above suggest that if the GOP can redefine the narrative as one of religious freedom, they may be able to turn the table on the president with women voters.

The data also suggests that Republicans may be able to narrow the overall gender gap somewhat by strengthening their defense of religiosity and spirituality in America and by portraying the Democrats as a secularist, anti-religious party. While very few Americans want to rehash the culture wars in the midst of a sputtering economy, the GOP could get a lot of traction by portraying itself as a reasonable defender of religious lifestyles and institutions against an encroaching and increasingly secularist federal government.

I’m thinking the GOP could say something along these lines, “Although we’d prefer to focus the campaign on economic issues, we cannot stand idly by while President Obama and the Democrats pass regulations infringing on the independence and liberty of religious organizations and people. No matter your particular denomination or faith, spirituality is a core American value, the importance of which cannot be overstated. We wholeheartedly believe that a strong spiritual life provides America with economic and moral benefits, and that a strong spiritual life is impossible unless we guarantee the liberty of religious institutions and individuals to operate in a manner which is consistent with their values and beliefs. Over the past four years, the president and his party have shown that they disagree, that they believe the federal government trumps religious organizations. The president’s contraception mandate, which forces religious institutions to provide services which are antithetical to their values, is only the most blatant example of this.”

Framed in this way, as a defense of religious independence from government regulation, the GOP could harness women’s spirituality while avoiding the type of moralistic preaching that often gets the party in trouble with less religious voters. Moreover, it portrays the Democrats as the aggressors in a new culture war; given that most people think cultural issues are unimportant this election year, voters are more likely to punish the party that is perceived as injecting these issues into the race.

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‘The Road to Freedom’ quote of the day #4

By Henrik Temp

May 16, 2012, 10:56 am

From The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise by AEI President Arthur Brooks, which was published earlier this month:

The Founders knew that the role of a moral government is to create the conditions of liberty and opportunity so that each of us can define success as we see fit and then work with all our might to attain it. Their visionary insight was that allowing us to earn our success is precisely what gives each of us the best chance at achieving real happiness.

Modern evidence shows that the Founders were absolutely correct. The General Social Survey reveals that people who say they feel “very successful” or “completely successful” in their work lives are twice as likely to say they are very happy about their lives than people who feel “somewhat successful.” And it doesn’t matter if they earn more or less income; the differences persist.

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‘The Road to Freedom’ quote of the day #3

By Henrik Temp

May 15, 2012, 11:03 am

From The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise by AEI President Arthur Brooks, which was published earlier this month:

It’s going to take a lot more than one election to get us off what Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek called the ‘road to serfdom.’ Americans today are experiencing a low-grade, virtual servitude to an ever-expanding, unaccountable government that, starved for tax revenues, has appropriated for itself funds that entrepreneurs could have used to grow the economy, has created a protected class of government workers and crony corporations that play by a different set of rules than the rest of America, and has consequently left the nation in hock for generations to come.

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Hispanic voters: The sleeping giant slumbers on

By Henrik Temp

May 9, 2012, 12:05 pm

Hispanics have been the “sleeping giant” of American politics for decades. Each election season, we see more and more articles about how important this group of Americans is, and how their impact will be outsized and ever-growing. Yet for some reason, the “giant” never quite seems to wake up.

The simple reality is that Hispanics heavily under-represent themselves in politics when compared to other racial/ethnic groups. As the graphic below (from Resurgent Republic) shows, barely half of Hispanics eligible to vote in 2010 registered, and less than 1 in 3 actually cast a ballot. According to the Pew Research Center, Hispanics had a 49.9% voter turnout rate in 2008. For comparison, in that same year whites had a turnout rate of 66.1% and blacks had a turnout rate of 65.3%.

Hispanics’ low level of political participation extends beyond the ballot box. According to one study, 67% of whites reported performing at least one of a possible seven unconventional political acts (volunteering, donating money, etc.), whereas only 35% of Mexican Americans (the largest Hispanic subgroup) had.

So what explains this lack of participation? Like everything to do with Hispanics, the answer is complex, but here are a few particularly important factors that span across the extremely diverse Hispanic community.

1.    Lack of resources. Hispanics have lower incomes than whites. If you don’t have money, it can be difficult to engage in politics. For example, if you’re poor it’s more difficult to volunteer your time or money to a political campaign.

2.    Lack of civic skills. Most Americans gain civic skills from their parents and their schools. Since 40% of Hispanics are foreign-born, a significant chunk of the population never had the chance to learn from either of these sources. Moreover, these foreign-born Hispanics will be unable to transmit civic skills to their children, making those children entirely reliant on an education system whose success is largely dependent on the socioeconomic status of the neighborhoods around them. Given Hispanics’ relative poverty, this means they are likely to attend lower-quality schools and thus receive less civic training.

