Daily Kos diary that obliterates the RW talking point on losing above 7.2% unemployment

[karynnj]

That claim is a complete misuse of statistics. In the first place, it chooses a range that goes back to FDR, but doesn't include him. Why? Including him destroys the point that they want to create as a "truism". This, in spite of the fact that the situation handed Obama was most like that handed FDR. In addition, though "over 50 years" sounds like a long time, it includes very few data points - as there is an election only every 4 years and there is not always an incumbent President. (If I counted right, there are 10.)

I am not arguing that there is no relationship. Clearly it is far better to run with a good economy, but, Reagan was the Presidet who won with the 7.2% won in a landslide - making it likely that he would still have won even if the rate had been a point or two higher. There was nothing magical about 7.2%.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/03/981672/-Unemployment-rate-does-not-necessarily-predict-re-election-chances?via=search

Democrats NEED to get this counter out, because what can hurt Obama is anything that sets the conventional wisdom that he will lose. This claim, that any good statistician would see as contrived, does just that. (Look at the DK plot of margin of victory and unemployment and mentally try to see what the regression line is - you can see the data really does not fit the idea that this is the make of break relationship that Candy Crowley, John King, Dick Gregory and others have spoken of with solemn faces.

However, it is clear that President Obama and the Democrats NEED to be seen, as FDR was, with working hard to get people back to work. First of all, they need to do this because it is the right and moral thing to do - completely independent of re-election politics.

One factor that might begin to work more in our favor was suggested by a Monmouth University poll just in NJ. The print edition had pie charts that showed the response to people being asked for each party if they "care about the middle class". The online version does not include the charts, but does include this startling result:

"The poll also found that 40 percent say Democrats look out “a lot” for the middle class, while just 17 percent said the GOP does the same."

If you are willing to trust me, here are the full numbers on that question from the print copy of the Daily Record of Morris.

Question: Do you think the Democrats look out for the middle class - A lot: 40%, A little: 36%, and Not at all:22%
Question: Do you think the Republicans look out for the middle class - A lot: 17%, A little: 41%, and Not at all:39%

These numbers indicate that Americas are very unhappy. We need to improve our numbers here, but the Republican numbers are absolutely horrendous. This survey did not attempt to define "middle class". Most people in this country self identify with being "middle class" and those who think they are poor, are even less likely to like the Republicans. Another question was "If the Republicans dislike those with lower income" had 43% agreeing with this. This is stunning to me as "disliking" really is strong in terms of how a political party feels towards a large segment of the population.

Incidentally, the title o this article in the print addition that was above the fold dominating the front page (with the Middle class questions represented in colorful pie charts) was "Politics of Hate tires Jerseyans, Most worry about who will look out for the Middle Class".

(This is usually a very Republican paper, that went so far as to endorse Kean, jr, who ran a very negative campaign against Menendez, mostly based on false charges of corruption. (Bush appointed US DA, Chris Christie subpoenaed Menendez two months before the election - nothing ever came of his "investigation" Remember 2006 was the year the Republicans used US DAs politically.) In their endorsement, they agreed that Menendez was not corrupt, but blamed him for the issue dominating the campaign. The best they had to say for Kean, as they endosed him, is that they hoped that in Senate he would be like his father - an independent, moderate Republican.)

[Tippy]

1. K&R..."If wishes were horses beggers would ride..."

Is an English language proverb and nursery rhyme, originating in the 16th century, which is usually used to suggest that it is useless to wish.....possibly we could help our situation if people would think more before they spoke. Obama made mistakes but nearly as many as some, how many out right lies have they used against him. We know how the media builds on the lies, if we don't want a republican victory in 2012, we might want to think before we eat our own....

[karynnj]

2. Good point - we need to be far more unified, though not lock step

Somehow, we need to educate the Democrats who represent the party o the various talk shows. We should be able to use the very cohesiveness of the Republican talking points to do this well.

The Republicans have a well developed echo chamber. Things that start as "intellectual" polished articles from places like Heritage and AEI, then become Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity "truth", then are repeated by anyone on FOX, and finally end up being treated as CW on CNN and elsewhere.

This unemployment rate "truism" is a great example. It is now everywhere and other than this diary, I have heard no push back. The underlying analysis is pure garbage that should be rejected by anyone who took Statistics 101.

I really wish (or hope) that someone high in the Democratic party would assign a team of bright interns to monitoring the RW think tanks, taking each paper that comes out and debunking them concisely and convincingly. If they then countered that "serious" article with a similarly erudite response AND created a set of talking points against it that could be quickly circulated to Democratic spokespeople and to left leaning sites, it could put us in a position to stop some of these lies.

If you wanted to model how a lie spreads, you would likely use models for how viruses spread. With viruses, the way to halt their progression through a population, you need a sufficient number of people vaccinated. With lies, the vaccine is people knowing the facts. The hard part is that the media no longer functions mostly to educate, but to entertain - and a portion is out there to intentionally misinform. We are at a disadvantage, so we can't afford people actually on our side, agreeing with unhelpful - and untrue memes.

[CakeGrrl]

6. "We might want to think before we eat our own". EXACTLY.

This is one reason why Dems can't seem to hold power. They can't seem to get it together to unite against the TRUE enemy when it counts. Call it "marching in lockstep", but Republicans know how to get together to take victories from Democrats.

[GSLevel9]

3. How about 9% or 10%? Nt

[karynnj]

4. Do you know what the relate was when FDR was re-elected? Hint : it was greater than 10%

As I said, it would, of course be better if the economy was healthy and unemployment down to say 5%.

However, the use of 10 data points, chosen to avoid choosing a point that would destroy their story is stupid and the Democrats need to counter it.

Did you bother to look at the DK article? Do you know enough statistics (or basic math) to see that the plot does NOT show that there is no well fitting Margin of victory = a (unemployment rate) + C line?

[bornskeptic]

5. In the last 75 years no president has lost a bid for re-election with unemployment over 8%.

True, and just as meaningless as the 7.2% nonsense. No Democratic prewsident has lost a re-election bid when unemplyment was over 7.5% in the last 120 years.