Government

The standard midterm narrative runs like this: the president is unpopular, therefore his party will lose seats, therefore the opposition will gain them. The first two steps have modest historical support, as discussed in the previous article in this series. The third step is treated as automatic, a simple consequence of the first two. If voters are unhappy with the party in power, they vote for the other party.

At some point today, a cable news chyron will display a number. It will be the president’s approval rating, updated to the decimal point, presented as though it were a vital sign on a hospital monitor. A pundit will interpret it. A headline will frame it. A donor will adjust a contribution based on it. And none of them will pause to ask whether the number they are reacting to has any meaningful connection to the political outcome they care about. For most of the uses to which approval ratings are put, it does not.

Every major news outlet has now reported some version of the same claim: the Iran War is unpopular. Nate Silver’s polling average tracks it daily, at roughly 40 percent support and 54 percent oppose, updated with decimal-point precision and rendered as a smooth curve. Pew, Quinnipiac, AP-NORC, Fox News, Reuters-Ipsos, and a dozen other outfits have produced their own numbers. The specifics vary. The conclusion is unanimous.

Once upon a time, the United States was attacked and thousands of people died. Americans, and indeed much of the civilized world, rallied behind then President Bush to root out the evil doers and bring them to justice. But somewhere along the way, something went wrong.

I originally entitled this “Bulverde Mayor Opens Mouth and Inserts Foot”, but figured this  suited it better. That said, both are true. In an article he wrote himself (opens in new window), the Mayor proved he knows nothing of the laws and common decency, then threatened to abuse the police to target a class of law abiding citizens doing legal things - riding their bicycles.

In a recent article on the NYC Soda Ban, Mayor Bloomberg stated:

“If we are serious about fighting obesity, we have to be honest about what causes it.” - NYC Mayor Bloomberg

I could not agree more. However, the question is: Is he being honest about it? He is using this assertion that sodas cause us to be obese to justify banning sodas over a certain size. But is that the truth? In a word, no.

The U.S. is obese. That is the message from government and so-called health experts. There is no way around it, they say. And the only way to get un-obese is to do what they say. But are we really obese? Or are the alleged experts wrong?

Every drive to work, every drive home, every news clip, every pundit seems to have something to say about the so-called “Fiscal Cliff”. Each side claims the other is holding “the middle-class tax cuts hostage”, or that the other side’s plan is laughable or unworthy. Sadly, while there isn’t really a cliff, both sides are right about each other. Here is why. They are both wrong.

On election night we started hearing how Obama and the Democrats had a mandate. Why? Because of a substantial margin in the electoral college. For this article we’ll kindly forget their claims that Bush didn’t have one in 2000 despite a substantial margin in the Electoral College - this article is about why there isn’t one today.

My self-imposed election period hiatus is over. Since the mainstream media and blogosphere have lost interest in it, it is time to return to it. There are some interesting parallels with prior elections, but not the ones I’ve seen posted elsewhere.

Prior to the election there was discussion on whether Romney would be the Republican John Kerry. I think with the results in, there is a clear historical parallel, and it is with a Democrat presidential contender. Indeed I think this entire election is a repeat of that contender’s race; the 2000 Presidential Race.

Let us examine some key factors.