3.    Lack of motivation. Psychological engagement in politics is a necessary precursor to action, and it would seem that Hispanics have not, as of yet, become engaged in this way. According to Marisa A. Abrajano and R. Michael Alvarez, authors of New Faces, New Voices: The Hispanic Electorate in America, factual questions about politics posed to Hispanics show that “… consistently at least one-third of the respondents did not know the answer, and even when they ventured an answer, another 15 to 25 percent provided the incorrect response.” One third of Hispanics say they are not interested in politics, 25% say they almost never or very rarely watch tv news, and 45% almost never read a newspaper. A further 45% rely on Spanish-language news, meaning that they are not exposed to mainstream news sources.

4.    Lack of institutions. Local and community organizations are effective motivators for political action, but such opportunities are few and far between among Hispanics, perhaps due to their socioeconomic status or the relatively large number of Hispanics who are new immigrants.

As mentioned above, these factors alone cannot entirely explain the participation gap between Hispanics and others. But they go a long way towards doing so. And according to the Pew Research Center, which recently completed a survey of the Millennial generation (18-24 year olds), it appears that the trend of Hispanic non-participation is likely to continue, as the chart below shows.

The good news for Hispanics: Although their registration rate is still far below that of other ethnicities, they make up an increasingly large share of the population. According to Pew, they account for 21% of the millennial generation compared to 16% of the overall population. But unless their political participation rate rises, these gains won’t be reflected in national vote share and the Hispanic “sleeping giant” will slumber on.

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How much will Hispanics matter in 2012? 4 alternative scenarios

By Henrik Temp

April 25, 2012, 11:41 am

There’s a great new infographic by Resurgent Republic, a right-leaning, not-for-profit organization modeled on Democracy Corps, about Hispanics voters. Along with a ton of interesting factoids, it allows for a quick-and-dirty simulation of the effects of the Hispanic vote on the 2012 campaign.

Here are the three factors you can determine: The percentage of the electorate that’s Hispanic, the percentage of the Hispanic vote that goes to the GOP, and the GOP’s percentage of the non-Hispanic vote.

Scenario 1: 2008 Repeat

In 2008, Hispanics comprised 9% of the electorate and voted 31% Republican, according to New York Times exit polls. According to my calculations, the GOP’s percentage of the non-Hispanic vote in 2008 was about 48% (rounding to the nearest whole number). Here’s how 2012 would look if those numbers were repeated:

Not so good for the GOP: They get walloped by a 7-point spread nationally. Then again, that shouldn’t come as a surprise since we’re basically assuming that everything stays the same from 2008. Obviously, that’s unlikely to happen. But what if the GOP were to somehow repeat its best performance ever amongst Hispanic voters, while maintaining the same share of the non-Hispanic vote as 2008?

Scenario 2: Hispanics break to the GOP

In 2004, George W. Bush captured 43% of the Hispanic vote, the best share of any GOP presidential candidate ever. Here’s what would happen if the GOP captured that percentage again, all others things being equal to 2008:

Still not so good for the GOP. They gain a full percentage point in the national two-party vote, but still lose by a nearly 5-point spread. It’s clear, therefore, that Republicans can’t rely on an increased performance amongst Hispanic voters to overcome their 2008 deficit among non-Hispanics.

Scenario 3: 2008 demographics, 2010 levels of support

Here’s what happens if we plug in the GOP’s share of the non-Hispanic vote from the 2010 congressional elections, which I calculated to be about 53% (using CNN’s exit poll numbers), while maintaining Republicans’ dismal 31% of the Hispanic vote.

Better news for Republicans as they take a 2-point lead in the national vote. The GOP’s increase in non-Hispanic votes comes largely from its having captured 60% of whites in 2010, something they look set to repeat in November. Still, it’s a relatively narrow margin of victory.

Scenario 4: Hispanic turnout rises

You’ll notice that for the first 3 scenarios I kept the percentage of voters that are Hispanic at 9, the same as it was in 2008. But many people are predicting that this percentage will increase, given that Hispanics now account for about 16 percent of the overall population. Here’s what would happen if they voted in that same proportion, while the GOP kept its 2010 share of the non-Hispanic vote:

Once again, the GOP loses. But this is an unrealistic scenario because Hispanics, even more than most minority groups, tend to under-represent themselves in the political process. According to one study, non-Hispanic white males participate in politics at a rate 2.6 times that of Latina females. Likewise, on a list of seven unconventional political acts (beyond simply voting), 67% of whites reported having performed at least one whereas only 34% of Mexican Americans (the largest Hispanic subgroup) had.

Bottom line: The Hispanic vote is important. But maybe not as important as conventional wisdom suggests. Even if Hispanics surged to 16% of the electorate, and the GOP failed to make any inroads at all with them, the Dems still only win the national two-party vote by a 1-point spread. And because of Hispanics’ lack of political participation, it’s pretty much inconceivable that such a surge would occur.

I find it much more likely that we will see something similar to scenario 3 in November. Hispanics may increase their share of the total electorate somewhat, but at most by one or two percentage points. The energy of Obamamania has faded from its 2008 glory, and typical patterns of non-participation among Hispanics are likely to reassert themselves. If the GOP can hold on to its share of the non-Hispanic vote (i.e. if it can keep winning whites by 60%), it can afford to do as poorly as it did in 2008 among Hispanics and still win. And if it can somehow increase its level of support among this voting bloc (as it was able to do in 2000, 2002, and 2004) it’ll be able to lose some of that white support and still carry the day.

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Political news roundup, March 22, 2012

By Henrik Temp

March 22, 2012, 7:49 pm

Headlines:

Matt K. Lewis, the Daily Caller: ‘Etch A Sketch’ leaves a mark on Mitt.

Michael A. Memoli, the LA Times: Etch-A-Sketch moment could haunt Mitt Romney in the fall.

Jake Sherman, Politico: How Paul Ryan sold his budget plan.

Amy Gardner and Scott Wilson, Washington Post: Obama tries to reclaim advantage on gas prices, health care.

David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey, the Wall Street Journal: The Supreme Court Weighs ObamaCare.

In-Depth:

Bill Maher, the New York Times: Please Stop Apologizing.

Alec MacGillis, The New Republic: When Romney Liked High Gas Prices.

Jack Gillum, Associated Press: Is big GOP money finally flowing to Mitt Romney?

John F. Gaski, The American: How to Beat ObamaCare in Court.

Linda Greenhouse, NY Times Opinionator blog: Never Before.

The big political news today is the aftermath of “etch-a-sketch-gate” on Mitt Romney. Matt K. Lewis of the Daily Caller describes the effect it’s had so far on the campaign. Meanwhile, Michael Memoli of the LA Times reminds us that the effects of this gaffe will last far longer than the primary. Key quote:

At any point in the fall, if the Obama campaign senses any massaging of his earlier positions, they now have the perfect image to respond to. What windsurfing was to John Kerry, Etch-A-Sketch could be to Romney in a 30-second TV ad.

My thoughts: This story isn’t going away; it’s just too easy to turn into political hay. It’s also a great distraction from the issues, and perfectly reinforces the stereotype of Mitt Romney. Fortunately for Mitt, it’s probably come too late to make a difference in the primary. Unfortunately for Republicans, it’s going to be a winner for Obama in the fall.

In other big news, Rep. Paul Ryan continues his publicity blitz for the new House GOP budget. Jake Sherman of Politico describes the careful, methodical rollout of the plan after last year’s PR disaster. Still, as predicted, there are tons of anti-Ryan articles on the Web today, most of them portraying the budget as anti-senior and anti-poor. To make things worse for Mr. Ryan, he’s taking fire from his right flank as well.

My thoughts: The Path to Prosperity has no chance of becoming law until after the 2012 election, so Republicans and conservatives have nothing to gain by criticizing it as too moderate. Most Americans are going to hear “Ryan pushes elderly off cliff” style stories nonstop between now and November. If they hear that some Republicans are criticizing as not conservative enough, it will only reinforce the Democratic narrative of an “extremist” GOP.

While Romney deals with the etch-a-sketch aftermath and Ryan continues his PTP rollout, Amy Gardner and Scott Wilson remind us that the president is still out there, too! And he’s on the warpath, blasting Republicans as “Flat Earth Society” members and lecturing the American people on why the president isn’t responsible for gas prices. His message seems to be working quite well on Democrats, as the below graphic from WaPo shows, but not so well on Republicans. (As a sidenote, I know partisanship influences perception, but a 40 point change?? Come on, Democrats, I thought you were the party of objectivity and rationality.)

In more minor news, Bill Maher makes an excellent point about false outrage in the New York Times today. Here’s Maher:

When did we get it in our heads that we have the right to never hear anything we don’t like?…

I don’t want to live in a country where no one ever says anything that offends anyone. That’s why we have Canada. That’s not us.

My thoughts: Despite the fact that he’s likely holding this position out of obvious self-interest, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s wrong. It seems to me that all these “outrageous outrage” stories are just so much filler which could be replaced with serious discussions about the issues. But who am I kidding? This is so much more fun! …

Also in minor news we get another example of a Mitt flip-flop, some good news for Romney, and competing opinions on the constitutionality of the ACA. Before you head out, chuckle at this hilarious cartoon by A.F. Branco. Enjoy!


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Political news roundup, March 21, 2012

By Henrik Temp

March 21, 2012, 4:08 pm

The big political news this week is Romney’s victory in Illinois and Paul Ryan’s new Path to Prosperity House GOP budget. Romney took about 47% in Illinois, placing him far ahead of runner-up Rick Santorum (35%). This 12-point win further solidifies the “inevitability” argument that the Romney campaign has been emphasizing recently, and widened Romney’s delegate lead by about 32 delegates.

Although some pundits continue to highlight Romney’s weaknesses—particularly among hardcore conservative voters—my feeling is that the mantle of inevitability is finally Romney’s to claim. Jeb Bush’s endorsement further consolidates this meme, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see similar endorsements from high-profile, establishment Republicans in the coming days. Romney’s large margin of victory combined with his lead in the delegate count provide enough cover for establishment types to risk upsetting the base by embracing Romney. Look for lots of messaging about “unity” and the overriding need to replace Barack Obama.

Update: Oh, boy. Not all good news for Romney today. I expect to hear a lot about this in the coming days. It’ll feed into the flip-flopper narrative surrounding Mitt.

Representative Paul Ryan’s new Path to Prosperity budget should get lots of play in the media, and it deserves to. Whatever its faults, it’s unarguably a bold political move (and, in my opinion, good policy). Conventional wisdom suggests that the plan will be pilloried as anti-poor and anti-senior, and indeed, we’ve already seen several articles to this effect. Democrats successfully demagogued the issue in a special election in New York last year, and they’re going to try and run the same playbook this year. It remains to be seen whether the GOP will do a better job of presenting a united front in support than it did in 2011. (Update: Apparently not.)

In more minor news, Ed Morrissey of HotAir.com notes that Obama’s fundraising is off by 28% compared to 2008. This is in spite of the fact that he faces no serious opposition from his own party and has attended a massive number of fundraisers (more than twice as many as George W. Bush had at this point in the election). It’s a helpful reminder in the face of media narratives about the weakness of the GOP field that the president also faces decreased enthusiasm.

Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin reminds us that the cost of Obamacare is only going up. With the Supreme Court set to hear arguments pertaining to the constitutionality of the ACA later this month, we can expect the issue to rise in prominence significantly. Given the law’s unpopularity, this could be a messaging boon for the GOP.

Below are today’s must-read headlines and some more in-the-weeds articles. Enjoy!

Headlines:

Tom Bevan and Carl M. Cannon of RealClearPolitics: Romney Cruises to Victory in Illinois.

Ronald Brownstein of the National Journal: Illinois Verdict: The Race Goes On With Divided GOP.

Representative Paul Ryan in the Wall Street Journal: The GOP Budget and America’s Future.

Michael Barone of the Washington Examiner: Ryan’s budget kicks the can at timorous Democrats.

Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: The Ryan Budget: New and Not Much Improved.

In-Depth:

Ewen MacAskill of The Guardian: Mitt Romney’s Illinois romp adds inevitability to weary Republican race.

Polson Kanneth of ABC News: Jeb Bush Endorses Mitt Romney in GOP Primary.

Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: Steven Chu on Solyndra: Enough already.

Ed Morrissey of HotAir.com: Obama fundraising 28% off 2008 pace.

Senator Ron Johnson in the Wall Street Journal: ObamaCare’s Costs Are Soaring.

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With apologies to Mitt Romney: 3 reasons millennials vote Democrat

By Henrik Temp

March 20, 2012, 3:57 pm

Yesterday, GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney said he couldn’t see how a young American could vote for a Democrat. The Hill reports:

“I don’t see how a young American can vote for, well, can vote for a Democrat,” Romney said in a speech at the University of Chicago.

The former Massachusetts governor said Democrats were saddling young people with debt while Republicans are committed to reducing spending and balancing the budget.

Romney then said he didn’t mean to be “flip.”

“I apologize for being so offensive for saying that,” Romney added. “In the humor, there’s some truth there.

“My party is consumed with the idea of getting federal spending down and creating economic growth and opportunity so we can balance our budget and stop putting these debts on you,” he said.

Romney’s point is well taken: Under our current fiscal path, debt as a percentage of GDP will continue to grow, as the below chart from Obama’s 2013 budget shows. In 2054, the year I turn 65 and theoretically retire, publicly held debt will be about 140% of GDP under the president’s plan. For comparison, Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio was only 112% in 2009 (though it has since spiked significantly due to a shrinking economy). So in the abstract, Romney is right: it doesn’t make sense for voters of my generation to elect politicians who ignore or even add to the mounting debt crisis. We (and our children) will be the ones paying this debt off.

The problem with Romney’s assertion is that, of course, Americans don’t vote based solely on long-term economic interest. Oftentimes, they vote based on social issues, foreign policy, or even personal connection with a particular politician. And on all these issues, millennials tend to agree with the Democratic Party. All numbers and charts are taken from Pew’s February 2010 report on millennials.

1.    Social Issues. As the chart below shows, millennials are significantly more liberal than older Americans on issues of the family, homosexuality, and civil liberties. My generation has been hearing about the benefits of tolerance, inclusion, and acceptance since we were children, both from popular culture and our teachers. These values are often as fundamental to us as religious values were to our parents and grandparents. They aren’t going to change anytime soon, and so long as the GOP is popularly perceived as being against those values (I disagree with that perception, but that’s the way it is), millennials will keep pulling the Democratic lever.

2.    Foreign Policy. Having come of age during the 2000’s, millennials have witnessed two divisive and expensive wars. Both Iraq and Afghanistan are widely perceived as failures by my generation. Iraq in particular is perceived as a total mistake. These perceptions lead us to be more timid and avoid sabre-rattling in foreign policy, as the charts below show.

3.    Personal Connection. Millennials love Barack Obama. He’s young (for a politician), he’s hip (Jay-Z went to his birthday party!), and he gets technology. That’s a big deal to a generation that listed “Technology Use” as the top reason their generation is unique. As the chart below shows, millennials are the age group most inclined to approve of Obama’s job performance.

Romney is right to point out that millennials should vote Republican based on long-term economic trends. I consider myself a conservative for that exact reason. But if Republicans really want to win over young Americans, they’re going to have to talk about a lot more than the debt-to-GDP ratio in 2030. They need to convince millennials that the party respects their deeply-held social and foreign policy convictions. And they’re going to have to connect with them on a more personal level as well.

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What’s so funny about the entreprenurial spirit?

By Henrik Temp

March 13, 2012, 1:17 pm

Daniel Loeb, founder of New York-based hedge fund Third Point, had this to say upon receiving the John Jay Award for Distinguished Professional Achievement from his alma mater, Columbia University:

When I was in College I liked this Elvis Costello song, “What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding?” I think today we need a new song, “What’s So Funny About Individual Freedom, Free Enterprise and Accountability?” In fact, I might add what’s so funny about celebrating the entrepreneurial spirit that made this country great? This entrepreneurial spirit is applicable not only to business but also to the arts and to humanitarian efforts, as is evident by my fellow awardees tonight like Filmmaker Dede Gardner, Venture Philanthropist Ellen Gustafson, Venture Capitalist Ben Horowitz, and Tiananmen Square dissident turned fund manager the great venture capitalist Li Lu.

I think this is still an aspirational country, but there are some people who think it is fashionable to denigrate success, while others try to stir up class warfare. I was surprised last fall to see an Economics Professor ensconced in an Occupy Wall Street mob decrying the 1%, attributing all the country’s problems to an issue of poor distribution of wealth and accusing the so-called 1% of being lazy. Certainly he did not speak for the University where he is tenured but for but an economics Professor to carry on like this – really? We have a problem when young people are taught that our country is fundamentally unfair and encouraged to see themselves as victims. It is even more upsetting when our leaders tell us that it is their role to make amends for these wrongs via increased and capricious regulation, excessive entitlements, ill-conceived subsidies and punitive prosecutions.

It’s always heartening to see capitalists publicly make the case for free-market, entrepreneurial capitalism. I’m particularly pleased that Loeb chose to give these remarks at his old college. Having recently graduated from college myself, I know that we need more voices like his to reach undergraduates. Back at Colgate, I frequently heard my fellow classmates claim their goal was to work for a nonprofit. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with that career path—I work for AEI, after all—there was a subtle suggestion that it was morally superior to work for a nonprofit; it was more important to “do good” than to make a fortune. On the other hand, these same classmates all seemed to assume that they’d still have a nice house, two cars, and no serious financial worries.

But, of course, my classmates’ beliefs were predicated on a fundamental misunderstanding of what is moral. As AEI’s president Arthur Brooks explains in a recent article, free enterprise is about more than material well-being: it’s about the freedom to do what we desire, to achieve earned success, and therefore to achieve happiness. I hope that Loeb, and others like him, will continue to spread this message to America’s college campuses and the rest of the nation. We need voices like his to remind ourselves and our youth that free enterprise not only generates wealth, but also morality and happiness.

For more on the struggle between free enterprise and statism, see Arthur Brooks’s book The Battle: How the Fight between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America’s Future.

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The 6 killer apps of Western Civilization, Part 2: Science

By Henrik Temp

February 10, 2012, 10:10 am

See part 1, Competition, here.

Why was Western civilization able to achieve dominance over the rest of humanity for the last several hundred years? That’s the subject of British historian Niall Ferguson’s excellent TED talk, in addition to his book Civilization: the West and the Rest.

Basically, he says it comes down to six key characteristics that defined the West but not the Rest—to put it in 21st century terms, six “killer applications” that the West had and the Rest didn’t. In this space I’d like to examine the status of these killer apps in modern America.

Today, I’m focusing on the second killer app: Science. Here’s Ferguson’s short definition:

Science – a way of studying, understanding and ultimately changing the natural world, which gave the West (among other things) a major military advantage over the Rest.

Note Ferguson’s emphasis on the military application of scientific advancement. While the new knowledge gained during the Scientific Revolution “may be said to have given birth to modern anatomy, astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, geometry, mathematics, mechanics, and physics,” the biggest practical difference it had was in making Western military forces far superior to Resterners. The greatest advances came in artillery, the accuracy and power of which benefitted greatly from the application of physics, and in handgun technology, as can be seen in the chart below.

Source: Ferguson, Niall. Civilization: The West and the Rest. p. 82

Europe’s superior military technology is what enabled it to defeat and eventually conquer Resterners. As the charts below show, in 1500 the West controlled about 5 percent of the world’s territory and 16 percent of its population. In 1913, it controlled 58 percent of the territory and 57 percent of the population. This radical expansion can be explained primarily by the fact that Europe’s militaries were able to defeat those of the Rest and thereby gain political control over their lands and peoples. And if it wasn’t for scientific advancement, Europe’s militaries would never have been able to accomplish this.

Source: Ferguson, Niall. Civilization: The West and the Rest. p. 6

So it’s very concerning that modern America is moving away from innovation and technological advancement in the military. Mackenzie Eaglen, a new scholar at AEI, reveals that America’s military is becoming outdated as we spent the last decade focused on low-technology conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. She explains in another piece that “the U.S. military has lost ground in innovation this past decade, accelerating a trend that began in the early 1990s.”

Nick Schulz, editor-in-chief of The American and an expert on innovation policy, also bemoans the lack of innovation in today’s military, highlighting the fact that military technologies often transform into extremely useful civilian products. For example, interchangeable parts were originally designed for rifles, but became common practice for a wide variety of civilian goods. More recently, technologies such as microchips, which were originally designed to guide missiles, are now used in a plethora of consumer goods.

Yes, America’s military is still by far the most technologically advanced and powerful armed force in the world. And yes, it will likely take many years, if not decades, before other countries catch up to us, even if we continue decreasing innovation.

But America’s status as the lone superpower is not guaranteed in perpetuity. If we allow ourselves to be content with the technology we already have, we will eventually be overtaken. It’s important to note that Western powers were technologically inferior to Resterners prior to the advances of the Scientific Revolution. Eastern powers such as the Ottoman Empire were a very real military threat as late as 1683, when an alliance of Poles and Austrians barely stopped the Turks from conquering Vienna. Prior to that date, Europe lived in fear of “the Turk” and his unstoppable military, epitomized by elite forces such as the Janissaries. But the Ottomans grew content with their military’s technology (perhaps because they were so successful in the past) and, over time, Europe reversed the technology gap. America runs the risk of following in the Ottomans’ footsteps.

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Did Gingrich fail to learn the lessons of the housing crisis?

By Henrik Temp

February 2, 2012, 12:04 pm

Newt Gingrich is already in some hot water over his contract with Freddie Mac, which Gingrich claims was for services as a “historian.” With that in mind, we should be worried about statements like the one I’ve bolded below (from the LA Times):

“I am fed up with politicians in either party dividing Americans against each other,” Gingrich said, speaking to hundreds of supporters packed into the Great Basin Brewing Co. here. “I am running to be the president of all of the American people, and I am concerned about all of the American people. … My goal is to find steps for every American to have a job, every American to work, every American to be able to buy a house. I believe that America was founded on the dream that we are in fact created equal and we have a chance to go out and have a chance to pursue happiness.”

Hopefully, this is just pie-in-the-sky political rhetoric, but given his connection with Freddie Mac, I feel there’s cause for concern. Gingrich may in fact believe that having every American own their own home is a good thing; if he does, he’d be repeating the same mistakes that policymakers made throughout the 1990s and 2000s.

It was this exact sentiment that led to the housing crisis. Politicians in Washington decided that homeownership was a Good Thing: America would only experience benefits from an increased homeownership rate. Consequently, the politicians teamed up with banks, home builders, securities firms, real-estate agents, and, of course, the GSEs in an attempt to turn the dream of every American owning a home (the 1990s version of “a chicken in every pot”) into a reality.

We all know how that turned out.

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The 6 killer apps of Western civilization: Part 1: Competition

By Henrik Temp

January 23, 2012, 3:17 pm

Check out this great TED talk, in which British historian Niall Ferguson explains his answer to the question of why Western civilization achieved such a clear dominance over the rest of the world.

The presentation is a summary of Ferguson’s book Civilization: The West and the Rest. I highly recommend reading it; it expands on the points from the TED talk and is thoroughly enjoyable. What I’d like to do here is investigate, one at a time, the state of the six “killer apps” in modern America.

Let’s start with Ferguson’s first “killer app”: competition. Here’s a little more background from the book:

Competition—A decentralization of both political and economic life, which created the launch-pad for both nation-states and capitalism.

In Ferguson’s view, centralization of power (political, social, and/or economic) in the hands of a single authority leads to stagnation. On the other hand, if power is decentralized, competition to obtain power (or profit) will drive innovation, expansion, and wealth creation. How much of a difference can this make? Consider the following graph, taken directly from Ferguson’s book:

Source: Ferguson, Niall. Civilization: The West and the Rest. p.45

How can this massive disparity (rising to 16-to-1 during the 1960s), be explained? According to Ferguson, the crucial factor was that England faced far more competition than China, both internally and externally. Externally, the English were in constant competition with France and Spain, which drove them to, among other things, plant colonies in the Americas. But England was also a land of intense internal competition. As Ferguson says:

Officially, Henry V was king of England … But on the ground in rural England real power was in the hands of the great nobility… as well as thousands of gentry landowners and innumerable corporate bodies, clerical and lay. … crucially, the most important commercial centre in the country [London] was almost completely autonomous. Europe was not only made up of states; it was also made up of estates: aristocrats, clergymen and townsfolk.

Nothing of this sort existed in China, where the imperial bureaucracy was all-powerful. Ferguson again:

By comparison with the patchwork quilt of Europe, East Asia was—in political terms at least—a vast monochrome blanket … China was ruled from the top down by a Confucian bureaucracy…

Eventually, and over many years, the cumulative effects of these widely differing societies—one highly centralized, one borderline chaotic—is made clear in the graph above. Further confirming Ferguson’s point, note that the UK/China GDP ratio begins to reverse starting in the 1970s—when Deng Xiaoping introduced his economic liberalization reforms.

So, what does this all mean? Well, if you buy Ferguson’s argument, as I do, then you have to be concerned with the direction that America is moving in today. We are increasingly centralizing power—economic, political, and cultural—into the hands of the federal government in Washington, D.C.

Not only are we concentrating power in the hands of the federal government, we’re increasingly concentrating it in the sector of the government least influenced by competition: the federal bureaucracy. Ming China would be proud: The bureaucracy is nearly immune from both outside influences—look at how incredibly difficult it is to cut anything from the federal budget—and from internal competition, yet it has immense influence on the rest of society. We are forced to follow an ever-increasing number of mandates, laws, and regulations emanating from unelected, job-secure bureaucrats who possess no incentives to perform their jobs well. These regulations stifle innovation, hamper technological advancement, and, in general, hold our nation back.

The liberal desire for one-size-fits-all solutions is motivated by a sense of national unity—as Obama says “we’re greater together than we are on our own”—but these ideas ultimately fail to produce positive results for the nation they are trying to assist. History suggests that only by maintaining or even strengthening America’s historically decentralized approach to government and society, only by allowing for individual and corporate competition, can we achieve the innovation that our society needs to succeed in the future.

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Height matters: Why the GOP must nominate Romney if it wants to beat Obama

By Henrik Temp

December 12, 2011, 10:16 am

In the 13 presidential elections since the first televised presidential debate (Kennedy v. Nixon in 1960), the taller of the two candidates in the general election has won the presidency eight times. The shorter candidate has won four times, and there was one election in which the candidates were the same height. So if we discount the tie, the taller candidate has a two-to-one win/loss ratio.

The apparent predictive power of height only increases if you look closely at the four elections in which the shorter candidate won. In 2000 and 2004, 5’ 11 ½” George W. Bush pulled off wins against 6’ 1” Al Gore and 6’ 4” John Kerry, but they were two of the closest elections in American history. Bush beat Gore despite losing the popular vote 47.9 percent to 48.4 percent and narrowly beat Kerry with 50.7 percent to 48.3 percent. In 1976, 5’ 9 ½” Jimmy Carter defeated 6’ 0” Gerald Ford, but again it was a narrow win, with Carter receiving a mere 50.1 percent of the vote to Ford’s 48 percent. The big exception is Richard Nixon’s (5’ 11 ½”) blowout of George McGovern (6’ 1”) in 1972.

So, adding up the final score, we see that the taller candidate won in eight of twelve elections in which there was a height difference. In three of the four cases where the shorter guy won, he won with less than 51 percent of the popular vote (and in one case he lost the popular vote outright). Only once out of 12 elections did the shorter candidate win convincingly.

Romney stands at 6’ 2”. Gingrich is a mere 6’ 0”. President Obama clocks in at 6’ 1”. If the GOP is serious about beating Obama, its choice seems clear.

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4 reasons why the Cain-Train might just have a real shot

By Henrik Temp

October 14, 2011, 12:11 pm

A new poll of likely Republican primary voters by Rasmussen shows Mitt Romney and Herman Cain tied for first place at 29 percent each. Newt Gingrich came in third with 10 percent. This latest data solidifies the conventional wisdom that Cain has become a frontrunner in the GOP nominating contest.

Cain has seen a meteoric rise in the polls since winning the Florida GOP Straw Poll on September 24th: nearly a six-fold increase over his support level as of mid-September when he received only 5 percent of Republicans’ approval. Despite this rise, many have claimed that Cain can’t actually win the nomination, calling him the “flavor of the week” and pointing out that he lacks money and campaign infrastructure.

I disagree. Here’s why:

1.   His optimism. Cain exudes friendliness, confidence, and optimism. As Jonah Goldberg says:

Cain is the only one who seems to understand that being upbeat, happy, and joyful is hugely important. Everyone else in the field … is either mean, angry, whiny, defensive, or too self-serious. I doubt its calculation on Cain’s part. He’s just a happy warrior and that goes a long, long way.

Ronald Reagan showed the value of sunny optimism in politics. It inspires people when their leaders seem confident and excited about the future rather than fearful. In an America that is increasingly pessimistic about the way things are going, this trait is even more valuable.

2.   His simplicity. Cain’s 9-9-9 plan is getting more attention as the candidate climbs in the polls. Predictably, it’s getting a lot of flak. And who knows, maybe once voters get to know the plan better it may become unpopular. But for now it’s a catchy, bold proposal that shows Cain knows how to present his ideas in a simple and direct manner that is clearly resonating with GOP primary voters. After years of dealing with a president who constantly needs to say “let me be clear” in every one of his speeches, voters are yearning for a leader who can clearly present his ideas in an easy-to-understand manner.

3.   His outsider status. Cain has never held political office. While this could be construed as a point against him, the reality is that Americans are so unhappy with Washington that being an outsider is unquestionably an advantage—and being an extreme outsider like Cain may be a huge one. All of the GOP candidates have attempted to portray themselves as outsiders. Even Mitt Romney, the son of a governor, a governor himself, and a perennial presidential candidate, is attempting to cast himself as one, spending a great deal of time talking about his private sector experience. Nobody has more such experience than Cain, and nobody can more plausibly portray themselves as an outsider.

4.   His personal success. Unlike the current president, Cain has had a long, accomplished career in which he worked hard and achieved success based on his own merits, in the real world. Americans admire a story like his, and it’s much easier to pull the lever for someone you admire.

Whether these traits will be enough to overcome Romney’s monetary and campaign infrastructure advantages remains to be seen, but I certainly think Cain will make it a close call.

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New Website Reveals the End of the Politics of Hope

By Henrik Temp

September 14, 2011, 1:49 pm

The Obama administration has gone into full reelection mode with the launch of a new website, attackwatch.com. The website’s stated purpose is to “Get the facts. Fight the smears.” It lists recent charges leveled against Obama or his administration and attempts to counter these charges by linking to outside websites or statements by the president/administration officials. It encourages visitors to sign up for email distributions, follow the site on Twitter, and to report new “attacks.” It also asks visitors to donate to “support the truth”—aka the president’s reelection campaign.

Moving beyond the terrifying implication that Obama is “the truth” (I thought he was just “the one”?), we’ve seen the Obama campaign do this before with a very similar website during the 2008 election called fightthesmears.com. The site is still around, though it hasn’t been updated since the election. Although the two websites are fundamentally the same, there are some interesting differences.

The first has more to do with style than substance. Unlike FightTheSmears, which was clean-cut and contained mostly whites and blues, AttackWatch is cluttered and presented in stark red and black colors. It contains creepy black-and-white photographs of the president’s “attackers” (read: political opponents) alongside such lines as “Rick Perry’s Massive Jobs Lie.” Weirdly, it includes close-up photographs of these “attackers’” lips. The overall effect is to make the new site look like some sort of conspiracy website.

Another major difference, less immediately noticeable, is the absence of a quote by Obama that featured prominently on FightTheSmears:

“What you won’t hear from this campaign or this party is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon—that sees our opponents not as competitors to challenge, but enemies to demonize.” – Barack Obama, June 3, 2008

The fact that this quote, or something similar, is lacking from AttackWatch reveals that Obama has officially abandoned the politics of hope and has embraced the politics of… well, just politics.

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